National University of Ireland, Galway
Seminars: “Dialogues across Disciplines”
A cross-disciplinary learning within NUIG
______________________________________________
The Historical Evolution of Development Education
(with an Application of the Gestalt Theory)
Development Education & Research Network – DERN
http://www.nuigalway.ie/dern/
Felipe Revollo Ph.D. M.Sc.
(feliperevollo@yahoo.es)
This seminar presents an analysis of the way in which the formulation and
transformation of the concept, theory and practice related to Development Education
have been closely associated with a series of circumstances and historical events that
occurred worldwide in the last 40 years.
The seminar will draw particular attention to international factors such as the end of
the Second World War, the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall which have left a
deep footprint in many symbolic and semantic definitions and priorities of the
international agenda and the way in which ‘development’ and therefore ‘development
education’ is understood.
_____________________________________________________________________
What is Development Education?
Some definitions…
- Development education aims to deepen understanding of global poverty and
encourage people towards action for a more just and equal world.
Irish Aid, Development Education Strategy Plan 2007–2011
- Human rights education includes both conveying ideas and information concerning
human rights, and nurturing the values and attitudes that lead to the support of those
rights.
Amnesty International
- Development education is a term used in ‘First World’ countries (which is referred
to as ‘the North’) to refer to education about the ‘Third World’ (which is referred to as
‘the South) and ‘North-South’ relations and interdependence.
Open Spaces for Dialogue and Enquiry (OSDE)
- Development education means learning about how people are improving their
quality of life, in Britain and other countries. It also means taking action - to develop
your own community and support other people doing the same in their own countries.
Oxford Development Education Centre (ODEC)
- In a modern society, a good education not only includes learning the usual school
subjects, but also an increased awareness of the basic rules of citizenship.
Citizenship and civic education show important deficits among the population of
emerging or consolidating democracies.
The Inter-American Development Bank (IDB)
-
The aim of Development Education and Awareness Raising is to enable every
person in Europe to have life-long access to opportunities to be aware of and to
understand global development concerns and the local and personal relevance of those
concerns, and to enact their rights and responsibilities as inhabitants of an
interdependent and changing world by affecting change for a just and sustainable
world.
The European Consensus on Development
The Historical Evolution of Development Education
(with an Application of the Gestalt Theory)
Development Education & Research Network - DERN
Carlos Felipe Revollo Fernández Ph.D. M.Sc.
(feliperevollo@yahoo.es)
I. What is Development Education (ED)?
A wide range of ideas about what is meant by DE have been generated, articulated
and modified over the years, but in general terms it could be said that DE
“…describes a wide range of formal and non-formal education activities, including
environmental, peace, human rights and multicultural education and there is some
resistance to attempts to label and ‘discipline’ development education (Bourn, 2003).
Some assert that development education has a distinct and unifying values base that
emphasizes justice and cooperation (Bourn, 2003, p.3). Some contend that
development education represents ‘a distinctive and radical model of learning…[It]
encompasses an active, participative approach to learning that is intended to effect
action toward social change’ (McCloskey, 2003, p.179)”1.
II. Historic Transformation of the DE Concept
This seminar takes as a frame of reference and historical analysis a model of five
conceptual generations observed in relation to the term ‘development’ that during
recent decades significantly influenced the different directions of the term
‘development education’.
It is important to mention that this model, built on the observations and experiences
gained initially by David Korten in the 80’s and later complemented by scholars such
as María Luz Ortega2 (1994), Ignasi Senillosa3 (1998) and Manuela Mesa4 (2005)
about the historical relations among international aid and many developing countries,
should not be seen only in a linear and unidirectional sense of one ‘development’
generation replacing another, but primarily as “a cumulative process in which the
development education discourse and its practice have developed in an uneven
manner, insofar that the activities of any given generation can simultaneously be
found in characteristics of different generations”5.
1 KHOO, Su-ming: “Development education, citizenship and civic engagement at third level and beyond in the
Republic of Ireland”. National University of Ireland, Galway. p.2.
2 ORTEGA, María Luz: “Las ONGD y la Crisis del Desarrollo”. IEPALA/ETEA, Madrid 1994.
3 SENILLOSA, Ignasi: “A new age of social movements: a fifth generation of non- governmental development
organizations in the making?”. Development in Practice, Vol. 8 (1), pp. 40-53. 1998.
4 MESA PEINADO, Manuela: “Antecedentes y Contexto de la Educacion para el Desarrollo”, La educación para
el desarrollo en la Comunidad de Madrid. Tendencias y estrategias para el siglo XXI: Informe a la Dirección
General de Cooperación y Voluntariado de la Comunidad de Madrid. Madrid 2000.
Manuela Mesa is director of Centre of Education and Peace Research (CEIPAZ), an independent research centre
based in Madrid- Spain, and editor of the Annual Yearbook on Global Trends in the International System. She is a
visiting fellow at The Australian Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (ACPACS) at the University of
Queensland.
5 MESA PEINADO, Manuela: “La Educación para el Desarrollo: entre la Caridad y la Ciudadanía Global”, p.2.
Madrid 2005. Available:
http://www.educacionenvalores.org/article.php3?id_article=41
The model of five conceptual generations of DE:
First
Generation
A
Charitable
and
Assistancebased
Approach
Second
Generation
The
Development
Approach
40’s and 50’s
Third
Generation
A
Critical
and
Solidaritybased
Developme
nt
Education
60’s
End of the 60’s
and 70’s
Fourth
Generation
A
Human
and
Sustainable
Development
Education
80’s and part of
the 90’s
Fifth
Generation
Global
Citizenship
Education
Middle of the
90’s
III. Interdependencies
The five conceptual generations of DE are not static or have simply remained frozen
in or limited to different historical times. On the contrary, each one of them have
reappeared, have been combined with each other and are constantly affected with the
most diverse circumstances and contexts.
Each generation has greatly contributed to enrich the nature of DE, enhance dialogue
and debate on the public agenda and define new priorities and ways of understanding
‘development’. The inclusion and correlation of a series of new parameters and terms
have simultaneously allowed approaching, understanding and being more aware of the
complex global reality and its interdependencies.
Although the word ‘interdependence’ in a general sense is understood as a state of
reciprocal relation between entities (objects or individuals or groups) whose actions
mutually affect each other and the nature of all their context, DE invites us to reflect
more deeply and constantly about its nature and how those links are built. It invites us
to engage with the following questions: “What sort of linking goes into linking? How
much thinking really does go into linking? Do we do enough thinking about linking?
Do we really think before we link?”6
IV. Interdependencies and Gestalt Theory
The five conceptual generations of DE which use different terms to refer to,
understand, describe and apply the concept ‘development’, may simultaneously reflect
European scientific tradition deeply rooted in Western mentality and the ways in
which we perceptually organize and represent reality as e.g. outlined in the Gestalt
theory.
6 BURR, Margaret: “Thinking about linking?”. DEA Thinkpiece. Available: wwwdea.org.uk
As Max Wertheimer, one of the founders of Gestalt Theory (along with Kurt Koffka
and Wolfgang Köhler) stated “...it has long seemed obvious - and is, in fact, the
characteristic tone of European science - that ‘science’ means breaking up complexes
into their component elements. Isolate the elements, discover their laws, then
reassemble them, and the problem is solved”7.
In this regard, the belief that reducing the wholes to small pieces is simple enough to
understand the structures of society in all their entirety from the perspective of
different super specialized fields of study has led to the increasingly methodological
problem of ignoring or devaluing the importance of their interrelationships and
natures in the widest sense.
The term “Gestalt” which is originally a German word for ‘form’ or ‘shape’ and
which does not directly translate into English, is conventionally used to refer to a
concept of ‘wholeness’. It refers to “how something has been gestellt; that is placed or
put together”8.
The Gestalt Theory was introduced at the beginning of the last century by the Berlin
School of Experimental Psychology, but inspired by the holistic vision of the Austrian
philosopher Christian von Ehrenfels and his famous literary work “Über
Gestaltqualitäten” (“On the Qualities of Form”, 1890).
Gestalt Theory which was originally developed to help to explain the holistic
characteristics of perception and conceptual organization of the world and its
phenomenon undoubtedly offers an interesting theoretical and referential framework
different to the one observed in the traditional and atomized educational practices
focused on piecewise thinking.
V. Conclusion
The five generations or ‘faces’ of DE mentioned above help to identify the different
perspectives or ‘frames’ for looking at development.
Historical events have strongly influenced the way in which we understand and define
development and development education. However it is the perceptions of different
governmental institutions and NGOs of these events, and how these have been
analyzed and systematized in the public agenda during the last four decades that have
left a deeper semantic imprint.
While each generation represents a specific and partial vision of society and
‘development’ through different issues (human rights, gender, environment,
sustainability, etc.), the study of the interrelationship between various generational
perspectives constitutes an urgent priority to allow a more holistic, comprehensive
and structural understanding of the complex global reality.
In this regard, the emergence of a kind of sixth generation will become more evident
when DE is acknowledged as an interactive space to promote links, dialogue and
reconciliation among the various disciplines, traditions and practitioners of
‘development’.
The study of interdependencies will facilitate a more holistic view or interpretation of
the complex global reality and society. Such study will help to ‘put’ together the
various pieces of the wider social puzzle, as well as reduce the presence of ‘gaps’ or
‘dead spaces’ between different forms of knowledge.
WERTHEIMER, Max: “Gestalt Theory” (an address before the Kant Society, p.1, Berlin, 7th December, 1924),
Erlangen, 1925. In the translation by ELLIS, Willis D.: “Source Book of Gestalt Psychology”, Harcourt, Brace and
Co. New York 1938. Reprinted by the Gestalt Journal Press, New York 1997.
8 ENCYCLOPEDIA BRITANNICA: “Pedagogy”, 1999. Available: http://www.britannica.com
7
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de Cooperación y Voluntariado de la Comunidad de Madrid. Madrid 2000.
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Madrid 2005. Available:
http://www.educacionenvalores.org/article.php3?id_article=41
ORTEGA, María Luz: “Las ONGD y la Crisis del Desarrollo”. IEPALA/ETEA, Madrid 1994.
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