This study analyzes the literature syllabi of Cambridge Assessment International Education (CAIE), a highly influential international education organization that determines curricula and conducts examinations for nearly one million students annually. Although CAIE describes its syllabi as internationalized and free from cultural bias and discrimination, little research has been conducted to confirm or reject these claims. Using a framework of postcolonial feminism and postdevelopment theory, this study analyzes author representation in CAIE literature syllabi to reveal potential colonial and patriarchal dimensions. We analyze the six CAIE literature syllabi in terms of author nationality, world region, and gender. The results indicate a clear bias in favor of European male authors and a consistent underrepresentation of women authors from the Global South. Authors of the MENA region are entirely excluded from the syllabi. Women authors from Latin America are also almost entirely absent. The study concludes that CAIE literature syllabi are not sufficiently international or multicultural, but instead reflects the continued legacy of colonial relations between British education and the Global South. Since the colonial era, CAIE has continued to enact banking education at a global scale by conceiving of the Global South as lacking in literature worthy of study. In order to begin to decolonize their literature syllabi, we suggest that CAIE should draw from diverse literature throughout World Englishes, especially literature written by women authors in the Global South.
This study examines Cambridge Assessment International Education (CAIE) as a global assemblage that instrumentalizes colonial governmentality. CAIE is a department of the University of Cambridge that has governed schools in British colonies and former colonies since the mid-19th century. These schools constitute a Cambridge School system with approximately 1 million students around the world who take Cambridge examinations. CAIE invisibilizes its thousands of schools in the global South by enclosing them within privatized discursive spaces it terms “Cambridge School Communities.” CAIE simultaneously assembles and visibilizes an ecology of expertise by connecting a global array of researchers, consultants, businesses, organizations, publication outlets, and conferences. Rather than taking an interest in the “low-performing jurisdictions” of Africa, Latin America, and South Asia, CAIE’s ecology of expertise positions British educational culture in relation to a pre-modern “East.” CAIE explains the East’s high performance in international comparative assessments with stereotypes in order to reassert the superiority of British-led international education. These technologies of colonial governmentality altogether enable CAIE’s global extraction of epistemic authority.
Participatory action research (PAR) is increasingly common in the social sciences, but an analysis of its origins suggests that it has detached from its radical roots. Cowards Don't Make History examines the history of PAR through a study of Orlando Fals Borda's research collective, La Rosca de Investigación y Acción Social. Rappaport details the group's collaboration with Indigenous organizations that sought to rectify slow-paced agrarian reform in Córdoba, Colombia during the 1970s. Guided by a Marxist ideal of reinterpreting history according to class interests, the collective helped produce educational materials that included graphic novels, workshop manuals, historical texts, film strips, and radio shows. These materials were disseminated throughout communities and became tools for political organization. Drawing on meticulous archival research, Rappaport recaptures the experiences and research processes that made this early attempt at PAR so remarkable.Córdoba, Colombia is lush with vegetation, coastal mangroves, and swamps. Fals Borda noted that early peasant settlers adopted an "amphibious" relationship with their surroundings, leveraging resources from both water and land to build strong agricultural systems. In the early 20th century, the land was governed by the matrícula, a system of debt-peonage that confined peasant sharecroppers to haciendas. Although the community resisted elements of the matrícula, it struggled to fully transform its oppressive structures. La Rosca believed integrating popular knowledge, scholarly research, and political action could uncover Córdoba's past histories of popular struggle and re-signify them through activism.Rappaport organizes her analysis around three guiding concepts of La Rosca's PAR: participation, critical recovery, and systemic devolution. Each of these was imperative to the development of educational materials. Graphic novels, which used peasant testimonies to unearth Córdoba's social histories and motivate political organization, are pivotal to Rappaport's analysis. Peasant participation was crucial to the initial collection of the novels' storylines and their subsequent illustrations. Moreover, the graphic novels critically recovered values from communal histories to help energize the peasant psyche. One example of this can be found in Tinajones (1973), which told the story of the 40-year tension between large landowners and peasants along the Sinú River. Central to this story was the "amphibious" approach used by peasant settlers to construct raised fields in coastal mangroves for rice cultivation. Rappaport argues that the novel's focus on past ingenuity successfully fomented pride and recovered historical consciousness among peasants. All four graphic novels promulgated important political themes, and systemic devolution brought them full circle through the distribution of the novels to the broader community.One major strength of this book is that it both praises and critiques Fals Borda's work. Rappaport rightfully commends the unique accomplishments a...
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
customersupport@researchsolutions.com
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.