Language and Power. The Implications of Language for Peace and Development: The Implications of Language for Peace and Development

Discoursing E-Value-ation: The Values Dimension

- 242 DISCOURSING E-VALUE-ATION: THE VALUES DIMENSION By Roger Avenstrup Introduction This article compares the inclusion of a values dimension in two apparently very different types of donor-funded evaluation: a classroom impact study of the first Palestinian national curriculum (Avenstrup, Swarts, Abu Humos 2004) which was an evaluation of donor support to the development of the curriculum; and an evaluation of the international programmes of the Pestalozzi Children’s Foundation, Switzerland (Avenstrup 2008). This article explores how the problems of reconciling curriculum evaluation, curriculum politics and project cycle management on the one hand, and reconciling development NGO idealism and project cycle management on the other, connect at a deeper level of discourse once one moves to the level of evaluating the values dimension. Trends of Curriculum Discourse There are two main, but not always mutually exclusive, trends of curriculum discourse. The one who engages in a discourse of social values e.g. Dewey 1916, Bernstein 1971, Stenhouse 1975, Eisner 1979, Goodson 1988 and the sociology of education debates. The other is more individualist and technicist-oriented (e.g. Tyler, 1950; Bloom, 1956; Skinner, 1968) and the “standards” movement, and this has come to dominate the discourse of curriculum evaluation through the globalization of the “standards” movement. Curricula are evaluated first and foremost in terms of measurable learner achievement, particularly in language, mathematics and natural sciences. Highly questionable comparisons between countries have mushroomed through the Globalization of international testing, such as SACMEQ, TIMMS, PISA, and the like (Hopmann et al 2007). There is an absence of discourse about values, but this does not mean that this approach is value-less. Values are implicit in what is measured and compared or not, how it is measured, why it is measured, and what political agendas such measurements and comparisons can serve. However, it is not an open discourse on the part of the perpetrators or political exploiters of such testing and comparisons. - 243 Curricula have multiple dimensions, not just the measurable and quantifiable, including values. National curricula are intended to have a powerful steering effect on the whole educational system. The processes by which this is achieved are valueloaded through consensus, compromise and coercion and have to balance internal pressures from within the country, and external pressures from the region or even beyond (Archer 1984, 1985). Which values are promoted in reality emerge in the space between the official and the hidden curriculum and the space between the intended and appropriated curriculum. The Development of National Curricula in Africa In Africa, the development of national curricula has been fundamental to creating national identity and values, and yet no country has succeeded in developing a curriculum based on African epistemology and identity (Avenstrup (ed.) 1997, Breidlid, 2002).68 Colonialisation of the mind in the continuing reproduction of a colonially shaped indigenous elite through structural, economic, curricular and examination mechanisms has been too strong. Dependency on donor and lending agencies to shore up education budgets has given undue influence to the donors concerned including in curriculum development (Brock-Utne 1994, 2000). It is in donor support to curriculum development that the evaluation of curricula merges with evaluation according to project cycle management and a logical framework. The discourse is one of objectives, results, effectiveness, efficiency, measurable indicators, outputs and outcomes. Quality and relevance are included, but only in terms of project management, not to explore the vagaries of the qualities and relevance of education. The USA and Europe tend to have more parochial curricula in terms of language and culture, although through mutual comparison they have been more openly affected by the international standards movement leading to reforms. One can question what is meant by the term “international”: whose standards become “international”, and in which areas of learning? African curricula have not been developed so much by comparison with each other, but steered by the backwash effect of examinations cosmetically adapted from the former colonial systems. There is a widespread concern amongst curriculum developers as well as many other educators that what is measured through tests, examinations, and national and international achievement tests is a very narrow range of the whole intended curriculum. Values and attitudes are at the deeper level of impact, and seldom evaluated because of the limitations of testing. 68 See also Breidlid’s article in this volume. - 244 Evaluation of the Support to the Development and Implementation of...