Constructing Education for Development

Constructing Education for Development analyzes the role of discourse, organizations, professionalism, and conferences in shaping education for development since World War II. Using the directories and databases of international organizations, proceedings of international conferences, and interviews with more than forty development professionals, this book explores historical trends in development discourse and how these trends are reflected in education policies and projects in less industrialized countries. One key trend, Colette Chabbott argues, is the shift toward individuals -- and away from national economies -- as the main objects of development. In the first two decades after World War II, development planners looked to investment in industry and heavy infrastructure as the primary engine of growth, assuming individual growth would naturally follow. As economic growth proved disappointingly slow in these early decades -- or population growth outstripped economic gains -- emerging professionals in development organizations looked for new ways to define development in terms of individual welfare. In this evolving discourse, education -- previously just one of several strategies to achieve national economic growth -- became central to individual or human development. According to Chabbott, the Education for All Conference (1990) exemplifies this recent emphasis on individual development. Chabbott's perspective on the conference -- and its redefinition of the roles of nation-states and international organizations -- sheds new light on comparative education and development policies. Constructing Education for Development offers a detailed look at the institutions responsible for development, and charts the changing ways in which they organize social life. Book jacket.