Education, Poverty and International Development – serie

Why are development discourses of the ‘poor child’ in need of radical revision? What are the theoretical and methodological challenges and possibilities for ethical understandings of childhoods and poverty? The ‘poor child’ at the centre of development activity is often measured against and reformed towards an idealised and globalised child subject. This book examines why such normative discourses of childhood are in need of radical revision and explores how development research and practice can work to ‘unsettle’ the global child. It engages the cultural politics of childhood – a politics of equality, identity and representation – as a methodological and theoretical orientation to rethink the relationships between education, development, and poverty in children’s lives. This book brings multiple disciplinary perspectives, including cultural studies, sociology, and film studies, into conversation with development studies and development education in order to provide new ways of approaching and conceptualising the ‘poor child’. The researchers draw on a range of methodological frames – such as poststructuralist discourse analysis, arts based research, ethnographic studies and textual analysis – to unpack the hidden assumptions about children within development discourses. Chapters in this book reveal the diverse ways in which the notion of childhood is understood and enacted in a range of national settings, including Kenya, India, Mexico and the United Kingdom. They explore the complex constitution of children’s lives through cultural, policy, and educational practices. The volume’s focus on children’s experiences and voices shows how children themselves are challenging the representation and material conditions of their lives. The ‘Poor Child’ will be of particular interest to postgraduate students and scholars working in the fields of childhood studies, international and comparative education, and development studies.

Educating Entrepreneurial Citizens examines the multiple and contradictory purposes and effects of entrepreneurship education aimed at addressing youth unemployment and alleviating poverty in Tanzania.Governments in sub-Saharan Africa face increasing pressure to educate young people through secondary school, supposedly equipping them with knowledge and skills for employment and their future. At the same time, many youths do not complete their education and there are insufficient jobs to employ graduates. The development community sees entrepreneurship education as one viable solution to the double edged problem of inadequate education and few jobs. But while entrepreneurship education is aligned with a governing rationality of neoliberalism that requires individuals to create their own livelihoods without government social supports, the two NGO programs discussed in this book draw on a rights-based discourse that seeks to educate those not served by government schools, providing them with educational and social supports to be included in society. The chapters explore the tensions that occur when international organizations and NGOs draw on both neoliberal and liberal human rights discourses to address the problems of poverty, unemployment and poor quality education. Furthermore, when these neo/liberal perspectives meet local ideas of reciprocity and solidarity, they create friction and alter the programs and effects they have on youth. The book introduces the concept of entrepreneurial citizens—those who utilize their innovative skills and behaviors to claim both economic and social rights from which they had been previously excluded. The programs taught youth how to develop their own enterprises, to earn profits, and to save for their own futures; but youth used their education, skills and labor to provide for basic needs, to be included in society, and to support their and their families’ well-being. By showing the contradictory effects of entrepreneurship education programs, the book asks international agencies and governments to consider how they can go beyond technical approaches of creating enterprises and increasing income, and head toward approaches that consider the kinds of labor that young people and communities value for their wellbeing.This book will be of interest to scholars and practitioners of education and international development, youth studies, African Studies and entrepreneurship/social entrepreneurship education.

Drawing on case-study research that examined initiatives which engaged with global aspirations to advance gender equality in schooling in Kenya and South Africa, this book looks at how global frameworks on gender, education and poverty are interpreted in local settings and the politics of implementation. It discusses the forms of global agreements in particular contexts, and allows for an appraisal of how they have been understood by the people who implement them. By using an innovative approach to comparative cross country research, the book illuminates how ideas and actions connect and disconnect around particular meanings of poverty, education and gender in large systems and different settings. Its conclusions will allow assessments of the approach to the post-2015 agenda to be made, taking account of how policy and practice relating to global social justice are negotiated, sometimes negated, the forms in which they are affirmed and the actions that might help enhance them.This book will be valuable for students, researchers, academics, senior teachers, senior government and inter-government officials and senior staff in NGOs working in the field of education and international development, gender, poverty reduction, and social development.

This book offers in-depth analyses of how education interacts with social inequality in Southern contexts. Drawing on a range of disciplinary frameworks, it presents new analyses of existing knowledge and new empirical data which define the challenges and possibilities of successful educational reform. It is a tribute to the work of the late Christopher Colclough, who, as a leading figure in education and international development, played a key role in the global fight for education for all children.The book critically engages with international evidence of educational access, retention and outcomes, offering new understandings of how social inequalities currently facilitate, mediate or restrict educational opportunities. It exposes the continuing influence of wealth and regional inequalities and caste and gendered social structures. Researchers in Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Pakistan and Uganda highlight how the aspirations of families living in poverty remain unfilled by poor-quality education and low economic opportunities and how schools and teachers currently address issues of gender, disability and diversity. The book highlights a range of new priorities for research and identifies some necessary strategies for education reform, policy approaches and school practice, if educational equality for all children is to be achieved.The book will be of great interest to researchers, scholars, educational practitioners and policy-makers in the fields of economics, politics and sociology of education, international education, poverty research and international development.The Foreword, Chapters 1, 6, 7, and 12 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780429293467 under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license (Foreword, Chapters 1, 6, and 12) and a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (Chapter 7).

Based on policy analysis and empirical data, this book examines the problematic consequences of colonial legacies of language policies and English language education in the multilingual contexts of the Global South.Using a postcolonial lens, the volume explores the raciolinguistics of language hierarchies that results in students from low-income backgrounds losing their mother tongues without acquiring academic fluency in English. Using findings from five major research projects, the book analyzes the specific context of India, where ambiguous language policies have led to uneasy tensions between the colonial language of English, national and state languages, and students’ linguistic diversity is mistaken for cognitive deficits when English is the medium of instruction in schools. The authors situate their own professional and personal experiences in their efforts at dismantling postcolonial structures through reflective practice as teacher educators, and present solutions of decolonial resistance to linguistic hierarchies that include critical pedagogical alternatives to bilingual education and opportunities for increased teacher agency.Ultimately, this timely volume will appeal to researchers, scholars, academics, and students in the fields of international and comparative education, English and literacy studies, and language arts more broadly. Those interested in English language learning in low-income countries specifically will also find this book to be of benefit to their research.

Based on policy analysis and empirical data, this book examines the problematic consequences of colonial legacies of language policies and English language education in the multilingual contexts of the Global South.Using a postcolonial lens, the volume explores the raciolinguistics of language hierarchies that results in students from low-income backgrounds losing their mother tongues without acquiring academic fluency in English. Using findings from five major research projects, the book analyzes the specific context of India, where ambiguous language policies have led to uneasy tensions between the colonial language of English, national and state languages, and students’ linguistic diversity is mistaken for cognitive deficits when English is the medium of instruction in schools. The authors situate their own professional and personal experiences in their efforts at dismantling postcolonial structures through reflective practice as teacher educators, and present solutions of decolonial resistance to linguistic hierarchies that include critical pedagogical alternatives to bilingual education and opportunities for increased teacher agency.Ultimately, this timely volume will appeal to researchers, scholars, academics, and students in the fields of international and comparative education, English and literacy studies, and language arts more broadly. Those interested in English language learning in low-income countries specifically will also find this book to be of benefit to their research.

This book offers in-depth analyses of how education interacts with social inequality in Southern contexts. Drawing on a range of disciplinary frameworks, it presents new analyses of existing knowledge and new empirical data which define the challenges and possibilities of successful educational reform. It is a tribute to the work of the late Christopher Colclough, who, as a leading figure in education and international development, played a key role in the global fight for education for all children.The book critically engages with international evidence of educational access, retention and outcomes, offering new understandings of how social inequalities currently facilitate, mediate or restrict educational opportunities. It exposes the continuing influence of wealth and regional inequalities and caste and gendered social structures. Researchers in Ethiopia, Ghana, India, Pakistan and Uganda highlight how the aspirations of families living in poverty remain unfilled by poor-quality education and low economic opportunities and how schools and teachers currently address issues of gender, disability and diversity. The book highlights a range of new priorities for research and identifies some necessary strategies for education reform, policy approaches and school practice, if educational equality for all children is to be achieved.The book will be of great interest to researchers, scholars, educational practitioners and policy-makers in the fields of economics, politics and sociology of education, international education, poverty research and international development.The Foreword, Chapters 1, 6, 7, and 12 of this book are freely available as downloadable Open Access PDFs at https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9780429293467 under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license (Foreword, Chapters 1, 6, and 12) and a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (Chapter 7).

This ground-breaking book opens new horizons in understanding educational decision-making and how schooling patterns are shaped by, and reshape, rural communities. It provides a humane portrait of the struggles faced by mothers in rural Kenya to educate their children, despite the ‘free education policy’.Based on a prize-winning study examining mothers’ attitudes to education in a rural Kenyan community, this vividly nuanced ethnographic work draws upon African feminist perspectives to describe the livelihoods and aspirations of 32 mothers responsible for over 180 children. It explores the effects of mothers’ school histories and the constraining effects of land practices and patriarchal culture on their actions. Their school choice and engagement strategies reflect different facilitating environments, their educational values, the use of social mothering practices and reliance on kinship reciprocity. The findings illustrate the importance of recognising the diversity of mothers’ situations within this small community and the pressures they face to be ‘good mothers’ who school their children. Mothers and Schooling highlights the importance of mothers’ educational agency and is essential reading for anthropologists of education, those working in gender studies, poverty alleviation strategists, educational researchers, teachers and policy-makers who wish to improve the success of Education for All for the children of women living in Southern rural poverty.

This ground-breaking book opens new horizons in understanding educational decision-making and how schooling patterns are shaped by, and reshape, rural communities. It provides a humane portrait of the struggles faced by mothers in rural Kenya to educate their children, despite the ‘free education policy’.Based on a prize-winning study examining mothers’ attitudes to education in a rural Kenyan community, this vividly nuanced ethnographic work draws upon African feminist perspectives to describe the livelihoods and aspirations of 32 mothers responsible for over 180 children. It explores the effects of mothers’ school histories and the constraining effects of land practices and patriarchal culture on their actions. Their school choice and engagement strategies reflect different facilitating environments, their educational values, the use of social mothering practices and reliance on kinship reciprocity. The findings illustrate the importance of recognising the diversity of mothers’ situations within this small community and the pressures they face to be ‘good mothers’ who school their children. Mothers and Schooling highlights the importance of mothers’ educational agency and is essential reading for anthropologists of education, those working in gender studies, poverty alleviation strategists, educational researchers, teachers and policy-makers who wish to improve the success of Education for All for the children of women living in Southern rural poverty.

Education has an extraordinarily important role to play in efforts to eliminate poverty world-wide. This book reveals the nature and complexity of these relationships and provides indispensible pointers to the kinds and extent of policy changes that are required. Based on highly innovative research that addressed common research questions across four countries in Africa and South Asia, the book presents new theoretical and empirical knowledge that will help to improve education and poverty reduction strategies in developing countries, through an enhanced recognition of education's actual and potential role. In addition to introducing the reader to a wide range of conceptual and policy-related problems concerning the impact of education on individuals and society, the book:provides the field of educational research with a contemporary economic and socio-cultural reassessment of educational outcomes in relation to poverty. discusses the challenges and priorities facing policy makers, practitioners and the international development community in improving the outcomes of education, particularly for the most disadvantaged in Africa, South Asia and other low income countries; identifies the key theoretical and methodological challenges involved in researching the outcomes of education for the poor. This book will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students and researchers in the fields of international and comparative education, education policy, development studies, African and Asian studies and related disciplines, and to those working on education policy at national or international levels in governments and international institutions.

What do we know about the outcomes of education in developing countries? Where are the gaps in our knowledge, and why are they important to fill? What are the policy challenges that underlie these knowledge gaps, and how can education best contribute to eliminating the problem of widespread poverty in the developing world?This book arises out of a five year, DFID-funded programme of research examining the impact of education on the lives and livelihoods of people in developing countries, particularly those living in poorer areas and from poorer households. Based on highly innovative research that addressed common research questions across four countries in Africa and South Asia, the book presents new theoretical and empirical knowledge that will help to improve education and poverty reduction strategies in developing countries, through an enhanced recognition of education's actual and potential role. In addition to introducing the reader to a wide range of conceptual and policy-related problems concerning the impact of education on individuals and society, the book:provides the field of educational research with a contemporary economic and socio-cultural reassessment of educational outcomes in relation to poverty. discusses the challenges and priorities facing policy makers, practitioners and the international development community in improving the outcomes of education, particularly for the most disadvantaged in Africa, South Asia and other low income countries; identifies the key theoretical and methodological challenges involved in researching the outcomes of education for the poor. This book will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students and researchers in the fields of international and comparative education, education policy, development studies, African and Asian studies and related disciplines, and to those working on education policy at national or international levels in governments and international institutions. Education has an extraordinarily important role to play in efforts to eliminate poverty world-wide. This book reveals the nature and complexity of these relationships and provides indispensible pointers to the kinds and extent of policy changes that are required.

Current paradigms of ‘development’ generally serve mobile pastoralist groups poorly: their visibility in policy processes is minimal, and their mobility is constructed by the powerful as a ‘problem’, rather than as a rational livelihood strategy. Increasingly damaged eco-systems, shrinking natural resources, globalisation and urbanisation all put pressure on pastoralist livelihoods. Such processes often worsen, rather than alleviate, poverty and socio-economic marginalisation among pastoralists, but they also precipitate engagement with forms of education that may improve their future livelihood security and social status, and enhance occupational diversification. Opening with a discussion of how the relationships between education, poverty and development have been conceived in dominant development discourses, this book reviews the disappointing international experience of education provision to mobile pastoralist groups. It highlights a lack of sufficient flexibility and relevance to changing livelihoods and, more fundamentally, education’s conceptual location within a sedentarist paradigm of development that is antagonistic to mobility as a legitimate livelihood strategy. These global themes are examined in India, where policy and practices of education inclusion for mobile, marginalised groups are critiqued. Empirically-based chapters drawing on ethnographic research, provide detailed insights into how the Rabaris of Kachchh – a pastoralist community in Gujarat, Western India – engage with education as a social and economic development strategy for both adults and children, and show how ethnographic and participatory research approaches can be used for policy advocacy for marginalised groups. Livelihoods and Learning highlights the complex, contested and often inconsistent role of education in development and the social construction of poverty, and calls for a critical reappraisal of the notion of ‘education’. The book will be key reading for postgraduates and academics in education, development studies, international and comparative education and research methodology, as well as policy-makers, ministries and related agencies with responsibility for education.

In developing countries across the world, qualified teachers are a rarity, with thousands of untrained adults taking over the role and millions of children having no access to schooling at all. The supply of high-quality teachers is falling behind: poor status, low salaries and inadequate working conditions characterise perceptions of teachers in numerous countries, deterring many from entering the profession, and there are strong critiques of the one dimensional, didactic approach to pedagogic practice. Despite this, millions of teachers are dedicated to educating a newly enfranchised generation of learners.Teacher Education and the Challenge of Development is co-written by experts working across a wide range of developing country situations. It provides a unique overview of the crisis surrounding the provision of high-quality teachers in the developing world, and how these teachers are crucial to the alleviation of poverty. The book explores existing policy structures and identifies the global pressures on teaching, which are particularly acute in developing economies. In summarising the key policy and research issues and analysing innovative approaches to teacher supply, retention and education, this book: establishes an overview and conceptual analysis of the challenge to extend and improve the teaching force in developing contexts; sets out and analyses the quantitative and qualitative evidence around teacher contexts and conditions; provides a series of national studies that analyse the context of teachers and the policies being pursued to improve the number and quality of teachers; looks at a range of significant issues that could contribute to the reformulation and reform of teacher policies; provides an overarching analysis of the nature and challenges of teaching and the possible interventions or solutions, in a form accessible to policy and research communities.This book will be of interest to educationalists and researchers in education, teachers, policy makers and students of development courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

Is learner-centred education appropriate for all societies and classrooms?Learner-centred education (LCE) is a travelling policy, widely promoted by international agencies and national governments. Arguments in favour of this pedagogical tradition refer to theories and evidence from cognitive psychology, claiming that all learners can benefit equally from its judicious use. Beyond the benefits to the individual however, lie a set of assumptions about learner-centred education as a foundation for the building of democratic citizens and societies, suitable for economies of the future. These promises have been questioned by critics who doubt that it is appropriate in all cultural and resource contexts, and there is considerable evidence in the global South of perennial problems of implementation.In the light of these debates, is LCE still a good development ‘bet’? This book provides an authoritative and balanced investigation of these issues, exploring the contextual factors from global movements to local resourcing realities which have fuelled it as a discourse and affected its practice. In the light of the theoretical underpinnings and research evidence, the book addresses pressing questions: to what extent is learner-centred education a sound choice for policy and practice in developing countries? And if it is a sound choice, under which conditions is it a viable one? The book is divided into three key parts:- Learner-centred Education as a Global Phenomenon - Learner-centred Education in Lower and Middle-income Countries - Lessons and Resolutions This book provides a much-needed fresh analysis of the concept and practice of LCE. It will be valuable reading for academics and post-graduates with a focus on comparative and international education, along with policy-makers in developing countries and development agencies.

How we understand education quality is inextricably linked with perspectives on social justice. Questions of inclusion, relevance and democracy in education are increasingly contested, most especially in the global South, and improving the quality of education, particularly for the most disadvantaged, has become a topic of fundamental concern for education policy makers, practitioners and the international development community. The reality experienced by many learners continues to be of inadequately prepared and poorly motivated teachers, struggling to deliver a rapidly changing curriculum without sufficient support, and often using outmoded teaching methods in over-crowded or dilapidated classrooms. Education Quality and Social Justice in the South includes contributions from leading scholars in the field of education and development. The text draws upon state of the art evidence from the five year EdQual research programme, which focuses upon raising achievement in low income countries, and demonstrates how systems of high quality universal education can be sustained. By exploring recent research initiatives to improve education quality, the importance of supporting local policy makers, educators and parents as agents of change, and students as active inquirers is highlighted, and the challenge of taking successful initiatives to scale is explained.The book is divided into three main parts:-Framing Education Quality-Planning and Policies for Quality-Implementing Quality in SchoolsEducation Quality and Social Justice in the South argues that implementing a high quality of education using theories of social justice can inform the understanding of inclusion, relevance and democracy in education. The book should be essential reading for both students and researchers within the fields of international and comparative education, along with educational policy, poverty and development studies.

This book innovatively explores how universities might be engines of reform and be directed towards social change. Using rich case studies drawn from South African research, the book comprehensively provides a myriad of new perspectives on what constitutes a set of appropriate public-good professional capabilities that will translate successfully into contributions to human development. It challenges universities to produce professionals who have the knowledge, skills and values to improve the lives of people living in poverty in urban and rural settings. It covers issues such as: Conceptualising Public-Good Professionalism Global Issues and Professional Education South African Debates about Higher Education Institutional conditions and professional education arrangements Social Constraints on educating ethically aware public professionals By drawing on an approach that focuses on differing public-good professional capabilities in five professions, this book produces a crucial new framework for the preparation of professionals relevant to the global study of higher education policy. It expands higher education’s contribution to global social justice beyond a concern with human capital, administering a challenge to higher education internationally to address human development in the 21st century. This book will be of great interest to all scholars of higher education involved in higher education studies, comparative education, and development studies. It will also prove valuable to policy makers, higher education leaders and lecturers and graduate professionals in diverse organizations.

This book is concerned with understanding the complex ways in which gender violence and poverty impact on young people’s lives, and the potential for education to challenge violence. Although there has been a recent expansion of research on gender violence and schooling, the field of research that brings together thinking on gender violence, poverty and education is in its infancy. This book sets out to establish this new field by offering innovative research insights into the nature of violence affecting children and young people; the sources of violence, including the relationship with poverty and inequality; the effects of violence on young subjectivities; and the educational challenge of how to counter violence. Authors address three interrelated aims in their chapters: to identify theoretical and methodological framings for understanding the relationship between gender, violence, poverty and education to demonstrate how young people living in varying contexts of poverty in the Global South learn about, engage in, respond to and resist gender violence to investigate how institutions, including schools, families, communities, governments, international and non-governmental organisations and the media constrain or expand possibilities to challenge gender violence in the Global South. Describing a range of innovative research projects, the chapters display what scholarly work can offer to help meet the educational challenge, and to find ways to help young people and those around them to understand, resist and rupture the many faces of violence. Gender Violence in Poverty Contexts will appeal to an international audience of postgraduate students, academics and researchers in the fields of international and comparative education, gender and women’s studies, teacher education, poverty, development and conflict studies, African and Asian studies and related disciplines. It will also be of interest to professionals in NGOs and other organisations, and policy makers, keen to develop research-informed practice.Winner of the 2016 Jackie Kirk Outstanding Book Award.

Why are development discourses of the ‘poor child’ in need of radical revision? What are the theoretical and methodological challenges and possibilities for ethical understandings of childhoods and poverty? The ‘poor child’ at the centre of development activity is often measured against and reformed towards an idealised and globalised child subject. This book examines why such normative discourses of childhood are in need of radical revision and explores how development research and practice can work to ‘unsettle’ the global child. It engages the cultural politics of childhood – a politics of equality, identity and representation – as a methodological and theoretical orientation to rethink the relationships between education, development, and poverty in children’s lives. This book brings multiple disciplinary perspectives, including cultural studies, sociology, and film studies, into conversation with development studies and development education in order to provide new ways of approaching and conceptualising the ‘poor child’. The researchers draw on a range of methodological frames – such as poststructuralist discourse analysis, arts based research, ethnographic studies and textual analysis – to unpack the hidden assumptions about children within development discourses. Chapters in this book reveal the diverse ways in which the notion of childhood is understood and enacted in a range of national settings, including Kenya, India, Mexico and the United Kingdom. They explore the complex constitution of children’s lives through cultural, policy, and educational practices. The volume’s focus on children’s experiences and voices shows how children themselves are challenging the representation and material conditions of their lives. The ‘Poor Child’ will be of particular interest to postgraduate students and scholars working in the fields of childhood studies, international and comparative education, and development studies.

Drawing on case-study research that examined initiatives which engaged with global aspirations to advance gender equality in schooling in Kenya and South Africa, this book looks at how global frameworks on gender, education and poverty are interpreted in local settings and the politics of implementation. It discusses the forms of global agreements in particular contexts, and allows for an appraisal of how they have been understood by the people who implement them. By using an innovative approach to comparative cross country research, the book illuminates how ideas and actions connect and disconnect around particular meanings of poverty, education and gender in large systems and different settings. Its conclusions will allow assessments of the approach to the post-2015 agenda to be made, taking account of how policy and practice relating to global social justice are negotiated, sometimes negated, the forms in which they are affirmed and the actions that might help enhance them.This book will be valuable for students, researchers, academics, senior teachers, senior government and inter-government officials and senior staff in NGOs working in the field of education and international development, gender, poverty reduction, and social development.

This book uses perceptions and experiences of Qur’anic schools in West Africa to outline a much-needed postsecular approach, reconsidering the place of Islamic education within African decolonial debates about educational pluralism, and the contributions of religious perspectives in academic and international development spaces. Decolonial theory is used to overcome the challenges of problematic Eurocentric and colonialist stereotypes about religious actors and faith-based schools which persist within international education scholarship and global policy agendas. Through fine-grained ethnography, chapters discuss how parents and young people today engage with classical Qur’anic schools, Islamic schools and French-medium secular education in Senegal, thereby exposing inequalities around gender, descent-based or caste identities and socioeconomic status, as well as their influence on young people’s pursuit of knowledge. These findings are valuable for scholars exploring the development-education-religion nexus and promoting Education for All in communities characterised by other-than-secular worldviews. The book will be of interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students working in the sociology of education, international education, anthropology and religious education. Practitioners involved in postcolonial and decolonial debates will also benefit from recommendations regarding educational reform in plural educational contexts.

This book uses perceptions and experiences of Qur’anic schools in West Africa to outline a much-needed postsecular approach, reconsidering the place of Islamic education within African decolonial debates about educational pluralism, and the contributions of religious perspectives in academic and international development spaces. Decolonial theory is used to overcome the challenges of problematic Eurocentric and colonialist stereotypes about religious actors and faith-based schools which persist within international education scholarship and global policy agendas. Through fine-grained ethnography, chapters discuss how parents and young people today engage with classical Qur’anic schools, Islamic schools and French-medium secular education in Senegal, thereby exposing inequalities around gender, descent-based or caste identities and socioeconomic status, as well as their influence on young people’s pursuit of knowledge. These findings are valuable for scholars exploring the development-education-religion nexus and promoting Education for All in communities characterised by other-than-secular worldviews. The book will be of interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students working in the sociology of education, international education, anthropology and religious education. Practitioners involved in postcolonial and decolonial debates will also benefit from recommendations regarding educational reform in plural educational contexts.

This book offers a powerful, post‑colonial rejection of the so‑called global ‘learning crisis’ that offers deficit models of the experiences, knowledges, identities and relationships of African children, eroding their agency and dignity and undermining their learning opportunities and potential.Three case studies of three accelerated learning programmes (ALPs) for out‑of‑school and lower-achieving children in Ethiopia, Liberia and Ghana illustrate multi‑dimensional models that re‑envision the purposes and pedagogies of basic education, reconnect with the lived experiences of African children and teachers and promote the role of communities in improving children’s learning. Drawing on diverse social theory, the chapters reveal the use of children’s funds of identity and knowledge, a material engagement with their natural environment, and highlight the transformative use of local languages. This book ultimately proves that a holistic approach to learning, based on the relational and community‑rooted African philosophy of Ubuntu, produces vital personal and academic benefits for African children.This book will be of great interest to academics, researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of international and comparative education, postcolonial studies, African education, education policy and transformative pedagogy. It will also appeal to development strategists and NGOs working with the Education for All agenda.

Current paradigms of ‘development’ generally serve mobile pastoralist groups poorly: their visibility in policy processes is minimal, and their mobility is constructed by the powerful as a ‘problem’, rather than as a rational livelihood strategy. Increasingly damaged eco-systems, shrinking natural resources, globalisation and urbanisation all put pressure on pastoralist livelihoods. Such processes often worsen, rather than alleviate, poverty and socio-economic marginalisation among pastoralists, but they also precipitate engagement with forms of education that may improve their future livelihood security and social status, and enhance occupational diversification. Opening with a discussion of how the relationships between education, poverty and development have been conceived in dominant development discourses, this book reviews the disappointing international experience of education provision to mobile pastoralist groups. It highlights a lack of sufficient flexibility and relevance to changing livelihoods and, more fundamentally, education’s conceptual location within a sedentarist paradigm of development that is antagonistic to mobility as a legitimate livelihood strategy. These global themes are examined in India, where policy and practices of education inclusion for mobile, marginalised groups are critiqued. Empirically-based chapters drawing on ethnographic research, provide detailed insights into how the Rabaris of Kachchh – a pastoralist community in Gujarat, Western India – engage with education as a social and economic development strategy for both adults and children, and show how ethnographic and participatory research approaches can be used for policy advocacy for marginalised groups. Livelihoods and Learning highlights the complex, contested and often inconsistent role of education in development and the social construction of poverty, and calls for a critical reappraisal of the notion of ‘education’. The book will be key reading for postgraduates and academics in education, development studies, international and comparative education and research methodology, as well as policy-makers, ministries and related agencies with responsibility for education.

This book is concerned with understanding the complex ways in which gender violence and poverty impact on young people’s lives, and the potential for education to challenge violence. Although there has been a recent expansion of research on gender violence and schooling, the field of research that brings together thinking on gender violence, poverty and education is in its infancy. This book sets out to establish this new field by offering innovative research insights into the nature of violence affecting children and young people; the sources of violence, including the relationship with poverty and inequality; the effects of violence on young subjectivities; and the educational challenge of how to counter violence. Authors address three interrelated aims in their chapters: to identify theoretical and methodological framings for understanding the relationship between gender, violence, poverty and education to demonstrate how young people living in varying contexts of poverty in the Global South learn about, engage in, respond to and resist gender violence to investigate how institutions, including schools, families, communities, governments, international and non-governmental organisations and the media constrain or expand possibilities to challenge gender violence in the Global South. Describing a range of innovative research projects, the chapters display what scholarly work can offer to help meet the educational challenge, and to find ways to help young people and those around them to understand, resist and rupture the many faces of violence. Gender Violence in Poverty Contexts will appeal to an international audience of postgraduate students, academics and researchers in the fields of international and comparative education, gender and women’s studies, teacher education, poverty, development and conflict studies, African and Asian studies and related disciplines. It will also be of interest to professionals in NGOs and other organisations, and policy makers, keen to develop research-informed practice.

Educating Entrepreneurial Citizens examines the multiple and contradictory purposes and effects of entrepreneurship education aimed at addressing youth unemployment and alleviating poverty in Tanzania.Governments in sub-Saharan Africa face increasing pressure to educate young people through secondary school, supposedly equipping them with knowledge and skills for employment and their future. At the same time, many youths do not complete their education and there are insufficient jobs to employ graduates. The development community sees entrepreneurship education as one viable solution to the double edged problem of inadequate education and few jobs. But while entrepreneurship education is aligned with a governing rationality of neoliberalism that requires individuals to create their own livelihoods without government social supports, the two NGO programs discussed in this book draw on a rights-based discourse that seeks to educate those not served by government schools, providing them with educational and social supports to be included in society. The chapters explore the tensions that occur when international organizations and NGOs draw on both neoliberal and liberal human rights discourses to address the problems of poverty, unemployment and poor quality education. Furthermore, when these neo/liberal perspectives meet local ideas of reciprocity and solidarity, they create friction and alter the programs and effects they have on youth. The book introduces the concept of entrepreneurial citizens—those who utilize their innovative skills and behaviors to claim both economic and social rights from which they had been previously excluded. The programs taught youth how to develop their own enterprises, to earn profits, and to save for their own futures; but youth used their education, skills and labor to provide for basic needs, to be included in society, and to support their and their families’ well-being. By showing the contradictory effects of entrepreneurship education programs, the book asks international agencies and governments to consider how they can go beyond technical approaches of creating enterprises and increasing income, and head toward approaches that consider the kinds of labor that young people and communities value for their wellbeing.This book will be of interest to scholars and practitioners of education and international development, youth studies, African Studies and entrepreneurship/social entrepreneurship education.

In developing countries across the world, qualified teachers are a rarity, with thousands of untrained adults taking over the role and millions of children having no access to schooling at all. The supply of high-quality teachers is falling behind: poor status, low salaries and inadequate working conditions characterise perceptions of teachers in numerous countries, deterring many from entering the profession, and there are strong critiques of the one dimensional, didactic approach to pedagogic practice. Despite this, millions of teachers are dedicated to educating a newly enfranchised generation of learners.Teacher Education and the Challenge of Development is co-written by experts working across a wide range of developing country situations. It provides a unique overview of the crisis surrounding the provision of high-quality teachers in the developing world, and how these teachers are crucial to the alleviation of poverty. The book explores existing policy structures and identifies the global pressures on teaching, which are particularly acute in developing economies. In summarising the key policy and research issues and analysing innovative approaches to teacher supply, retention and education, this book: establishes an overview and conceptual analysis of the challenge to extend and improve the teaching force in developing contexts; sets out and analyses the quantitative and qualitative evidence around teacher contexts and conditions; provides a series of national studies that analyse the context of teachers and the policies being pursued to improve the number and quality of teachers; looks at a range of significant issues that could contribute to the reformulation and reform of teacher policies; provides an overarching analysis of the nature and challenges of teaching and the possible interventions or solutions, in a form accessible to policy and research communities.This book will be of interest to educationalists and researchers in education, teachers, policy makers and students of development courses at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

How we understand education quality is inextricably linked with perspectives on social justice. Questions of inclusion, relevance and democracy in education are increasingly contested, most especially in the global South, and improving the quality of education, particularly for the most disadvantaged, has become a topic of fundamental concern for education policy makers, practitioners and the international development community. The reality experienced by many learners continues to be of inadequately prepared and poorly motivated teachers, struggling to deliver a rapidly changing curriculum without sufficient support, and often using outmoded teaching methods in over-crowded or dilapidated classrooms. Education Quality and Social Justice in the South includes contributions from leading scholars in the field of education and development. The text draws upon state of the art evidence from the five year EdQual research programme, which focuses upon raising achievement in low income countries, and demonstrates how systems of high quality universal education can be sustained. By exploring recent research initiatives to improve education quality, the importance of supporting local policy makers, educators and parents as agents of change, and students as active inquirers is highlighted, and the challenge of taking successful initiatives to scale is explained.The book is divided into three main parts:-Framing Education Quality-Planning and Policies for Quality-Implementing Quality in SchoolsEducation Quality and Social Justice in the South argues that implementing a high quality of education using theories of social justice can inform the understanding of inclusion, relevance and democracy in education. The book should be essential reading for both students and researchers within the fields of international and comparative education, along with educational policy, poverty and development studies.

Is learner-centred education appropriate for all societies and classrooms?Learner-centred education (LCE) is a travelling policy, widely promoted by international agencies and national governments. Arguments in favour of this pedagogical tradition refer to theories and evidence from cognitive psychology, claiming that all learners can benefit equally from its judicious use. Beyond the benefits to the individual however, lie a set of assumptions about learner-centred education as a foundation for the building of democratic citizens and societies, suitable for economies of the future. These promises have been questioned by critics who doubt that it is appropriate in all cultural and resource contexts, and there is considerable evidence in the global South of perennial problems of implementation.In the light of these debates, is LCE still a good development ‘bet’? This book provides an authoritative and balanced investigation of these issues, exploring the contextual factors from global movements to local resourcing realities which have fuelled it as a discourse and affected its practice. In the light of the theoretical underpinnings and research evidence, the book addresses pressing questions: to what extent is learner-centred education a sound choice for policy and practice in developing countries? And if it is a sound choice, under which conditions is it a viable one? The book is divided into three key parts:- Learner-centred Education as a Global Phenomenon - Learner-centred Education in Lower and Middle-income Countries - Lessons and Resolutions This book provides a much-needed fresh analysis of the concept and practice of LCE. It will be valuable reading for academics and post-graduates with a focus on comparative and international education, along with policy-makers in developing countries and development agencies.