LOCAL MEANINGS, GLOBAL SCHOOLING Anthropology and World Culture Theory Edited by Kathryn M. Anderson-Levitt 01 anderson fm 2/28/03 4:12 PM Page i LOCAL MEANINGS, GLOBAL SCHOOLING This page intentionally left blank 01 anderson fm 2/28/03 4:12 PM Page iii LOCAL MEANINGS, GLOBAL SCHOOLING Anthropology and World Culture Theory Edited by Kathryn M. Anderson-Levitt 01 anderson fm 2/28/03 4:12 PM Page iv LOCAL MEANINGS, GLOBAL SCHOOLING Copyright © Kathryn M. Anderson-Levitt, 2003. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. First published 2003 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN™ 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 and Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS. Companies and representatives throughout the world. PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 0–4039–6162-X hardback ISBN 0–4039–6163–8 paperback Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available from the Library of Congress A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Design by Letra Libre, Inc. First edition: May 2003 10987654321 Printed in the United States of America. 01 anderson fm 2/28/03 4:12 PM Page v TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface vii INTRODUCTION A World Culture of Schooling? 1 Kathryn M. Anderson-Levitt PART I MINISTRIES AND SCHOOLS TRANSFORM 1. “Thai Wisdom” and GloCalization: Negotiating the Global and the Local in Thailand’s National Education Reform 27 Susan Jungck with Boonreang Kajornsin 2. Transformations in South Africa: Policies and Practices from Ministry to Classroom 51 Diane Brook Napier 3. Teaching by the Book in Guinea 75 Kathryn M. Anderson-Levitt and Boubacar Bayero Diallo PART II TEACHERS, STUDENTS, AND PARENTS RESPOND 4. Beyond the “One Best System”? Developing Alternative Approaches to Instruction in the United States 99 Thomas Hatch and Meredith L. Honig 5. Resistance to the Communicative Method of Language Instruction within a Progressive Chinese University 121 Huhua Ouyang 01 anderson fm 2/28/03 4:12 PM Page vi 6. World-Cultural and Anthropological Interpretations of “Choice Programming” in Tanzania 141 Amy Stambach 7. The Politics of Identity and the Marketization of U.S. Schools: How Local Meanings Mediate Global Struggles 161 Lisa Rosen PART III OUTSIDE OR BEYOND A GLOBAL CULTURE 8. World Culture or Transnational Project? Competing Educational Projects in Brazil 183 Lesley Bartlett 9. Europeanization and French Primary Education: Local Implications of Supranational Policies 201 Deborah Reed-Danahay 10. Transforming the Culture of Scientific Education in Israel 219 Kalanit Segal-Levit COMMENT The Global Model and National Legacies 239 Francisco O. Ramirez List of Contributors 255 Index 259 01 anderson fm 2/28/03 4:12 PM Page vii PREFACE This book grew out of long fascination with the European model of school- ing and hence an interest in sociology’s “neo-institutionalism” or world cul- ture theory. The book also coincides with a renewed interest among anthropologists in studies of policy and hence in studies of educational re- form. Many of the chapters grew out of papers presented at two symposia or- ganized by the Committee on Transnational Education and Issues of the Council on Anthropology and Education at the 2000 and 2001 meetings of the American Anthropological Association. Other authors who shared their studies and contributed to our thinking at those sessions include Bob Her- bert, Inés Dussel, Maria Paz Echeverriarza, John Napier, and Vincent Lebeta. Very special thanks go to Elsa Statzner, who organized the first sympo- sium and who insisted that this book happen, and to Evelyn Jacob, who made extensive, insightful comments at the second symposium. Thanks, too, to Francisco Ramirez, one of the key developers of world culture the- ory, who let us entice him to the anthropology meetings to serve as a dis- cussant and who has engaged eagerly in the dialogue that this book represents. Email conversations with him and with the authors in this book, particularly Susan Jungck, helped clarify ideas presented in the introductory chapter. Finally, I am greatly indebted to the Spencer Foundation, which not only funded the research that enabled me to investigate the transnational flow of educational reforms but also gave me the opportunity to meet some of the authors participating in this volume. This page intentionally left blank 02 anderson intro 2/28/03 4:14 PM Page 1 INTRODUCTION A WORLD CULTURE OF SCHOOLING? Kathryn M. Anderson-Levitt Is there one global culture of schooling, or many? Are school systems around the world diverging from their original European sources, or are they con- verging toward a single model?1 This book opens a dialogue between two very different perspectives on schooling around the world. On the one hand, anthropologists and many scholars in comparative education emphasize na- tional variation and, beyond that, variation from district to district and from classroom to classroom. From that point of view, the nearly 200 national school systems in the world today represent some 200 different and diverg- ing cultures of schooling. On the other hand, sociology’s “institutionalists,” or world culture theorists, argue that not only has the model of modern mass education spread from a common source, but schools around the world are becoming more similar over time.2 According to world culture theory, rather than diverging, schools are converging toward a single global model. This question matters to anthropologists because when we look at globalization—the movement of people, money, and ideas across the entire world in unprecedented volume—we wonder whether it really means that the world is becoming more homogeneous. Are we creating a global culture (a “McWorld” for the cynical), or do people create new local cultures as rapidly as global imports hit them (Watson 1997)? Are we seeing increas- ing uniformity, or simply diversity organized in a new way (Hannerz 1996)? The domain of national school systems is one of the richest areas for exploring questions about globalization and, in particular, world culture theory. National school systems offer an example par excellence of an insti- tution that has spread in the last century across the globe. 02 anderson intro 2/28/03 4:14 PM Page 2 2 KATHRYN M. ANDERSON-LEVITT Meanwhile, for educators concerned with immediate practical prob- lems, the question of one global culture of schooling or many has critical practical implications: Are educational reformers better advised to lobby World Bank and UNESCO policy, or to work directly with teachers in a local school? Can local educators hope to change local schools to suit local needs, or are they bound by a global model that they may or may not see? GLOBAL SCHOOLING, LOCAL MEANINGS Many anthropologists and comparative educationists emphasize cultural dif- ferences among national school systems. We recognize, of course, that Eu- ropean and North American school systems developed in parallel and that schools in the rest of the world were introduced by Europe or North Amer- ica through colonial processes. However, schools introduced into new areas by different colonizers, for example, England versus France, have looked dif- ferent from the beginning (Cummings 1999). Moreover, even if reformers, missionaries, or colonizers drew on some common sources when introduc- ing schools, we have argued, schools inevitably come to reflect national cul- ture (Spindler and Spindler 1987; Tobin, Wu, and Davidson 1989) and local people transform them to reflect local realities (for example, Flinn 1992). In contrast, world culture theorists John Meyer, Francisco Ramirez, John Boli, and their many colleagues argue not just that the idea of school- ing spread from a common source, but that schools around the world are be- coming more similar over time. The world culture approach is a grand sociological theory about modern nation-states. Its theorists argue that a sin- gle global model of schooling has spread around the world as part of the dif- fusion of a more general cultural model of the modern nation-state, a model that also includes templates for organizing government, health systems, the military, and other institutions (Meyer et al. 1997). According to world cul- ture theory, the global model of mass education arose in Europe as part of a state-building process (Ramirez and Boli 1987; Soysal and Strang 1989). As new nations sprang up after World War II, the rest of the world adopted the model. However, importantly, for world culture theorists it is not as if a common European model or form spread around the world once and for all. Rather, countries have re-formed their school systems over the course of the twentieth century in ways that make them more similar than they used to be. World culture theorists see “an increase in common educational princi- ples, policies, and even practices among countries with varying national characteristics” (Chabbott and Ramirez 2000:173; see also Meyer and Ramirez 2000). Thus, for example, elementary curricula became somewhat 02 anderson intro 2/28/03 4:14 PM Page 3 A WORLD CULTURE OF SCHOOLING? 3 more similar to one another from the 1920s to the 1980s