Critique of modernization and human capital theory in education. Focus on Papua New Guinea

• Modernization

Social, economic, cultural changes which lead to a more complex, differentiated and specialized society.

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In SOCIOLOGY

• “Psycho-cultural approaches”: the modern man

- Capitalistic spirit (Weber)

- Values and need for achievement (McClelland)

• “Structural approaches”• - Spencer, Durkheim, Smelzer, Parsons

PARSONS

Imperatives:

• Adaptation• Goal attainment• Integration• Latency

Basic dichotomies of social roles:

• Affective/affective neutral• Self orientated/collective

behaviour• Universalism/particularism• Ascriptive/achievement• Functionally specific/

functionally diffuse

In ECONOMICS

• Rostow: the stages of economic growth- Traditional stage- Precondition for the take-off- Take-off- Maturity- Age of mass consumption

In Politics: (STRUCTURAL FUNCTIONALISM)

G. Almond (SSRC)

political communication• Input- Political socialisation- Political recruitment- Articulation of

interests- Aggregation of

interests

• Output- Rule-making- Rule-implementation- Rule-adjudication

MODERNISATION and EDUCATION

Western schooling is western cultural reproduction = cultural imperialism.

Behaviouralism - (Skinner): Individual behaviour can be conditioned.

Humanism - (Dewey): Democratic values.Colonial Education: Training of Elites.Hidden curriculumCarnoy – Cultural imperialism

PAPUA and EDUCATION

Demerath’s writing on Papua New Guinea and colonisation of the mind (Fanon)

Traditional and modern identity are chosen, not simply granted or received

Historical beliefs about the ‘efficacy of knowledge’Ambivalence towards Western educationAllegiance with traditional identityColonisation of the Mind – Fanon

PAPUA and EDUCATION

Australia sends most of its development money to Papua.

Extractive industry – rich and poor divideCivil unrest and domestic violence high

Need more data…..

HUMAN CAPITAL THEORY

Mincer and Gary Becker of the "Chicago School“

Psacharopoulos: rates of return

HUMAN CAPITAL THEORY

Africa:Brain drainDore - Diploma Disease1960’sNarrow focus on economic growth but no jobs.World Bank and human capital investment. Education

is seen as a vehicle for economic growth.Eg. basic needs education, functional literacy.Can have high GDP but no social cohesion, or

creates educated pirates / criminals.

Gunder Frank Dependency Theory – Critical historical approach Underdevelopment is a function of the

position a country occupies in the international system

Structural approach at the global level Centre-Periphery dialectic Role of elites and Lumpenbourgoisie /

compardor class Critique of Ideal Type approach

Dependency theory solutions

Rupture with the capitalist world-economy Samir Amin, Delinking: Towards a polycentric

world (1985) Self-reliance through socialism (Tanzania) Import Substitution or Dependant

Development - Cardoso Socialist revolution – Gunder Frank

CRITIQUE OF MODERNISATION DEVELOPMENT THEORY

• Ethnocentric and ahistorical• Ignores the structural effect of capitalism /

colonialism with analysis on internal aspects• Dualism of modern and traditional is based

on the modern western ‘logos’.• Evolutionist & utilitarian • Cultural Imperialism (Michael Carnoy)

CRITIQUE OF MODERNISATION DEVELOPMENT THEORY

Economic rationalism is distorted by non-economic forces, racial, ethnic, gender bias.

Market liberalist economics ignores structural effect of the distribution of wealth.

Poverty or underdevelopment is nothing to do with Western or Enlightenment values, but to do with colonialism and capitalism.

Explains the dept crisis in Third World and civil unrest and dictatorships.

CRITIQUE OF MODERNISATION DEVELOPMENT THEORY

Deconstructs modernization using rational ‘systemic thinking’ to reveal the externalities in the macro picture.

Example: Corruption a big problem in developing countries. Can be seen as a market distortion or connected to a system of domination.

Give the structure to counter superstructure, reverses the ideal.

Colonialism and discourse of blaming the victim in modernisation: organised hypocrisy.

The model externalises harm with a system, makes pre-modern society liable for its ‘faults’, obscures colonial domination.

- Looks backwards from a ‘modern’ perspective- isolates harm in society with a focus on the individual or

the institution, not a function of the system. Eg corrupt officials at fault = disfunctional officials

- harm is norm referenced - maintained as deviation from an ideal type, not structural or created by domination

- focus on function as sufficient, no political responsibility for the outcome, closed within societal function

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Dependency theory can pop that bubble – not just about growth but how we grow.

It is not just about the individual but the structure that everyone participates in and the background conditions.

It is not what development can achieve but what it hides and has not done, or does not change that it important.

It focuses on the pathway that actions take in the structure.

Political responsability is now open, the burden is not just to follow the prescriptions of this model for economic growth but to try to bring about an independent outcome or change.

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Dependency as an ideology – Tony Smith’s criticism Tyranny of the whole over the parts “The error of this approach is not that it draws

attention to the interconnectedness of economic and political processes and events in global manner, but that it refuses to grant the part any autonomy, any specificity, and particularity independent of its whole.”

The Underdevelopment of Development Literature: The Case of Dependency Theory (1979)

Post modernism or new modernization?Beyond the Search for a Paradigm? Post-Development and

beyond – Escobar

Modernist Discourse and the Crisis of Development Theory – Kate Manzo

Universalism, Eurocentrism, and ideological bias in development studies: from modernisation to neoliberalism – Brohman

Ingelhart - Modernization, Cultural Change, and the Persistence of Traditional Values

Joel Samoff – Institutionalising International Influence

CONCLUSION

Development is an ethnocentric/western based project.

The process of development is not linear and it must be linked to the specific society involved.