Contextual learning: education through inter-cultural dialogue of elite and indigenous-indigent

Universal access to education has been an urgent concern since the establishment of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals or MDG. While aiming at ‘Education for All’, the MDG did not specify what kind of education nor how that education would be delivered. Besides the emphasis on access,...

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Main Author: Ibhakewanlan, John-Okoria
Format: Thesis (University of Nottingham only)
Language:English
Published: 2015
Subjects:
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/30614/
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author Ibhakewanlan, John-Okoria
author_facet Ibhakewanlan, John-Okoria
author_sort Ibhakewanlan, John-Okoria
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description Universal access to education has been an urgent concern since the establishment of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals or MDG. While aiming at ‘Education for All’, the MDG did not specify what kind of education nor how that education would be delivered. Besides the emphasis on access, apparent in the various attempts to ensure provision of education for the world’s poor, there has been also focus on material resources -especially a reliance on foreign aid. This author argues that what is needed in the long-term is a localized or Culturally Responsive approach that includes a consideration of the question of justice–particularly the issue of socio-economic inequality. The study evaluates some historical attempts towards Cultural Responsiveness (CR) in education, highlighting the efforts to filter curriculum content and teaching strategies through students’ cultural frames of reference. It eventually questions this curriculum-centred approach. Should CR not rather address the problem of elitism inherited via colonial education? The elite and the indigent, the study suggests, have become of different cultures. Hence part of the task of CR in education needs to be conceptualised as an elite-indigent dialogue. The CR dialogue is indeed of culture but must be framed in the context of justice, presented in terms of the author’s religious worldview, which includes eco-justice. To gather data on an elite-indigent interaction, the study adopts a decolonized methodology, as well as a qualitative approach employing unstructured interviews and open-ended questionnaires. Based on an interpretive case study of the relationship between an elite school in Africa and its indigenous-indigent host community, the study explores an alternative CR approach through the philosophical lens of Constructivism and the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm (IPP). The result is a three-fold learning hypothesis termed Costheanthropic Learning.
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spelling nottingham-306142025-02-28T13:21:36Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/30614/ Contextual learning: education through inter-cultural dialogue of elite and indigenous-indigent Ibhakewanlan, John-Okoria Universal access to education has been an urgent concern since the establishment of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals or MDG. While aiming at ‘Education for All’, the MDG did not specify what kind of education nor how that education would be delivered. Besides the emphasis on access, apparent in the various attempts to ensure provision of education for the world’s poor, there has been also focus on material resources -especially a reliance on foreign aid. This author argues that what is needed in the long-term is a localized or Culturally Responsive approach that includes a consideration of the question of justice–particularly the issue of socio-economic inequality. The study evaluates some historical attempts towards Cultural Responsiveness (CR) in education, highlighting the efforts to filter curriculum content and teaching strategies through students’ cultural frames of reference. It eventually questions this curriculum-centred approach. Should CR not rather address the problem of elitism inherited via colonial education? The elite and the indigent, the study suggests, have become of different cultures. Hence part of the task of CR in education needs to be conceptualised as an elite-indigent dialogue. The CR dialogue is indeed of culture but must be framed in the context of justice, presented in terms of the author’s religious worldview, which includes eco-justice. To gather data on an elite-indigent interaction, the study adopts a decolonized methodology, as well as a qualitative approach employing unstructured interviews and open-ended questionnaires. Based on an interpretive case study of the relationship between an elite school in Africa and its indigenous-indigent host community, the study explores an alternative CR approach through the philosophical lens of Constructivism and the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm (IPP). The result is a three-fold learning hypothesis termed Costheanthropic Learning. 2015-12-08 Thesis (University of Nottingham only) NonPeerReviewed application/pdf en arr https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/30614/1/Final%20Thesis%20After%20Viva.pdf Ibhakewanlan, John-Okoria (2015) Contextual learning: education through inter-cultural dialogue of elite and indigenous-indigent. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham. Elite (Social sciences) schools education social aspects Africa Sub-Saharan
spellingShingle Elite (Social sciences)
schools
education
social aspects
Africa
Sub-Saharan
Ibhakewanlan, John-Okoria
Contextual learning: education through inter-cultural dialogue of elite and indigenous-indigent
title Contextual learning: education through inter-cultural dialogue of elite and indigenous-indigent
title_full Contextual learning: education through inter-cultural dialogue of elite and indigenous-indigent
title_fullStr Contextual learning: education through inter-cultural dialogue of elite and indigenous-indigent
title_full_unstemmed Contextual learning: education through inter-cultural dialogue of elite and indigenous-indigent
title_short Contextual learning: education through inter-cultural dialogue of elite and indigenous-indigent
title_sort contextual learning: education through inter-cultural dialogue of elite and indigenous-indigent
topic Elite (Social sciences)
schools
education
social aspects
Africa
Sub-Saharan
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/30614/