A Critique of Recent Models for the Improvement of Education in Developing Countries

Author(s): John H. Chilcott

Source: Anthropology & Education Quarterly, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Sep., 1987), pp. 241-245
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological Association
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A Critique of Recent Models for the

Improvement of Education
in Developing Countries
JOHNH. CHILCOTT
University of Arizona
Severalmodels that have been designed in the last two decadesfor improving
formaland nonformaleducationin developingcountriesare describedand critiqued. The critiqueemploysa variation of Wallace'sculture change modelas
appliedby Hutchens in assessing the education of women in Cuba. A model
for evaluating educationalprogramsfor developmentis proposed.MODEL,
EDUCATION, DEVELOPMENT, EVALUATION
For some time, it has been my intention to reexamine the literature on
education in developing countries. Consequently, when the opportunity arose to present a paper in line with the theme, "Applied Anthropology: Its International Dimensions," it provided an ideal motivation to pursue this interest.' This article will, therefore, briefly review some of the education models that have repeatedly appeared in
the anthropology and education literature and will compare them with
a recently developed model proposed by Hutchens (1984) in his study
of the education of Cuban women. It will also suggest some alterations
in the Hutchens model that would make it more appropriate to smallscale educational programs in development.
Three models that have been used to explain education in developing nations in the literature of anthropology and education are the
Wax model, drawn from his essay, "Great Tradition, Little Tradition,
and Formal Education" (1971), the Wallace model, elaborated in
"Schools in Revolutionary and Conservative Societies" (1979), and the
La Belle model, described in his article, "Liberation, Development,
and Rural Nonformal Education" (1984). More recently, Hutchens developed a model (1984) derived from Kuhn's model of scientific revolutions and Wallace's culture change model (1972). The first two are
explanatory models, while the latter two are process models.
Wax's explanation of the relationship between formal education in
Western society and informal education in tribal society has been useful in understanding the problems that arise when introducing formal
educational programs in developing countries that possess large segments of tribal societies. Wallace's explanation of the relative emphasis on the intellectual, technic, and moral domains of formal education
in reactionary, conservative, and revolutionary societies has been useful in understanding why many development programs that emphasize the technic, while overlooking the moral and intellectual components of education, have been unsuccessful. These explanatory
241

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& EducationQuarterly
Anthropology

Volume 18, 1987

models may provide good heuristic devices, but they are of little value
in developing and evaluating educational programs.
La Belle's model focuses on out-of-school programs associated in
developing countries with programs in agriculture, community development, literacy, and health. Using liberation-dependence theory,
this model examines social structure, technology, motivation, and information and their interrelationship in the generation of education
programs in so-called underdeveloped countries. As such, the La Belle
model is a process model rather than an explanatory model and as
such is of greater value in program development.
You may recall that Kuhn's thesis (1970) was that on occasion a crisis
occurs in the scientific community that creates a revolutionary new
paradigm that is discontinuous with the old paradigm, still answers
previously unanswerable questions, and yet satisfactorily answers the
old ones. In his essay, "Pradigmatic Processes in Culture Change,"
Wallace (1972) recast Kuhn's paradigm to include the following salient
features:
1. Innovation (of a new paradigm) entails conflict with an older one
that it must replace; solves a limited problem but does so in such
a way that opens up a new line of development and has symbolic
and charismatic qualities often associated with a culture hero.
2. ParadigmaticCore Development is the continuous elaboration of
ideas that constitute the paradigm. Individuals make contributions to the paradigm by resolving internal ambiguities and contradictions and by demonstrating its utility in solving newly discovered problems. Paradigmatic core development is notoriously
difficult to censor, suppress, or destroy by economic, religious,
or political pressures.
3. Exploitationis the recognition and embracing of the paradigm, at
some stage in its evolution, by an economic, military, religious,
or political organization other than the paradigmatic community,
which sees in its application an opportunity for the protection or
advancement of its own interests.
4. FunctionalConsequencesare the new specific problems that the exploitation of the core development process creates for the society,
and the way in which the society responds, at first by expedients,
and eventually by culture change.
5. Rationalizationis the ethical, philosophical, religious, and political
justifications that the community members offer for their participation in the core development process, such as "it will lead to
a better world."
Wallace's adaptation of the Kuhn paradigmatic scheme is capable of
dealing with efforts to implement innovations over a long period of
time. Both exploitation and functional consequences occur concurrently with paradigmatic core development; rationalization occurs
across all the model categories.

Chilcott

243

Educationin Developing Countries

Hutchens elaborated the Kuhn-Wallace model into a parallel pairs

model. This elaboration provided a relational model rather than a linear model and added a comparative dimension. This type of model is
useful since it is possible to expand the number of categories on one
axis and therefore increase the clarification of variables found on the
other axis. For example, using a functionalist perspective, he placed
the following categories along the horizontal axis: focus, reinforcement, administration, refinement, and ideology.
Focus functions to maintain a clear perception of precisely what is to
be accomplished by the innovation, and this prevents the change from
becoming diffuse and/or unattainable. For an innovation to take root
requires both reinforcement and refinement. Administration (exploitation) is often accomplished through legislation. Refinementis accomplished through functional consequences that provide adaptations in
the program when the program is not accomplishing a task. It involves
the elaboration of the innovation by paradigmatic core development.
The rationalization (ideology) for the innovation requires continual
support for a curriculum that is systematically oriented toward "correct thinking."
Using this model, the ethnographer/evaluator can gather data from
a number of public arenas, such as the political arena, schooling, entertainment, or workplace, to place in the model's framework. Hutchens also examined educational means such as the media, social relations, formal curriculum, legislation, and mass organizations for data
to place in the model.
To illustrate how this model is utilized, let us take a literacy program
and run it through the model, using as our public arena the political
scene in a developing nation. It can be assumed that the government
or the governmental agency would use the mass media as a means of
introducing the program to the general public. By examining the content of the message in the mass media, one can determine the aim or
focus of the literacy program, the name of a powerful person or perMoralCategories
Innovation
Paradigmatic
Core
Development
Exploitation.
Functional
Consequences
?
Rationalization

EducationalFunctions
Focus Reinforcement
Administration Refinement Ideology
Mass

Media

Mass
Organizations
Legislation
Social
Relations
Formal
Curriculum
Figure1
Hutchens'sEducationModel.

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sons who are playing an advocacy role, the symbolic nature of the program, and the issues that have arisen as a conflict with the former cultural practice-in this case, the oral tradition.
By examining the activities of those mass organizations that may be
encouraging or participating in the development of the literacy program (i.e., a teacher's union, political party, or church organization),
one can determine the manner in which the program is being refined
and/or reinforced as the program is used.
By examining the legislation that is passed to administer and legalize the program, one can determine the source of power for the program. Why make people literate? Is it so they can read army regulations and thus become good soldiers? Or to read the propaganda of a
new political order? (Socialist revolutions are often accompanied by
literacy programs so that the people can read newspapers and pamphlets, and thus learn the philosophy of a new cultural hero.)
By examining the social dynamics of the program over time one can
determine how the outcomes of the program are affecting the continuation of the program and how the program and its ideals are altered
to accommodate unanticipated effects on the program. One can also
determine in what social dynamics the program is not refined and as
a consequence subject to failure.
Finally, by examining the content of the program in the formal curriculum one can determine the rationalization for the program. Who
teaches? What is the content of the written materials? What do the
teachers say about the materials? How does the teacher motivate the
student to become literate? Is literacy desirable to free oneself from ignorance, or is it a means of gaining control over those who are not
literate?
One can readily see that the evaluation process in the Hutchens
model can be continuous rather than after the fact and, as such, rescue
an educational program that may be failing because of lack of understanding of cultural processes that are occurring in conjunction with
the program.
When the Hutchens model is compared with traditional culture
change theory as applied to education,2 it appears to include most of
the variables considered in a structural-functional approach to change.
Although it does not label the three processes of culture change (innovation, dissemination, and acceptance), they are included in the
model. The model also addresses other factors, such as the prestige of
the advocate, the dependence on authority, and legitimization.
The Hutchens model is utopic in that it focuses on the act of acceptance. It does not appear to provide any way to analyze the climate for
change, whether the advocate is aware of the values, content, and organization of the target population, the expectation for change within
the target population, and the scale of the change. These factors need
to be included in order to develop more of a pragmatic model. It might

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Educationin DevelopingCountries

245

be argued, however, that most education programs are utopic in nature and therefore not amenable to a pragmatic model. For purposes
of training change agents in education, however, it would seem that
the pragmatic model would be imperative.
It would appear from a review of the literature in anthropology and
education that most models for education in developing nations are
explanatory models rather than process models and, as such, have little value in developing, maintaining, and evaluating educational programs for development. The Hutchens model critiqued in this article
does demonstrate promise for analyzing educational programs at the
macroscopic level. At the community or microscopic level, however,
more traditional culture change variables need to be researched in order to scale the educational innovation to the appropriate target population.
Notes
1. This articlewas originallya paper presented at the Congreso International
de la Sociedadde AntropologiaAplicada,12-18 April1987,in Oaxaca,Mexico.
2. See, for example, Gallaher(1979).
References Cited
Gallaher,Art
1979 Directed Change in Formal Organizations:The School System. In
Anthropologyand EducationalAdministration.Ray Barhardt, John H.
Chilcott,and HarryF. Wolcott, eds. Pp. 289-304. Tucson:ImpresoraSahuaro.
Hutchens, Rex R.
1984 Women in Cuba:Educationand Directed Culture Change. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation,University of Arizona.
Kuhn, ThomasS.
1970 The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Second edition. Chicago:
Universityof ChicagoPress.
LaBelle, ThomasJ.
1984 Liberation,Development, and RuralNonformal Education.Anthropology & EducationQuarterly15(1):80-93.
Wallace,Anthony F. C.
1972 ParadigmaticProcesses in Culture Change. American Anthropologist 74(3):467-478.
1979 Schools in Revolutionaryand ConservativeSocieties. In Anthropology and EducationalAdministration. Ray Barhardt, John H. Chilcott,
and HarryF. Wolcott, eds. Pp. 237-266. Tucson:ImpresoraSahuaro.
Wax, MurrayL., and RosalieH. Wax
1971 GreatTradition,Little Tradition,and FormalEducation.In Anthropological Perspectiveson Education.MurrayL. Wax, Stanley Diamond,
and FredO. Gearing, eds. Pp. 3-18. New York:BasicBooks.