Development Education and
Higher Education: Pedagogy for
Global Social Justice
Douglas Bourn,
Development Education Research Centre,
Institute of Education
Aims of the Paper
• Reflect on relationship between development
education and internationalisation
• Recognise linkages to global citizenship, global
perspectives
• Identify influences of critical pedagogy,
postcolonialism, transformative learning
• Pose relationship to practice and value of
partnerships with NGOs.
What do we mean by development
education?
• Approach to learning about global and
development issues that recognises
interconnectedness of people’s lives
• Challenges assumptions about how people
perceive the Global South
• Promotes critical thinking
• Develop skills and confidence to support change
towards a more just and sustainable world.
(DERC promotional leaflet)
Variations on this
• Active learning process- founded on values of
solidarity, equality, inclusion and co-operation
• Moves from awareness to understanding and
informed actions
(www.deeep.org)
Perspectives from the South
• Development education discourses predominantly
Northern discourse
• But term used in Southern Africa with regard to
promotion of indigenous knowledges within
education (Odora Hoppers)
• In South Asia with regard to dialogical education
and influence of Gandhi (Kumar)
• In Latin America in relation to popular education
and influence of Freire.
Linkages to other concepts
• Global Education - umbrella term for adjectival
educations and universalist view of more values
based education
• Global Learning - education in response to
globalised world
• Global Citizenship Education - personal social
responsbility and action for better world.
Development Education and Higher
Education in the UK
• Building on practices in schools and other
sectors of education
• Global Perspectives in Education (DEA2003,2006,2008)
• Initiatives at Bournemouth, Leeds Met,
Leicester.
• Curriculum connections - health, engineering,
teacher education.
Assumptions about DE and HE
• Body of practice that has considerable expertise
in enabling the learner to make connections
between global and development issues and
their own experiences and enthusiasms.
• Participatory Methodologies
• Critical thinking and dialogue
• Learning for global social justice and global
responsibility
Where has DE come from
• Desire from NGOs and policy-makers for
support for development
• Move in 1980s onwards to more radical, critical
approach
• But been primarily funding led
• Lack of relative autonomy as a body of practice
or independent discourse
Why is it so marginal in HE
• Consequential lack of theory - few academics
engaged in this area
• Seen as about NGO led-practice even in higher
education.
More than learning about
development
• Not development studies
• More than an optional module on development
• Includes but more than just international
experience
How DE has influenced HE debates
• Concepts such as Global Perspectives, Global
Citizenship
• Making connections between learning inside a
university and personal experience and social
action.
• Bringing in viewpoints and perspectives outside
of academia
• Having a global outlook - value of different
perspectives and voices.
• Impact of learning in societal change
Towards a Pedagogy for Global Social
Justice
• Promotion of the interdependent and
interconnected nature of our lives.
• Ensuring voices and perspectives of Global
South are promoted, understood and reflected
within learning spaces.
• Values based approach with an emphasis on
social justice and equity
• Linkages between learning, sense of moral
outrage and desire for action for change.
Key Influences
• Freire
• Critical Pedagogy (Giroux)
• Transformative Learning (Mezirow)
• Postcolonialism (Said, Spivak, Andreotti)
• Globalisation and Identity Theories (Beck,
Baumann)
Implications for Debates in HE
• From Internationalisation to Global Perspectives
• Role of Critical Pedagogy
• Different ways of seeing your subject- how it is
taught and content
• Relevance to the wider world
• Values base
Global Dimensions Curriculum in HE
•
•
•
•
•
Engineering
Health
Travel and Tourism
Archaeology
Teacher Education
Global Engineer
• Interdisciplinary - making connections outside
of main field to social sciences
• Recognising different perspectives, cultural
interpretations
• Role needs to include understanding the
problem as well as here to solve it
• Social responsibility
Conclusion
• Recognition of contribution of development
education to the debates
• Still under-theorised
• Relationship to curriculum and practice
• Role of NGOs
• Global Vision and Perspective
Issues to Discuss
• Cross-fertilisation of learning across disciplines?
• Valuing ‘other’ perspectives
• Differing perspectives versus global perspective
• Role in terms of social responsibility
• Differentiation between disciplines/subjects
Thanks
• d.bourn@ioe.ac.uk