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Unpublished paper - please do not reproduce

Social Change Claudia Urrea MIT - Media Lab

Abstract In this paper I introduce a continuum in which I present the most salient and influential and approaches in development. I make particular emphasis on the modernization, dependency and participatory research theories since I consider them very significant to the educational world. These theories still guide many of the development projects in today's world. I use this continuum to situate my own work and present an attempt at combining the different ideas into a methodology of work.

Continuum - Development/ It has been a challenge to try to compile a meaningful list of theories of development since most authors use different approaches to categorize them. Some of approaches are purely economically driven (Todaro, 1989) and others take into account chronological origins (Gardner & Lewis, 1996; Blomstron & Hettne, 1984). I will present the following theories in a somewhat chronological order, but I will pay more attention to theories that gave origin to the initial work on development and that still influence current work on development. Theories of development don't necessarily replace old theories or approaches, but they have evolved over time. Some still present and influence a lot of the work done today in the developed and developing world.

1. Classical period The classical period was characterized by the fact that the concepts of development and were treated as equal, so the early attempts to formulate theories of development were hardly influenced by the economic discipline. The most significant representatives of this classical school of economic are considered to be , and Thomas Malthus (Blomstron & Hettne, 1984.) It began with Adam Smith©s work, The Wealth of Nations (1776). The book identified land, labor, and as the three factors of production and the major contributors to a nation©s wealth. In Smith©s view, the ideal economy is a self-regulating system that inevitably satisfies people's economic needs1. He described the market mechanism as an "" that leads all individuals to pursuit their own self-interests, and therefore produces the greatest benefit for the as a whole. David Ricardo focused his work on the distribution of income and land among various classes in society and how this distribution affects economic growth. He described how the growth of population, and the limited supply of land, increases rents and holds down wages and profits. Thomas Malthus is best known for his predictions about . According to

1 You can find a complete reference to Adam Smith's work at The Library of Economics and Liberty - Unpublished paper - please do not reproduce

Malthus, population growth at a geometrical proportion while the production of food increases at an arithmetic one. Therefore, the population exceeds the real feeding potential of the land and misery is inevitable. During this period, other economists rejected the narrow Classical view that people are primarily motivated by economic self-interest. Economists started to acknowledge individual economic behavior as part of a larger social pattern influenced by ways of living and ways of thinking. The Marxist School challenged the foundations of Classical theory. Writing during the mid-19th century, saw capitalism as an evolutionary phase in . Marx believed that all production belongs to labor because workers produce all value within society. In 1936 John Keynes broke also from the Classical tradition with his publication of the General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. Keynes held that the opposite view of the Classical economist, which assumed that in a recession wages and prices would decline to restore full employment. Falling prices and wages, by depressing people©s incomes, would prevent a revival of spending. He insisted that direct government intervention was necessary to increase total spending.

2. The Individual and Development Ð Linear-Stages and Structural Change theory Following the interest on poor nations after II (Todaro, 1989), and with the at hands through which massive amounts of U.S financial and technical assistance enable the war-torn countries of Europe to rebuild and modernize their economies rapidly, economist had to develop an approach to analyze the process of economic growth in mostly agrarian , characterized by almost absence of ª modernº economic structures. Culture was viewed as the obstacle that prevented the adoption of modern attitudes and behavior. The goal was, therefore, to implant modern values and information through literacy, education and media technology, and the adoption of innovations and culture originated in the developed world. (Black, 1999.) The Western model of development was advocated as the model to be emulated worldwide. Economic historian Walt W. Rostow's doctrine was one of the most influential. According to Roscow doctrine, all countries passed through the same historical stages of economic development and that current underdeveloped countries were merely at an earlier stage in this linear historical (Gardner & Lewis, 1996). The linear-stages theory failed because it assumed the existence of the same attitudes and arrangements in underdeveloped nations. The recognition that modernization is not a single linear process prevents careless generalizations, and the exchange of modernization and development policies from Western to new nations. One of the most significant attempts to measure modernization has been that of Ikeles and Smith (Inkeles & Smith 1974.) They claim that modernization is a social and psychological process through which a country becomes modern only after its population has adopted modern values, attitudes and believes. Modernization was often measured and quantified in terms of media penetration (Waisbord, 2001).

Unpublished paper - please do not reproduce

Modernization and Education • Education is the antidote to any social ill • Responsibility is on the individual not the structure • Secular schools, contrary to religious, provide the setting for inculcating modern values, attitudes and behaviors • Government has legitimate role in provision of schooling

My Critique of Modernization • Ethnocentric • Fails to understand root causes (historical and political) of and • Diminishes local knowledge and culture • Assumes homogeneity within societies, genders, classes, ethnic groups, etc. • Leads to inappropriate actions and interventions because it is empirically wrong • Innovations were adopted by individuals from higher socioeconomic strata living in cities rather than by rural and poor populations

3. International Structures and Development Contrary to modernization theories, dependency theorists argued that the problems of underdevelopment were not internal to nations but were determined by external factors and the way former colonies were incorporated into the . Therefore, third world countries were politically and culturally dependent on the West, predominantly on the United States. Besides the influence of external problems, internal structures were also responsible for the problems of underdevelopment. Dependency positions charged development programs for failing to address structures that lead to inequality and for targeting individual rather than social factors. Unequal land distribution, poor health care services and lack of credit for agricultural workers limited the possibilities for an overall improvement in social conditions. Interventions were hopeless when the basic conditions that could foster new attitudes and behaviors were missing. The notion of dependency and underdevelopment gained recognition with the work of Andre Gunter Frank (1969). Frank follows the theory of the dependency of Raul Prebish and H.W. Singer according to which, the world-wide society has developed a center- periphery dynamic in which the underdeveloped countries are condemned to the role of suppliers. The theory blames mainly the Latin American bourgeoisie since they are the ones interested in keeping relations of dependency with the metropolis (Gardner & Lewis, 1996.)

Unpublished paper - please do not reproduce

Dependency and Education • Schools are not liberating or democratic but instruments of elite reproduction • Graduates are rewarded in the market place but as elites possessing the valued • Schools have the potential to provide a stage on which class conflict is enacted • Schools promote cultural supremacy rather than the pursuit of individual creative potential • Schools are a mechanism of allocation

My critique of • Fails to understand imperialism and capitalist development inside nations • Pessimistic; requiring radical structural change and no realistic solution • Evolutionary/linear like modernization • Assumes change comes top-down • Fails to recognize individual --fundamentally deterministic

Participatory Research is also a response to modernization theories (Waisbord, 2001). It is not only a participatory method, but also an alternative paradigm of research. Participatory research draws upon this expertise by engaging community members in the collective analysis of social problems in an effort to understand and address them (Selener, 1997.) Participatory research blurs the traditional distinction between "researcher" and "subjects," as all are equally engaged in the pursuit of knowledge for a common purpose. Similar to the ideas of Donald Schon, who believed that we must learn from the study of our practice and that our learning is based on prior theories and used to construct new theories that can be used to test future observations (Schon, 1982), and Freire's idea of a constant action-reflection-action cycle that leads to learning (Freire, 1970). Participatory research can be seen, in its ideal manifestation, as a seamless integration of what is generally thought of separately as research, education and action toward social transformation. Paulo Freire (1970) writings and experiences became an influential strand in participatory development. Freire's work in northeastern Brazil in the 1960s and early 1970s challenged dominant conceptions of development, particularly as applied to literacy training. He argued that development programs had failed to educate small farmers because they were interested in persuading them about the benefits of adopting certain innovations. Development programs tried to domesticate foreign concepts, to feed information, to force local populations to accept Western ideas and practices without asking how such practices fit existing cultures. Unpublished paper - please do not reproduce

Freire also offered the concept of liberating education that conceived communication as dialogue and participation. His approach has been called ª dialogical pedagogyº which defined equity in distribution and active grassroots participation as central principles. Freire's ideas ran against fundamental principles in the diffusion model, namely the sender-focus and behavioral bias that it inherited from persuasion models in the United States. Freire's model and participatory models in general proposed a human-centered approach that valued the importance of interpersonal channels of communication in decision-making processes at the community level.

Participation and Education • Is centered in community, a creative discovery of the world • Empowers communities through cooperative study and action • Is political, with the goal of collective social change toward a more equitable and democratic society • Is aimed at those communities who are excluded or marginalized by dominant society • Assumes that knowledge is socially constructed.

My critique of Participation • Did not provide specific guidelines for interventions. • Ignored cases where top-down solutions could achieve positive results. • Little attention was paid to the uses of mass media in participatory settings. • Could also be seen as foreign, pushing for certain goals and actions that have not resulted from inside communities. • It pays particular attention to community needs and sometimes ignores community assets and strengths • Did not offer the chance not to participate, and implicitly coerced people to adopt a certain attitude. • May privilege powerful and active members of the community.

4. Development issues in the 90s (Post-Modernism) (Gardner & Black) During the 90s there has been a different influence on development work, which Gardner and Lewis call post-modernism era. Some explained it as a cultural and intellectual rejection of modernity (Gardner & Lewis, 1999), others as the suddenly flourishing of new movements and disciplines getting informing old development theories (Black, 1999.) Post-modernism is characterized by multiplicity. The objective ª Truthº is replaced Unpublished paper - please do not reproduce by an emphasis plurality of viewpoints. There is a tendency to focus on specific groups or issues. Some of them are: • Environmentalists. Environmentalists started to raise awareness about the environment. They argue that the economic growth of many nations has left as result of community and ecosystem's devastation. • The women's movement. Scholars and international women's movement have started to paid special attention to women. In some cases they have been subestimated as key agent of change or they have been the victims of economic reform. • Community Empowerment has become one of the main contributions of participatory theories, therefore development theories. Empowerment is possible only if community members critically reflect on their experiences and understand the reasons for failure and success of interventions. • Human rights advocates. Human rights movement is not necessarily a new model, but a focus of concern since 1948 when The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was established. Modernization and dependency theory still have some influence in development projects today. They have not vanished or they have gone undercover (Black, 1999.) As Gardner and Lewis state in their book Anthropology, Development and Modernity: ª We can discern the influence of both modernization and dependency theory in current practice and thinking. Notions of modernization survive in much contemporary developmental thought. As we have already mentioned, agencies such as the remain committed first and foremost to promoting economic growth.º For example, the notion of empowerment, which rejects aid as a form of imperialism and argue that positive change can only come from within Southern societies, can be easily associated with Dependency theories. Participatory research approach is becoming more and more important. It is moved from being a movement on it-self to being part of other strategies by informing other models and theories. It has influenced the way many project in the developing world are designed and carried out today. The tendency is more to design strategies that draw on several theoretical sources.

The proposed methodology of work The development of the community is reflected in the efforts designed to improve the economic and social atmosphere, and the of the community. Nevertheless, community development specialists have focused on the economics, ignoring the other aspects of development and the interrelation of such. Following the current tendencies, which were presented above, my research strategy draws on several theories or approaches. It combines the participatory development theory and the asset-based approach, with the Constructionism theory. First, some of the underlying elements of participatory development theory will be used to approach the community and create a team that will support and continue the work at the local level. It will use the asset-based methodology of work to create a guideline of work and evaluate Unpublished paper - please do not reproduce community building and change. And second, Constructionist methodology (Papert, 1984) of work will be used as means to engage people in building their own knowledge, becoming technological fluent and therefore, creating their development. I agree with Kretzmann and McKnight (1993) when they talk about the role and potential that the school has within the community. They have pointed out, ª As schools have become more professionalized and centralized, they have tended to distance themselves from their local communities. The vital links between experience, work, and education have been weakened. As a result, public and private schools in many rural and urban communities have lost their power as a valuable community resource. And many economically distressed towns, communities, and neighborhoods have begun to struggle toward economic revitalization without the valuable contributions of the local schools.º (p. 209.) There is a great potential for projects an initiatives to be built around the school. (Miller, 1995; Natctigal, et al.; 1989, Harvard Graduate School of Education, 1999). My initiative will be greatly centered on the school, but with the potential of building on the community strengths and interest on their member, can have a positive impact on community viability.

Conclusions • Building on the principles of participatory research approach, to allow the community to be active and involved in designing and making decisions about their own lives. Community members will be encouraged to participate in decision-making, implementation, and evaluation of projects. This would give a sense of involvement in their lives and communities, and provide them with a sense of ownership and skills that they can use beyond the timetable of development projects. • The community building will start by taking into account the community assets and strategies, not its needs and problems, in order to balance and improve the quality of life of its members. • The computer is a great media that allow expression, design, control, and communication. Technologies that not only allow, but also encourage design- based learning can be important within this research program for many different reasons: people are responsible for their own learning, they can work at their own pace, and have the tools and the elements that allow them to reflect upon the projects and artifacts they create (Urrea, 2001.) • The use of asset-based methodology to guide the work at the community level. This methodology will informed a comprehensive and integrated plan or action that will serve as a source of evaluation that: o Brings stakeholders together o Links the outcomes, activities, and resources o Enriches the initiative©s decision-making process with the latest findings and experiences Unpublished paper - please do not reproduce

o Assesses progress along the way o Maintains an equilibrium between measurement of progress and towards final outcomes o Holds accountable people and organizations for fulfilling their commitments.

Bibliography Black, J. K. (1999). Development in Theory and Practice: Paradigms and Paradoxes. Westview Press. Blomstron, M. & Hettne, B. (1984). Development Theory in Transition.Zed Books Ltd. London Colbert, V. and Arboleda, J. (1990). Universalisation of primary education in Colombia: the New School programme, Paris: UnescoN.JFPIUnicef Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Seabury. Harvard Graduate School of Education (1999a). Living and Learning in Rural Schools and Communities. A Report to the Annenberg Rural Challenge. Rural Challenge Research and Evaluation Program. Hussain, Z. (1993). Education and National Development. Inkeles, A., and Smith, D. H. (1974). Becoming Modern, Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA. Kretzmann, J. & McKnight, J. (1993). Building communities from inside out: A path toward finding and mobilizing a community©s assets. Chicago, IL: ACTA Publications. Miller, B. (1995b). The Role of rural schools in community development: Policy issues and implications. Northwest Educational Laboratory. (http://www.nwrl.org/role.html) Nachtigal et al. (1989). What's noteworthy on rural schools and community development. Aurora, CO: Mid-continent Regional Educational Laboratory. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. 313 177). Papert, S. (1984). New Theories for New Learnings. School Psychology Review, October, 1984. Selener, D. (1997). Participatory Action Research and Social Change. Ithaca, New York: The Cornell Participatory Action Research Network. Schon, A. D. (1982) The Reflective Practitioner. Basic Books Inc. Todaro, M. (1989). Economic Development in the Third World. Longman Inc. NY. Waisbord, S. (2001). Family three of theories, methodologies and strategies in development communication: convergences and differences. The Rockefeller Foundation May 2001