The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries - GUTHRIE, Gerard

The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing
Countries
Gerard Guthrie
The Progressive Education

Fallacy in Developing
Countries
In Favour of Formalism
Gerard Guthrie
Guthrie Development
Consultancy Pty Ltd
12 Woodlawn Drive
Budgewoi, NSW 2262
Australia
gerardguthrie@hotmail.com
ISBN 978-94-007-1850-0 e-ISBN 978-94-007-1851-7

DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-1851-7
Springer New York Dordrecht Heidelberg London
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DEDICATION
My high school’s motto was “receive the light and pass it on”. One of my teach-
ers, Bonk Scotney, saw fit to write on a school report that I was better at passing
the light on than receiving it. Many of the following teachers and colleagues
would have agreed, but they do have my grateful appreciation for their contribu-
tions to the intellectual journey that lies behind this book. My particular thanks are
due to Keith Buchanan, Bill Hall, Harvey Franklin, Gilbert Butland, Colin Tatz,
Sharon Field, Sheldon Weeks, Cyril Rogers, C.E. Beeby, Max Maddock and Goru
Hane-Nou. Thanks are also due to John Evans for his excellent editorial work.
The book is dedicated with gratitude to my mother, Moo, and father, Harry.
v
CONTENTS
FOREWORD ......................................................................................................... xi
References........................................................................................................xiv
PREFACE ..............................................................................................................xv
References.......................................................................................................xxix
Educational Bibliography ................................................................................xxx
SECTION 1 OLD CONJECTURES.............................................................. 1
CHAPTER 1 THE PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION FALLACY ................. 3

1.1 Progressive Influences .......................................................................... 5
1.2 Theoretical and Methodological Objections to Stages ......................... 9
1.3 Practical Objections to Progressive Reforms...................................... 12
1.4 Cultural Context and Formalistic Classrooms .................................... 13
1.5 Country Studies of Formalism ............................................................ 15
1.6 Conclusion........................................................................................... 17
References......................................................................................................... 18
CHAPTER 2 FORMALISM IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES ............... 21

2.1 Beeby’s Stages of Educational Development ..................................... 22
2.2 Initial Acceptance................................................................................ 25
2.3 Subsequent Use of the Stages ............................................................. 28
2.4 Findings about Formalism .................................................................. 30
2.5 Political Bias ....................................................................................... 36
2.6 Conclusion........................................................................................... 38
References......................................................................................................... 38
CHAPTER 3 STAGES OF EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT? ........... 43

3.1 Stages Methodology............................................................................ 44
3.2 Principles of Refutation ...................................................................... 49
3.3 Justification of Objectives................................................................... 51
3.4 Cultural Paradigms.............................................................................. 54
3.5 Conclusion........................................................................................... 58
References......................................................................................................... 58
vii
CHAPTER 4 TEACHER RESISTANCE TO CHANGE ........................... 61
4.1 Teachers’ Constructs........................................................................... 62
4.2 Types of Innovator .............................................................................. 65
4.3 Systemic Barriers to Change............................................................... 67
4.4 Conclusion........................................................................................... 74
References......................................................................................................... 74
CHAPTER 5 CLASSROOM TEACHING AND

SCHOOL EFFECTIVENESS 77
5.1 First Generation Literature Reviews ................................................... 78
5.2 Teaching Styles and Student Achievement......................................... 82
5.3 Classroom Processes and Cultural Context ........................................ 86
5.4 Data Collection Issues......................................................................... 90
5.5 Methodological Overview................................................................... 92
5.6 Conclusion........................................................................................... 97
References......................................................................................................... 98
SECTION 2 REFUTATIONS .................................................................... 103
CHAPTER 6 FORMALISTIC SCHOOLING SYSTEM IN

PAPUA NEW GUINEA.............................................................................. 105
6.1 Teacher Education Hypotheses......................................................... 106
6.2 Secondary Teacher Training ............................................................. 110
6.3 Secondary Inspection System ........................................................... 116
6.4 Practical Theory of Formalism ......................................................... 119
6.5 Conclusion......................................................................................... 123
References....................................................................................................... 124
CHAPTER 7 FAILURE OF PROGRESSIVE REFORMS IN PNG....... 127

7.1 Beeby’s Progressive Influence.......................................................... 128
7.2 Earlier Curriculum Failures .............................................................. 130
7.3 Later Reform Failures ....................................................................... 138
7.4 Failed South-South Transfer ............................................................. 144
7.5 Conclusion......................................................................................... 146
References....................................................................................................... 148
viii
CHAPTER 8 CULTURAL CONTINUITIES AND
FORMALISM IN PNG............................................................................... 153
8.1 Traditional Formal Education ........................................................... 154
8.2 Traditional Epistemology and Teaching Methods............................ 157
8.3 Modern Formalism............................................................................ 159
8.4 Community Context .......................................................................... 161
8.5 Process and Product .......................................................................... 165
8.6 Cultural Continuities ......................................................................... 167
8.7 Conclusion......................................................................................... 169
References....................................................................................................... 170
CHAPTER 9 FORMALISTIC TRADITIONS IN CHINA ...................... 173

9.1 Confucianism and Other Philosophical Schools............................... 174
9.2 Confucianism and Education ............................................................ 176
9.3 Confucian Teaching Styles ............................................................... 179
9.4 Modern Educational Developments.................................................. 182
9.5 Recent Classroom Studies in China .................................................. 183
9.6 Conclusion......................................................................................... 189
References....................................................................................................... 191
SECTION 3 NEW CONJECTURES......................................................... 195
CHAPTER 10 EDUCATION IN CULTURAL CONTEXTS..................... 197

10.1 Formalist Paradigms ......................................................................... 198
10.2 Teaching Styles Model...................................................................... 202
10.3 Applications of the Model................................................................. 208
10.4 Classroom Observation Techniques.................................................. 211
10.5 Conclusion......................................................................................... 213
References....................................................................................................... 214
CHAPTER 11 GROUNDED EDUCATIONAL CHOICES ....................... 217

11.1 Framing Pilot Projects....................................................................... 218
11.2 Cognitive Levels ............................................................................... 222
11.3 Adoption of Innovation ..................................................................... 224
11.4 Improving Formalistic Teaching....................................................... 229
11.5 Conclusion......................................................................................... 233
References....................................................................................................... 234
ix
CHAPTER 12 IN FAVOUR OF FORMALISM.......................................... 237
12.1 Universal Patterns?............................................................................ 238
12.2 Emotional Atmosphere ..................................................................... 241
12.3 Cultural Context ................................................................................ 242
12.4 Values and Language Groups ........................................................... 244
12.5 Growth of the Brain .......................................................................... 246
12.6 Conclusion......................................................................................... 249
References....................................................................................................... 250
INDEX ................................................................................................................. 253
FIGURES
Figure 2.1 Stages in the Growth of a Primary School System ........................ 23

Figure 11.1 Invalid Curriculum Experiment ................................................... 219
Figure 11.2 Valid Curriculum Experiment...................................................... 221
Figure 11.3 Simplified Flow Chart for Decisions on Teaching Styles ........... 226
Figure 11.4 Relationships between Amount and Likelihood of Change ........ 227
TABLES
Table 2.1 Contrast between Formalistic and Meaning Teachers ................... 31

Table 5.1 Summary of Results in Literature Survey...................................... 79
Table 10.1 Classroom Teaching Styles Model............................................... 205
Table 11.1 Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy of Educational Objectives ..............223
x
FOREWORD
Michael Crossley
Professor of Comparative and International Education
Research Centre for International and Comparative Studies
Graduate School of Education
University of Bristol,UK
This book is written by a seasoned academic and development consultant with

considerable international experience in contexts as diverse as New Zealand, Aus-
tralia, China and Papua New Guinea. It is a book that develops and extends a
number of challenging arguments and perspectives that the author has engaged
with throughout a varied and distinguished career. While the book has direct rele-
vance for students, academics, development agency personnel, policy-makers and
practitioners worldwide, it is deeply grounded in the author’s professional experi-
ence in the Pacific nation of Papua New Guinea. Indeed, to some extent this is a
personal and polemical book that enables its author to reflect upon the key issues
that have characterised many of the academic publications that he has produced
from the 1980s through to the present day.
Emerging from this original and detailed review of diverse empirical and theo-
retical material is a stimulating and controversial central thesis, the Progressive
Education Fallacy. This thesis is put forward for the first time in Chapter 1 and ar-
ticulated throughout the book to highlight what Gerard Guthrie claims is an un-
necessary linking of enquiry teaching as a process with enquiry skills as a product.
In doing so, the core theme, relating to teaching and learning pedagogies, is thor-
oughly interrogated with reference to a wide and challenging range of arguments.
These stem from research on methodological paradigms, stages of educational de-
velopment, school effectiveness, the management of educational reform, and
comparative perspectives on the place of culture and context in educational devel-
opment. At the heart of this is a long-considered and carefully argued critique of
the uncritical international transfer of ‘progressive’, learner-centred pedagogies
from Western education systems to a diversity of low-income ‘developing’ coun-
tries. This latter theme, along with the connection to Papua New Guinea, links this
reflective, longitudinal study to my own on-going research in the field of com-
parative and international education (see Crossley and Watson 2003).
xi
The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of Formalism
Gerard Guthrie
When I first arrived to work at the University of Papua New Guinea in the early
1980s, it was to research the impact of a new pilot project designed to promote
curriculum change via processes of school-based curriculum development
(Crossley 1984a). At this time my own research revealed concerns about the fail-
ure of project planners to consider how contextual realities in Papua New Guinea
schools could inhibit school-based curriculum development in practice. On a
broader level, this research challenged the uncritical international transfer of edu-
cational policies, and in this case change modalities, from Western systems (nota-
bly Australia and the UK) to Papua New Guinea and other developing countries
(Crossley 1984b). Also embedded within this particular change initiative were
many assumptions about the benefits to be gained from a move away from a tradi-
tion of formalistic teaching and learning styles throughout the education system.
As I engaged with these issues, parallel work, then being carried out in Papua New
Guinea by Gerard Guthrie, first came to my attention. His research was then fo-
cussed more directly upon teacher training, teaching and learning styles and the
implementation of educational reform (Guthrie 1983). This empirically grounded
research was based on a theoretically informed critique of C.E. Beeby’s (1966) in-
fluential Stages of Educational Development – leading to a significant debate
within the comparative and international literature of the day (Guthrie 1980;
Beeby 1980; 1986). This early work informs the present study, as revisited in
Chapters 2 and 3.
What moves the story on, and heightens the contemporary significance of the
analysis, is the way subsequent research and experience is used to demonstrate the
enduring centrality of these key issues in contemporary development cooperation
initiatives and internationally inspired educational development agendas world-
wide. Chapters 4 and 5 thus examine the literature on barriers and resistance to
change, along with international research on school effectiveness, teaching styles
and student achievement. This is followed by Section 2 (titled Refutations) and a
group of chapters that focus the analysis upon Papua New Guinea (Chapters 6-8),
and formalistic traditions in China (Chapter 9). Throughout these chapters readers
can see how Gerard Guthrie’s conceptualisation and defence of formalistic teach-
ing and learning styles is related to traditional epistemologies, and cultural tradi-
tions and continuities. Running alongside this are related practical arguments that
draw attention to the complexities (and costs) involved in promoting learner-
centred pedagogies in low income countries.
The third section of the book, titled New Conjectures, consists of Chapters 10-
12 in which the core arguments and themes of the book are drawn together. Here
the defence of formalistic pedagogies is extended in ways that connect well with
contemporary international development discourses and advances in numerous
fields of research. By revisiting core debates about pedagogy over a 30 year pe-
riod, Gerard Guthrie makes a significant, if challenging and controversial, contri-
xii
Foreword
Michael Crossley
bution to the international literature on education and development. While some

may disagree with his proposals, or various dimensions of the analysis, the book
draws the attention of all to critical thinking and positioning on an issue that is too
often taken as unproblematic. International development agencies worldwide are,
for example, often deeply committed to the promotion of learner-centred pedago-
gies at all levels of education systems, and in widely differing contexts and cul-
tures. While much can certainly be gained from such developments, this challeng-
ing book asks those involved to think more carefully about the differences
between contexts, to explore the philosophical, political and practical implications
of such differences, to acknowledge the extent of implementation ‘failure’, and to
reflect upon the limitations of ‘one size fits all’ models and assumptions.
Indeed, voices are increasingly being heard within low income countries that
echo aspects of this critique (Tabulawa 1997), at the same time as they identify
contrasting and more creative notions of ‘formalistic’ teaching and learning (see
Biggs 1996). In Botswana, for example, Tabulawa (2003, p. 7) presents a stronger
political critique by arguing that learner-centred pedagogy can also be seen as
“…an ideological outlook, a worldview intended to develop a preferred kind of
society and people. It is in this sense that it should be seen as representing a proc-
ess of westernisation disguised as quality and effective teaching.” Recognising the
Western values that are embedded in learner-centred pedagogies, Carney (2008)
also explores the political dimension of the transfer of internationally inspired re-
forms to Tibet; and, returning to Papua New Guinea, Le Fanu (2010; 2011) docu-
ments the barriers that continue to be faced by contemporary reforms designed to
move local teachers away from formalistic styles of teaching and learning. His re-
cent empirically grounded research in Eastern Highlands primary schools reveals
that “although the teachers’ practice has changed in some ways since the introduc-
tion of the curriculum, they had not adopted many of the ‘student centred’ teach-
ing and learning precepts prescribed in curriculum documents” (Le Fanu 2010, p.
1). Le Fanu’s research also explicitly acknowledges how formalistic teaching can
be seen to have a positive role to play, for teaching some types of skills, in such
contexts.
Today, the quality of education is once again at the forefront of international
debate and commands the attention of many development cooperation agencies
(UNESCO 2004). The latest empirical and theoretical research is beginning to ac-
knowledge differing notions of quality and how these relate to pedagogical and
contextual differences (Tikly and Barrett 2011). Gerard Guthrie’s insightful and
challenging book makes a valuable contribution to this trajectory of new research
by stimulating a more critically informed debate; by helping to bridge past and
present scholarship; by alerting those concerned to the potential of different forms
of teaching and learning, including those seen as formalistic pedagogies; and by
xiii
Gerard Guthrie
demonstrating how contextual factors deserve greater attention in much educa-

tional and development planning and implementation.
References
Beeby, C.E. (1966). The quality of education in developing countries. Cambridge: Harvard Uni-
versity Press.
Beeby, C.E. (1980). Reply to Gerard Guthrie. International Review of Education, 26(4), 439-
444.
Beeby, C.E. (1986). The stages of growth in educational systems. In Heyneman, S.P., & White,
D.S. (Eds.), The quality of education and economic development: A World Bank symposium
(pp. 37-44). Washington: World Bank.
Biggs, J. (1996). Western misperceptions of the Confucian-heritage learning culture. In Watkins,
D., & Biggs, J. (Eds.), The Chinese learner: Cultural, psychological and contextual influ-
ences (pp. 45-67). Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong
Kong.
Carney, S. (2008). Learner centred pedagogy in Tibet: International education reform in a local
context. Comparative Education, 44(1), 39-55.
Crossley, M. (1984a). The role and limitations of small-scale initiatives in educational innova-
tion. Prospects, 14(4), 533-540.
Crossley, M. (1984b). Strategies for curriculum change and the question of international transfer.
Journal of Curriculum Studies, 16(1), 75-88.
Crossley, M., & Watson, K. (2003). Comparative and international research in education:
Globalization, context and difference. London: Routledge Falmer.
Guthrie, G. (1980). Stages of educational development? Beeby revisited. International Review of
Education, 26(4), 411-438.
Guthrie, G. (1983). An evaluation of the secondary teacher training system. Report No.44. Port
Moresby: Educational Research Unit, University of Papua New Guinea.
Le Fanu, G. (2010). Promoting inclusive education in Papua New Guinea. EdQual Quality Brief
No.7. Bristol: University of Bristol.
Le Fanu, G. (2011). The transposition of inclusion: An analysis of the relationship between cur-
riculum prescription and practice in Papua New Guinea. Unpublished doctoral dissertation,
University of Bristol.
Tabulawa, R. (1997). Pedagogical classroom practice and the social context: The case of Bot-
swana. International Journal of Educational Development, 17(2), 189-194.
Tabulawa, R. (2003). International aid agencies, learner-centred pedagogy and political democra-
tisation: A critique. Comparative Education, 39(1), 7-26.
Tikly, L., & Barrett A. (Eds.) (2011). Researching education quality in low income countries:
Policies and practice. Special Issue of Comparative Education, 47(1).
UNESCO (2004). Education for All: The quality imperative. EFA Global Monitoring Report
2005. Paris: UNESCO.
xiv
PREFACE
One of the legacies of post-modernism is that it now seems compulsory for au-
thors to situate and contextualise their work, preferably with impenetrable jargon.
Rather than being self-indulgent, a preface is an integral voice in establishing the
authenticity of a negotiable and contestable discourse. Who am I to disagree?
The intellectual history of this book traces to my childhood in the 1950s, when
my father, Harry Guthrie, was the head teacher of an authoritarian school in Wel-
lington, New Zealand. On occasion, he would come home and rant to my mother,
Muriel, about the school inspectors who were currently perpetuating endless bas-
tardries on his school. We lived, although I did not know it then, less than ten
kilometres from the Director of Education, C.E. Beeby, whose writing is central to
this book. Paradoxically, Beeby was trying to democratise education, but the for-
malistic inspectorate ranged heavily. To hear my father tell it, the most evil of all
the educational pirates who rampaged through his school was one “Black Jack”
Logan. Oddly enough, some ten years later I worked on a building site excavating
foundations for a house being built for Jack. My father came to visit the work, and
the two had a civil enough conversation. But the day after I finished working
there, a landfall engulfed the site. My father and I never once discussed religion,
but I am sure that on this day he thanked God for divine retribution.
The same year, 1969, I went through the dreariest educational experience of my
life, a postgraduate secondary teaching diploma course at Christchurch Teacher’s
College, and skated through on the least work that I could get away with. A rare
highlight was the graduation speech by Peter Lawrence, the Professor of Educa-
tion at the University of Canterbury, who based his talk around seven paradoxes,
the fifth of which resonated alarmingly in the late 1960s: “until now you have
been against authority; now you are authority.” Unsurprisingly, I disliked high
school teaching the following year and took part in the first ever strike by secon-
dary school teachers in New Zealand, which was against the inspectorial system.
My ambition was an academic career, so I was pleased to escape in 1971 to a posi-

tion as a Teaching Fellow in Geography at the University of New England in Aus-
tralia. I cannot have been much of a geographer because it took me three weeks in
Armidale to find a map and work out where the place was. I was lucky, however,
to be in a large and capable department, although one hidebound about course de-
sign. Despite myself, my teacher training kicked in and I found a strength as a ter-
tiary teacher. Another curiosity was that the Department had to me the surprising
xv
Gerard Guthrie
habit of debating the nature of geography. My first degrees at Victoria University

of Wellington from 1965 to 1968 had been in Third World Geography and Asian
Studies, the first subject under the noted radical China specialist, Keith Buchanan,
the second under an anarchist, Bill Hall. Buchanan, I later discovered, was a cul-
tural geographer, which was in distinct contrast to the regional geography that had
been predominant in New Zealand, but not once in four years of geography
courses do I recall him or anybody else discussing the nature of geography. Nor
did I care because my interest was in ‘underdevelopment’, as it was then called,
and then as now disciplinary boundaries seemed artificial. However, at New Eng-
land everyone worried away at the nature of geography. The bon mot of the day,
which I readily accepted, took a sociological perspective: geography was what ge-
ographers did. What I did at first was to follow an intellectual obsession with Har-
vey Franklin’s work on systems of production and appropriation and their possible
application to Australian Aboriginal history, finding in resonance with the re-
search on the growth of the brain reviewed briefly in Chapter 12.5, that, now aged
24, I could quite readily comprehend material that had previously seemed impene-
trable. With a free and very generous departmental rein, I read a great deal in po-
litical economy and economic anthropology. However, the concepts did not read-
ily apply to empirical research so, applying Occam’s razor, I turned seamlessly
enough to a social science research thesis on Aboriginal perceptions of migration,
based in another academic oddity, behavioural geography.
In 1975 my developmental interests and teaching qualifications helped me to
obtain a position in the Third World as a Lecturer in Social Science at Goroka
Teacher’s College, which had just become a faculty of the University of Papua
New Guinea. My own perspectives on education in Papua New Guinea came to
straddle the period from just before Independence in 1975 for some eight years to
1983, through occasional visits as a consultant during the 1980s and 1990s, to a
return to Goroka in 2002 and 2003 as Foundation Professor of Education at what
had become the University of Goroka, and subsequently consulting as the Director
of 16 nation-wide urban crime victimisation surveys over a five year period until
2008: in all, some ten years in the country.
Goroka Teacher’s College was the only secondary teacher’s college in Papua
New Guinea in 1975. It had previously been a government institution, but had a
staff spill with the amalgamation, and a fresh group held lively meetings about the
teacher training programme. Once at Goroka, I still needed a doctorate, so I car-
ried one step further the definition of geography. If geography was what geogra-
phers did, who were geographers? My crude but functional answer was that geog-
raphers were people who were paid to be geographers. And what now was I? I was
paid by a newly independent nation to be a teacher educator: so now I was an edu-
cationalist. My ethical obligation, I felt, was to research teacher education, settling
xvi
Preface
on an evaluation of the secondary teacher education programmes, which were split

between different educational approaches at the College in Goroka and the sepa-
rate Faculty of Education in Port Moresby. Obtaining a year of leave in 1978 to
start my PhD, I sat down at the University of Newcastle in Australia and read sys-
tematically on education for the first time.
My interest in the central topic of this book – teaching styles – had arisen at
Goroka, where I had spent three years failing to teach social science students how
to use progressive teaching methods, including student-focussed lesson planning.
In looking for reasons for the dismal failure, I came across Beeby’s work on edu-
cational stages. His description of formalism was the best available account of
what was before me and some of the reasons for my inability to change it. How-
ever, a deconstruction of Beeby’s analysis (much updated in Chapters 2 and 3) led
me to disagree strongly with his position that countries like Papua New Guinea
would inevitably follow Western progressive educational patterns (albeit, he did
think, much more slowly than some of his confreres would have liked).
From my perspective as a specialist in development studies who happened to
be working in teacher education, with in-depth training neither in education nor
psychology, but well read in anthropology and sociology and interested in meth-
odology, the stages model had many formal weaknesses. The major failure was
lack of recognition that the model was teleological without justification of its ends
in contextually-relevant cultural terms, which monumental lack of validity carried
the import, to me at least, that the model should not even be used for research let
alone practical application. Nonetheless, my lack of educational reading was an
advantage in many ways because I came to the subject open-minded about ex-
planatory educational theories and not caged by preset intellectual constructs other
than a liking for working from first principles.
Some of the methodological first principles in which I was interested were
clarified soon after when reading Karl Popper for the first time. Although I was
versed in the principles of falsification from an undergraduate sociology course in
Wellington and a reluctant learning of non-parametric statistics for my migration
research, Popper’s Objective Knowledge resolved two key issues to my satisfac-
tion. One was the traditional Western metaphysical dichotomy between material-
ism and idealism, and the role in this of skepticism, which is strong on logic but a
dead end operationally. Popper’s commonsense realism cut through all this with
the view that a sound metaphysical base is unnecessary for the advancement of
science; rather, critical analysis is the way forward. His concept of objective
knowledge that is independent of the originator once verbalised also removed the
notion that all knowledge was subjective and internal (although objectified and ex-
ternalised seem better terms than objective). However, this did and does not make
me a positivist. My viewpoint remains phenomenological, i.e. that scientific and
xvii
Gerard Guthrie
methodological schools (including positivism) originate as mental constructs, and

I do not hesitate to mix objectivist and subjectivist methods as the occasion re-
quires. Personally, I see this as radical in the early adjectival sense of the word as
going to the root of things, wherever that may lead methodologically. While
mixed method research is now common, my own underpinning remains a slightly
maverick mixture of old and new paradigms, maintaining a path between extreme
positivist troglodytes and post-positivist trendoids, as the two schools tend to per-
ceive each another.
As I delved into the teacher education research, I still had an attitudinal set
about educational authority. So it was somewhat to my own surprise that I started
to take seriously a suggestion from the secondary school Superintendent of In-
spections, Ivor Lopes, that I should use inspection reports as the basis of my
evaluation of teacher effectiveness. My study of the teacher training graduates
from various programmes in Papua New Guinea in the mid-1970s and the way in
which their performance was evaluated by inspectors in schools led me to a posi-
tion far removed from my value set at the beginning of the study. To base the
evaluation of teachers and the teacher training system on the inspection system
and to write what became a sympathetic analysis of the inspectorate required, in
later jargon, radical reflection. Incremental improvements to formalism, I soon
concluded, were the way forward rather than ill-founded attempts to change teach-
ers to other styles.
In 1979, I commenced work in the Educational Research Unit in the Education
Faculty of the University in Port Moresby, fitting my doctoral research around a
range of research projects on formal education with the support of the Director,
Sheldon Weeks. The newly arrived Professor of Education, Cyril Rogers, also an
expatriate New Zealander and formerly Vice Chancellor of the University of Bot-
swana, Lesotho and Swaziland, was interested in my analysis of Beeby’s stages
and put us in touch. When I submitted the analysis to the International Review of
Education, the editor persuaded Beeby to write a response, and we also used our
correspondence as part of the exchange published in 1980. Beeby, who preceded
Popper by a few years at the University of Canterbury in the 1930s, was also fa-
miliar with Popper’s work and introduced Popperian principles of falsification into
his defence, which leads to some symmetry in structuring this book around Pop-
per’s conjectures and refutations.
Later, Cyril arranged for Beeby to be an external consultant to the Education
Faculty, so I met him for the first time in 1982. We got on very well, he volun-
teered his services as a referee and, after leaving Papua New Guinea in 1983 to
work again in Australia, my partner and I used to call on him with a bottle of
whisky during visits to my family in Wellington. In 1984, he wryly inscribed my
copy of his book, “Gerard Guthrie, who has studied this book more thoroughly
xviii
Preface
than any other person – including the author.” I well remember Beeb, as he was
known to all his friends, over 80 years old, rolling around on the floor playing
with our little daughter. Nor, despite being over twice my age, was there ever any
question that his intellect was entirely fit for the task of defending his stages.
Comparative education, in which Beeby’s work and mine are broadly located,
partly originated as a field of study in attempts by 19th century Europeans to learn
from each other’s educational systems and partly in their curiosity about the rest
of the world. Imperialism was at its peak and growing awareness of other conti-
nents saw people travelling widely and writing about what they saw. This arose in
Europe from interest in learning ideas from other education systems that might be
useful to educational reformers and also as part of a broader role in liberal educa-
tion about the world at large. More than any other ‘disciplinary’ perspective, it
seems to me that comparative education is about the geography of education.
Beeby, born in 1902, was an adolescent and adult during the period encompass-
ing World Wars I and II, during which time well-meaning intellectuals looked for
ways of preventing war. Educationalists turned to international education, which
gained prominence in the aftermath of World War II. Beeby was part of a coterie
of educators who established UNESCO in the late 1940s and who had a world-
view, written into the founding articles, that its educational purpose was to con-
tribute to peace and security by promoting collaboration among nations. For some
decades, UNESCO provided leadership in international education and, indeed, the
International Review of Education was published by the UNESCO Institute of
Education. In the main, Beeby’s stages model was embedded in a philosophy of
education that he was responsible for implementing as Director of Education in
New Zealand from 1940 to 1960. The philosophy related to the equalisation and
democratisation of schooling in the sense of opening up opportunity to all indi-
viduals. A natural extension of this idea and of Beeby’s administrative role (his re-
sponsibilities included education in Western Samoa and other New Zealand de-
pendencies in the South Pacific) was an interest in improving the quality of
schooling in ‘developing’ countries. After his retirement he systematised his
thoughts in a book published in 1966 as The Quality of Education in Developing
Countries, which generalised from his practical experience as a high-level educa-
tional administrator in an attempt to develop educational theory that would pro-
vide justification for progressive educationalists’ efforts to improve the quality of
education in developing countries. Nowadays, of course, ‘international education’
is also code for university marketing.
World War II also marked a watershed in imperialism. From then on, pressure
mounted on the colonial powers to grant independence, which resulted in increas-
ing focus on the needs of the colonies themselves and on the role of education in
xix
Gerard Guthrie
them. The 1960s and 1970s saw the growth of a third field, development educa-
tion, which focussed on educational problems in developing countries. In contrast
to Beeby’s international education interest in promoting a commonality of interna-
tional goodwill through enlightened educational philosophies, my approach was as
a development educator interested in problem-solving in newly independent na-
tions. This was and is my framework, coming to education from a primary interest
in development issues. My approaches to development education in this book are,
more than any other subject areas, from the cultural side of educational sociology
and from comparative education as educational geography.
In the 1970s and 1980s, to a considerable extent under the influence of return-
ees from Papua New Guinea, Australian academic interests in education in devel-
oping countries focussed pragmatically on development education, but it was a
minute field in universities there in the 1980s. Leaving Papua New Guinea in
1983, I spent a couple of years back at the University of Newcastle as Director of
its Curriculum Resources & Research Centre. My academic environment was
heavily locked into the publish or perish syndrome, so loosely recalling the dictum
that the point is not to study the world but to change it, in 1985 I took up a very
professionally rewarding management position at the International Training Insti-
tute in Sydney, mainly overseeing short courses for middle level teacher educators
and public servants from all over the developing world as part of the Australian
aid programme. By now an Australian, the following years from 1988 to 1990
were a fascinating period for me in Beijing as Counsellor for Technical Coopera-
tion at the Australian Embassy; China remaining an interest from my studies in
Wellington. The subsequent decade or so was spent mainly as an administrator in
the head office of the Australian Agency for International Development in Can-
berra.
During this period, my contact with academic research was sporadic, but I was
able to carry on with applied development work, including involvement in a num-
ber of training projects, the NGO programme, and writing AusAID’s income-
generation rural development strategy. One benefit of working in government was
that good public service writing turned out to be much tighter than academic writ-
ing. Rarely in the public service did I find the luxury of 5,000 words; more likely
fewer than 500 were required, especially for ministerials. I adapted to these pro-
fessional requirements readily enough, having already clarified my writing for
second language users of English.
Other learning experiences were valuable as well. The Embassy in Beijing and
the foreign affairs environment in Canberra were heavily focussed on Australian
national interests, an approach to diplomacy that reflects philosophical pragma-
tism. Pragmatism – found in education through the work of John Dewey, in par-
ticular – is basically concerned with following actions that can arrive at chosen
xx
Preface
outcomes. This turns conventional causal thinking on its head because in essence
one works backwards from the desired outcome to plan the steps required to
achieve it, which in the real world is much more effective and flexible than the
normal academic focus on the primacy of causes. A relevant if broad example was
the classical Hobson-Lenin thesis that capitalism was fundamentally responsible
for the economic ills of the international world. However, attempts to destroy
capitalism, whether through liberation wars or terrorism, did not remedy the prob-
lem, and the communist cure usually became worse than the capitalist disease. In
any case, the collapse of communism in the USSR and Eastern Europe in the late
1980s destroyed any credibility held by the underlying Marxist economics. It was
also clear that China’s already astounding economic growth had arisen because it
had been ditching those economics following its 1978 open door policy. Later,
during the 1990s, influential World Bank reports showed that economic growth,
the growth of international trade, and regulation of capitalism were the most effec-
tive means of achieving a poverty reduction outcome. As part of this approach, the
conventional social science wisdom about lack of education and health as causes
of poverty was quite unpersuasive. Much more focussed remains the economics
approach, which carries the basic semantic meaning of ‘poverty’ as lack of
money: lower educational and health levels are thus social correlates of financial
poverty not causes. These insights reinforced my prior view that schooling in de-
veloping countries is essentially a means not of directly changing conditions of
poverty, but of helping escape them by increasing employment prospects.
All this still plays out academically in post-colonial analyses that build on de-
pendency theory to point out how the period of imperialism, which is convention-
ally and conveniently forgotten (at least in the West), still influences developing
countries. As a statement of historical fact, I have no problem with the post-
colonial position, but it offers little in the way of practical solutions. In practice, it
often seems to provide an excuse for many developing countries’ leaders even
now to blame the colonial powers, assert an endless entitlement to foreign aid and,
insofar as they take remedial responsibility, to deny that their policy decisions
should be open to outside scrutiny. A half century or so after Independence for
most developing countries, blaming colonialism is a thin excuse for those leaders
who appear not to know whether they are leading their nations into Independence
or the 21st century.
Despite the interesting exposure to the international diplomatic environment,

working in AusAID was an increasingly depressing experience given the excres-
cent culture that seeped over the years from the top of the organisation. Fed up
with its bureaucratic nastiness, another lucky escape saw me back at Goroka in
2002 and 2003 for two academic years. Returning after 25 years, some 15 of them
xxi
Gerard Guthrie
as an aid bureaucrat with little direct involvement in universities, I was determined

to maintain the advantages of an open educational mind and was concerned not to
assume that my previous theories about formalism might still hold sway. In treat-
ing these theories hypothetically, I deliberately used a range of teaching styles in a
quasi-experimental action research approach to my own teaching. My approaches
ranged from formalistic teaching in two undergraduate and postgraduate courses
to an andragogic, student-directed undergraduate course. In particular, a post-
graduate tutorial course on teaching styles and a formalistic undergraduate one on
education and society in Papua New Guinea provided opportunities to revisit my
earlier work and to expose it to the questioning of the postgraduate students, in
particular.
While I did not have time to replicate my earlier empirical research, what I
saw, heard and experienced led me not away from formalism but further towards
its cultural roots and their continuities in the present. One result was a symposium
in 2003 with very restricted circulation in the Papua New Guinea Journal of Edu-
cation, which contained an analysis of the roots of formalism in traditional, pre-
colonial epistemology (revised in Chapter 8). The previous tendency in the litera-
ture, still current in much informal educational discussion in the country, had been
to see formalism as an unwanted impost from the colonial period and, implicitly,
one prone to remediation through curriculum change and teacher education as a
relatively recent import. Most of the commentators in the symposium agreed with
my view that cultural continuities traced back to the pre-contact role of formal
teaching in tribal societies, and were not very susceptible to change.
My return as an educationalist to Papua New Guinea initially gave me an op-
portunity to revisit and update on its educational issues, and later encouraged me
to read again the international literature in between consulting assignments for
AusAID and the World Bank. I was slightly appalled to find that debate about
formalistic and progressive teaching styles remained relevant decades after my
original interest: hence this book. And now spending much time again in China, I
have had the incentive to investigate the relevance of formalism to its Confucian
educational traditions, which provides an extra test of some of the propositions
herein.
The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of For-

malism is intended as a contribution to the theory, methodology and practice of
education in developing countries. The focus is on the merits of formalism in
countries in which it is appropriate and on the on-going risks associated with what
I identify as the Progressive Education Fallacy, which is the false premise that
progressive, enquiry teaching styles are necessary to promote intellectual enquiry
skills among primary and secondary students, in this case in non-Western, espe-
xxii
Preface
cially non-Anglophone cultures. While conceptualised for the first time in this
book, the Fallacy was embedded in Beeby’s stages model, which is an influential
example of the progressive position. Beeby’s model is used here as a coat-hanger
on which to array a formal analysis of ideas inherent in the Fallacy, using progres-
sive as a label to encapsulate teaching styles that have been variously called
‘meaning’, ‘student-centred’, ‘enquiry’, ‘problem-solving’, ‘constructivist’, ‘lib-
eral’ and ‘democratic’, and which are often associated with ‘integrated curricula’,
‘school-based innovation’ and the like. The assumption that development of the
enquiring mind needs enquiry teaching methods in primary and secondary schools
has rarely been treated as a proposition to be systematically debated or as an hy-
pothesis to be tested experimentally in non-Western cultures. The contrary case
put in this book is that formalistic (‘teacher-centred’, ‘traditional’, ‘didactic’, ‘in-
structional’) pedagogy is appropriate in many countries, unpopular and old-
fashioned though these methods may be in some Western ones. My long-standing
conclusion from theoretical analysis and empirical evidence is that progress is not
necessarily a case of moving to a progressive style but can well be a case of im-
provement within a style (e.g. upgrading formalistic teaching). This view was put
first in Papua New Guinea in 1981, in presenting the model of teaching styles used
in Chapter 10, and in 1983 in reporting on my inspectorial research in Chapter 6.
Later, it was put for a wider international audience in a 1986 paper entitled “To
the defense of traditional teaching in lesser developed countries”, published even-
tually in 1990. Additionally, and regardless of its merits in the abstract, the evi-
dence strongly suggests that progressive education reforms will generally fail in
countries with revelatory cultures, which adds a reality check to the ethical argu-
ment against progressive education.
Despite the preceding intellectual history and despite the fact that four chapters
are devoted to analyses of issues raised by Beeby’s stages and another three to
education in Papua New Guinea, this is neither a book about Beeby or his stages
model as such, nor is it a book about education in Papua New Guinea. The analy-
sis herein applies beyond Beeby’s stages to other progressive cases that rely on
similar arguments. Structuring the book around Popper’s conjectures and refuta-
tions means that the country case studies are used in what I trust is a methodologi-
cally elegant refutation provided by the failure of progressive education reforms in
Papua New Guinea. Perhaps more than in any other developing country, Beeby’s
progressive ideas were put into official practice by the Department of Education
from the late 1960s as part of many curricular efforts to change formalism. My
own research experience there also allows me to draw heavily on its domestic
educational literature to provide the single country example necessary to refute (in
the Popperian sense) any universal claim for the progressive approach. Those not
methodologically inclined might ask whether this matters very much, given that
xxiii
Gerard Guthrie
Papua New Guinea is a small country, so some generalisability is added with the
very much larger case of China, which also has a revelatory epistemology going
back millennia.
The Progressive Education Fallacy recalls Philip Foster’s famous Vocational
School Fallacy from 1965, which instigated much debate about the roles of aca-
demic and vocational education. Foster argued, in essence, that it was fallacious to
assume that vocational schooling was more likely to generate employment for its
graduates, the evidence being that the community used a conventional academic
education as a path to employment. Similarly conservative, my Progressive Edu-
cation Fallacy puts the view that it is fallacious to assume that a progressive en-
quiry-based education is more likely to develop higher level enquiry skills than a
formalistic one building on memorisation. The contrary position is that a tradi-
tional formalistic education can provide the intellectual foundations on which en-
quiry can later rest. Indeed, the fact that Western universities traditionally used
formalistic methods to teach formal research skills seems to question the necessity
for enquiry methods at all, although I would not go that far myself.
One purpose of this preface is to highlight an important aspect of the Fallacy. The
analysis is based in the cognitive realm, with issues treated as intellectual con-
cerns, but the reason for their persistence is found in the affective domain. Ulti-
mately this book is about educational values, and values are hard to change. Beeby
exemplified this – the zeal of the international educationalists of his period was his
own. Beeby understood this clearly and never questioned it. After all, the progres-
sive premise was an important part of his life’s work, as his 1992 autobiographical
book, The Biography of an Idea, made clear. Indeed, there was a quasi-religious
element to his unquestioning faith in the revealed truth of progressive education.
Other than his responses in the International Review of Education, Beeby himself
ignored the criticisms of his approach in his later formal writing, and in The Biog-
raphy of an Idea mentioned only that the thesis of stages had sometimes been
criticised by academics. I intuit from this that Beeb could be a cunning old admin-
istrator. My experience was that he set strategic objectives and thought about his
ideas, but did not deviate from their essentials. Others were free to disagree and he
was very willing to engage with them, up to a point, but he was not open to chang-
ing his core ideas or to publicising contrary views more than he had to. In his 80s,
he was delighted that his ideas were taken seriously, but he was not about to reject
the affective values that were a central tenet of a widely respected life’s work.
Of course, having accused Beeby of failing properly to justify his value judge-
ments, I should at least briefly indicate my own. To add another convolution to the
argument, I actually do share many of the progressive educational values within
my own cultural context. In that context, my scepticism relates to the timing of the
xxiv
Preface
introduction of enquiry methods into schooling. What I do not share is the value
position that progressive values should be transferred to other cultures and that
developing countries should attempt to follow Western, predominantly Anglo-
phone, educational paths regardless of the evidence that progressive educational
reforms are widely prone to failure in the developing world. In short, do not do
unto others as you would have them do unto you: their tastes may be different.
In attempting in this book to separate value-laden ethical issues (such as
Beeby’s belief in progressive education) from empirical ones (such as the evi-
dence that progressive education does not work in many countries), I am in no
way attempting to side with the traditional positivist view that science should be
value-free. The purpose of separating the two issues is more properly to select
those features amenable to empirical and/or ethical analysis and to improve the
quality of such analysis so that any social action that may be based on it can itself
be as sound as possible. Nor, by separating empiricism from ethics, am I trying to
imply that empirical methodology itself is value-free or ethically neutral. The type
of intellectually tough philosophical and scientific rationalism in my analysis is
derived from a Western academic sub-culture, the members of which have influ-
ence, derived from their knowledge, disproportionate to their numbers. This
knowledge is neither complete nor ever likely to be, and in cross-cultural situa-
tions may be badly distorted by its mode of rationalism, hence one need for cau-
tion.
Culturally-based educational choices may involve criteria of development not
only different from those considered in Western contexts, but antithetical to many
Western beliefs. Religious fundamentalists can argue (and this is not a view that I
share personally) that religious values should be the basis for educational norms,
e.g. to teach the literal truth of the Christian Bible or the Islamic Koran. Thus we
may find both innovative change (i.e. attempts to achieve patterns new to a coun-
try, whether based on indigenous or foreign criteria) or, paradoxically, conserva-
tive change (i.e. attempts to reinforce previous patterns). The emphasis on national
goals as criteria of judgement makes clear that models of education from other de-
veloping countries may be as irrelevant as those from developed ones.
However, I am not advocating uncritical acceptance of educational decision-
making within other cultures. Many actions taken by decision-makers in both ‘de-
veloping’ and ‘developed’ countries could undoubtedly be made more humane
and/or effective if based on sounder research and enlightened by rational analysis
rather than political games. One reason why it is important to clarify the ethical
and analytical issues in educational reforms is to ensure that the Western goals
implicit in many of them are not uncritically accepted in ignorance, either of their
existence or the ubiquity of their consequences in practice. If an educational re-
xxv
Gerard Guthrie
form is based on false premises, it does not matter much to the children negatively
affected by it whether the decision-maker was indigenous or foreign.
The negative connotations that formalism developed in Western countries often
mean that educators who go forth from them to multiply progressivism in develop-
ing countries are unable to view dispassionately the operation of formalism in
these new and different contexts, where their often-misplaced educational phi-
losophies influence indigenous professionals, scholars and students. My profes-
sional experience has included working with progressive educators who, like
Beeby, did not exercise radical reflection. Many of my professional colleagues,
both indigenous and foreign, have had a faith that Western styles of teaching rep-
resent educational progress in developing countries and have underestimated the
significance of contextual cultural factors. For whatever reason – perhaps profes-
sional commitment, limited academic horizons, or notions of cultural superiority –
they often did not even begin to question the revealed truth that progressive educa-
tion in its various guises is the way forward for all educational systems. Even
when notionally supportive of traditional cultural values, an element of cognitive
dissonance sometimes remained and often they still felt obliged to promote pro-
gressive values. Rather than riding forth like white knights, my advice to ‘educa-
tional experts’ newly arriving in foreign countries (whether as consultants, advis-
ers, aid officials, teacher trainers, curriculum specialists, managers, employees or
volunteers) is to keep an open mind. At first, avoid the official plans. Instead, prior
to departure, Google educational research on the country. As soon as possible after
arrival, organise to spend a few days in an appropriate school before, during and
after classroom hours attending meetings and visiting classes. Find out what
teachers and pupils are doing in the classroom, what they think about it, how they
think it can be improved (whether it is formalistic or not) and what is some of the
cultural reasoning behind what they say. Then read official policy and see if it is
grounded in classroom reality. If it is not, the problem is with the policy not the
reality.
A key element in the widespread and persistent influence of the progressive
paradigm has been the role of English language universities predominantly in the
United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. They con-
tinue to provide the bulk of overseas university study for developing-country
teachers, researchers and aid professionals, who often imbibe modern educational
theories as international students. These theories can be superficially attractive in
that they implicitly attack old-fashioned Western educational values commonly
associated with colonialism, but they seem to me to be just another culturally ar-
rogant form of academic and professional neo-colonialism. Indeed, so irrelevant to
developing countries do I consider research on education in Western countries that
this book contains almost no examples of it.
xxvi
Preface
A consequence of progressive influences is confused attempts at curriculum re-

form that often lack professional rigour because they treat the process of teaching
as the end product rather than student learning. Such reform attempts are based on
the usually untested assumption that progressive teaching in developing countries
will accelerate higher-level cognitive learning. In the absence of experimental re-
search systematically testing whether learning how to enquire needs enquiry
teaching methods, the introduction of progressive teaching styles is wide open to
the criticism that developing countries still have untried theories being foisted na-
ïvely on them. Developing-country governments and aid donors alike often con-
tinue to waste considerable efforts on changing teaching styles on the unverified
assumption that student learning will somehow improve as a result. In essence,
they can get away with this because weak governance systems in many developing
countries mean that institutionalised checks and balances are uncommon.
Such thoughts gave rise to the urge to revisit the issues by bringing together
and updating the ideas in this book about the cultural relevance of formalism.
While a-ha experiences are probably not going to change older educationalists’
minds, the hope is that the book will sufficiently subvert the younger ones that
they seriously consider the appropriateness of progressive innovations in develop-
ing countries. The book uses as starting points a number of papers in which I have
written about these issues since the mid-1970s. The full list of my education-
related publications and papers is given in the following bibliography, which indi-
cates a range of relevant academic and professional experience. The key material
incorporated herein has all been heavily edited, revised and updated to reflect cur-
rent versions of the issues under discussion. While it is common practice to regard
older academic material as outdated and therefore irrelevant, this book deals with
continuities in progressive educational thought since the middle of the last century
and with other educational traditions that date back centuries. I have therefore not
hesitated to retain older material and citations where the approaches are seminal,
the analyses remain valid, they provide research evidence that remains reliable (ei-
ther by having established major empirical findings or where subsequent research
has not updated or refuted it), and/or they demonstrate historical perspectives. Nor
have I hesitated to use currently unpopular Popperian principles as a methodologi-
cal framework because rigorous logic should be neither time nor fashion depend-
ent. Some lessons from my work as an administrator are reflected in Chapter 11,
where an effort is made to reduce over-intellectualised academic work to analysis
practical for decision-making purposes.
One major conclusion reached in this book is that formalistic teaching is not an in-
termediary step on the path to educational development, but is likely to remain
central to many school systems because it is compatible with traditional and on-
xxvii
Gerard Guthrie
going cultural practices. Formalism in many countries is symptomatic of age-old

cultural preferences, not a problematic obstruction to modernisation. It should not
be regarded as a classroom problem readily fixed, but as a deep-rooted cultural
behaviour capable of playing an important role long into the future.
In all this, I am conscious that some will be inclined to view the book as a mir-
ror image of their own progressive value sets, i.e. that it argues a formalistic case
derived from a pre-set starting position. My view is that it presents conclusions
that are based on systematic methodological and theoretical analysis, are evi-
dence-based, have stood the test of time, and that are far removed from my origi-
nal progressive views. Indeed, I am not wedded to formalism as such. My case is
simply that formalism is appropriate in many cultures in many countries. There,
improvements to primary and secondary schooling will come more rapidly from
working with the existing styles of formalistic teaching in an attempt to improve
them, rather than trying to work against or replace them.
Improving formalism does not require rocket science or another round of
school effectiveness research. Plenty of teacher education textbooks, old and new,
provide tips on techniques. For example, a 2001 text for Melanesia by Gabriel
Kubul, Practical Tips for Teachers in Melanesia, abounds with constructive ideas
that are neither overburdened with angst about the formalism of schools nor un-
apologetically accepting of it. Hopefully, current generations of teachers and
teacher educators will continue to walk down the path of improving teaching in
ways that are effective because they are culturally meaningful.
While the substantive case is limited to developing countries, Chapter 12 does
speculate on the relevance of the argument to Western, especially English lan-
guage, countries. Given that the cultural issues are embedded linguistically in
various language groups, and that revelatory epistemologies are much more com-
mon worldwide than scientific ones, scientific enquiry values embedded in the
English language may actually not be widely shared. Progressive education in An-
glophone countries appears to be highly successful at helping school children to
ask questions, but not so successful at helping them to answer questions. The rea-
sons for this may have to do as much with biology as with teaching. An assump-
tion inherent in progressivism was that the brain completes its growth by the early
teens, and improvements in thinking subsequently would come from improved
teaching to better use the brain’s capacities. Recent neurobiological research has
found that the prefrontal cortex, where higher intellectual operations are located,
does not actually finish growing until the mid-20s. This suggests that the difficulty
that adolescents have developing the formal operations necessary for higher level
enquiry and analysis may be as much a function of biology as attitude or educa-
tion. This indication could reinforce the proposition that the most effective level to
xxviii
Preface
concentrate on higher level cognitive skills is not primary or lower secondary edu-
cation, but tertiary.
If physical maturation is a key issue, the underpinnings of the failure of pro-
gressive teaching innovations may be as much biological as educational, cultural
and social, and therefore apply to youth in developed countries. If this book helps
provoke further investigation into this matter, the results may raise the possibility
that progressive education is as much a fallacy in developed countries as develop-
ing ones.
Gerard Guthrie
<gerardguthrie@hotmail.com>
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School, Queensland.
xxxiv
SECTION 1
OLD CONJECTURES
Karl Popper’s approach to the development of scientific knowledge involves a

series of conjectures and refutations. Existing conjectures, propositions and
hypotheses are analysed and either accepted, rejected or modified through logical
analysis and research. New ones arise, and they too are subject to refutation.
Section 1 considers some long-standing progressive education conjectures.
Chapter 1 posits the Progressive Education Fallacy and summarises the book. The
Fallacy is based on the false premise that enquiry teaching methods are necessary
in primary and secondary schools in developing countries to develop students’
enquiry skills. C.E. Beeby’s conjectures about educational stages and progressive
education remain an important influence on much academic and official literature
on educational reform in non-Western cultures, especially the equation of im-
provement in the quality of education with change to teaching styles. Strong theo-
retical and practical reasons exist for modifying formalism in an evolutionary
fashion from within rather than trying to replace it with progressive styles. Addi-
tionally, there are considerable methodological issues with the school effective-
ness literature on which much international analysis is based, including a serious
lack of engagement with cultural context, which is a vital prior condition influenc-
ing classroom behaviour that the cases of Papua New Guinea and China illus-
trate.
The progressive values incorporated in the end point of Beeby’s stages still re-
main active as a misguided direction for reforms that attempt to change formalis-
tic teachers to other styles rather than upgrade their formalism. Chapter 2 details
the model of stages and its widespread acceptance in the educational literature in
the 1960s and 1970s. Since, there has been only limited acceptance of the formal
properties of the stages model, except in some curriculum work derived from the
World Bank, and little in the way of empirical research based on it. However, the
progressive education values implicit in the model have persevered in quite differ-
ent schools of educational thought. Some country-based research provides exam-
ples of classroom formalism giving a fuller picture of formalism in practice as
well as six key findings that illustrate in some depth the nature of formalistic
teaching and the merit of not making premature assumptions about it in any par-
ticular context.
1
Gerard Guthrie
Analyses of the use of stages in economics have been far more detailed than
those of the educational stages. Chapter 3 considers some of the critiques to see
how they affected Beeby’s model, finding that his stages model had several serious
logical and methodological weaknesses. The key problem in logic was that the
progressive stages were embedded in a circular teleology. Additionally, from a
measurement perspective the stages were not sufficiently distinct, used imprecise
labels, and over-generalised from the experience of British-tradition South Pacific
school systems. From the Popperian perspective introduced by Beeby in his de-
fence, the stages model failed the key scientific test: the proposed inevitable pro-
gression towards the stage of Meaning was unscientific because it could not be
falsified. In contrast, more recent developments in the literature, especially cul-
tural paradigms, provide a compelling explanation of the cultural depths of the
revelatory epistemologies with which progressivism seeks to compete.
Beeby’s conjectures included that the key to a school’s movement through the
stages is the ability of its teachers to promote change, but he saw formalistic
teachers, in particular, as obstructive. Chapter 4 considers teachers’ perceptual
constructs, systemic barriers to change and the roles of different types of teachers
in change. Failure of teachers to innovate may be rational, reasoned responses to
complex progressive reforms that offer no relative advantage in the classroom,
are not compatible with existing methods, and offer no observable outcomes for
clients such as parents concerned with examination results. Whether a new sylla-
bus, teaching style or wider curriculum reform will diffuse through classrooms
depends on teachers’ personal and professional constructs (which may vary
among different teachers), practical barriers to change including work and social
pressures, schools’ professional climates and structural inducements. The influ-
ence of context-specific cultural paradigms on teachers’ formalistic professional
constructs may well outweigh – quite rationally from their perspective – the al-
leged benefits of any progressive reform.
The last of Beeby’s main conjectures was a hypothesised relationship between
levels of professional training and general education of teachers and their ability
to progress through the stages. Chapter 5 considers this through the medium of a
review of school effectiveness research and its methodological limitations in de-
veloping countries, this research having come to dominate international meas-
urement of education. The outcome, that the effectiveness of teacher education
and of teaching styles are context-based, appears to have stood the test of time.
The chapter then analyses lack of attention to teaching styles, the classroom and
cultural context, progressively focussing on methodological limitations in school
effectiveness research. In concentrating on technical reliability as an explanation
for failure to find useful generalisations, school effectiveness research has under-
estimated context by not taking culture and classroom processes seriously, churn-
ing repeatedly over the same barren statistical ground.
2
CHAPTER 1
THE PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION FALLACY
Karl Popper’s approach to the development of formal knowledge is as a se-

ries of conjectures and refutations. Section 1 considers some long-standing
progressive education conjectures. Chapter 1 posits the Progressive Educa-
tion Fallacy and, summarises the book. The Fallacy is based on the false
premise that enquiry teaching methods are necessary in primary and secon-
dary schools in developing countries to develop enquiry skills. The culturally-
biased conjectures of C.E. Beeby about educational stages and progressive
education remain an important influence on much academic and official lit-
erature on educational reform in non-Western cultures in developing coun-
tries, especially the equation of improvement in the quality of education with
change to teaching styles. Strong theoretical and practical reasons exist for
modifying formalism in an evolutionary fashion from within rather than try-
ing to replace it with progressive styles. Methodological issues in the school
effectiveness literature, on which much international analysis is based, in-
clude a serious lack of engagement with classroom processes and cultural
context. Context is a vital prior condition influencing classroom behaviour
that the cases of Papua New Guinea and China illustrate.
A common educational fallacy is that the variously labelled ‘enquiry’, ‘meaning’,

‘student-centred’, ‘learner-centred’, ‘active learning’, ‘problem-solving’, ‘discov-
ery’, ‘andragogic’, ‘participative’, ‘constructivist’, ‘liberal’, ‘democratic’ teaching
methods are necessary in primary and secondary schools in developing countries
to develop enquiry skills. I name this false premise the Progressive Education Fal-
lacy. It generates continuing efforts to change teachers away from formalistic
classroom methods on an assumption little researched cross-culturally that pro-
gressive methods will help students learn enquiry skills. One result is that logical
fallacies and cultural biases are implicit in much progressive academic and official
literature on educational reform in non-Western cultures. Yet,
G. Guthrie, The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour 3

of Formalism, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-1851-7_1, © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011
Gerard Guthrie
 there is no necessary indication that enquiry intellectual skills must be in-

troduced in primary and secondary schools in revelatory cultures where
knowledge is there to be revealed rather than created;
 nor that changing teaching styles is a necessary precondition.
The formalistic teaching that is prevalent in many developing country class-

rooms has been the focus of progressive curriculum and teacher education reform
efforts for some 50 years. Essentially, the key distinction is between teacher-
centred formalistic classrooms and student-centred progressive classrooms with
underlying ways of viewing knowledge that are revelatory or scientific, respec-
tively. Formalistic classrooms are constructed around the teachers’ pedagogical
role as an expert who transmits or reveals culturally valued knowledge as a prod-
uct. Progressive classrooms centre around students’ culturally-defined learning
processes, in particular the view that students should discover or construct their
own knowledge from a young age, which the teacher facilitates. Formalism is fre-
quently portrayed as an obstruction to modernisation and, at best, an intermediary
stage on the path to progressive Western-style educational development. The con-
clusion from my analysis, which this chapter overviews and summarises, is that
formalism is neither a problematic obstruction to modernisation nor a passing
stage. Rather, formalism is likely to remain embedded in many school systems be-
cause it is symptomatic of pervasive cultural continuities compatible with tradi-
tional and on-going pedagogical practices. Formalism should not be regarded as a
classroom problem readily subject to educational remediation – it is remarkably
difficult to change – but as a deep-rooted cultural paradigm capable of adaptation
and of performing important educational functions now and in the foreseeable fu-
ture.
A major reason for the prevalence of formalism is its compatibility with socie-
ties that value respect for knowledge and for authority, and that regard ritual as
meaningful in itself. While a considerable barrier to the international acceptance
of formalism is its connotation of a domineering authoritarianism, not uncommon
is a ‘benevolent paternalism’. The affective consequences of formalistic teaching
can be rather more positive than is commonly assumed.
Despite the disapproval of many progressive educationists, the evidence is that
formalism is effective and appropriate in the many educational and cultural con-
texts where it has value in itself. Formalism (variously having labels such as
‘teacher-centred’, ‘traditional’, ‘didactic’, ‘pedagogic’, ‘whole-class’, ‘expository’
or ‘instructional’) turns out to be appropriate in many countries, unpopular and
old-fashioned though these methods may seem in some English-speaking ones, in
particular. Whole-class formalistic processing of fixed syllabuses and textbooks,
with the emphasis on memorising basic facts and principles, is effective at pro-
moting learning, particularly at the lower cognitive levels required in primary and
4
Chapter 1
The Progressive Education Fallacy
secondary schools, thus providing building blocks for later intellectual endeavour.
Formalistic teaching is consistent with the formalistic teacher training, inspections
and examinations that provide coherence in many educational systems, providing
a base on which to build in the many situations where teachers and students feel
comfortable with it. The functionality of formalism in schools and classrooms
with poor facilities is a considerable asset, although formalism is not just a re-
sponse to lack of resources. Even were financing of education and working condi-
tions in schools and classrooms improved, formalism would still prevail.
Formalism has been the subject of many failed reforms. Regardless of any mer-
its of progressive education reforms in the abstract, the evidence strongly suggests
that they generally fail in countries with revelatory epistemologies, which adds a
reality check to ethical arguments against progressive education. Pragmatically,
one could argue, the high likelihood of failure is the only necessary reason to re-
ject progressive reforms. However, in looking for explanations for the failures, the
instigators often misdirect attention to the teachers themselves, to teacher training
and educational bureaucracy, rather than to the key underlying reasons, which are
the cultural incompatibility of progressivism and their own ignorance about this.
Remaining relevant is the proposition that, “the question to ask is not, how can we
change the quality of teaching by promoting alternatives to formalism, but, how
can we improve the quality of formalism?” (Guthrie 1990, p. 228).
1.1 Progressive Influences

A central tenet of progressivism is that progress is a unilinear and inevitable proc-
ess of socio-cultural development. From the end of World War II, a belief that
education was the most important factor in development became well entrenched
among academics, scholars, policy-makers and practitioners, as well as in agen-
cies such as UNESCO and the OECD (Hawkins 2007, p. 147). Education was not
just one of many factors in development; it was often seen – naïvely in my view –
as the most crucial factor. This belief has persisted and become central to the
thinking of many in the field of education and national development. The theoreti-
cal analysis in this book will focus on the example of progressive beliefs embed-
ded in C.E. Beeby’s well known model of stages of educational development,
which is still one of the few attempts to develop a comprehensive theory of class-
room change in developing countries (Chapter 2). The model presented in Beeby’s
1966 book, The Quality of Education in Developing Countries, had four basic
theoretical propositions, which can be summarised as:
1. There are four stages of primary schooling, being the Dame School, For-
malism, Transition and Meaning.
5
Gerard Guthrie
2. Movement through the stages is inevitable, usually sequential, and evolu-

tionary.
3. The key to a school’s movement through the stages is the ability of its
teachers to promote change.
4. The ability of teachers to promote change is a function of their confi-
dence, itself a function of their general and professional education.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the stages model was widely accepted in the literature,
although since my 1980 deconstruction of Beeby’s model revisited in Chapter 3.1,
the stages as such have received limited support. So, what is their relevance some
30 years later? Why focus on a theory that is no longer taken seriously as a formal
model of change? The reason is that in various forms the essence of these progres-
sive propositions is still pervasive in the educational literature on developing
countries. Central issues are the false association of improvement in the quality of
education with change to teaching styles and the Western, predominantly Anglo-
phone, cultural values often found in progressive attempts to change teaching in a
direction similar to Beeby’s Meaning stage. Beeby’s values, as a particular exam-
ple of the progressive paradigm, influenced directly two of the literature’s domi-
nant approaches, both the contrasting progressive/humanist and the economist tra-
ditions, as shown in a recent review of the educational quality literature by Barrett
et al. (2006, pp. 2-12). The review found that both traditions built on Beeby’s
stages model and included elements with an ideological preference for progressive
schooling. The humanist approach of Hawes and Stephens (1990), for example,
addressed primary school education in low-income countries with four central
principles of practice, one of which was “learner-based”. Similarly, the 1996
UNESCO Delors Report contributed to the humanist Education for All movement.
Beeby also directly influenced the economist tradition of the World Bank, espe-
cially the stages approach maintained by Verspoor and associates (Chapter 2.3;
see also the summary of the influence on the World Bank, UNESCO, UNDP,
UNICEF and USAID in Ginsburg 2009, pp. 5-6). Many scholars remain influ-
enced by the progressive paradigm, as we will see throughout this book. The pro-
gressive values encoded in Beeby’s model remain part of a continuing tradition in-
fluencing quite different schools of thought about educational quality in non-
Western countries, which share a central belief that teaching practices from the
West can raise pupil achievement across very different cultural settings.
What does the research literature tell us about the classroom practices linked to
formalistic and progressive teaching styles? Reviews focussed on teaching styles
are uncommon. A recent one commented briefly that there was a general rejection
among educationalists of traditional expository teaching and reported on the two
main proposed alternatives of structured teaching and discovery-based ap-
proaches. Their area of common agreement was on learning as a constructivist
6
Chapter 1
process. Gauthier and Dembele (2004, pp. 9-10) found support from the research
for structured teaching practices (which are closer to expository teaching or for-
malism). Structured teaching practices:
 were well-established and widely studied, mainly in industrialised coun-

tries;
 were successfully institutionalised;
 had results derived from their application that were conclusive with re-
spect to student learning;
 had proven effectiveness, in particular among children from disadvan-
taged backgrounds;
 were apparently accessible to any ordinary teacher and appropriate for
large classes; and
 had operational clarity and were therefore subject to consistent interpreta-
tions.
For discovery-based approaches closer to progressivism, there was less than ring-
ing endorsement:
 the majority of current programmes had been developed recently and on a

small scale;
 attempts to institutionalise them, both in industrialised and developing
countries, had met with limited success;
 their effectiveness was not yet established insofar as learning outcomes
were mixed or inconclusive;
 they were apparently inaccessible to ordinary teachers; and
 they lacked operational clarity and were therefore subject to a variety of
interpretations.
Primarily these findings came from research in developed countries, with few ref-
erences to findings from developing countries and no discussion of the rejection of
formalistic expository teaching. Gauthier and Dembele (2004, p. 35) did properly
caution, however, that in developing countries, “it should be borne in mind that
beyond the novelty syndrome of the pilot project, and beyond the whims of fash-
ion trends, it is important to measure the stability of student learning gains.”
Progressive approaches have been identified as part of pressure for educational
reform efforts in numerous countries, including Botswana (Tabulawa 1997),
China (Halstead and Zhu 2010), Hong Kong (Morris 1985; 1992; Watkins and
Biggs 2001), India (Clarke 2003; Sriprakash 2010), Jamaica (Jennings-Wray
7
Gerard Guthrie
1984; Jennings 2001), Kyrgyzstan (de la Sablonniere et al. 2009), Namibia

(O’Sullivan 2002; 2004), Papua New Guinea (O’Donoghue 1994; Guthrie 2003),
South Africa (Harley et al. 2000; Nakabugo and Sieborger 2001; Nykiel-Herbert
2004), Tanzania (Mtahabwa and Rao 2010), Uganda (Altinyelkin 2010) and Viet-
nam (Saito and Tsukui 2008). All these reforms were reported as being inappro-
priate and/or having major implementation difficulties. Perhaps the most scathing
comment among these papers applied to South Africa, where curriculum reform-
ers chose,
on ideological rather than pragmatic grounds a radical progressive/

constructivist pedagogy model, with the expectation that it would help to re-
dress … inequalities of the country’s inglorious racist past. However, a severe
shortage of the necessary expertise … turned the intended recipe for educa-
tional success into a new variety of educational malpractice, producing yet
another generation of illiterate, innumerate South Africans (Nykiel-Herbert
2004, p. 250).
The schools of developing countries are thus littered with the remnants of at-
tempts to change formalistic teaching. Even so, professional educators, especially
in internationally funded teacher education and curriculum projects, still fre-
quently attempt to accelerate the replacement of formalistic teaching in developing
country schools with inappropriate discovery-oriented teaching styles despite
enough warning from the research findings in Chapter 5.2 that formalistic teaching
can be more effective. This situation arises because the type of thinking embodied
in Beeby’s stages remains part of an enduring and only superficially questioned
educational tradition, on which Barrett et al. (2006) commented at some length.
They noted that Beeby drew upon his experience as an educational administrator
in a number of high and low income countries, almost all within the British Com-
monwealth, making his educational stages of development vulnerable to my criti-
cism (Guthrie 1980) that they contained a teleological purpose of westernisation
disguised as ‘better’ teaching. Beeby’s fourth and final stage of Meaning repre-
sented ideas about quality of education and the characteristics of education sys-
tems that were popular among educationalists in English-speaking Western coun-
tries, and which had influenced his own educational values. In this respect, Barrett
and colleagues found that there was little to distinguish Beeby’s approach from
later texts on educational quality, which have evolved to embrace contemporary
preoccupations with human rights, democracy and environmental sustainability.
Cast in a new set of terms (learner-centred, active-learning, participative, democ-
ratic), progressivism is an enduring tradition within education: “On the other hand,
the cultural basis of Guthrie’s … and other researchers’ assessment of the viability
of learner-centred pedagogies … that notions of education quality are restricted by
8
Chapter 1
a Western-bias, demands attention be given to other possibilities” (Barrett et al.

2006, p. 4).
1.2 Theoretical and Methodological Objections to Stages

Strong theoretical reasons exist for modifying formalism from within in an evolu-
tionary fashion rather than trying to replace it with progressive styles. Chapter 3
will expand and update four theoretical and methodological problems with stage
analysis:
1. The logic of stages is circular and invalid. The notion that Western styles
of teaching represent educational progress is at the centre of my criticism
that Beeby’s stages of educational development are teleological. Teleol-
ogy is a type of false circular logic where there is a prior and inherent
bias towards an outcome that is not explicit: in Beeby’s stages, the circu-
lar logic was based on a poorly considered proposition that teaching for
‘meaning’ represents universal educational progress.
2. The criterion of judgement is Western and culture-bound. Education is
values based, but we should be quite clear whose values apply in differ-
ent cultural settings. Objectives should be clearly justified in cultural as
well as other terms. If paradigms about progressive education are not de-
constructed, culturally biased and often false assumptions about teaching
style will remain unexamined and untested. This book will present many
examples of reforms that failed because they underestimated contextual
factors, especially the depth of traditional epistemological and pedagogi-
cal paradigms.
3. The association of student ability to enquire (a major product objective of
progressive education) with enquiry-based teaching techniques (a major
process objective of progressive education) has rarely been tested ex-
perimentally in developing countries. On the contrary, evidence is sup-
portive of the hypothesis that formal enquiry abilities develop with men-
tal maturation in conjunction with the biological growth process.
4. Curricular attempts to have students develop higher-level cognitive skills
may be inappropriate with immature school pupils in primary and secon-
dary schools. Where changes to teaching style are required by higher
cognitive skills or greater maturity among students, they are probably
best adopted in tertiary education.
Stages belong in the methodological dustbin: dead ends that apparently give form
and structure, but which have so many loose elements that they generate few hy-
potheses of lasting value for serious research, let alone practical application.
9
Gerard Guthrie
Allied to these weaknesses is the school effectiveness literature that has been a
major influence on donor agencies over the last 40 years. While school effective-
ness research has properly focussed on student achievement as the key dependent
variable, Chapters 5 and 12 find that much of this research remains looking down
the wrong end of the telescope in a vain search for illusory patterns. Token recog-
nition of culture and the classroom often amounts to little more than a disclaimer –
culture is an often recognised element of educational change, but it has generally
received only superficial recognition in the search for the holy grail of interna-
tional generalisations. A focus on technical reliability as an explanation for failure
to find useful generalisations has meant that school effectiveness research has lost
heavily in the trade-off with validity and relevance by underestimating ecological
validity or context and by not taking classroom processes seriously. Clearly
enough, it behoves all research to improve reliability, but its pursuit is of little
value if critical underlying validity issues are not addressed. The neglect at one
end of the educational process of cultural framework and, at the other end, of
classroom processes, has meant that woefully little light has been cast on some
very important issues. In the failure to break free of the reliability shackles, the
school effectiveness field has churned repeatedly over the same barren statistical
ground.
A number of allied technical faults that underlie much school effectiveness and,
especially, curriculum research, provide further sources of error:
1. Curriculum studies continue to use invalid assumptions to evaluate the ef-

fectiveness of change. The primary objective should be change in student
performance, which is properly central to school effectiveness research.
However, much curriculum reform research treats teaching style (which
should be an independent or an intervening process variable) as a depend-
ent product variable, unnecessarily making it the primary objective of
change.
2. When formative curriculum research studies rely on indirect techniques
such as questionnaires, interviews and focus groups, they can misrepre-
sent what is actually occurring in the classroom. School effectiveness
studies about the classroom have also generally used questionnaires as
part of quantitative survey methods derived from economics and struc-
tural-functional sociology. However, structured observational techniques
from educational psychology and direct observation using ethnographic
techniques derived from anthropology are the valid approaches to identi-
fying actual teacher and student behaviour (Chapters 5.4 and 10.4). In
part, they avoid the power relations in evaluative research that can distort
interview data, in particular. Ethnography is also the appropriate method
for providing understanding of the depths of cultural paradigms lying be-
10
Chapter 1
hind classroom behaviour, as illustrated by Richard Tabulawa’s (1997;

1998; 2004) brilliant analyses of classrooms in Botswana.
3. As we will see in Chapters 7 and 8 with Papua New Guinea, superficial
research can be an issue, especially in formative evaluations of well-
funded aid projects providing high but unsustainable levels of professional
support in pilot projects.
Many reports on curriculum innovations fall breathlessly into the trap of an-
nouncing from lightweight studies that teachers support progressive reforms and
implementation is successful. For example, Ginsburg (2009; 2010) synthesised
case studies of teacher in-service development projects supported this century by
USAID in Cambodia, Egypt, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan and Malawi, which suffered
from all the above faults. These projects were found squarely within the Progres-
sive Education Fallacy, focussing on “active-learning pedagogies” advanced
within international organisations during the previous 25 years and derived in part
from Beeby’s work (Ginsburg 2009, pp. 5-9). None of the five pilot projects ap-
parently used student learning as the dependent variable. The evaluations assessed
teachers’ classroom behaviour using self-reported data from interviews and focus
groups, finding that teachers could articulate active-learning policies. From this
loose data, changes in classroom behaviour were inferred, but only the Egypt
study actually added classroom observation. It found that any changes towards ac-
tive-learning teaching were modest. Nonetheless, a key conclusion went way be-
yond the data to claim that classroom change did occur: “While it would be an
overstatement to say that teachers involved in projects radically transformed their
instructional practices, it seems appropriate to conclude that real changes occurred
as a result of sustained training and supervisory support” (Ginsburg 2009, p. 22).
This conclusion carried the vested implication that more aid funding was justified
(Ginsburg 2009, p. 23).
Superficial research findings like these influence aid agencies and practitioners
to make ill-considered and unnecessary attempts to change classroom teaching
practices. As Alexander (2008, pp. 1-2) recently put it,
some of those who insist that specialist expertise is necessary for handling the
complexities of access, enrolment, retention and outcomes … exercise no
such caution about pedagogy, cheerfully peddling unexamined certainties
about the conditions for effective teaching and learning. This failure properly
to engage with pedagogy creates a vacuum into which are sucked a plethora
of claims about what constitutes ‘best practice’ in teaching and learning and
about the virtues of this or that pedagogical nostrum – group work, activity
methods … child-centred teaching … and so on. Such claims … are rarely
discussed, let alone evaluated against hard evidence, with the result that they
11
Gerard Guthrie
rapidly acquire the status of unarguable pedagogical truth and become trans-
muted into policy. … The whole cycle then becomes self-reinforcing.
1.3 Practical Objections to Progressive Reforms

Even were there a valid theoretical cross-cultural case for progressive education,
there are many practical barriers to change.1 The implication is that many reforms
will not succeed for practical reasons, including cost, and therefore they should
not be attempted. In sum, six main practical problems exist in developing coun-
tries (Chapter 4.4):
1. Classroom conditions may not be appropriate for some teaching styles.

2. Teachers may have insufficient time to innovate.
3. Examinations often emphasise learning inconsistent with innovations.
4. Educational administrators may be unable to provide appropriate organ-
isational support, particularly during extension phases.
5. Costs of reform may be prohibitive.
6. The difficulties in introducing progressive reforms can be underesti-
mated.
At the end of the day and regardless of the theoretical and ethical matters, the
issue is whether progressive innovations succeed in developing countries. Failing
reformers have been known to treat teachers as scapegoats and label them as con-
servative resisters of change, as did Beeby (1966, pp. 29-47) and many of the re-
ports referred to throughout this book. Chapter 4 will show that an alternative
view is that the cultural values of teachers and students, the realities of classroom
conditions, and the constraints within which schools operate influence the imple-
mentation of curriculum reforms. From this perspective, the resistance of many
teachers to innovation is rational behaviour based on their experiential understand-
ing of their working environment and its limitations rather than just irrational re-
sistance to change. E.M. Rogers’ (2003) analysis of different types of potential in-
novators demonstrates that organisations contain a wide range of people, from
innovative adopters to resistant laggards. Blanket categorisation of teachers as ob-
structionist does not take us far and may indeed reveal as much about the preju-
dices of the critics as the attitudes of the teachers.
Innovations are likely to be more effective if selected with regard to their prob-
ability of success as well as their desirability. Headquarters and aid personnel en-
1
Chapters 1.3 and 1.4 draw on Guthrie (1990). Paraphrases are used here with permission
from Taylor and Francis.
12
Chapter 1
sconced in the relative comfort of the capital city may be more at fault for not un-
derstanding the difficulties of change than the teachers who do understand.
1.4 Cultural Context and Formalistic Classrooms

The approach to culture and the classroom in this book is consistent with Fuller
and Clarke’s (1994, pp. 139-142) view that understanding underlying differences
among schools requires cross-cultural study of teacher authority, rules of class-
room participation, the structure of classroom work, and how teaching tools medi-
ate these social forces. Led this century by Michael Crossley in particular, many in
comparative education have called similarly for an increase in cross-cultural rele-
vance and practical application to developing countries through more attention to
context (Crossley 2000; 2002; 2008; Alexander 2001; Crossley and Watson 2003;
Crossley and Tikly 2004; Stephens 2007). Crossley (2000, p. 323) presciently
summarised these calls:
context matters, and comparative and international research in education is

especially well placed to demonstrate this in a future in which the socio-
cultural analyses of global trends and developments will require concerted at-
tention. This is well illustrated by contemporary critiques of educational pol-
icy borrowing, and the intellectual antecedents of such perspectives that are
consistently visible ...
This book’s approach nearly fits with Epstein’s (2008, p. 380) characterisation
of an epistemology in comparative education that he labelled historical functional-
ism. This conceptual position synthesises positivist and relativist ones, with most
studies in the field probing deeply into the historical and social context of educa-
tion to arrive at an understanding of how education is affected by context, and
how in turn education influences that context. At the same time, historical func-
tionalism uses cross-national generalisation to show the universality of theories
about education. The qualification is, in my view, that there are international
commonalties in education and generalisations that can be made about it, but no
universally applicable theories about school teaching (Chapter 12.1).
Two central definitions need stating. In this book, I use the term culture in the
deep sense that Hall (1983, pp. 6-7) described particularly well:
there is an underlying, hidden level of culture that is highly patterned – a set

of unspoken, implicit rules of behaviour and thought that controls everything
we do. This hidden cultural grammar defines the ways in which people view
the world, determines their values, and establishes the basic tempo and
rhythms of life.
13
Gerard Guthrie
This approach is similar to Sternberg’s (2007, pp. 5-6) definition of culture as the
set of attitudes, values, beliefs and behaviours shared by groups and communi-
cated from generation to generation through language and other means of commu-
nication.
The second key definition is of the classroom teaching style of formalism,
which has several elements. Formalism places the teacher firmly in control.
Teaching involves organised, whole-class processing of fixed syllabuses and text-
books, with the main emphasis on memorising basic facts and principles. Teachers
have dominant hierarchical roles, while students are generally passive, although
limited overt teacher-student and student-student interaction may be permitted un-
der conditions controlled by the teacher. Generally, questions are closed and come
from the teacher in whole-class settings. Students may be set individual work, but
other types of activity, such as group work, are infrequent. Additionally, formalis-
tic teacher training, syllabuses, inspections, examinations, and administrative sys-
tems usually reinforce the classroom situation.
Chapter 2.4 shows examples of classroom formalism that give a fuller picture
of formalism in practice:
1. Formalistic teachers do not necessarily rely just on lecturing.

2. There can be variation among formalistic teachers.
3. Teachers and students can share the same expectations about the value of
formalism.
4. Formalism can be perceived as hierarchical without being authoritarian.
5. Formalistic teaching can foster student engagement and generate high
academic standards that go beyond surface memorisation.
6. Formalistic systems can be structured to give incentive to teachers to up-
grade their skills.
These findings derive from studies in different countries. There is no indication

about how widely they apply, but they do indicate the merit of not making prema-
ture assumptions about formalism in any particular context.
In particular, we should note in anticipation of some of the rejections of formal-
ism in the literature that the definition of formalism (first presented in 1981 but
based on Beeby’s 1966 one) does not equate formalism with authoritarianism or
corporal punishment. Formalism is not necessarily typified by domineering au-
thoritarianism, but may have connotations closer to benevolent paternalism. My
own model of five teaching styles in Chapter 10.2 labels the most teacher-centred
style as Authoritarian, which may frequently involve physical sanctions focussed
on enforcing obedience. Formalism is the next most teacher-centred style. It in-
volves strong negative sanctions focussed on failure to learn but less ready use of
14
Chapter 1
physical ones. Critics of formalism tend to blend these two styles, but not all for-
malistic teachers use violence; nor is the definition tied to this. That some formal-
istic teachers are violent is true; however, most are not, and other types of teachers
can be violent on occasion too.
Nor should the assumption be made that formalism necessarily correlates with
low student achievement. Much of the recent research on the Chinese classroom
has been driven by interest in what John Biggs (1996) labelled the Paradox of the
Chinese Learner, which is the apparent contradiction between large formalistic
classes, yet high educational achievement on international tests by Confucian-
heritage students. Essentially, the evidence is that their performance is not pas-
sively due to superior memorisation, but to superior cognitive strategies (Chapter
9.5). Rather than focussing on ‘surface’ remembering of facts, teaching encour-
ages active, ‘deep’ understanding of underlying meaning. The evidence is that
Chinese teachers often use formalistic methods in a highly sophisticated fashion
that actually encourages student engagement in classroom material. The obvious
dominance of teachers in the formalistic classroom should not necessarily be taken
for an absence of mental engagement by the learner.
In Chapter 10.2, we will turn to a teaching style model rather than a teacher-
student dichotomy. This model has five classroom teaching styles in a continuum
from conservative to progressive, being Authoritarian, Formalistic, Flexible, Lib-
eral and Democratic. Until then, the focus will be the two predominant teacher-
centred and learner-centred classroom styles of Formalism and Progressivism, in
large part because this is how the discussion has been couched for several decades
now.
1.5 Country Studies of Formalism

The summaries of the objections to formalism may be misconstrued as supporting
formalistic teaching by default, by virtue of a series of negative findings about the
alternatives. This is not the intent. The on-going prevalence of a formalistic teach-
ing style in primary and secondary schools in many countries is paradigmatic.
Formalism is associated with long-term cultural patterns and epistemologies that
provide deep-rooted value systems. It can also provide coherence in educational
systems through teacher training, inspections and administrative support. This is
demonstrated by a detailed study in Chapters 6-8 of educational research findings
from Papua New Guinea, one of the world’s smaller countries.
Papua New Guinea occupies an important methodological position in this book,
acting as a Popperian test that falsifies any claims to the universal applicability of
the progressive approach. Karl Popper’s (1969; 1979) approach to the
development of formal knowledge is as a series of conjectures and refutations,
analysis of which proceeds on the basis of the principles of refutation or falsifica-
15
Gerard Guthrie
tion. His approach was based on a rejection of inductive logic in which research
cannot prove correct conjectural theories or hypotheses derived from them, but
can only prove them incorrect. Popper is identified as a positivist and is therefore
highly unfashionable with large parts of the social science community. However,
his logic was not only accepted by Beeby, but also offered in his own defence, and
it provides an appropriate framework around which this book is structured. Beeby
(1980, pp. 468-473) stated that his stages hypothesis could be disproved relatively
easily by finding a single substantial exception among developing countries that
have tried, or will try, to improve their national educational systems, either by
finding a system that follows quite a different progression from his prediction, or
by discovering one that leapfrogged one of the stages. Papua New Guinea
provides a highly relevant test of Beeby’s progressive model. Perhaps more than
in any other developing country, his ideas were put into official practice from the
late 1960s and, despite the failure of seven major progressive reforms recorded in
Chapter 7, still continue to influence many curricular efforts to change formalism.
My conclusions for Papua New Guinea are that:
 Formalistic teaching is culturally congruent with traditional epistemology

and pedagogy that predated European colonisation in the 1870s.
 Formalism was reinforced by the similar style brought by missionaries
and other educators in colonial schools in the 20th century.
 These cultural influences have been a key element in the resistance of
formalistic pedagogy to the change efforts of recent progressive educa-
tional reformers.
In contrast is the largest country, China, which remarkably enough has many
epistemological elements in common with the seemingly very different Papua
New Guinea. A review in Chapter 9 of influence of the Confucian tradition ex-
tends the generalisability of the test to provide a further refutation of Beeby’s
proposition that the universal adoption of progressive education is inevitable.
China demonstrates the unlikelihood of a progressive education approach barely
two centuries old replacing a formalistic Confucian tradition dating back two mil-
lennia and more. The Confucian-heritage tradition also demonstrates that formalis-
tic teachers can pay considerable attention to the progress of their students both
inside and outside the classroom. Other evidence from classroom research in Asia
and Africa is also brought to bear.
The implications of the book for the theory, methodology and practice of edu-
cation in developing countries are brought together in Chapters 10-12. In particu-
lar, Chapter 11.4 will turn to some of the more straightforward ways in which
formalistic systems can be upgraded, including increased time on task, increased
16
Chapter 1
class sizes, provision of textbooks, provision of supplementary language readers,

use of distance education for in-service programmes, and practice of moderate
versions of reflection. Chapter 12.5 also reviews briefly current research on the in-
teractions among physical maturation and culture, the location in the lateral pre-
frontal cortex of complex reasoning, the type of teaching methods used in primary
and secondary schools, and the timing of curricular activities. All this has implica-
tions for the earlier progressive assumption that the brain is fully developed by the
early teens and that enquiry teaching is appropriate early in schooling. Rather, it
seems, advanced capacities do not finish developing in the brain until a decade or
so later. The hypothesis that the introduction of enquiry learning methods in pri-
mary and early secondary school is premature, given the later growth of the lateral
prefrontal cortex, may be a stretch but the issue is on the table. If physical matura-
tion is one key factor, the underpinnings of the failure of progressive teaching in-
novations may in part be biological and not just educational, cultural or social, and
therefore apply as much to youth in developed as developing countries.
1.6 Conclusion
Culture is a prior condition for classroom change. If contextual research does
demonstrate deep-seated cultural paradigms with revelatory epistemologies, pro-
gressive classroom interventions are unlikely to survive. On the other hand, im-
provements to formalism are highly likely to survive because they are congruent
with the pervasive cultural setting. Cultural context may not be controllable scien-
tifically or administratively, but it does exist and it does have real effects. The
many failed attempts in developing countries to replace formalism with progres-
sive teaching styles demonstrate that culture-bound reformers who do not under-
stand the depth of the cultural issues are in for a very difficult time.
The naïve introduction of fashionable educational theories from different cul-
tural contexts is highly inappropriate. In Papua New Guinea, China and other
countries with similar pedagogical and epistemological underpinnings, the future
lies not in promoting alternatives to formalism, but in improving its level. Formal-
istic teaching is not an intermediary step on the path to educational development,
but is likely to remain central to many school systems because it is compatible
with traditional and on-going cultural practices. Formalism is symptomatic of age-
old cultural preferences, not a problematic obstruction to modernisation. In those
countries where it is appropriate, it should not be regarded as a classroom problem
readily fixed, but as a deep-rooted cultural behaviour capable of playing an impor-
tant role long into the future.
17
Gerard Guthrie
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Tabulawa, R. (1998). Teachers’ perspectives on classroom practice in Botswana: Implications
for pedagogical change. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 20, 249-
268.
Tabulawa, R. (2004). Geography students as constructors of classroom knowledge and practice:
A case study from Botswana. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 36(1), 53-73.
Watkins, D., & Biggs, J. (Eds.), Teaching the Chinese learner: Psychological and pedagogical
perspectives (pp. 115-134). Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University
of Hong Kong.
20
CHAPTER 2
FORMALISM IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
The progressive values incorporated in the end point of Beeby’s stages still
remain active as a misguided direction for reforms that attempt to change
formalistic teachers to other styles rather than upgrade their formalism.
Chapter 2 describes the model of stages and its widespread acceptance in the
educational literature in the 1960s and 1970s. Since then, there has been only
limited acceptance of the formal properties of the stages model, except in
some curriculum work derived from the World Bank, and little in the way of
empirical research based on it. However, the progressive education values
implicit in the model have persevered in quite different schools of educational
thought. Some country-based research provides examples of classroom for-
malism giving a fuller picture of formalism in practice as well as six key find-
ings that illustrate in some depth the nature of formalistic teaching and the
merit of not making premature assumptions about it in any particular context.
In the main, Beeby’s 1966 book generalised from his practical experience as a
high level educational administrator in an attempt to promote the development of
educational theory that would provide justification for educationalists’ attempts to
improve the quality of education in developing countries. As a later autobio-
graphical book explained, the ideas were embedded in a philosophy of education
that he had been responsible for implementing as Director of Education in New
Zealand from 1940 to 1960 (Beeby 1992; also Alcorn 1999, pp. 95-161). The phi-
losophy related to the equalisation and democratisation of schooling in the sense
of opening up opportunity to all individuals.
A natural extension of this idea and of Beeby’s administrative role was an in-
terest in improving the quality of schooling in developing countries. He was re-
sponsible for education in Western Samoa and other New Zealand dependencies
in the South Pacific, became one of the founding figures in UNESCO, was sec-
onded to it as Assistant Director-General in 1948-49, was New Zealand Ambassa-
dor to UNESCO from 1960-63, and was consulted widely on major educational
reform in developing countries. In Papua New Guinea, he was an influential figure
in the latter half of the 1960s as a member of the important Weeden Committee on
Education (Weeden, Beeby, and Gris 1969). He also contributed a major analysis

Gerard Guthrie
of education in Indonesia (Beeby 1979) and directly influenced the World Bank’s
educational policies. This came about because Beeby was a keynote speaker at a
World Bank seminar on quality in education in 1983, which resulted in Bank staff
shifting their thinking so that quality of schooling became an overriding concern
(Heyneman and White 1986; Alcorn 1999, pp. 354-355; Barrett et al. 2006, pp. 4-
8).
Prior to the formal analysis in Chapters 3 and 4, the first half of this chapter de-
scribes Beeby’s model of stages and their widespread acceptance in the educa-
tional literature in the 1960s and 1970s with remarkably little critical analysis. The
second half then draws six important findings from the subsequent literature about
formalism that demonstrate the depth of the formalistic paradigm and on-going
cultural reasons for rejection of the progressive approach.
2.1 Beeby’s Stages of Educational Development

Beeby presented his progressive approach to improving educational quality as a
formal stages model with analytical properties intended to generate research
(Beeby 1966, p. 50).2 The theory as presented in 1966 was a modification and ex-
tension of one presented four years before (Beeby 1962). In this previous article,
Beeby presented three stages of educational development to explain changes in
primary school systems. These stages were extended to four in the book, but the
essence of the argument was the same and most of the article was included. Later,
as part of the exchange in the International Review of Education (Guthrie 1980a;
1980b; see also 1982; Beeby 1980a; 1980b), Beeby made some minor revisions to
the model. We can concentrate on the 1966 book, where necessary as amended in
1980.
The purpose of the stage analysis was essentially an action-oriented concern to
promote progress through the stages, Beeby (1966 p. 50) stating that his views
were the result of administrative experience rather than scholarly research. His
case, as an educator concerned with quality, was presented in counterpoint to the
alleged quantitative concerns of economists. On the one hand were economists,
concerned with quantity, analysing educational inefficiency, and attacking educa-
tors for conservatism; on the other hand were educators, aware of these problems,
but concerned with promoting quality as well. Unlike educators, economists were
seen as theoretically sophisticated: Rostow’s (1971) well known theory of eco-
2Chapters 2.1 and 2.2 draw on Guthrie (1980a) and (1980b) with permission from Springer
Science and Business Media. Quotations and Figure 1.1 are from Beeby, C.E. (1966). The qual-
ity of education in developing countries. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, copyright
1966 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College, used by permission of the publisher.
22
Chapter 2
Formalism in Developing Countries
nomic stages and Harbison and Myers’ (1964) classification of 75 countries into
four levels of human resource development were claimed by Beeby (1966 p. 48)
to give form and shape to an elusive complex that educators had failed to match in
their own field. To match the economists’ theory, and familiar with Stanley Hall’s
earlier educational psychology on stages of growth in early childhood (Beeby
1980a, p. 439), Beeby presented a theory of stages, incorporating changes in the
quality of classroom teaching.
To paraphrase Beeby, schools could usually be found at one of the four stages
of Dame School, Formalism, Transition or Meaning. Columns 1 and 3 of Figure
2.1 were used to summarise the discussion of stages. In sum, as a school system
moved through the stages, schools became less rigid (with fewer external controls
such as exams and inspections), teachers less formal in teaching style, discipline
less authoritarian, and syllabuses and textbooks less prescriptive. Corresponding
to these changes, learning would become more meaningful, the classroom more
pupil-centred, and the school more self-directed.
Figure 2.1 Stages in the Growth of a Primary School System
(1) (2) (3) (4)

Stage Teachers Characteristics Distribution of Teachers
I. Dame School Ill-educated, Unorganized, relatively meaningless symbols; very narrow subject X
untrained content – 3R’s; very low standards; memorizing all-important. t years
II. Formalism Ill-educated, Highly organized; symbols with limited meaning; rigid syllabus;
trained emphasis on 3 R’s; rigid methods – ‘one best way’; one textbook; A
external examinations; inspection stressed’ discipline tight and
external; memorizing heavily stressed; emotional life largely
ignored.
P
III. Transition Better-educated, Roughly same goals as stage II, but more efficiently achieved;
trained more emphasis on meaning, but it is still rather ‘thin’ and formal; B
syllabus and textbooks less restrictive, but teachers hesitate to use
greater freedom; final leaving examination often restricts Q
experimentation; little in classroom to cater for emotional and
creative life of child.
IV. Meaning Well-educated, Meaning and understanding stressed; somewhat wider curriculum, C
well-trained variety of content and methods; individual differences catered for;
activity methods, problem solving and creativity; internal tests; R
relaxed and positive discipline; emotional and aesthetic life, as
well as intellectual; closer relations with community; better
buildings and equipment essential. Y
Source: Beeby (1966, p. 72), by permission of the publishers.
When Beeby (1980b, pp. 457-460) revisited the stage of Meaning, he wrote
that this would be the area in which he would make the greatest changes were he
to rewrite the book because his description had oversimplified it. The difficulty he
23
Gerard Guthrie
identified was that the Meaning stage had pluralistic meanings subject to differing
interpretations from traditional and progressive educational philosophies, and he
rewrote the description of the stage to reduce his own progressive orientation. The
1980 revision to Stage IV in Column 3 read:
Meaning and understanding stressed; variety of content and method to cater

for individual differences; problem-solving plays an increasing part; pupils’
own active thinking and judgement encouraged, and the control of language
appropriate to this developed (Beeby 1980b, p. 457).
The modification removed some elements related to curriculum and classroom ac-
tivities, discipline, emotional and aesthetic life, and facilities, but remained em-
bedded in progressive views.
Regardless of this redefinition, Beeby did not resile from his 1966 view that
progress through the stages was inevitable, sequential and evolutionary: “there are
certain stages of growth through which all school systems must pass; although a
system may be helped to speed up its progress, it cannot leapfrog a stage or major
portion of a stage” (Beeby 1966, p. 69). Stage I, the Dame School stage, was not
essential, however, because in many countries modern educational systems were
introduced by foreign teachers who were the products of more advanced systems.
But, unless expansion of a system was very slow and was undertaken with a very
high proportion of such expatriate teachers, it was unlikely that the earlier levels
of Formalism would be by-passed. Thenceforth, change was evolutionary, because
“for teachers ... the goals of education are emergent, in the sense that they must be
within the range of the teachers’ capabilities, and will evolve as those capabilities
expand” (Beeby 1966, p. 128). In particular, a sense of intellectual and emotional
security was essential for teachers at Stage IV, this sense of security partly de-
pending on the gap between teacher and pupil knowledge. Thus change was likely
to occur most easily in lower grades where this gap was widest, and was likely to
be slower in higher grades.
The 1966 book contained two major qualifiers of the stage analysis. The first,
mentioned very much in passing, was the idea that there could be upper and lower
levels or sub-stages in each stage. The second qualification was a very explicit ex-
planation that it would be an oversimplification to think of all parts of a system
being at exactly the same stage, thus a national system could straddle more than
one stage (Beeby 1966, p. 70). The time factor was shown elegantly in Column 4
of Figure 2.1. Line X-Y represents the continuous scale of growth of a system. B is
the average teacher’s position at a given time, A-C is the range of teachers in the
system, t is the number of years over which an attempt is made to reform the sys-
tem, Q being the point where teacher B may be expected to stand after t years,
24
Chapter 2
with P-R being the new range. CBQ is the “angle of reform”. An administrator
who attempted to create too acute an angle of reform could be pulled down as a
radical by the press and public; if the angle were too near a right angle, the system
would stagnate.
The key to change from stage to stage was seen by Beeby as teacher ability.
Ability was used to refer to the capacity of teachers to bring about the changes
necessary to raise a school system to a higher stage. In effect, Beeby actually
meant teacher inability. This was implicit in much of his discussion and was made
explicit, in particular, when causes of professional conservatism were discussed in
relation to both developed and developing countries (Beeby 1966, pp. 35-47). Five
factors focussed on teachers’ limitations:
1. Lack of clear goals in the system affecting teachers’ thinking.

2. Lack of understanding and acceptance of reforms by teachers.
3. Teachers, as products of a system, not being prone to innovate.
4. Isolation of teachers in their classroom slowing down diffusion of inno-
vations.
5. A wide range of ability of teachers making diffusion rates uneven.
Ability to change was posited as a function of teachers’ confidence, itself depend-

ing on two key teacher education variables:
1. Their level of general education.

2. Their amount and kind of professional education.
As Column 2 of Figure 2.1 shows, Beeby’s view was that educational quality
would improve as teachers moved from being ill-educated and untrained at the
Dame School stage to being well-educated and well-trained at the Meaning stage.
2.2 Initial Acceptance

When Beeby’s book appeared, it was very positively reviewed, on the whole as a
much needed attempt to create a theoretical framework for development educa-
tion. Reviewers commended what they thought was the apparent validity of the
stages and their potential to create testable hypotheses, and accepted its view of
educational change as evolutionary (Guthrie 1980a, p. 416). In the 1960s and
1970s, the model passed into the literature with little formal criticism and with
frequent reference to its application to different educational systems, mainly in
developing countries. Castle (1972) approvingly used Beeby’s framework in a
general analysis of Third World education, claiming that most countries were in
the Dame or Formalism stages; while Griffiths (1975) used a modified version to
25
Gerard Guthrie
analyse Sudanese primary education after the 1930s. The stages received particu-
lar attention in countries of the South Pacific area, in part because the book was
one of the few works discussing education in the region, commentators noting that
it appeared to be a descriptively accurate picture of education there. Research de-
rived from the model was limited, but Musgrave (1974) did carry out a minor
questionnaire study among a small group of school inspectors from 10 Southeast
Asian and Pacific areas of the Commonwealth. The results were interpreted as in-
dicating three categories: Pacific countries (British Solomon Islands, New Hebri-
des, Niue and Papua New Guinea) corresponding to Stage II; Southeast Asian
countries (Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore) that corresponded to Stage III;
and westernised countries (Australia, England and New Zealand) that corre-
sponded to Stage IV.
A number of educational practitioners agreed with Musgrave that the Papua
New Guinea educational system was in the stage of Formalism. Coyne (1973) out-
lined Beeby’s stages and reviewed 15 authors’ comments that showed Papua New
Guinea to be in Stage II. Others essentially agreed (Beevers 1968; Donohoe 1974).
However, two research studies gave some clues about the importance of the cul-
tural context for teacher education. Larking’s (1974) study of 230 students in a
primary teachers’ college over 1972-73 showed the students were weak in nurtur-
ance, strong in authoritarianism and that significant changes in these, predicted
from Beeby’s model, had not occurred during their training. Larking followed
Hagen (1962) and contended that in pre-literate societies the authoritarian person-
ality is common and that changes from this in Papua New Guinea would only oc-
cur with changes in the social personality of the society itself. The implication was
that any changes inferred from Beeby’s model would be very slow if the prospect
of such change were, indeed, likely. Another study (Rowell and Schultz 1977) re-
ported on research with 139 students undertaking three different courses at a dif-
ferent primary college during 1970-71. This study found low levels of attitude
change and concluded that peer group influence was perhaps stronger than lectur-
ers’ influence. These two studies indicated that attitudinal change was very much
dependent on social and cultural contexts that might be opposed to the type of
progressive change promoted in the courses, so that prospects for behavioural
change seemed low.
The stages were also referred to in the context of ‘underdeveloped’ sectors of
‘developed’ countries. Bowles (1969) cited Beeby’s description of the stages at
some length and claimed that the majority of teachers in the Black school system
in the United States were in the Formalism or Transition stages; while Medlin’s
(1968) review had commented that the stages provided a meaningful framework
for analysis of Russian development policies in Central Asia. Additionally, and
mainly in Australia and New Zealand, the stages were used in analyses of previous
26
Chapter 2
and current change in developed countries. Arnold (1973) and Dakin (1976) used
the stages to interpret educational change in New Zealand, during the 1870s in the
former case and current change in the latter case. In Australia, Meadmore (1978)
used the stages in an historical analysis to explain reforms in Queensland primary
education in 1860 and 1875 as bringing Queensland from Stage I to Stage II, this
system described as eventually arriving in Stage III during the 1960s. Hughes
(1969) carried out a similar historical analysis of Tasmania from 1804. Musgrave
(1976) also carried out a second questionnaire study among 54 teacher educators
in Victoria, which was interpreted to show much Australian teaching as being in
the Transitional Stage III, with colleges of education believed by their staff to be
agents of social change moving schools into Stage IV.
In addition to these geographic applications, Beeby’s model was used in the
1960s and 1970s to illuminate some of the thematic aspects of education. In par-
ticular, the concept of formalism was widely used to describe teaching style.
Sanders (1969) wrote that Beeby’s stages might provide the basis of a set of cate-
gories for analysing instructional procedures in the classroom. Sheffield (1974)
also used a modification of the stages to provide insights into then recent and gen-
erally unsuccessful attempts in developing countries to innovate with modern edu-
cational technology. McKinnon (1976) used the stages as the basis of a historical
model of curriculum change in Papua New Guinea, which named five curriculum
stages – Imitative, Derivative, Venturesome Local, Modern Local and Integrated
Modern Local – but included little further analysis. Dore’s (1976) attack on the
“diploma disease” also included some reactions to Beeby’s conception of educa-
tional development, but could not be taken too seriously as formal criticism.
Thus, Beeby’s book was taken up rapidly. What King in 1968 (p. 148) called
an “excellent book” had, nearly a decade later, become the “celebrated taxonomy”
(Taylor 1975, p. v), part of the educational lexicon. The book was full of common
sense and valuable insights, the result of long years of experience and valuable to
others with similar interests. Yet three-quarters of the studies cited above were in-
terpretative and they mostly took Beeby’s model uncritically at face value. The
logic had many weaknesses that saw little detailed examination; as did dubious
claims for generalisability of the model. Only Vaizey (1966), Musgrave (1974),
Griffiths (1975) and Dore (1976) commented on the properties of the model (and
generally briefly), while only Larking (1974), Musgrave (1974; 1976), Griffiths
(1975) and Meadmore (1978) used the stages as the foundation of either historical
or survey research. In contrast to the open and frank discussion at a 1961 confer-
ence on Rostow’s stages (Rostow 1963) was a 1966 UNESCO conference on
‘Qualitative Aspects of Educational Planning’, which was chaired by Beeby him-
self. Like many such quasi-diplomatic conferences, the record contains only indi-
rect analysis of many of the issues raised (Beeby 1969). Thus, what purported to
27
Gerard Guthrie
be a major theory of educational change became an accepted part of the educa-

tional literature of the period with little serious analysis or application. This was
the context in which my deconstruction of Beeby’s model was undertaken in 1980
as part of an evaluation of secondary teacher education in Papua New Guinea in
the late 1970s.
2.3 Subsequent Use of the Stages

Since the exchange in the International Review of Education in 1980, Beeby’s on-
going influence on education in developing countries has been mainly as a pro-
gressive educator concerned about quality. A search of Google Scholar showed
some 100 citations of Beeby’s book in the 20 years from 1990 to 2009, for com-
parative education a respectable enough average of about five a year. Other than
his responses in the International Review of Education, Beeby himself ignored the
criticisms of the model in his later writing (e.g. Beeby 1982; 1986); and in the
autobiographical review of his key educational ideas, he mentioned only that the
thesis of stages “has sometimes been criticised by academics” (Beeby 1992, p.
214). However, apart from historical reference to contextualise research (e.g. Bar-
rett 2007, pp. 275-276), application of the stages model to research has been very
limited in recent decades. There has been only limited acceptance of the formal
properties of the stages model and little in the way of empirical research derived
from it. Citations of Beeby have mainly related to three aspects of the book: the
stages model, the formalistic teaching style, and political biases in the model (un-
derlying cultural issues will be discussed in Chapter 3.4 while another aspect, the
teacher education variables, will be taken up in Chapter 6.1). Nonetheless, the
progressive education values underpinning the model have persevered in quite dif-
ferent schools of educational thought, in particular in the 1996 UNESCO Delors
Report and the World Bank’s 1999 Education Sector Strategy (as indicated in
Chapter 1.1).
The limited positive references to the stages methodology as such were mainly
in the World Bank. Since the late 1980s, the Bank has built on the work of human
capital theorists, rates of return and school effectiveness research to argue for cost-
effective investment in primary school education (Barrett et al. 2006, pp. 4-8). As
part of this approach, Verspoor and Leno (1986, pp. 11-14) and Verspoor and Wu
(1990) loosely combined Beeby’s stages model with findings from Hall (1978)
showing eight levels of behaviour among American teachers confronted with in-
novation. They adapted four levels from Hall that corresponded roughly to
Beeby’s stages: Unskilled (where schools are mainly staffed by unqualified teach-
ers who use rote learning techniques), Mechanical (where most teachers have lim-
ited training and education and slavishly follow the curriculum), Routine (where
28
Chapter 2
teachers have adequate training and some variation in techniques), and Profes-
sional (where teachers are well-trained and student needs are the central focus of
teaching). Each stage included factors related to teachers, curriculum, text-
books/materials, teaching techniques, supervision/support, and teacher reaction to
innovation. While cautioning against expectations of rapid change, the approach
was firmly and explicitly based on progressive ideals as an end point, consistent
with Verspoor’s (1989, p. 134) view that large curriculum projects were often
based on good ideas but problems lay in underestimating implementation difficul-
ties.
Curiously enough, the work of Verspoor and his colleagues noted criticisms of
the stages approach but largely ignored the depths of its methodological invalidity.
This was a surprising exception to the economic literacy of the World Bank given
the rigorous rebuttal in the 1960s by Myrdal and Kuznets of Rostow’s methodol-
ogically similar stages of economic growth (which will be revisited in Chapter
3.1). Nonetheless, the Bank revisions in turn influenced some writers particularly
concerned with the implications of the different stages for the in-service education
of teachers (INSET). These writers were focussed particularly on southern Africa
(de Feiter et al. 1995, pp. 65-68; de Feiter and Ncube 1999, pp. 182-184; Harvey
1999; Rogan and Grayson 2003; see also Johnson et al. 2000; Johnson et al. 2001,
p. 146; Villegas-Reimers 2003, pp. 123-124). De Feiter and Ncube (1999), for ex-
ample, reinforced the pragmatic outcome of Beeby’s approach that educational
support must realistically take into account the conditions under which formalistic
teachers often work in developing countries: “when conditions are ill-resourced,
teachers are not well-trained, and the school organisation is weak … improving
conventional teaching is potentially a more effective strategy” (de Feiter and
Ncube 1999, p. 184). This, indeed, is a central position of the present book, but the
stages mentality was still reflected in their further comment that “more student
centred methodologies can be introduced at higher levels of school development”
(ibid).
Harvey (1999, pp. 604-608) reached a similar but more explicit end point, also
arguing that Beeby’s stages helped define the type of INSET appropriate to teach-
ers at different stages. However, his enthusiasm for the stages approach was such
that it seems to have led him to seriously misinterpret my own analysis. He stated,
“even Guthrie (1980a) concedes that the ease with which various researchers have
applied this model to a diversity of contexts attests to the generalisable descriptive
validity of the stages and their sequence” (Harvey 1999, p. 600), somehow inter-
preting the following statement as providing such support: “given that the model
was particularly based on experience in New Zealand and Western Samoa it
would have been wiser to restrict the model’s application to the British-tradition
metropolitan and colonial countries of the South Pacific (and within that area to
29
Gerard Guthrie
claim greater applicability to the ‘developed’ rather than the ‘underdeveloped’

countries), and thus … [give] a clear indication … of the universe to which gener-
ality is claimed” (Guthrie 1980a, p. 425). Furthermore, Harvey stated, “I join
Beeby (1986), Guthrie (1980a) and de Feiter et al. (1995) in urging that more at-
tention be paid to developing interim models of excellence appropriate to each
stage of development” (Harvey 1999, p. 606). Lest any ambiguity remain from the
1980 discussion of teleology, I can only reiterate that the teleological invalidity of
Beeby’s assumption, that progressive teaching was universally desirable, implied
that his model should not be applied either in research or educational practice.
Formalism is not in my view an interim path to progressive teaching because pro-
gressive or meaning stage teaching is not a universally valid end point in schools.
School development and curriculum innovation were also seen as a movement
towards more sophisticated higher levels by Rogan and Grayson (2003, p. 1174).
However, they qualified this view usefully in noting that the stages approach im-
plied a linear view of complex and idiosyncratic curriculum change processes, and
that higher levels should be seen as inclusive of the lower ones rather than re-
placements. The thrust of their argument was that curriculum changes should build
on existing strengths, which is not dissimilar to my own point that, “the different
styles are not ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than each other, only more or less appropriate.
There is no point in using styles from overseas just because they appear to repre-
sent ‘modern’ thinking in other countries. Progress … can well be a case of im-
proving within a style (e.g. training ‘bad’ Formalists to become ‘good’ Formal-
ists)” (Guthrie 1981, p. 166; see also 1983, pp. 50-53; 1990, p. 228). In those
cultures where it is appropriate, formalism is a legitimate end point.
2.4 Findings about Formalism

Formalism is often referred to in the educational literature, although not always by
name or with reference to Beeby. Often the references are pejorative, an example
being Kumar (1988), who criticised the official “textbook culture” in India and its
requirements for formalistic teachers to follow “slavishly” official dictates backed
up by bureaucratic powers that left open considerable punishment for non-
compliance, such as compulsory transfer of teachers to any school. Rather than a
broad survey of such references, more detailed reporting of research from Nepal,
Botswana, Namibia and China, in particular, provides examples of classroom for-
malism that give a fuller picture of formalism in practice and casts light on some
key issues about its nature. These case studies contain six findings: a) formalistic
teachers do not necessarily rely just on lecturing; b) there can be variation among
formalistic teachers; c) teachers and students can share the same expectations
about the value of formalism; d) formalism can be perceived as hierarchical with-
30
Chapter 2
out being authoritarian; e) formalistic teaching can foster student engagement and
high academic standards; and f) formalistic systems can be structured to give in-
centive to teachers to upgrade their skills. These lessons are based on case studies
and there is no indication about how widely they apply, but they do indicate the
merit of not making premature assumptions about formalism in any particular con-
text.
a) Lecturing. A first finding is that formalistic teachers do not necessarily

rely solely on chalk and talk. In a rare use of Beeby’s model for empirical class-
room research, Pfau (1980) reported on the use of the stages in a study of class-
room behaviours that compared 5th grade science classes in Nepal with the United
States. Pfau did not appear to fall into the progressive trap, and made no judge-
ments about the teaching styles, instead using the stages as a taxonomic device to
judge the construct validity of quantitative classroom observation instruments that
used category systems. Table 2.1 collapses student-focussed data from 11 catego-
ries in Caldwell’s Activity Classification Instrument drawn from samples in 23
Nepalese schools in 1974 and prior data from 30 American teachers in 1966 (the
type of instrumentation will be discussed further in Chapter 10.4; here the concern
is with the findings). Pfau reported that the differences between the formalistic
teachers in Nepal and the meaning style American ones were statistically
significant, but the table shows that the differences were generally of degree not
kind. Classes in Nepal were not restricted just to lecturing, and American ones
were far from devoid of it.
Table 2.1 Contrast between Formalistic and Meaning Teachers
Teaching Category Nepal United States
Lecture 78% 40%

Teacher Questioning 7 17
Student Speaking 7 19
Workbook Work, Laboratory Experiences,
Group Projects, Student Demonstrations, 2 15
Library Research and Field Trips
Teacher Demonstrations 0 5
Silence or General Havoc 6 4
Source: Based on Pfau (1980, p. 407).
The formalistic Nepali science teachers predominantly lectured, with some

78% of classroom time in this activity. My own interpretation is that this is
31
Gerard Guthrie
instructive for two reasons. First, it did not show that the entire time was spent
lecturing, which is a supposition about formalism reflected in some of the
literature. Teachers asked questions and students spoke 14% of the time in total.
There was a small amount of workbook use, at 2%, although no other form of
student-focussed activity; nor did teachers demonstrate using audio-visual aids.
Second, while the American teachers spent about half the time of Nepali teachers
lecturing (at 40% of classroom time), lecturing was still their most frequent
activity. However, the American science classes had nearly as much time (36%) in
teacher questions and student talk, another 15% in student-focussed activity, and
they used audio-visual aids 5% of the time. In all, 34% of American class time
apparently had students as the central focus. In both cases, students spent as much
time speaking as teachers did asking questions, which may imply that student talk
was generally responsive. Similar amounts of time in both countries were spent in
the residual category of silence and the evocatively labelled “general havoc”.
In sum, the formalistic Nepali teachers lectured three-quarters of the time.
Additionally, they asked questions that students answered, but they used few other
student-focussed methods. The American meaning teachers lectured half as much.
This was more often than any other activity, but they also had about one-third of
time in a variety of student-focussed activities. The difference between the types
of teaching was not the presence or absence of teacher- or student-centred
activities, but their extent (78% v. 40% and 9% v. 34%, respectively).
b) Variation within Formalism. Formalistic classrooms can appear dull and

repetitive, the teachers bored and uninterested, and the pupils quiet and passive
(Ackers and Hardman 2001, p. 256), but a second finding from observation stud-
ies in Botswana and Tanzania is that there can be variation among formalistic
teachers. Fuller and Snyder (1991) reported from a structured classroom observa-
tion study of three lessons each by 154 junior secondary and 127 primary teachers
in Botswana. While teachers were predominantly formalistic, there were many
variations in teacher practice. The teachers were vocal and dominant in most
classrooms, but they did not always use chalk-and-talk and their pupils were not
always passive and silent. Substantial variation was found in the extent to which
teachers used textbooks, written exercises and materials, in part depending on the
subject and the size of the class. A good deal of time was spent on question, an-
swer and recitation, mainly involving closed-ended questions, but again with con-
siderable variation and with many teachers attempting to generate pupil action.
The teachers varied among themselves, but the inference was that there were over-
riding cultural commonalities in approach. In Tanzania, Barrett (2007) also found
considerable variation in the nature of pupil-teacher interactions. She conducted
research in primary schools in two regions of Tanzania in 2002-03 using inter-
32
Chapter 2
views with 32 teachers in 18 schools and observation in 28 lessons to compare

what teachers said was good practice with their classroom behaviour. In classes
averaging around 45 students, lessons were fairly standardised but there was varia-
tion that seemed influenced by school culture, exposure to INSET, plus teacher
confidence, subject knowledge and pedagogical skill. There was scope to improve
teacher practice within the existing pedagogical palette and to avoid the tendency
to promote uncritically educational ideas from English-speaking countries.
c) Student Expectations. A third important finding from observation studies

is that teachers and students can share common expectations about the value of
formalistic classroom teaching. Although not placed in the context either of the
stages or formalism as such, Tabulawa (1997; 1998; 2004) conducted highly in-
sightful investigations into the meanings attached to pedagogical practices by both
teachers and students in a grounded case study of geography teachers in a rural
secondary school in Botswana in 1993. Tabulawa mainly used qualitative meth-
ods, particularly unstructured ethnographic classroom observation of the school’s
three geography teachers over a 2-month period, supplemented by semi-structured
interviews with them and four other departmental teachers and interviews with 10
students. The small sample in a single school found somewhat less classroom
variation than Fuller and Snyder’s (1991) larger Botswana study, but added to the
cultural depth.
Tabulawa (1998) reported little variation in routine, formalistic classroom prac-
tices. The teachers usually started lessons with recapitulation of the previous les-
son, followed by lecturing and writing of brief notes of the board. Few questions
came from the students, who generally sat quietly. The lessons usually ended with
recapitulation by the teachers or quizzing of the students. Teacher-student rela-
tionships were paternalistic and formal. Teachers expected traditional respect and
deference and maintained a social distance. Essentially, they treated the students
as a single mass and had little individual contact. There was little attention to indi-
vidual student needs and classes moved from one activity to another as a whole.
The limited verbal contact was initiated by the teachers in highly formalised ques-
tion and answer sessions. Considerable emphasis was put on students demonstrat-
ing the ‘right answers’ to closed questions, part of a central concern about main-
taining teacher control. Teachers emphasised attentiveness, formality and
orderliness in their lessons, and corporal punishment, which was common in the
school, was an option. Mastery of subject matter, which was dependent on good
lesson preparation and presentation, was an important aspect of control that ren-
dered corporal punishment unnecessary.
Knowledge was a utilitarian commodity; the teachers’ job being to impart it,
the students’ job to acquire it. The teachers all viewed schooling as a vocational
33
Gerard Guthrie
route to employment mediated by the public examination system and the

possibility of higher education. They perceived that “imparting” and “delivery” of
curriculum knowledge and keeping order in class were their main responsibilities
so that students received the knowledge needed to pass the exams. The students’
role was perceived as “receiving” the teachers’ knowledge. The teachers’
perception was that students should read and listen to the teacher in class and be
ready to receive instruction. Students were considered to be doing meaningful
work when they were asking and answering questons, writing assignments and
taking notes, and therefore learning school knowledge from teachers and
textbooks. Thus, “if the role of the teacher is that of purveying knowledge, then
his/her role is to ‘teach’. If the role of the student is perceived as that of a
receptacle of knowledge, then his/her role is to ‘learn’ by way of assimilating the
teacher’s knowledge” (Tabulawa 1998, p. 264). The distinction between teaching
and learning simplified and defined the classroom roles for the actors. Adherence
to the roles created a stable and orderly classroom atmosphere, and the actors were
conscious of deviations from them. “In fact, the study shows how teachers
employed overt and more subtle strategies to maintain their dominant role in class
and how students, likewise, employed strategies to keep the teachers in an
information-giving position” (Tabulawa 1998, p. 264).
Tellingly, students had a very similar perspective to teachers. Student-student
interaction was conspicuously absent except in occasional small group discus-
sions. Students actually resisted variations in teaching practice, such as group
discussion. They viewed knowledge as external, a commodity possessed by the
school and teachers and found in textbooks. If they wanted to pass the
examinations, they had to get it from these sources: “Thus, attempts to have them
construct knowledge in the classroom would be a waste of time, and group
discussions are, therefore, resisted” (Tabulawa 1998, p. 263). A later article
(Tabulawa 2004), cast in the context of power relations in the classroom, explored
student views of knowledge in more detail with a further report on their
perceptions. Teacher dominance was not necessarily perceived just as a product of
teachers’ inherent desire for social control. In many instances teachers were
“forced” into a dominant position by the students themselves. Teacher dominance
was a mutually constructed, negotiated product resulting from students and
teachers exercising power on each other within the constraints set by their context.
Students contributed to teacher-centredness through their expectations of teacher
behaviour and actually had considerable informal power over teachers’
reputations. The students particularly defined teacher competence as deriving from
their subject knowledge and their ability to impart it efficiently. Teachers were
aware of the importance of their own reputation and actively avoided teaching acts
that might get them labelled as incompetent by students. Student silence in class
34
Chapter 2
was not a sign of laziness, deviance or powerlessness, but was rational behaviour
communicating their expectation that teachers would tell them the required
knowledge and, Tabulawa argued, was actually a form of power. The teachers’
apparent dominance was not so much imposed as a co-constructed, negotiated au-
thority that was a product of teachers’ and students’ mutual expectations of
schooling derived from their shared cultural context.
d) Authoritarianism. A fourth finding about formalism, which comes from

Chinese culture, is that Western perceptions of formalistic teaching as authoritar-
ian may not be shared. One finding about the working role and the formalistic cul-
ture of teaching in Hong Kong and China compared with Australia was that the
Chinese teacher-student relationship was hierarchical but not necessarily authori-
tarian, and was not limited to the classroom. There were authoritarian classroom
practices, but they were surrounded by active and more informal friendly interac-
tions outside the classroom (Cortazzi and Jin 2001; Ho 2001). Other studies on
teaching in China will be discussed in Chapter 9.5, and the issue of authoritarian-
ism will return in Chapter 12.2.
e) Student Engagement and Academic Standards. The key element in

formalism is that teacher lecturing predominates, even though there may be some
variation in teacher behaviours. However, the sight of students sitting passively
does not necessarily imply lack of intellectual engagement with the content of the
lesson.
Much of the evidence in this book about formalistic teaching happens to come
from lesser developed countries not noted for high academic standards. However,
the Paradox of the Chinese Learner is based on the apparent contradiction between
large formalistic classes and high educational achievement by Confucian-heritage
students (Watkins and Biggs 1996; 2001; Chan and Rao 2009, p. 5). Students in
many Asian countries, where traditional Confucian-influenced methods have stu-
dents playing an apparently passive rote learning role, have regularly out-
performed Western students in international studies of mathematics, science and
language. Essentially, the evidence is that Chinese student performance is not pas-
sively due to superior memorisation, but to superior cognitive strategies. Rather
than focussing on ‘surface’ remembering of facts, teaching encourages active,
‘deep’ understanding of underlying meaning. Students in China are not necessarily
regarded by formalistic teachers just as passive receptors of information, but are
expected to develop their ability through an active process of internal construction.
Teachers should guide the students using a variety of teaching strategies, relate
teaching to the real world, match students’ ability levels, play a role in promoting
students’ attitudes to learning and guide their conduct. Chinese teachers often use
35
Gerard Guthrie
formalistic methods in a highly sophisticated fashion that actually encourages stu-

dent engagement in classroom material, which is the underlying explanation for
the high academic performance (see Chapter 9.5 for more detail). In the formalis-
tic classroom, the obvious dominance of teacher behaviour should not be taken
necessarily for an absence of mental engagement by the learner.
f) Upgrading Teachers. A common assumption is that formalistic teachers

often operate in hidebound systems where improvements to teaching are not en-
couraged. A sixth finding, also from China, is that formalistic systems can institu-
tionalise incentives for teachers to systematically upgrade their performance. Cor-
tazzi and Jin (2001, pp. 121-122) reported that the school system could provide
incentives for teachers to learn from each other. Good teachers could be honoured
with titles (such as “special” or “model” teacher) and salary incentives that were
gained after public and competitive demonstration lessons in front of large groups
of peers. Teachers recognised through this process would then act as mentors, in-
cluding giving further demonstration lessons to younger teachers, with attendance
required for promotion. In Wuhan, for example, the recognised criteria for an able
teacher included showing effective preparation, delivering effective teaching per-
formance, expressing the rationale underlying teaching, observing other teachers
and evaluating others’ teaching. Peer lessons had a modelling effect, spreading
through a kind of “cultural epidemiology” in a chain effect because teachers could
see specific practices being managed effectively within their own context.
2.5 Political Bias

The progressive Western values represented by Beeby have also been heavily
criticised for implicit political bias from the perspectives of a number of wide-
spread developing countries. Lee et al. (1988) in Korea, Thaman (1991) in the
South Pacific, Crossley (1992) and O’Donoghue (1994) in Papua New Guinea,
and Quist (2003) in Ghana all criticised the dependency model implicit in the
stages mentality, which assumed that the solution to educational problems in these
countries involved the application of Western progressive models and underesti-
mated contextual factors. Others extended the argument to concerns that the pro-
gressive values represent Western political interests. Sweeting (1996) sceptically
argued that the globalisation of learning is a doubtful concept and advanced claims
about the individualisation of understanding. Tikly (1999) argued that considera-
tion of post-colonial issues was necessary for developing a less Eurocentric under-
standing of the relationship between globalisation and education. Later he claimed
that education was a key policy plank for multilateral development agencies,
which are instrumental in developing a new regime of international governance
that serves Western interests (Tikly 2004).
36
Chapter 2
Tabulawa (2003, p. 10) has also heavily criticised international aid agencies for
promulgation of learner-centred teaching styles that were political and ideological
in nature. The ascendancy of neo-liberalism as a development paradigm in the
1980s and 1990s, he argued, elevated political democratisation as a prerequisite
for economic development, in which education assumed a central role. Learner-
centred methods were a natural choice for the development of democratic social
relations in the schools of aid-receiving countries. These methods bring an ideo-
logical outlook, a worldview intended to develop a preferred kind of society and
people, and represent a process of westernisation disguised as quality and effective
teaching. Noting that the assumption of equating change in the quality of teaching
with change in teaching styles is rarely questioned, Tabulawa drew on my state-
ment (Guthrie 1990, p. 222) that the bases of judgement that change is desirable
are the educational norms of a liberal Western academic sub-culture that have a
hidden agenda of moral and philosophical values about desirable psycho-
sociological traits for individuals and for society. While I intended this statement
to reflect the values of scientific enquiry, Tabulawa took the view further to argue
that learner-centred pedagogy is a political artefact that is inherently ideological
and that justification of the pedagogy on educational grounds is questionable.
Other viewpoints on the Bank’s educational policies are to be found in Klees
(2002) and other papers in Issue 22(5) of the International Journal of Educational
Development, Heyneman (2003), and Barrett et al. (2006).
Despite some radical reactions, Beeby’s emphasis on evolutionary rather than
revolutionary change has received little contradiction in recent years. In the 1960s
and 1970s, revolutionary change was an ideologically fraught issue in train with
radical debate about the decolonisation that was occurring across the Third World.
The development literature contained many discussions of evolutionary versus
revolutionary change, often referenced to Marxism and dependency theory. Beeby
himself became a reluctant gradualist in light of his experiences when responsible
for the school system in Western Samoa in the 1940s and 1950s (Beeby 1992, pp.
212-214) and, as a senior educational administrator, was clearly able to speak with
authority on the subject. My own analysis of the issue broke change down into
speed, magnitude and direction, supporting Beeby’s view that evolutionary change
is the most constructive way forward (Guthrie 1980a, pp. 425-429). Indeed, the
evolutionary view has become so self-evident that it is difficult to find discussion
of the merits of revolutionary change these days. Experience of educational
change from all parts of the world continues to support the idea that unless contin-
ued support is given to changes, their effect is likely to be short-term; conversely,
the greater the magnitude of qualitative change, the greater the discontinuity and
the greater the need to work at the change over a long period of time if political or
administrative fiat is actually to become effective and meaningful in practice. Es-
37
Gerard Guthrie
sentially educational change is generational: children carry the lessons forward

when they become adults.
2.6 Conclusion
The analytical core of Beeby’s approach to improving the quality of education in
developing countries was the model of stages, which, he thought in 1966, had
formal measurement properties that could generate rigour and promote research.
In the decade after the book appeared, the main focus of attention in the academic
literature was this model. The outcome from the analysis in the International Re-
view of Education, which is the starting point of Chapters 3 and 4, was that
Beeby’s book became seen more of a professional challenge to educators to adopt
his progressive values rather than a rigorous theory. Since then the stages model as
such has received limited further attention, notably by some in the World Bank,
and the ultimate effect was that Beeby’s book came to be interpreted more as a
tonic for educational administrators arguing for inputs to upgrade the quality of
education than as a generator of research (Renwick 1998, p. 343).
In contrast, the nature of formalism has been elucidated in diverse case studies
that show that formalistic teachers may not be as limited in teaching range as is
sometimes supposed. The case studies provided findings that are not true of all
formalistic teaching, but they demonstrate that formalism is not necessarily a case
of teachers giving unyielding lectures to passive students in authoritarian class-
rooms, or that progressive teaching is an easy alternative. The problem remains,
however, that the progressive values incorporated in the end point of Beeby’s
stages still remain active as a misguided direction for reforms that attempt to
change formalistic teachers to other styles rather than upgrade their formalism.
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42
CHAPTER 3
STAGES OF EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT?
Analyses of the use of stages in economics have been far more detailed than
those of the educational stages. Chapter 3 considers some of the critiques to
see how they affected Beeby’s model, finding that his stages model had sev-
eral serious logical and methodological weaknesses. The key problem in logic
was that the progressive stages were embedded in a circular teleology. Addi-
tionally, from a measurement perspective the stages were not sufficiently dis-
tinct, used imprecise labels, and over-generalised from the experience of Brit-
ish-tradition South Pacific school systems. From the Popperian perspective
introduced by Beeby in his defence, the stages model failed the key scientific
test: the proposed inevitable progression towards the stage of Meaning was
unscientific because it could not be falsified. In contrast, recent developments
in the literature, especially cultural paradigms, provide a compelling expla-
nation of the cultural depths of the revelatory epistemologies with which pro-
gressivism seeks to compete.
The concept of stages of development, as Beeby (1966, p. 51) acknowledged,

“rouses the suspicion of any social scientist”. This was particularly true in the
1960s because W.W. Rostow’s book, The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-
Communist Manifesto, had been a major focus of debate since its appearance in
1960. Beeby’s favourable citation of Rostow and use of the stages concept made
him vulnerable to Vaizey’s (1966, p. 535) charge that the educational stages were
“dangerously adapted from a pseudo-theory once adumbrated by W.W. Rostow”.
Apart from favourable reference to Rostow’s use of stages, Beeby did not make
clear in his 1966 book the extent to which his work was based on Rostow’s con-
ception. Later, he denied the charge and stated that the main influence was Stanley
Hall’s earlier educational psychology on stages of growth in early childhood
(Beeby 1980a, p. 439).
The context in which the book was written, however, is not a central issue in
terms of the formal properties of the stages model. The origins of the educational
stages in psychology does not exempt them from the methodological criticisms
made of Rostow’s economic stages and, in particular, from critiques by two major
economists, Gunnar Myrdal and Simon Kuznets. These two critiques continue to

Gerard Guthrie
apply to stage analysis in the abstract as well as to Rostow’s and Beeby’s particu-
lar formulations.
Beeby’s first theoretical proposition was that there are four stages of primary
schooling, being Dame School, Formalism, Transition and Meaning, movement
through which was posited in his second proposition as being inevitable, usually
sequential, and evolutionary. The proposition about inevitability was the most im-
portant theoretical element of his book and the one that this chapter critiques.
Three areas of methodological criticism will be examined, especially the charge of
teleology. We will then turn to justification of objectives, the principles of refuta-
tion and some cultural issues that lead to treatment of formalism and progressiv-
ism as educational paradigms, adding many elements to my original analysis in
light of new emphases in the literature or issues that remain contentious.
3.1 Stages Methodology

In the aftermath of World War II, Rostow’s stages were one of the best known of
a new wave of economic development theories that sought to explain national
growth. Drawing on a teleological concept of development, Rostow saw all socie-
ties progressing through five stages, postulating a strong deterministic link be-
tween society and education. The concept of stages was soon shown to be highly
vulnerable on methodological grounds, yet the critiques maintain a contemporary
relevance because “surprisingly … one can still find advocates of this way of
managing social change and growth among policy-makers today, among the most
obvious those who insist on the need to pass through democracy as a condition for
initiating and sustaining accelerating development” (Hawkins 2007, p. 145). Simi-
larly, Stein (2008) has seen the need to reactivate Myrdal’s case against teleology
in arguing that the World Bank’s development strategies downplay social and po-
litical contexts: “teleology is based on the principle that the universe has design
and purpose … the explanation of a phenomenon has not only immediate purpose
but also a final cause. Development is seen as following a singular route to pro-
gress” (Stein 2008, p. 115). His argument that the World Bank has a myopic eco-
nomic mind-set that downplays context could well apply to its sponsorship of
some of the school effectiveness research reviewed in Chapter 5.
Three areas of criticism of the stages approach will be examined: a) the validity
of the concept of stages; b) the formulation of stages; and c) measurement proper-
ties of stages.3
3
The rest of Chapter 3.1 draws on my original deconstruction of Beeby’s model: Guthrie
(1980a) and (1980b) with permission from Springer Science & Business Media.
44
Chapter 3
Stages of Educational Development?
a) Validity of the Concept of Stages. Stage analysis has been severely at-
tacked, Myrdal (1968), in particular, roundly dismissing its logic as teleological.
Myrdal’s statements are central to the criticism made in this book of Beeby’s
model:
By a teleological approach is meant one in which a purpose, which is not ex-

plicitly intended by anyone, is fulfilled while the process of fulfilment is pre-
sented as an inevitable sequence of events (Myrdal 1968, p. 1851).
The logic of stage analysis is thus tautological and prediction is a self-fulfilling

prophecy. Teleology is inherent in stage analysis, according to Myrdal, because
systematic prior biases are found in selection of criteria of advancement and be-
cause of a preconception that different countries in different historical periods will
nonetheless follow a similar evolutionary pattern. The role of men as active agents
in changing history is de-emphasised and, indeed, policies may be judged as
‘good’ or ‘bad’ according to whether they meet the assumed evolutionary pattern.
Further, Myrdal claimed, the features of stage analyses are typically made to fit
transparent political aims rather than to meet empirical criteria, whether the
chooser was Marx or Rostow. In the case of Rostow, Myrdal maintained that the
purpose was the maintenance of an essentially laissez-faire approach to economic
policy that avoided radical or comprehensive change, thus resulting in a de facto
westernisation of developing countries. This is a charge Rostow, an economic ad-
viser to President Johnson during the Vietnam War who sub-titled his book “A
Non-Communist Manifesto”, had difficulty denying and essentially his reply in
the second edition of his book (Rostow 1971) was to ignore the political charge
and, like Beeby, to interpret the teleological question as, how automatic are the
stages?
In Beeby’s case, the charge of teleology could not be avoided either, although
the charge was a less obvious one because his model was further removed from
economic and political policy than Rostow’s. Beeby had been aware of the vul-
nerability of stage analysis to attack, presenting the following not very convincing
disclaimers:
An hypothesis of stages … is little more than a clumsy device to enable us to

use descriptive terminology in a situation where we have not yet sufficient
exact information to express quantitatively the different positions on a con-
tinuous scale of development. It may be less important that the model should
be fully substantiated than that it should form a basis for further questions and
research. The hypothesis that follows, of stages in the growth of a primary
educational system, is offered as nothing more ambitious that this. Its virtues
45
Gerard Guthrie
are that it is a strictly educational theory, that conclusions of considerable

practical significance can be drawn from it, and that some of these can be
tested out in the field (Beeby 1966, p. 50).
The very phrase ‘stages of development’ rouses the suspicion of any social
scientist, but I have already made it clear that I regard the stages as nothing
more than a first rough-and-ready framework on which can later be built a se-
rious study of a complex process of growth. I have also tried to forestall some
of the objections to the assumption that there is a single linear process of
growth of an educational system which all countries must follow or want to
follow. The assumption is not completely true, and I trust it never will be, but
... the resemblances between the demands made on the school by various
countries are very much greater than their differences. For immediate pur-
poses it may not be too serious a distortion of the truth to think of primary
educational systems in most emergent countries as moving in one general di-
rection, and to refer to stages as being higher or lower on this scale (Beeby
1966, pp. 51-52).
Despite all this, clearly contained in his model was the teleological purpose of
westernisation disguised as ‘better’ teaching. ‘Our’ schools were ‘Western’
schools, ‘meaning’ was intended in a Western sense, and he was saying that fol-
lowing this Western pattern was desirable. This teleological position was a circu-
lar, self-fulfilling prophecy. The rhetorical logic was constructed in such a way
that the outcome was guaranteed because the defining terms were synonymous: a
high educational stage is one that uses teaching for meaning because teaching for
meaning is a high stage.
b) Formulation of Stages. Not all critics of Rostow were as tough on the

principle of stage analysis as Myrdal, particularly if their interests were methodo-
logical. The methodological question is, how sound is any particular formulation?
Kuznets (1963, pp. 23-25) listed five minimum requirements for a stage analysis
to be taken seriously:
i. the analysis must have empirically testable characteristics common to at

least an important group of units undergoing change;
ii. the characteristics must, in combination if not singly, be unique to that
stage;
iii. the analytical boundary relation of each stage to the preceding; and to
iv. the succeeding stage must be indicated, showing what processes bring
about the completion of each stage; and
46
Chapter 3
v. a clear indication of the universe to which generality is claimed.
These requirements are based on the proposition that the characteristics commonly
found in one stage are so distinct from those in the next stage that it is methodol-
ogically improper to mix the two indiscriminantly. In effect, the methodological
position is that stages are a strict formulation of the ordinal measurement scale,
which requires data that can be ordered transitively on a ‘greater than > less than’
basis. Stages add temporal progression and distinct boundaries to this ordering.
Beeby’s formulation failed to meet some of Kuznets’ criteria:
i. There was little problem with the first criterion of empirically testing the
characteristics. Although the formulation was teleological, both teaching
style and the underlying variables of teacher confidence and general and
professional education can be measured.
ii The second criterion, of distinct stages, required more than mere succes-
sion in time: “stages are presumably something more than successive or-
dinates in the steadily climbing curve of growth. They are segments of
that curve, with properties so distinct that separate study of each segment
seems warranted” (Kuznets 1963, p. 24). By definition, Beeby’s stage of
‘Transition’ did not meet this criterion.
iii & iv. The third and fourth criteria, of the boundary relation to the pre-
ceding and succeeding stages, also presented problems. The description
of characteristics shown in Column 3 of Figure 2.1 did not show bounda-
ries between stages. Rather, it showed the modal characteristics of
teachers within stages. The underlying variables of general and profes-
sional education were continuous rather than discrete and the extent to
which characteristics of one stage might be found in other stages was not
made clear. In effect, the stages were not distinct types of teacher behav-
iour, but convenient labels for ‘typical’ or modal behaviours of teachers
at different parts of the general and professional education continuum; a
comment that Beeby (1980b, p. 454) later accepted.
v. The final criterion of definition of universe was also inadequately met
because the claims were over-generalised from experience in New Zea-
land and Western Samoa (Chapter 2.3). Rather than claiming universal
validity, it would have been wiser to restrict the model’s application to
the British-tradition metropolitan and colonial countries of the South Pa-
cific, and within that area to claim greater applicability to developed
rather than developing countries.
From this assessment of Beeby’s stages by Kuznets’ criteria, it is apparent that the
model did not represent a methodologically acceptable series of distinct stages.
47
Gerard Guthrie
The temporal properties were debatable both empirically and on the basis of Myr-
dal’s critique of teleology, and the boundaries property was not met. Rather, a set
of labels applied to some of the more distinctive features resulting from the under-
lying continuous variables of general and professional education. The arbitrary di-
vision into four was not sacrosanct – Beeby’s later use of sub-stages implied this –
and relabelling, if desired, could divide the scale differently.
In effect, Rostow’s and Beeby’s stages had no fixed boundaries in practice, but
the use of the concept of stages implied that in principle temporal boundaries were
discernible. In short, the concept of stages – whether in education, psychology or
economic history – involved an over-rigid conceptual structure.
c) Measurement Properties of Stages. A criticism, not made of Rostow’s

model but applicable to Beeby’s, was that the stages did not meet the formal prop-
erties of measurement scales, which was important if the model were to provide a
basis for research. This failure is revealed through the labelling, which had prob-
lems with three of the four stages: the Dame School was a type of school rather
than a type of teacher, as in the other stages (as Beeby 1980b, p. 456 later admit-
ted, the Dame School title was “more colourful than logical”); Transition was not
a distinct stage; and Meaning covered a wide range of teaching and learning
styles.
The argument here goes further than Kuznets, who was mainly concerned with
the stages as an advanced type of ordinal scale, to scale properties in general. In
the widespread terminology of measurement scales, Beeby’s labels were an at-
tempt to create an ordinal scale using multivariate labels that did not meet the
properties of a univariate nominal scale, in particular the requirements that they
quantify a single variable and classify the variable into different mutually exclu-
sive categories. In a nominal scale, objects should be classified into two or more
mutually exclusive but equivalent categories which represent the same variable.
An ordinal scale must meet these properties as well as having a ranking system
with a logical order. Beeby’s labels failed some of these tests. The labels were nei-
ther all mutually exclusive (i.e. Transition) nor equivalent (e.g. Dame School/
Formalism). A further problem with equivalence, recognised by Beeby and exam-
ined by Musgrave (1974), was that the stage of Meaning could cover a wide vari-
ety of schools and approaches. Musgrave’s distinction between radical or free
schools and liberal schools indicated the need for a stage beyond Beeby’s Mean-
ing, which connotated liberal rather than radical. Beeby (1980b) later conceded
this criticism in his reformulation of the stage of Meaning (Chapter 2.1).
These weaknesses relate to the nominal properties of the scale, but confusion
existed at the ordinal level too. Beeby’s labels were based on different stages of
educational development as a consequence of the underlying variable of teacher
48
Chapter 3
confidence, itself a function of levels of general and professional education. All

these variables could be measured ordinally, but the logical relationship between
the variables was confused. Underlying this issue was the term ‘quality’. Beeby’s
emphasis in 1966 was an evaluative, ordinal one, i.e. whether educational changes
are ‘good’ or ‘bad’, explicitly based on Western norms. Such an approach was
convincingly rejected by Coombs (1969) at the 1966 UNESCO conference chaired
by Beeby. Coombs argued that ‘international standards’ were not relevant to all
educational systems and maintained that the performance of a system should be
assessed with criteria based on its own academic, social and economic objectives.
Thus, most educational standards are intrinsically relative, differing from place to
place and in the same place from time to time. ‘Quality’ should therefore be used
in the sense of ‘qualitative’. This approach was later accepted by Beeby and Lewis
(1971, p. 135: their emphasis): “a qualitative change in education is one that al-
ters the manner or the content of learning or of teaching”, and is followed in this
book. The term remains preferable because it is descriptive and nominal, meaning
simply that there are qualitatively different distinguishing characteristics in educa-
tion, and is not used to imply standards. With the original ordinal usage of quality
– with its unsatisfactory teleological base and unjustified value-judgements – the
measurement properties of Beeby’s stages were inadequate.
In sum, lack of clarification of the theoretical and methodological bases of

stage analysis was reflected in the unsatisfactory measurement properties of the
educational stages, thus giving them inbuilt problems of validity and reliability for
the research that Beeby intended would occur. My restricted model of teaching
styles in Chapter 10.2 takes account of these measurement issues.
3.2 Principles of Refutation

Musgrave (1974, p. 42) wrote that despite an implication that the developmental
process need not be inevitable or universal, Beeby’s book had a tendency to ex-
trapolate from the historical experience upon which he based his hypothesised
stages to all future developing societies. Despite admitting methodological prob-
lems, Beeby (1980a, pp. 443-444) did not resile from wider generalisation and, in-
deed, pointed to the contribution to the model of his experience involving a wide
range of developing countries elsewhere. The issue of evidence needs to go fur-
ther, however, to the principles of refutation or falsification in the seminal work of
the philosopher Karl Popper, whose scientific logic Beeby (1980b) followed.
Popper (1969; 1979, pp. 1-31; a basic introduction is found in Guthrie 2010,
pp. 38-40, 41-45, 151-152) considered that scientific knowledge progresses
through a process of proposing tentative solutions to problems (conjectures) and
49
Gerard Guthrie
exposing them to criticism (refutations). A conjecture is less than a theory, being

formulated from the best evidence and logic, but it is an assumption to be devel-
oped through trial and error and is accepted only if it survives strong attempts at
refutation. This approach was based on a rejection of a long-known fallacy in in-
ductive logic: research cannot prove on the basis of accumulated observations that
conjectures or hypotheses derived from them have universal applicability, i.e. are
correct beyond all doubt. Because it is not possible to test all future instances, the
possibility of disproof remains open. Research can only demonstrate that hypothe-
ses are not correct (i.e. falsify or reject them), based on failure to find predicted
observations. In Popper’s terminology, non-testable theories based on metaphysi-
cal, tautological propositions are pseudo-scientific or non-scientific in character
because they cannot be refuted or falsified (Popper 1969, pp. 33ff). His concern
about the logic of science was drawing a line,
between the statements … of the empirical sciences, and all other statements
– whether they are of a religious or of a metaphysical character, or simply
pseudo-scientific. … The criterion of falsifiability … says that statements or
systems of statements, in order to be ranked as scientific, must be capable of
conflicting with possible, or conceivable, observations (Popper 1969, p. 39).
While Popper is identified as a positivist and is therefore highly unfashionable

with large parts of the social science research community, this aspect of his logic
was not only accepted by Beeby, but also offered in his defence. Beeby (1980b,
pp. 468-473) stated that his stages hypothesis could be disproved relatively easily
by finding a single substantial exception among developing countries that have
tried, or will try, to improve their national educational systems, either by finding a
system that follows quite a different progression from his prediction, or by discov-
ering one that leapfrogged one of the stages. Thus, a further defence in an obituary
of Beeby by a successor as Director of Education in New Zealand, W.L. Renwick
(1998, p. 344), stated that Beeby adopted Popper’s principle of falsifiability in
writing that a single exception of a developing country skipping a stage in bring-
ing its primary teachers to the stage of meaning would disprove his thesis, or at
least cause it to be greatly modified.
In positing a refutation that would be based on a demonstration that a stage
could be skipped, Beeby and Renwick only addressed one aspect of Beeby’s sec-
ond basic theoretical proposition, which was that movement through the stages is
inevitable, usually sequential, and evolutionary. A refutation addressing only the
proposition that stages are sequential could not test the teleological conjecture of
an inevitable end point because the stage of Meaning could recede infinitely and
therefore untestably and irrefutably into the future. A skipped stage could disprove
50
Chapter 3
the proposition that the stages are sequential. However, a failure to change from
one stage to the next ‘higher’ one would merely be lack of time, which Renwick’s
further statement of Beeby’s position reflected: “until there is a paradigm shift
from teachers teaching to students learning, and until governments are able and
prepared to invest a much larger percentage of national research and development
budgets on students’ learning, and how to improve and how to facilitate it for all
students, Beeby’s hypothesis will remain untested” (Renwick 1998, p. 345). All
this is unacceptable methodologically because it made testing of the stages slide
irrefutably into the future, and Beeby’s model thus relied on the inductive fallacy
that Popper had been at pains to reject. By not facing up to the teleological issue
of inevitability, the end stage of Meaning did not meet the principles of falsifica-
tion, which makes the model pseudo-scientific.
3.3 Justification of Objectives

In addition to circular logic, teleology can also have a narrower meaning of setting
of objectives that are not explicit. The point was illustrated by Myrdal’s (1969)
own pursuit of a more powerful social science which, one could argue, was cul-
ture-bound like the other manifestations of westernisation sought by Rostow and
Beeby. However, a major interest of Myrdal’s was creating greater objectivity in
research through clarification of explicit values. The problem he saw was not that
theories should be without objectives, but that the value judgements incorporated
in objectives should be carefully presented and thoroughly analysed, and he was at
pains to make explicit his own.
Beeby largely admitted the methodological criticisms of stage analysis and
conceded that the stage of Meaning “smacks of the language and methods of
thinking of educators in developed countries” (Beeby 1980b, p. 458). However, he
attempted to downplay Myrdal’s criticism of their logic: “What you call ‘the
charge of teleology’ against my stages causes me no concern on Myrdal’s theo-
retical grounds. There are few significant things anyone can say about educational
theory without at least implying a teleological base, and educational planning is,
by definition, concerned with objectives” (Beeby 1980a, p. 442). Primarily, the is-
sue of objectives revolved around the meaning of the term ‘Meaning’ in Stage IV.
For Beeby, meaning and quality were synonymous and he was explicit that he re-
garded teaching for meaning as desirable:
There are, of course, certain personal value judgements that I would not wish
to avoid. In the classification of stages ... I have assumed that teaching with an
emphasis on meaning is better than teaching that concentrates on form to the
relative neglect of meaning; because of its greater emphasis on meaning, I be-
51
Gerard Guthrie
lieve that, by and large and with many individual exceptions, teaching in our
own schools in 1966 is better than the teaching was in 1880 or even in 1920.
Without this assumption, my conception of stages of development of an edu-
cational system makes little sense (Beeby 1966, p. 52).
Later, he wrote that the most serious criticism of his book in my own critique
centred on the assumption of desirable objectives in the model of stages:
Your real criticism … is that the criteria for my stages, and particularly for the
stage of Meaning, are essentially those of developed Western countries. This
is quite true. I defined them, at the time, as “stages through which all systems,
at least of a certain kind, must pass” (Beeby 1980a, pp. 442-443).
This was essentially a position of faith. In the conclusion to her biography, Alcorn
(1999, p. 371) quoted Beeby as having written, “The ultimate aims in education
are not given by reason but by a feeling in the pit of one’s stomach. Sooner or later
in life, one must say, for no very obvious reason, ‘I believe in X,’ and never chal-
lenge it again.” A possible influence on this approach was Beeby’s religious val-
ues as a former lay Methodist preacher (Alcorn 1999, pp. 22-25), and a revealing
analogy in the opening pages of his book was that educational administrators con-
cerned about developing countries had become too absorbed by practical problems
and had forgotten their objectives: “we were too busy saving souls that we ne-
glected our theology” (Beeby 1966, p. 2; see also 1980b, pp. 452-453).
Alcorn (1999, pp. 277-279) implied that Beeby’s admission that his views on
teaching were a form of personal value judgement was sufficient recognition of
values. She also implied that his amendment of the stage of meaning in 1980 to
exclude some of his more personal value judgements was a sufficient response to
the criticism of teleology. I contest both positions. In Clayton’s still very relevant
usage, Beeby’s faith in progressive education only represented a “characterizing
value” that related to norms assumed to be self-explanatory rather than proper
ethical judgements with “fully appraisive valuations in which something is found
to be desirable with reference to justified norms” (Clayton 1972, p. 423). It was
this later type of fundamental valuations, appraisive valuations, which were sought
by Myrdal but which were absent in Beeby’s evaluation of quality. Also absent
was some independent referent that could be tested to justify the proposition, stu-
dent achievement or transmission of cultural values, for example.
In a related argument, Renwick (1998, p. 342) also took up the role of objec-
tives: “Guthrie argued that the thesis did not offer a sound model for research be-
cause it rested on an unspoken set of values … Beeby countered, rightly in my
view, that all educational development, being directed to objectives, is inescapably
52
Chapter 3
and properly normative.” Renwick’s statement only has substance if it articulates

the cases for particular sets of norms, but it is platitudinous because it applies to
all education and all norms. The issue is not the existence of objectives, or that
educational objectives may be normative, but that they should be carefully justi-
fied and refutable. Neither Beeby nor Renwick adequately examined the implica-
tions of the progressive school-based Western norms embedded in the stages, nor
did they delve into any of the cross-cultural issues that might have indicated the
depth of other norms. They did not fully recognise, for example, the depth of cul-
turally-derived epistemologies (such as those at the heart of the Papua New Gui-
nean and Chinese examples that refute the universal inevitability of stages in
Chapters 8 and 9), or demonstrate any awareness of the then available anthropo-
logical literature. Beeby’s book thus had its objectives insufficiently explicated. In
oversimplifying the issue of justification of educational objectives, the disclaimers
of Beeby and Renwick neither disarm nor persuade. Beeby clearly showed an
awareness of the vulnerability of the model, but there was not much analysis of
why, and only minor modification of the model to meet such criticism.
Otherwise, Beeby centred further response on values by writing that decisions
on objectives were the domain of educational decision-makers in developing
countries. His explanation was that in the early 1960s, poor countries struggling
for development wanted schools to provide the kind of education that had seem-
ingly made Western countries rich. “Their five-year plans called for education in
‘problem-solving’, ‘entrepreneurial skills’, ‘imagination’, ‘creativity and respon-
sibility’ – very much the qualities of my stage of Meaning. They usually de-
manded also ‘respect for traditions and historical and cultural heritage’, but they
didn’t stop to ask if there was any conflict between the two sets of virtues – be-
tween, for instance, my idea of creative, independent thinking and yours of ‘ritual
as meaningful’ in the classroom” (Beeby 1980a, pp. 442-443). Beeby (1980b, pp.
458-460) now admitted that the government of a developing country could reject
Stage IV as either the immediate or the ultimate goal of its school system for po-
litical, social and cultural, or financial reasons. Writing as an educational adminis-
trator, he indicated that contradictions between modernisation and tradition were
problems to be resolved by politicians: if they decided not to disturb traditional
ways of life in any region, the educator had no right to introduce new goals that
would threaten the social structure; should a government opt for rapid economic
growth instead, the educator had a cautionary role to warn that changes cannot be
rapidly induced; or more likely, if governments failed to clarify the issue, the am-
bivalence meant that educators would have to be cautious about promoting teach-
ing for meaning. Beeby thus came to recognise that deeply rooted traditional ways
of life might be a factor limiting passage through the stages, but repeated the un-
53
Gerard Guthrie
sympathetic view of Hagen (1962, p. 56) that traditional societies tend to be “cus-
tom-bound, hierarchical, prescriptive and unproductive”.
3.4 Cultural Paradigms

In the 1960s, attention to cultural issues was more apparent among economic an-
thropologists (such as Karl Polanyi, George Dalton and Paul Bohannan) debating
cultural relativism than in education, but in recent decades comparative education
has become increasingly concerned with cultural context. This section begins to
explain the depth of cultural issues not just as obstacles to progressive change but
as deep-rooted values of importance in and of themselves to teachers, students and
parents alike. This brings us to the cultural matters at the core of Beeby’s
teleology, his failure to explore the issues in any depth other than asserting his
own values, and the issues that arise when they are explored. Essentially, Beeby
focussed on the cognitive domain; however, schools at all levels have an impor-
tant role in socialising pupils. But socialising into what roles and using what val-
ues as reference points? Both within and beyond the classroom one important
question about the affective domain is, what effects do the types of progressive
enquiry methods involved in the teaching and learning of ‘meaning’ have upon
traditional cultures valuing obedience and respect for elders’ authority? While tra-
ditional cultural values may be dismissed as an obstacle to change, the issue goes
deeper than this. Beeby ignored the possibility that both teacher and pupils per-
ceive ritual as meaningful in itself and in accordance with traditional values that
emphasise the authority of elders.
Relevant to Beeby’s Eurocentric progressive views are Alexander’s (2001, pp.
508-509) comments on neglect of pedagogy in comparative education and his use
of a comprehensive conceptual framework for systematic educational analysis lo-
cated historically and culturally. Alexander’s (2000) five nation study of England,
France, India, Russia and the USA in the 1990s identified six versions of teaching:
i. Transmission (the passing on of information and skill), which was com-

mon to all five countries but particularly apparent in mainstream formal-
istic Indian tradition.
ii. Disciplinary induction (providing access to a culture’s established ways
of enquiry and making sense), which was a feature particularly in France.
iii. Democracy in action (in which knowledge is reflexive rather than re-
ceived, and teachers and students are joint enquirers).
iv. Facilitation (respecting individual differences and responding to devel-
opmental readiness and need), which was particularly found in the USA.
v. Acceleration (outpacing ‘natural’ development rather than following it),
which was a feature of Russian education.
54
Chapter 3
vi. Technique (emphasising structure, graduation, economy, conciseness and

rapidity).
Alexander noted the commonality of teaching as technique across a wide swathe

of continental Europe, drawing on older formalistic traditions involving highly
structured lessons, whole-class teaching, the breaking down of learning tasks into
small graduated steps, and the maintenance of economy in organisation, action,
and the use of time and space. Russia was at one highly formalised extreme and
France was at the other, more eclectic and less ritualised but still firmly grounded
in structure.
The cases of England and the USA, in contrast to France and Russia, very use-
fully showed, Alexander commented, that the great cultural divide among these
countries was the English Channel, not the Atlantic Ocean. There was a discerni-
ble Anglo-American nexus of educational values and practices, just as there was a
discernible continental European one. In effect, the divide was not between Euro-
pean and American values, but between Anglophone and non-Anglophone values
(see Chapter 12.4). Alexander pointed to widespread international traffic in educa-
tional ideas, but his claim that progressivism is “a genuinely international com-
modity” (Alexander 2000, p. 171) was illustrated by examples of progressive edu-
cational thought (Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Tagore, the Elmhirsts, Dewey, the French
école normale and the German Normalschule) that actually demonstrated a pre-
dominantly Eurocentric tradition. With a less limited horizon, Regan (1996) has
described seven major alternative traditions in Africa, Asia and the Americas.
A compelling explanation of the depth of cultural traditions in education comes
from a particularly useful contribution by Tabulawa (1997, pp. 191-192), who in-
troduced the Kuhnian concept of paradigms to help explain the educational mind-
sets found in his Botswana case study of high school teaching described in Chap-
ter 2.4. Tabulawa noted that the concept has been applied in education as a world-
view, mind-set, frame of reference or conceptual framework that views phenom-
ena differently from other paradigms and claims in competition with the others to
produce more reliable and dependable knowledge. A paradigm contains four ele-
ments: prior knowledge, legitimate problems to be addressed, the methodological
rules that can be employed to solve these problems, and criteria for validating
knowledge. Failure of a paradigm to solve problems may result in a difficult tran-
sition to a new paradigm, but the tendency is for the advocates of old paradigms to
resist the new one because it represents a disintegration of the practitioners’ taken-
for-granted world and a loss of psychological support. Tabulawa contrasted the
“banking of knowledge” paradigm (which is central to formalism) with the
learner-centred view on which progressivism is based. These two paradigms com-
pete for recognition and supremacy in educational practice. Their assumptions
55
Gerard Guthrie
about the social world, the nature of reality and the learner are diametrically op-
posed, with incompatible positions about the constitution, transmission and
evaluation of legitimate knowledge based on incompatible epistemological as-
sumptions and values. One of the weaknesses of educational debate, Tabulawa
noted, is the failure to recognise that teacher- and learner-centred teaching meth-
ods are informed by distinctive and particular epistemologies, a failure that has
promoted a technicist approach to problems of classroom change. However, to
propose that teachers and students shift from a banking paradigm to a learner-
centred one “is necessarily a proposal that they fundamentally change their views
of the nature of knowledge, of the learner and his/her role, and of classroom or-
ganisation in general” (Tabulawa 1997, p. 191).
Botswana’s prevalent didactic, teacher-centred method of teaching was under-
pinned by a philosophy of knowledge embedded in the wider culture that provided
value systems for both teachers and students, contributing to the failure of at-
tempts to change didactic classroom practices. Formalism was deeply anchored in
traditional Tswana cosmology in a society that emphasised domination and
subordination of children to their elders. Children were exposed to this from
earliest childhood and it was part of the culture they brought to the classroom so
that teachers and students shared the same educational philosophy. The resulting
deductive, product-oriented classroom approach, Tabulawa (1998, pp. 264-267)
found, was antithetical to official attempts to generate a more inductive, learner-
centred approach where teachers would be facilitators of students’ learning proc-
esses. Learning-centred teaching was incongruent with teachers’ and students’
deep-seated assumptions about the goal of schooling as imparting knowledge as a
vocational commodity. The failure of the learner-centred reforms was not a result
of lack of resources and training but came from ignoring the cultural contexts
within which schools operated. Teachers’ classroom practices were influenced by
many factors other than technical ones, including their assumptions about the na-
ture of knowledge and the ways it ought to be transmitted, their perceptions of
students, and the goal of schooling. These contextual cultural issues were at the
root of the failure of the misplaced technicist approach to classroom change,
which focussed on resource inputs and delivery of innovation.
Paradigms have since been referred to quite frequently in comparative educa-
tion. Botswana is just one example of many similar traditional African educational
approaches (Omolewa 2007). In South Africa after 1995, for example, Nakabugo
and Sieborger (2001) pointed to the failure of curriculum reform on teaching, find-
ing that seven 4th grade teachers of English had not made changes in assessment
from old formalistic teaching practices to the new student-centred ones required
for an outcomes-based education. The official approach of a rapid paradigm shift
was, they found, very dubious and in need of much closer attention to what actu-
56
Chapter 3
ally happened in classrooms and ways to facilitate meaningful change. In Asia,

Nguyen et al. (2009) strongly criticised the borrowing of policies and practices
that were originally developed in very different cultural contexts to their own so-
cieties. The authors reviewed literature relevant to the application within an Asian
context of Cooperative Learning, an educational method developed in the West,
revealing a complex web of cultural conflicts and mismatches with traditional
formalistic teaching styles. The authors also took up the neo-colonialism theme,
writing that Western paradigms tend to shape and influence educational systems
and thinking elsewhere through the process of globalisation, given the perceived
pressure to modernise and reform in order to attain high international standards.
Educational policy-makers in non-Western countries, they said, often “cherry-
pick” Western practices, neglecting detailed consideration of the differences in the
culture and heritage of their own countries compared to the originating country.
Their article concluded by suggesting that non-Western cultures should seek to re-
construct imported pedagogic practices in accordance with their own world views
and in line with their own norms and values. Hawkins (2007) has also written of a
globally dominant educational paradigm stressing the relationship between in-
vestment in education and economic development. Without necessarily using the
terminology, other authors, such as Clarke (2001; 2003) on India, have in effect
written about educational paradigms in analysing teachers’ cultural constructs and
their pre-colonial roots.
While not referenced to Beeby’s model or to post-colonialism, cross-cultural
analysis from other subject areas can also be highly germane when it goes to the
underlying cultural issues that Beeby did not address. One example is a social
work text drawing on biology that went directly to different notions of intelligence
and their paradigmic cultural implications for schooling (Ginsberg et al. 2004).
The book noted that the Western cultural emphasis on speed of mental processing
is not shared by many cultures, which may even be suspicious of the quality of
work done very quickly and emphasise depth rather than speed of processing. For
example, the Chinese Confucian perspective emphasises benevolence and doing
what is right, so that the intelligent person spends much effort in learning, enjoys
learning and persists in lifelong learning with enthusiasm, while the Taoist
tradition emphasises the importance of humility, freedom from conventional
standards of judgement, and full knowledge of oneself and external conditions.
The authors noted that, “the importance of culture in the social construction of a
theory of intelligence cannot be overestimated. Reasoning skills, both verbal and
nonverbal, … social skills, oratory ability, numerical skills, and memory are just
examples of the exhaustive list of cognitive skills that can go on any list of what it
takes to be intelligent in any particular culture” (Ginsberg et al. 2004, p. 100). In
57
Gerard Guthrie
this, it is clear that the meanings of intelligence, learning and teaching can vary
greatly from one culture to another.
3.5 Conclusion
Stages in economics and education belong in the methodological dustbin: dead
ends that apparently give form and structure but which have so many loose ele-
ments that they generate few hypotheses of lasting value for serious research. Al-
though Beeby’s book was valuable for a large number of experiential insights, his
stages model was invalidated by several serious logical and methodological weak-
nesses. The analysis in this chapter found the key problem in logic was that the
progressive stages were embedded in a circular teleology. Additionally, from a
measurement perspective the stages were not sufficiently distinct, used imprecise
labels, and over-generalised from the experience of British-tradition South Pacific
school systems. From the Popperian perspective introduced by Beeby in his de-
fence, the stages model failed the key scientific test: the proposed inevitable pro-
gression towards the stage of Meaning was unscientific because it could not be
falsified.
A fundamental problem was lack of clear distinction between the ethical
judgements implicit in the formulation and empirical issues. It is difficult to assert
that Beeby’s progressivism was anything other than a predominantly Eurocentric,
especially Anglophone, view of educational values that underestimated the power
of other culturally based educational paradigms. The concept of paradigms intro-
duced to this debate by Tabulawa explains the depths of the formalistic episte-
mologies with which progressivism seeks to compete. While there is discussion
about the nature of formalism and the extent to which formalistic teachers might
use some variety in their methods, and while there are examples of short-term
modifications to formalism, there is nothing in any of the literature reviewed in
this book to suggest that progressive reforms have been successful in replacing
formalism in the long-term in Asia, Africa or the Pacific. Culture-bound progres-
sive reformers who do not understand the depth of the cultural issues are in for a
very difficult time.
References
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Beeby, C.E., & Lewis, L.J. (1971). Introduction [to Special Number on educational trends in
some developing countries]. International Review of Education, 17(2), 131-137.
Clarke, P. (2001). Teaching and learning: The culture of pedagogy. New Delhi: Sage.
Clayton, A.S. (1972). Valuation in comparative education. Comparative Education Review,
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Coombs, H. (1969). Time for a change of strategy. In C.E. Beeby (Ed.), Qualitative aspects of
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Ginsberg, L., Nackerud, L., & Larrison, C. (2004). Human biology for social workers: Develop-
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Hawkins, J. (2007). The intractable dominant educational paradigm. In P. Hershock, M. Mason,
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Myrdal, G. (1969). Objectivity in social research. New York: Pantheon.
Nakabugo, M., & Sieborger, R. (2001). Curriculum reform and teaching in South Africa: Making
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Nguyen, P-M., Elliott, J., Terlouw, C., & Pilot, A. (2009). Neocolonialism in education: Coop-
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Omolewa, M. (2007). Traditional African modes of education: Their relevance in the modern
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Regan, T. (1996). Non-western educational traditions: Alternative approaches to educational

thought and practice. Narwah: Erlbaum.
Renwick, W.L. (1998). Clarence Edward Beeby (1902-98). Prospects, 28(2), 335-348.
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60
CHAPTER 4
TEACHER RESISTANCE TO CHANGE
Beeby’s conjectures included that the key to a school’s movement through the
stages is the ability of its teachers to promote change, but he saw formalistic
teachers, in particular, as obstructive. Chapter 4 considers teachers’ percep-
tual constructs, systemic barriers to change and the roles of different types of
teacher in change. Failure of teachers to innovate may be rational, reasoned
responses to complex progressive reforms that offer no relative advantage in
the classroom, are not compatible with existing methods and offer no observ-
able outcomes for clients such as parents concerned with examination results.
Whether a new syllabus, teaching style or wider curriculum reform will dif-
fuse through classrooms depends on teachers’ personal and professional con-
structs (which may vary among different types of teacher), practical barriers
to change including countervailing work and social pressures, schools’ pro-
fessional climates and structural inducements. The influence of context-
specific cultural paradigms on teachers’ formalistic professional constructs
may well outweigh – quite rationally from their perspective – the alleged
benefits of any progressive reform.
The ultimate goal of Beeby’s progressivism was teachers with a style appropriate
to his fourth stage of Meaning, and he unsympathetically viewed the ritualistic
Dame School or Formalism teacher as “an unskilled and ignorant one who teaches
mere symbols with only the vaguest reference to their meaning” (Beeby 1966, p.
52). In his view, five factors affected professional conservatism in both developed
and developing countries: lack of clear goals in the system affecting teachers’
thinking, lack of understanding and acceptance by teachers of reforms, teachers as
products of a system not being prone to innovate, isolation of teachers in their
classroom slowing down diffusion of innovations, and a wide range of ability of
teachers making diffusion rates uneven (Beeby 1966, pp. 35-47). This carried a
pejorative implication for his third theoretical proposition that the key to a
school’s movement through the stages is the ability of its teachers to promote
change. Teacher inability to bring about the progressive changes necessary to raise
a school system to the highest stage was the reason that gradualism was necessary.

Gerard Guthrie
Two types of thinking have been read into this aspect of Beeby’s writing. One
infers from stage analysis the use of curriculum reform to accelerate teachers
through the stages, about which Beeby was cautious. The other attributes curricu-
lum failures to the teachers rather than the innovators who failed to understand
school situations adequately, to which Beeby contributed with his emphasis on
teachers as an obstacle to change. This chapter turns particularly to the latter issue
in considering teachers’ perceptual constructs, the roles of different types of inno-
vator, and systemic barriers to change.4
4.1 Teachers’ Constructs

The modern curriculum movement that began in the United States in the 1950s
was based initially on the centre-periphery model (Crossley 1984a, pp. 77-80;
1984b; Guthrie 1986). The model was successful at disseminating innovations to
the classroom, but problems of teacher change within the classroom soon ap-
peared. By the end of the 1960s, attention had turned to problems of diffusion and
to persuasion of resistant teachers, which led in the 1970s to the popularity of
school-based curriculum strategies that attempted to incorporate teachers into the
change process. Quite frequently, curriculum reform in developing countries fol-
lowed these patterns soon after they became apparent in the developed world, in
part because of a predominance of expatriate contract curriculum workers, and
similar difficulties arose. Despite the apparent congruity of centre-periphery mod-
els with formalistic school systems, problems of in-service training remained
when teachers found difficulty adapting to new syllabuses. Later, school-based
curriculum development was found to be even less appropriate because of the
much greater demands it made on teachers’ skills and time.
A more realistic stepwise change model combining the strengths of the centre-
periphery and school-based models has been more widely followed since the
1980s. This is especially the case in well-funded and well-staffed aid projects,
where educational change is often piloted systematically using project design and
management principles such as are embodied in the logical framework. Projectisa-
tion can result in systematic and well-organised change management, but has its
own limitations, especially with the sustainability of pilot activities once external
funding ceases. Under trial conditions, it is possible to obtain considerable Haw-
thorne effects with commitments of time from those singled out for special atten-
tion through, for example, in-service. However, project extension phases requiring
the same high levels of commitment, often without relief from normal duties and
usually with less in-service support, are often unsustainable.
4 Chapters 4 .1 and 4.2 draw on aspects of Guthrie (1986) with permission from Elsevier.
62
Chapter 4
Teacher Resistance to Change
Any assumption that the various difficulties faced by the three curriculum
change models are due primarily to teacher conservatism is simplistic. More sen-
sible is the perceptual view that decision-making processes are based on learned
mental constructs derived from social and cultural environments, and that such
constructs provide teachers with a basis for purposeful assessment of classroom
options. A conceptual starting point comes from H.A. Simon’s (1947) view of
people as intendedly rational decision-makers who satisfice on the basis of imper-
fect knowledge bounded by a simplified model of the real world. In effect, indi-
viduals evaluate their environments in terms of subjectively based aspiration lev-
els that adjust on the basis of experience. Construct theory, deriving from the
psychologist G.A. Kelly (1955), provides further understanding of how sense is
made of the world. This approach postulates that individuals’ perceptions are
based in their constructs, which are ways of making sense of past experiences to
give meaning to present and future ones by providing a world view that can itself
change through experience. Where some agreement arises with Beeby’s pessi-
mism about teachers is in Ryle’s (1975) view that constructs can act not only as
frames, but also as cages.
The perceptual approach has resulted in several different themes in educational
research, such as teachers’ practical knowledge, classroom ecology, knowledge-
in-action, images and frames (Tabulawa 1998, pp. 251-253) (the student-centred
‘constructivist’ view of knowledge has also arisen, but is quite different from the
concern in this section with teachers’ formalism as a construct). The themes iden-
tified by Tabulawa have not been applied frequently in developing country re-
search, as can be inferred from extensive literature reviews on teacher professional
development (Villegas-Reimers 2003, pp. 145-195), quality in education (Barrett
et al. 2006, pp. 18-21) and school effectiveness (Yu 2007, pp. 58-61). In part, this
seems to be because anthropological and sociological research has reached a simi-
lar end point from other theoretical bases, adding emphasis to constructs not just
as individual perceptions, but as culturally framed and derived from the social en-
vironment (e.g. Clarke 2003, in India), to which Tabulawa (1997) applied the con-
cept of paradigms. In turn, one implication of the perceptual approach to decision-
making is that we should not just regard formalistic teachers as passively and re-
flexively applying cultural tradition – after all, they are among the most educated
members of their communities – but that their responses can represent purposeful,
rational, thoughtful behaviour. Another implication of constructs is that different
people can ascribe different meanings to the same phenomenon: thus a curriculum
innovator’s progressive enlightenment can be a classroom teacher’s professional
nightmare.
One relevant example of research based in constructs is Morris’s (1985) study
of the effects of the Hong Kong examination system on a progressive curriculum
63
Gerard Guthrie
reform. The school system there has long placed great importance on public ex-
aminations and a didactic teaching style promoting rote learning (Choi 1999).
Morris reported that in the early 1980s curriculum planners had attempted to
counter these emphases by introducing innovations involving progressive ap-
proaches to teaching and learning requiring pupil participation and a heuristic
teaching style. Despite teachers expressing favourable attitudes to progressive ap-
proaches, classroom observation indicated they were not being implemented. The
study attempted to assess why economics teachers did not actually implement
them in forms 4 and 5 of secondary schools. Semi-structured interviews were con-
ducted with 45 teachers, each from a different school. After a lesson had been ob-
served, teachers were asked what factors had influenced their approach to the les-
son, which was followed up with supplementary interviews. The results showed
the formalistic context in which teachers operated: 29% gave as the sole influence
for a lesson pattern the need to cover the syllabus in the available time, 16% gave
pupils’ expectations. A majority of teachers cited aspects of the public exams as
the main influence on their teaching. Teachers repeatedly viewed knowledge as in-
formation requiring them to lecture rather than to adopt the new heuristic learning
process view of the syllabus.
Morris viewed these teachers not as resistors of change but as rational decision-
makers concerned with factors that could limit successful implementation, weigh-
ing the practicality of innovations in the classroom, their congruence with prevail-
ing conditions, and professional costs. The decision of teachers not to use the pro-
gressive new approach was a rational choice between alternatives. Teachers said
they used the traditional didactic approach because it was more efficient than the
new progressive approach for transmitting the information specified by the exami-
nation syllabus. The examinations and their selection functions were regarded as
normal, giving a purpose and a framework for teaching in a social and economic
context of very unequal distribution of income where examination success was
crucial to pupils’ life chances. Teachers perceived the progressive approach as in-
efficient for achieving such important ends and as having undesirable conse-
quences, especially if it resulted in the syllabus not being covered and teachers be-
ing blamed for pupil failure. They also considered it as incongruent with existing
teaching and learning styles and inconsistent with the way in which colleagues and
principals assessed the teachers’ task. Thus, their perception was that any intrinsic
merit of the progressive approach did not outweigh its lack of extrinsic worth in
promoting examination success. Change would not occur unless perceived as nec-
essary for pupils to pass the examination. However, this was not a simple case of
an errant examination system or caged teachers. Teachers’ constructs were found
within a classical Chinese culture that has deep rooted epistemology about the na-
64
Chapter 4
ture of knowledge and its purposes, and associated views on the merits of peda-
gogy and memorisation of knowledge, as Chapter 9 will show.
4.2 Types of Innovator

The Hong Kong study demonstrates that teachers bring their existing knowledge
and prior experiences to school and that these interact with their current observa-
tions and interpretations to give shape to their classroom practice. The mental con-
structs used by teachers to classify their reality are influenced by the cultural, so-
cial and educational environments in which they operate, providing stability in
educational systems marked by change. Their perceptions have major influence on
attempts to change the quality of teaching, and can subvert the intentions of ad-
ministrators and change agents who assume falsely that teachers will passively
implement change directives. What this adds up to is a need to understand how
teachers perceive curriculum innovation and the extent to which innovations are
consistent with their beliefs about schooling. Relevant here is E.M. Rogers’ (2003)
sociological perspective on five distinct attributes of innovations that are weighed
up by individuals in an organisation. The attributes that he defined are:
i. Relative advantage (the degree to which innovations offer advantages

over other innovations or over present circumstance).
ii. Compatibility (the extent to which innovations align with prevalent val-
ues, previous experiences or ideas, and the needs of clients in the social
system).
iii. Complexity (the extent to which innovations are considered difficult to
learn and apply).
iv. Trialability (the degree to which innovations can be tried on a small
scale).
v. Observability (the degree to which outcomes from use of a new idea are
visible to clients).
Innovations perceived as having greater relative advantage, compatibility, tri-

alability and observability, and as having less complexity, are adopted more rap-
idly than innovations that do not have these attributes. Failure of formalistic
teachers to innovate is thus understandable as reasoned responses to the complex-
ity of progressive reforms that offer no relative advantage in the classroom, are not
compatible with existing methods, and offer no observable outcomes for clients
such as parents concerned with examination results.
However, not all teachers are equally open to or resistant to change. Perceptual
and systemic issues show that teachers in general can weigh possible changes ra-
65
Gerard Guthrie
tionally, but not all potential adopters or rejecters of change are alike. Rogers
(2003, p. 281) further presented a highly relevant schema of adopters of innova-
tion with five categories diagrammed along a normal distribution:
i. Innovators are the first 2.5% of a normal distribution. These risk takers
are venturesome, have great interest in innovations and actively seek in-
formation. They can understand complex technical knowledge and cope
with high levels of uncertainty associated with innovation. Innovators
play a critical role in the adoption and diffusion of innovations as the first
members to bring new ideas into their social system.
ii. Early adopters are the next 13.5% of potential users. They are more inte-
grated into the social system than innovators and are role models and
opinion leaders from whom potential adopters seek information and ad-
vice. Early adopters tend to make cautious innovation decisions to main-
tain the respect of other members. Peers perceive their adoption of an in-
novation as a rubber stamp of approval. Once they adopt a new idea, a
critical mass triggers so that the innovation’s adoption becomes self-
sustaining.
iii. The Early majority form the next 34% of potential adopters. Others
rarely perceive them as opinion leaders; nonetheless, they interact fre-
quently with their peers and are willing to be adopters. They will deliber-
ate for some time before adopting an innovation fully.
iv. The Late majority are the next 34% of potential adopters. They are scep-
tical and cautious in their approach and will wait until most of their col-
leagues have adopted so that uncertainty levels reduce. Growing peer
pressure and, in some cases, economic gain drive their adoption of an in-
novation.
v. Laggards are the last 16% to adopt a new idea. They show virtually no
leadership in opinion making and interact primarily with others whom
they perceive are adhering to traditional ways. Laggards tend to be suspi-
cious of innovations and change agents, their decisions being influenced
by what has been done in the past.
Perhaps with the laggards at least, Beeby’s attitude to teachers as caged resistors
of change had a target, but there is no reason to assume that formalistic teachers
are the only ones who behave this way or that people remain fixed in their cate-
gory over time. Another issue here is the relevance of Rogers’ allocation of inno-
vators along a normal curve. Although a normal distribution is convenient for heu-
ristic purposes, the discussions of context throughout this book indicate that it may
lack cross-cultural validity. Application of Rogers’ model in specific educational
contexts might find different proportions in his categories. The model could be
66
Chapter 4
adapted also to distribute teachers along a continuum based on different variables

to help understanding of change and how it is affected by the structural position of
various groups within schools (Chapter 11.3).
4.3 Systemic Barriers to Change

Teachers’ perceptions of the relative advantages of teaching styles may also have
a strong foundation in realism. The systems-based issues discussed in the literature
as part of barriers to change indicate that teachers’ negative assessments of inno-
vations may be rational responses to actual systemic problems (MacDonald &
Ruddock 1971; Crossley 1984a, p. 85). Objective conditions are usually beyond a
teacher’s control, and indeed Beeby did become more understanding about the ef-
fect of systemic constraints on teachers, as shown in a later insightful commentary
on administrative difficulties in promoting change (Beeby 1986, pp. 39-41).
Even if progressive methods are culturally appropriate and even if teachers do
support change, many practical barriers remain to progressive change. Project ex-
tension phases, in particular, have to face several systemic barriers to sustainabil-
ity, including six main practical problems: a) classroom facilities may not be ap-
propriate for some teaching styles; b) teachers may have insufficient time to
innovate; c) examinations may emphasise learning inconsistent with the innova-
tions; d) educational administrators may be unable to provide appropriate organ-
isational support, particularly during extension phases; e) the costs of reform may
be prohibitive; and f) the difficulties in introducing progressive reforms can be
underestimated.
a) Classroom Conditions. Attempts to upgrade teacher levels by requiring

changes in teaching style may find the situation in the classroom overwhelms the
desired behaviours. At a practical level, working conditions, especially in remote
schools, usually do not favour innovation. Where teachers have to cope with large
classes, changes in teaching style that require small group work, experiential en-
quiry or laboratory activities may not be practicable because of lack of space,
fixed classroom furniture, absence of equipment, and lack of classroom insulation
making even moderate noise levels a disturbance in other classrooms.
A litany of findings can be found about the poverty of developing country
school facilities. Postlethwaite (1998), for example, reported on a 1995 UNESCO
and UNICEF sample survey of 857 primary schools in 14 least developed coun-
tries in Africa and Asia. The survey included the standard of classroom equipment
and the quality of school buildings, finding that many school buildings were in
need of repair, toilets were often unusable and many classes took place in tempo-
rary facilities, including the open air. Only three countries were relatively well off
67
Gerard Guthrie
for such basics as chalkboards and wall charts, while very few classrooms had
wall maps, cupboards, bookshelves or a library corner. About half the students
were in classrooms that did not have a teacher’s table or chair. Class sizes of 40-
70 were common. In many countries, children had to sit on dirt floors that turned
to mud when the rain entered. Only in one country did all students have a seat at a
bench or desk: the writing place was often the shoulder of the next student. Except
in two countries, virtually none of the students had supplementary reading books.
The dismal conclusion was that conditions in many if not most of the schools sur-
veyed were not conducive to teaching or learning (Postlethwaite 1998, pp. 307-
316). An example from Papua New Guinea gives a particular illustration. A study
of 20 primary schools in Central Province found that primary school classroom fa-
cilities were invariably poor and not suited to student-centred learning practices
(Pearse et al. 1990, pp. 72-74). Like most primary schools in that country, these
were generally small (2-10 classes and teachers) and remote. They were some-
times accessible by road, but otherwise only by boat, plane or foot. Varying levels
of community support meant great variation in housing, classrooms and equip-
ment. Many classrooms did not have weatherproof shelter, level and dry floors,
light, quietness, seats, tables or storage; all of which varied considerably from
school to school. There was also great variation in the provision of sources of les-
son content for both teachers and students. In some classrooms, teachers did not
have a syllabus, teacher’s guide or student textbook. All classrooms did at least
have a blackboard, as well as a minimum of a student exercise book and a pen or
pencil for each student, but “typically the classroom provided at least one im-
pediment to the efficient use of learning materials or to communication” (Pearse et
al. 1990, p. 73). In effect, everyday working conditions were a major barrier to in-
novation and limited the potential to vary teaching styles away from didactic
teacher-centred methods.
Progressive innovations can be naïve if they rely implicitly on uncrowded
classroom conditions (for example, to permit students to move around readily or
furniture to allow group work) or if they assume that conditions are improving. In
the UNESCO study, head teachers reported more decreases than increases in
school facilities in the preceding five years, despite increases in school enrolments
being the norm (Postlethwaite 1998). But any assumption that scarce financial re-
sources should be used to reduce class size has been rejected widely from school
effectiveness research. Lockheed and Verspoor (1991) dismissed large class size
as a factor in educational quality in developing country primary schools, a view
still supported in a thorough recent review of the international evidence about the
impact of large classes on teaching and learning by O’Sullivan (2006). She noted
that in the absence of research on class size in developing countries, most of the
evidence comes from developed countries. Studies have not demonstrated that
68
Chapter 4
teachers with small classes actually bring about improved performance, the
evidence mainly being that classes smaller than 20 in the early years of primary
school lead to improved performance, but class sizes above 20 are not associated
with improved student performance. However, 20 is not a realistic number in
developing countries and is beyond the resources of some industrialised ones.
O’Sullivan found that the critical issue was not reducing class size but making
teaching in large classes more effective, which has implications for teacher
training and for government and school policies. My interpretation is that, once a
class is under 20, teachers do have a realistic chance of providing meaningful
individual attention in a typical 40-minute lesson. Above that size, it does not
much matter whether there are 30 students or 50 receiving teacher talk because
very few if any can receive separate attention. Once classes average 20, cost-
effectiveness implies they may as well increase in size, although how large they
can become is dependent on contextual factors and no hard or fast rules exist.
The issue of class size also goes to cultural perceptions. Cortazzi and Jin (2001)
reported that class sizes in China in the 1990s commonly ranged from 30 to 70 or
more. While school resources were often available to reduce class sizes,
frequently this was not done. The reasons given by teachers included that large
classes permitted fewer lessons per week for each teacher and therefore more time
for preparation, supervision of study and the expected individual attention to
students outside the class. In other words, the progressive mantra that class sizes
should be smaller is caged by the view that teachers’ responsibilities are mainly
limited to inside the classroom. Where teachers have outside responsibilities to
pupils, less classroom time can be a rational tradeoff for more time in which to
carry out these responsibilities. Paradoxically, large class sizes can permit more
teacher attention to students.
b) Time. The sheer mechanics of daily life, especially in rural areas with
poor infrastructure, can be very time-consuming and teachers simply may not have
enough spare hours to innovate on a long-term basis. This remains particularly so
for teachers in communities with few modern facilities, where fetching water and
firewood can occupy greater time than for the more comfortably located innovator
at headquarters. Thaman (1987) illustrated this point with the story of a Tongan
primary teacher with multiple roles as teacher, income source for her extended
family, secretary of the village women’s group, informal educator of her own
children into traditional customs, and church member. These roles absorbed con-
siderable time, each one carrying traditional cultural values that generated particu-
lar expectations of behaviour, on top of which was a professional expectation that
she would prepare her class 6 for success in the high school selection examination.
The effect is that the normal work of preparation, teaching, marking and supervis-
69
Gerard Guthrie
ing, as well as time for spouse, children, relatives and community groups, means
that teachers like this simply might not have hours in the day to undertake major
curriculum innovations.
c) Examination Pressures. Where syllabus reforms promote open-ended ac-

tivities or heuristic teaching styles to develop enquiry skills and attitudinal change,
but examinations emphasise recall of lower level cognitive knowledge, teachers
face a dilemma. They will often be led by their own and their students’ formalistic
expectations of exam-oriented teaching, as Morris’s study in Hong Kong showed.
The implication is that, “it is a necessary but not sufficient condition that attempts
to change classroom practice should not be incongruent with teachers’ and pupils’
perceptions of the requirements of any public examination system” (Crossley &
Guthrie 1987, p. 65).
If curricular innovations are unlikely to succeed because they are incompatible
with the requirements of the examination system, one solution within the power of
educational authorities is to change the examinations, as has frequently been
pointed out (e.g. Kellaghan & Greaney 2001). The dominant function of examina-
tions is selection for higher levels of education and for employment. Traditional
practice was usually norm-referenced when public examination systems merely
had a selection function based on students’ relative performance. The alternative
of criterion- or domain-referenced testing, which concentrates on assessing stu-
dents’ ability to achieve defined educational objectives, has become more com-
mon during the last two or three decades, in part because the same information can
be used to rank students and can therefore meet the selection function as well. In-
deed, under criticism from proponents of criterion-referenced testing, norm-
referenced examinations are now much more likely to be tied to explicit learning
objectives than formerly so that the objectives can promote the desired types of
learning. Earlier I pointed out that this is simple in principle, but that the practice
is time-consuming, highly technical, expensive of time, skills and money, requires
the will and finance to systematically rewrite syllabuses in performance terms and
to provide continuously appropriate materials, and should not be undertaken
lightly (Guthrie 1990, p. 230). Even this assessment was optimistic, at least in the
case of Hong Kong, where criterion-referenced examination reforms in the 2000s
met further difficulties because teachers could simply not see what the problem
was with the existing norm-referenced system and the changes were prescribed in
a top-down approach that made little attempt to take into account parents’ or
teachers’ constructs (Watkins & Biggs 2001, p. 16).
d) Administrative Support. Insufficient support from departments of educa-

tion may inhibit a desired change. This may be simply a problem of shortage of
70
Chapter 4
funds, but it may be embedded much more deeply in the formal bureaucracies that
surround so much formalistic teaching. Stephens (1991, p. 225) has described very
clearly the hierarchical system impinging upon a primary classroom in Nepal, but
which could apply in any number of settings. At the bottom of the hierarchy was
the student, receiving knowledge passively and with little control of what he
learned and when. The teacher, passing on the knowledge she learnt in her day,
was more a transmitter than a decider, constrained by her limited knowledge of
choices and lack of resources. The head teacher, even with a degree in education,
decided little that was new or innovatory. His role was to manage rules and proce-
dures that left little time or energy for INSET, curriculum development or school-
community relations. His immediate superior, the inspector of schools, was unsure
of her exact duties because she had recently been promoted from head teacher and
had received little briefing and no training. She concerned herself with administra-
tive matters, leaving curriculum development and materials writing to specialist
educationists working in the capital city. At the top of the hierarchy was the gov-
ernment department, heavily constrained by aid conditions imposed, albeit be-
nevolently (and with efficiency and relevance in mind), by donor agencies. This
description showed formalistic teachers at work in a formalistic system. The sys-
tem was designed to keep defined operations on track, but quite possibly was one
that had a long history of cultural preference for revelatory rather than scientific
knowledge, and therefore had more meaning for the participants than Stephens
admitted.
In situations like this, and without adequate travel budgets, headquarters sup-
port for school-based curriculum development and in-service may not be possible.
Lack of funding can also severely limit continued provision of support materials
or equipment too. During trial or pilot phases, additional funding from aid projects
may temporarily overcome such barriers. However, the example of SSCEP (the
Secondary Schools Community Extension Project) in Papua New Guinea (as
shown in Chapter 7.2) demonstrates that such trials are highly vulnerable to sus-
tainability problems. With the end of World Bank loan funding, the project was to
be disseminated from 10 trial schools to all provincial high schools, however
Government funding could not be found to extend it in a difficult economic
period, and SSCEP faded away within five years. If there is insufficient financial
and administrative capacity, innovation is vulnerable even if it is appropriate.
e) Costs. Even if the arguments about principle and logic did not apply,
economics is a contributing barrier to funding of progressive reforms. In Western
countries, education is often seen as a form of consumption, a human right that so-
ciety should provide to meet popular demand. Although it is not always possible
to provide what is wanted, and although this view has been increasingly ques-
71
Gerard Guthrie
tionned, it is still the ideal around which much educational provision revolves, es-
pecially at the lower levels of schooling. In developing countries, shortages of
funding mean that planners are compelled to see education as provision of human
resources for national development, with decisions to implement new curriculum
being very clearly restricted by costs. Efforts to teach meaning, in the sense pos-
ited by Beeby, demand more individualised attention to pupils, smaller classes,
and greater quantities and varieties of books and other supporting materials: in
other words, almost invariably they add to costs, which is an additional reason
why their implementation is problematic.
The example of Papua New Guinea again suffices. While asset rich it has been
income poor. In the recent past, revenue in the 2003 budget equalled A$1.33 bil-
lion, including A$0.31 billion in foreign aid. In comparison, the small Australian
state of Tasmania had over twice the annual budget, at A$3 billion in 2003-04. But
Tasmania, with over twice Papua New Guinea’s governmental revenue, was only
15% of its size, had only 11% of the population, received far greater funding from
the Australian Commonwealth Government than did Papua New Guinea through
the aid programme, and had to provide a lesser range of services that did not in-
clude foreign relations (Guthrie & Kawi 2004, p. 18). Gas and mineral projects
will increase Papua New Guinea’s national income during the 2010s, but the abil-
ity of the state to deliver services will remain hampered by endemic financial
management issues, including planning and budgetary processes, cash flow man-
agement, service delivery capability and accountability, as well as corruption.
Even were these inefficiencies resolved, government revenue will simply remain
insufficient for a modern state with a young, fast growing population. Other lesser
developed countries almost invariably have similar stories.
f) Underestimation of Progressive Requirements. Another common failing in

the introduction of progressive reforms is underestimation of the sheer practicali-
ties that make implementation difficult. Progressive reforms generate considerable
logistical problems because they usually require smaller classes and more inputs
such as books, equipment and materials; all of which overlap with the more fun-
damental cultural issues associated with retraining of teachers.
An example is provided by Namibia, where educational reform in the 1990s re-
acted to the formalistic teaching found under the previous apartheid system. The
reforms focussed strongly on introducing progressive elements, including through
extensive teacher development programmes (Dembele & Lefoka 2007, pp. 536-
538). O’Sullivan (2004) found that the implementation of learner-centred ap-
proaches among 145 unqualified teachers in 31 predominantly rural primary
schools had been unsuccessful. Her mixed methods action research from 1995-97
was a case study of an INSET programme that included 450 hours of lesson ob-
servation. Teachers were familiar with the reform policy and claimed to be using
72
Chapter 4
the learner-centred methods, but in practice they still predominantly used rote
teaching. Four reasons explained the lack of implementation of new teaching
skills. The first two were school-based: limited resources in the schools (including
inability to provide small classes), and teacher professional capacity to understand
the language of the policy documents and to recognise the learner as a cognate in-
dividual (which was a central requirement of the learner-centred approach). The
other two reasons were contextual: cultural factors from a background as semi-
nomadic rural herders in which the interests of the individual tend to be subsumed
under the group, and learner expectations of traditional formalistic approaches
where children are expected to be respectful of authority.
O’Sullivan (2004, pp. 594-595) noted some basic elements of epistemology
that the progressive reforms had overlooked, providing a huge underestimation of
what was involved in learner-centred, constructivist education. Such an approach,
she found, required highly qualified and experienced staff, specific assumptions,
and great skill, which were absent among the teachers in the case study schools.
For example, learner-centred approaches could only be successfully applied if the
contribution of the learner to the development of knowledge was acknowledged
and if the teacher accommodated the learner as a social being reliant on interaction
with others to generate meaning. Teachers therefore had to be aware of the types
of idea brought to school subjects by learners and to be knowledgeable about
strategies to facilitate restructuring and extending these conceptions; which they
were not. Even degree-level workshop participants had significant difficulties in
attempting to adopt a constructivist view of knowledge, which was one of the un-
derlying assumptions in the learner-centred reforms. Teachers tended to view
knowledge as fixed, objective and detached from the learner, and believed that
their function was to transmit this knowledge to the children, usually through rote
learning. Effectively, O’Sullivan found, the requirements of learner-centred
schools were in direct contrast to the local cultural context and to teachers’ expec-
tation that their role was to teach and the student’s role was to learn alone. Teach-
ers would need not just new teaching skills; they would have to change completely
their cultural framework about teaching and learning. This finding was a very use-
ful antidote to the naïve exhortation on behalf of the reforms by Rowell (1995).
The indication in all this is that increased funds would not provide a solution
that overrides the cultural issues associated with the prevalence of formalism.
Amid many practical barriers to change, deeply held, culturally-based perceptions
of education provide a rational basis for rejecting progressive innovations that
offer little comparative advantage over formalistic styles for teachers targeted for
change in schools.
73
Gerard Guthrie
4.4 Conclusion
Although Beeby’s formulation of stages lacked rigour, the positive features in-
cluded a focus on the qualitative aspects of teaching and on qualitative change, the
realistic emphasis on the gradualism of such change in practice, and the identifica-
tion of the teacher as the key change agent in the classroom – a fundamental point
then often overlooked by innovators. Stripped of its evaluative connotations,
Beeby’s interest in qualitative change was a valuable early attempt to move atten-
tion in developing countries from linear, quantitative expansion of existing sys-
tems to a consideration of educational quality. Nonetheless, Beeby’s propensity to
blame the teacher for the failure of inappropriate reforms was a very limited view
of their role, their cultural contexts, their decision-making processes, and working
conditions in developing countries; albeit a propensity shared by many others
critical of teachers.
Much deeper understanding of these issues is required for effective educational
change. Whether a new syllabus, teaching style or wider curriculum reform will
diffuse through classrooms essentially depends on teachers’ personal and profes-
sional constructs, practical barriers to change including countervailing work and
social pressures, schools’ professional climates, and structural inducements. Even
if many of these factors are positive, the influence of context-specific cultural
paradigms on teachers’ formalistic professional constructs may well outweigh –
quite rationally from their perspective – the alleged benefits of any progressive re-
form. In analysing failures to shift from formalistic to meaning style teaching, to
use Beeby’s terminology, we should not necessarily look to conservative teacher
resistance as a rationale. Blanket categorisation of teachers as obstructionist does
not take us far and may indeed reveal as much about the prejudices of the critics as
the attitudes of the teachers.
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Crossley, M. (1984a). Strategies for curriculum change and the question of international transfer.
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Crossley, M., & Guthrie, G. (1987). Current research in developing countries: INSET and the
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Dembele, M., & Lefoka, P. (2007). Pedagogical renewal for quality universal primary education:
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Guthrie, G. (1986). Current research in developing countries: The impact of curriculum reform
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Kellaghan, T., & Greaney, V. (2001). Using assessment to improve the quality of education.
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Postlethwaite, N. (1998). The conditions of primary school classrooms in least-developed
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Villegas-Reimers, E. (2003). Teacher professional development: An international review of the

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76
CHAPTER 5
CLASSROOM TEACHING AND
SCHOOL EFFECTIVENESS
The last of Beeby’s main conjectures was a hypothesised relationship between

levels of professional training and general education of teachers and their
ability to progress through the stages. Chapter 5 considers this through the
medium of a review of school effectiveness research and its methodological
limitations in developing countries, this research having come to dominate in-
ternational measurement of education. The outcome, that the effectiveness of
teacher education and of teaching styles are context-based, appears to have
stood the test of time. The chapter then analyses lack of attention to teaching
styles, the classroom and cultural context, progressively focussing on meth-
odological limitations in school effectiveness research. In focussing on tech-
nical reliability as an explanation for failure to find useful generalisations,
school effectiveness research has lost heavily in the trade-off with validity and
relevance by underestimating ecological validity or context and by not taking
culture and classroom processes seriously. In the failure to break free of the
reliability shackles, the field has churned repeatedly over the same barren
statistical ground.
Few colonisers introduced anything approximating teacher training on a large

scale in their colonies. Typically, indigenous teachers came from the families of
people employed in minor colonial positions, such as police, army or clerical ser-
vices, or from the ranks of religious converts. Most often, these teachers had very
basic levels of education and little or no professional training. Many of the teacher
training programmes that did exist focussed on content and put little emphasis on
professional skills.
In this context, Beeby’s fourth theoretical proposition was a hypothesised rela-
tionship between levels of professional training and general education of teachers
and their ability to progress through the stages in the classroom. This proposition
was a forerunner to a controversy in the 1970s, when the effects of teacher train-
ing and qualifications on teacher and student performance in developing countries
were matters of considerable debate. My 1980 critique gave relatively cursory at-

Gerard Guthrie
tention to this issue, so a 1982 follow-up article in the International Review of

Education overviewed four key school effectiveness reviews in the contention
over teacher training. Their main outcome, that teacher education does have an ef-
fect but that it is context-based, appears to have stood the test of time, yet still re-
ceives only token recognition in the mainstream school effectiveness literature, so
that little progress has been made since in contextualising this research.
The following section examines empirical evidence relevant to Beeby’s hy-
pothesised relationship in developing countries, first revisiting the earlier reviews.
Then, the chapter analyses school effectiveness research on teaching styles, the
classroom and cultural context, focussing successively on methodological limita-
tions in the research as an underlying explanation for the lack of contextual pro-
gress.
5.1 First Generation Literature Reviews

The 1966 Coleman Report in the United States, the 1967 Plowden Commission in
the UK and the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational
Achievement (IEA) all raised doubts about the value of teacher training in devel-
oped countries.5 A first generation of school effectiveness studies in the 1960s and
early 1970s modelled the methodologies of the Coleman Report, which were in-
formed by the production function from econometrics. A second generation in the
1980s used more sophisticated statistical techniques and incorporated checklists
and case studies, while a third generation that applied multilevel analysis was un-
derway in the 1990s (Jansen 1995, pp. 182-188; Riddell 1989; 1997, pp. 178-180;
Yu 2007, p. 29). The emphasis in all three generations of statistics has been on
large samples and quantitative analysis, relying primarily on the numerous IEA
surveys and student achievement tests that have taken place in over 40 countries
since the early 1960s, especially in science, mathematics and language (Johnson
1999). Despite enormous contextual differences, studies in developing countries
closely followed these trends through three main paths: research and reviews by
international aid agencies, IEA studies, and Western-educated researchers (Jansen
1995, pp. 190-194). They have also used official statistics from national depart-
ments of education, questionnaires and ad hoc research, but have made relatively
little use of classroom observation studies, either structured or ethnographic.
The first reviews in developing countries began in 1974 with questions in the
World Bank about the value of teacher training. The doubts were seemingly con-
firmed the following year when the Bank published a report by Alexander and
5
Chapters 5.1 and 5.2 contain abbreviations of parts of Guthrie (1982) with permission from
Springer Science & Business Media.
78
Chapter 5
Classroom Teaching and School Effectiveness
Simmons (1975) that was very dubious about the possibility of promoting educa-
tional innovation in developing countries through traditional types of policy
change. Two updates later, the conclusion remained that, “increasing the quality
or quantity of most of the traditional inputs, such as teacher training or expendi-
tures per student, is not likely to improve student achievement” (Simmons &
Alexander 1980, pp. 77-78). This controversial finding generated a flurry of inter-
national research. An extension followed (Schiefelbein & Simmons 1981) and, af-
ter the first 1975 study, the World Bank also commissioned an analysis of the lit-
erature in Europe (Husen, Saha, & Noonan 1978) and an independent Canadian
review (Avalos & Haddad 1981). Of these, the work of Husen and colleagues was
the most useful because it provided more detail, used the most sophisticated meth-
odological perspectives, covered a greater number of teacher variables, and was
concerned with the most appropriate dependent variable in its focus on associa-
tions between teacher training and student cognitive achievement.
One reason for differences in interpretation of teacher training findings be-
tween the reviews came from the number of studies found by them and the need to
take into account the distribution of sample findings. Simmons and Alexander
used only nine studies, but Husen and colleagues identified 32 separate reports
containing 64 independent studies on student achievement with specific measure
of direct and proxy teacher related variables (Husen et al. 1978, pp. 9-10). These
studies covered five developing countries in Latin America, seven in Africa and
seven in Asia, classified by survey or experimental design and bivariate or multi-
variate analysis. Four groups of variables were identified: pupil demographic and
background variables, teacher qualifications and training, teacher behaviour and
attitudes, and school-teacher variables.
Table 5.1 Summary of Results in Literature Survey
Positive Null Negative Total Total

Findings
% % % % No.
All samples, all
57 34 10 100 194
variables
Teacher qualifi-
56 35 10 100 63
cation variables
Teacher training
55 27 18 100 11
studies
Source: Husen at al. (1978, pp. 39-40).
Particularly useful was the summary of results in Table 5.1, which shows per-
centages of statistically significant positive, null, and negative effects. Row 1 has
79
Gerard Guthrie
all results from all studies, Row 2 has studies most directly concerned with teacher
training, and Row 3 has the teacher training studies considered most rigorous.
Over a half of the results showed positive effects, the authors pointing out that the
positively skewed sampling distribution was consistent with the research hypothe-
sis that teacher training does raise student achievement. However, the positive ef-
fects were only in a small majority: some one-third of results were null and one-
tenth to one-fifth were negative.
The sheer complexity of the findings was inherently confusing when summa-
rised according to 16 key variables (Husen et al. 1978, pp. 38-39), but teacher
educational attainment, credentials and certification, ability and achievement, and
experience generally had positive effects on student outcomes. More interesting in
many ways was a nearly equal division between seven findings with generally
clear patterns (albeit some evidently dependent on context), six without clear pat-
terns, plus three others with too few numbers to draw conclusions. This was con-
sistent with the small positive majority in the distributions in Table 5.1, and the
overall conclusion was that at least some teacher variables were very important in
explaining variations in student achievement in developing countries. The strong-
est evidence was that trained teachers did make a difference. Teacher experience,
ability and knowledge added to student success. However, the maze of complex
findings and lack of stronger patterns demonstrated in the main that the findings
were highly oriented to context: “these consequences of competence do not oper-
ate out of specific social and cultural contexts” (Husen et al. 1978, p. 42). A major
outcome was a clear indication for research directions:
The question which remains unanswered is how, and because of what qualities
and in what contexts do teachers make a difference. Answers to these ques-
tions will make significant contributions to our understanding of the teacher-
learner process generally, and, in LDCs ... will help improve schooling out-
comes in a manner most congruent with LDC needs (Husen et al. 1978, p. 47:
their emphases).
In the 1980s, landmark World Bank research put the educational findings into
wider developmental perspective, in part by showing that the search for worldwide
trends had confused the search for contextual relevance, and in part by introducing
economic variables into the analysis. The previous reviews had generally classi-
fied studies geographically and methodologically. Subsequently, Heyneman and
Loxley (1983a) went beyond the IEA data to add an economic dimension, re-
analysing major international and national databanks with a more representative
coverage than previously. Ordering the data according to national per capita in-
come considerably lessened the confusion surrounding apparently contradictory
80
Chapter 5
results in different countries: they found that the lower a country’s per capita in-
come, the greater the effects of school and teacher quality. Another study by Hey-
neman and Loxley (1983b) used the same databanks to examine regularities
within countries. This paper, located within development economics, asked
whether low income countries tend to have less equal distribution of primary
school quality than high income countries. The data revealed that instances of
equality and inequality occurred among both high and low income countries. This
finding implied among other things that, depending on context, individual low in-
come countries might not necessarily have to choose strategies of educational de-
velopment that distribute educational resources inequitably. Thus, with systematic
comparative data on a larger number of countries than were involved in earlier in-
ternational studies, Heyneman and Loxley were able much more clearly to estab-
lish generalisations – particularly the macroeconomic ones based on national per
capita income – that had eluded earlier more restricted reviews. However, the
studies did not separate teacher effects from school effects and, it should be noted,
their findings have subsequently been challenged as underplaying family back-
ground, which is an important aspect of cultural context (Riddell 1997, p. 181;
Daley et al. 2005; Yu 2007, p. 8; Chudgar & Luschei 2009).
One reason for differences in the importance attributed to teacher training find-
ings has been interpretation of the social significance of statistically significant
outcomes. The second part of the 1978 review by Husen, Saha and Noonan high-
lighted this issue clearly. Because of previous problems with multiple regression
techniques, Noonan re-analysed 1970 IEA science data for Chile and India using
improved methods. The strongest aggregate effect on students’ science achieve-
ment was the residuals, at a range from .77 to .80 in four analyses. Student back-
ground variables ranged from .50 to .56. Teacher background, training and meth-
ods were in the range .20 to .26, while other school variables ranged from .21 to
.24. Teachers were thus important but not as important as other variables, and this
conclusion seemed to justify some of Simmons and Alexander’s scepticism. How-
ever, in a decision-making context, the value of the data changed dramatically. As
Husen et al. (1978, p. 91) insightfully pointed out, the statistical significance of
the findings underestimated their operational significance. They observed that the
residual statistical effect was stronger than the combined effects of all student,
teacher and school variables measured, thus improvement in the residuals could
lead to far larger improvements in achievement levels than the other factors. How-
ever, by definition, the residual factors were unknown and therefore outside ad-
ministrative control. Student background variables were known, but were also out-
side the control of educational authorities. Only the school and teacher variables
were both known and within administrative control: the least significant statisti-
cally, but the only variables of operational use.
81
Gerard Guthrie
This analysis added weight to the conclusion from the first generation reviews
that teacher training programmes do in general make a difference, but that teacher
education effects are complex and vary considerably between different educa-
tional, social and cultural contexts and how they are measured. The reviews that
covered only small numbers of studies found it difficult to distinguish trends be-
cause the samples were too small to cover the varying findings dictated by con-
text. When the researchers looked further, identification of widespread, consistent
overall patterns remained difficult. There were some broad generalisations, but es-
sentially the key conclusion remained that teacher education effects are highly
context-driven.
5.2 Teaching Styles and Student Achievement

Within the first reviews of teacher education, mixed findings about teaching style
were found by Avalos and Haddad (1981, pp. 22-26), mainly outside the interna-
tional mainstream. A regionally-based search process found 589 widely differing
studies in Africa, Latin America and much of Asia, over 30 of them with findings
on teaching style. The general conclusion was that there were no significant dif-
ferences between discovery/enquiry methods and the expository method on stu-
dent achievement at the knowledge level, but discovery/enquiry methods appeared
superior at higher cognitive levels (presumably at the higher levels of schooling).
Operational definitions and methodology varied widely, but ‘meaningful’, ‘pro-
ject’, ‘activity’, ‘open laboratory’, ‘creativity based’ methods were frequently su-
perior to their more conventional counterparts. Context was important: differences
varied with country, level and subject. In some countries, ‘democratic’, ‘permis-
sive’ and ‘indirect’ methods were also found to have advantages. In some studies,
variety in methods also appeared positively. However, the review left selection of
methodologies and teacher variables up to regional reviewers in developing coun-
tries, which meant that no assessments were given about the quality of the re-
search and the basis from which the conclusions were drawn.
Soon after, a matched experimental design in Zambia gave methodologically
tight data on teaching styles. The study sought to determine the effectiveness of
traditional and discovery approaches for teaching scientific facts, understandings
about science and scientific attitudes to concrete and formal operational students
(Mulopo & Fowler 1987). The subjects were 120 grade 11 male chemistry stu-
dents with a mean age of 18 years. Sixty of the boys were concrete reasoners se-
lected randomly from one school, the other 60 were formal reasoners selected ran-
domly from another school. Each group was randomly split into two. Traditional
and discovery approaches were assigned randomly to the two sub-groups of con-
crete reasoners and to the two sub-groups of formal reasoners. All subjects were
82
Chapter 5
pre-tested with separate standard tests for science achievement, understanding and
attitude. Instruction occurred over a period of about 10 weeks, after which subjects
were post-tested with the same tests. The main test of significance was a two-way
test of covariance, finding that:
1. Overall, the traditional group outperformed the discovery group on

achievement.
2. Formal reasoners earned significantly higher achievement scores than
concrete reasoners.
3. Among formal reasoners, the discovery group earned significantly higher
scores on understanding science. For concrete reasoners, the mode of
teaching did not make a difference.
4. Overall, students taught by the discovery approach had significantly
higher scientific attitude scores than those taught by the traditional ap-
proach.
The conclusion was that the traditional, formalistic approach was efficient for
teaching scientific facts and principles, while the progressive discovery approach
tended to be more effective among formal reasoners in promoting scientific atti-
tudes and understandings.
Consistent with the Zambian study, Fuller and Clarke (1994, p. 139) noted that
when developing country teachers displayed more participatory forms of peda-
gogy, achievement gains were not always observed. For example, using IEA data,
Lockheed and Komenan (1989, p. 110) had found in Nigerian schools that time
spent by pupils listening to lecturing (self-reported by teachers) was positively as-
sociated with 8th grade mathematics achievement (although the reverse was found
in Swaziland). In the Philippines, achievement was higher in 9th grade science and
mathematics classrooms with teachers who students reported using more ordered
lessons (Lockheed & Zhao 1993, pp. 58-59). Indeed, in grade 8 and 9 mathematics
in Botswana, more open-ended questions by teachers suppressed achievement
(Fuller et al. 1994, pp. 368-373).
More recent research has also found that progressive methods focussing on
changing teaching styles may not achieve the expected gains in student
achievement. One widely trialled method is Cooperative Learning, which is a
constructivist approach based on small group learning decidedly different from
whole-class instruction (see Shachar et al. 2002). However, an experimental
Singapore study did not support research hypotheses predicting the success of the
progressive Group Investigation method compared with formalistic Whole Class
instruction (Tan et al. 2007). A control group of 103 coeducational grade 8 stu-
dents in two schools was taught two 6-week geography units using the Whole
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Gerard Guthrie
Class method. The experimental group was 138 students taught the same units us-
ing Group Investigation. Analysis of covariance found:
1. Both instructional methods produced student achievement results at al-

most the same level.
2. There were no significant differences in intrinsic motivation scores be-
tween students in the two types of class, although there were some differ-
ences between high and low achieving students.
While the authors suggested that more time might have allowed the new method
to become effective, their other suggestion about the prevalence of traditional edu-
cational norms is a more fundamental contextual explanation. Sachs et al. (2003)
reached a similar end point in Hong Kong, finding difficulties in transferring labo-
ratory-based studies of cooperative learning task performance to the realities of
the curriculum-in-action in normal classroom conditions. The findings from both
studies were consistent with a body of literature on the Chinese learner (reviewed
in Chapter 9.5), which finds that students from formalistic Confucian-influenced
countries have consistently outperformed students from other cultural back-
grounds in international IEA studies. Nguyen et al. (2009), indeed, have argued
that Western forms of cooperative learning contain a complex web of cultural con-
flicts and mismatches, and are culturally inappropriate within an Asian context.
Otherwise, where aspects of teaching style have surfaced within the school ef-
fectiveness mainstream, they have often been examples of the Progressive Educa-
tion Fallacy confused by progressive teleology. Studies presented in a review by
Yu (2007) demonstrate this. Lockheed and Levin (1993) argued that effective
schools in developing countries require, among other things, teaching promoting
student active learning and pedagogical flexibility. Heneveld’s (1994) conceptual
framework for school effectiveness had 16 factors organised into four groups, in-
cluding variety in teaching strategies as a component of the teaching/learning
process. Urwick and Junaidu’s (1991) study of Nigerian primary schools went fur-
ther and judged teaching processes largely on the extent to which teacher methods
were pupil-centred and on the variety of methods of communication used in les-
sons, as well as the variety of activities organised during lessons. Seemingly more
neutral in appearance, Boissiere’s (2004, p. 23) review relied on a 1990 World
Bank Primary Education Policy Paper based on an extensive review of the litera-
ture by Lockheed and Verspoor (1991). Their review identified three key issues
for teacher effectiveness, namely knowledge of subject matter, pedagogical skills
and teacher motivation, but contained Beeby’s progressive assumption that stu-
dents need to participate actively in classrooms. Four progressively more funda-
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Chapter 5
mental caveats exist about interpretation of such studies, especially insofar as they
might be taken as supportive of the stages concept:
1. Empirical research is necessary in individual contexts to see what might

be the particular relationships between teacher training, teaching style
and student achievement.
2. Instrumentation of such research can be major problem if it is based on
progressive norms such as student interaction.
3. Ethical analysis of the desirability of teaching styles is also necessary,
particularly in relation to their broader cultural impact.
4. The theoretical and methodological objections to stage analysis still exist.
A successful response to criticism of lack of attention to classroom process

within the school effectiveness field came from a study in Kenya. Daley et al.
(2005, p. 400) considered that, “incorporating national and local beliefs, values,
and norms about education and achievement is a critical step at both the level of
measurement and interpretation.” They included classroom observation of teacher
and student behaviours in a study involving 531 grade 1 students in 15 classes in
12 primary schools with an average attendance of 37 students in each lesson ob-
served. The researchers collected a conventional range of school effectiveness
measures, but found added depth from, among other variables, child behaviour
and efforts to make classroom quality ratings reflect local beliefs. The study in-
cluded culturally grounded ratings from observation of teacher tone and behav-
iour, classroom organisation and interest in student learning. Also used were mul-
tiple outcome variables: student off-task behaviour (from observation of behaviour
such as talking to other students about non-school topics and playing with an ob-
ject) and teacher end-of-term ratings of students (including attention, task persis-
tence, participation and learning difficulties). The authors recognised limitations
in their techniques, but linear regression analysis did show some interesting re-
sults. Addition of classroom variables to student background variables provided a
significant increase in the variance that was explained. The main finding relevant
to this book was a rejection of the research hypothesis:
1. More open, encouraging, patient and interested behaviour by teachers ac-

tually correlated positively with more off-task behaviour by students, i.e.
less student attention was associated with less strict teaching.
2. Similarly, greater teacher interest in student learning was a negative pre-
dictor of examination scores.
85
Gerard Guthrie
3. Clear discipline (which did include physical punishment) provided greater

control and more student attention, the likelihood of more rote learning
and higher examination scores.
The authors, grappling with some of their more progressive assumptions, found
this counter-intuitive but recognised that, “These findings reflect …[the] assertion
that ‘Western’ styles of teaching may not be appropriate markers of quality in de-
veloping countries” (Daley et al. 2005, p. 407).
In sum, the evidence about the effects of teaching style on student achievement
reflects the findings on teacher education effects: there are effects in general, but
they vary from one context to another. Several methodologically strong research
studies in primary and lower secondary schools in developing countries have
found equal or superior performance from formalistic teaching. Such evidence
comes from a wide range of countries in Africa and Asia: Botswana, Hong Kong,
Kenya, Nigeria, Singapore and Zambia. Support exists for the hypothesis that
formalism is more effective with lower cognitive levels and, conversely, there is
some evidence that progressive teaching styles are more effective with higher
cognitive levels and some affective learning. The implication is that formalism
may be appropriate throughout most of primary and secondary schooling, while
progressive teaching could become appropriate towards the end of secondary
schooling and at tertiary level. However, if and where this might apply is highly
dependent on context. The hypothesis requires experimental field research to in-
vestigate whether higher cognitive skills among students do require progressive
teaching styles in particular contexts. We know that formalistic teaching persists
and can be culturally valued, and that it frequently appears to be effective with
lower levels of cognitive learning, but particular evidence is nonetheless required
about its effects on student learning in each context.
5.3 Classroom Processes and Cultural Context

School effectiveness research has contained two competing intellectual groups,
which Fuller and Clarke (1994, pp. 119-120) characterised as “policy mechanics”
and “classroom culturalists”. The camps remain loosely divided between educa-
tional economists aiming for international policy generalisations about school ef-
fectiveness, and somewhat fewer educational sociologists and cross-cultural psy-
chologists primarily concerned with cultural context and the hidden curriculum of
meanings attached to instructional tools and pedagogy, with a view to school im-
provement (Chimombo 2005, pp. 139-140). Policy focus is found in several major
school effectiveness reviews by donor agencies. These reviews have aimed to
identify which school factors are stronger determinants of academic achievement
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Chapter 5
and therefore more cost-effective targets for inputs through educational invest-
ment (Yu 2007, pp. 5-14; Tatto 2008; see Boissiere 2004, pp. 7-11 for an exam-
ple). Clearly, this book holds to the classroom culture approach, with Chapter 2.4
and Section 2 showing some examples of school improvement observational work
in classrooms and their broader cultural environments.
For contextual depth and for studies that do look in detail at teaching styles it is
necessary to go to case studies within countries, commonly located theoretically
outside the school effectiveness literature by classroom culturalists rather than pol-
icy-oriented statisticians and economists. Classroom culture studies usually use
observation to reveal classroom norms about teachers’ authority, implicit rules
about pupil participation, and the structure of classroom work and tasks (including
the instructional tools employed, task demands placed on students, and whether
work is individual or cooperative) (Fuller & Clarke 1994, p. 139). A common
weakness is that such studies often consider the effect of curriculum change on
teaching styles rather than on student achievement as dependent variable (see
Chapter 11.1), which was true of the otherwise very valuable research by Tabu-
lawa (1998), O’Sullivan (2004) and Barrett (2007) in Chapter 2.4. In contrast,
school effectiveness studies have two counteracting elements of validity. On the
one hand, the dependent variable of student achievement gives in principle a
highly valid measure of schooling outcomes. On the other hand, there is a lack of
ecological validity, which is manifested in two seriously neglected areas: a) class-
room processes; and b) cultural context.
a) Classroom Processes. Classroom process studies are scarce in the school

effectiveness mainstream (Scheerens 2001, p. 380). In essence, school effective-
ness research often collects wide-ranging data on easy to measure classroom vari-
ables, but does not often usefully measure teaching and learning processes.
Among such studies, only a few independent classroom variables have consis-
tently correlated with student achievement as the dependent variable. Drawing
again from Yu’s review, the main ones have included availability of textbooks, in-
structional materials, instructional time and frequency of homework (Fuller &
Clarke 1994, pp. 124-132). They have also included teachers’ education, at 56%
of 63 studies virtually identical to Table 5.1 (Hanushek 1995, p. 230).
The problem underlying such findings is that the continual use of disaggregated
data to measure individual variables loses the bigger classroom picture. A litera-
ture review by Velez et al. (1993) illustrated this. The authors reviewed 18 quanti-
tative Latin American and the Caribbean studies, classifying pedagogical practices
by homework, evaluation and follow-up, hours of curriculum, teacher absentee-
ism, and emphasis on mathematics and language. They also found results about
teacher characteristics, such as years of schooling, years of teaching experience,
87
Gerard Guthrie
in-service teacher training, economic incentives, socio-economic status, distance

of living place to school, subject knowledge, expectation of pupil performance,
time spent for class preparation, sex, job satisfaction, part/full time employment
status, and additional job. None of this usefully measured teaching or learning
processes.
More recently, a presentation of 11 empirical studies undertaken across Africa
during the 1990s and 2000s revealed similar design issues (Yu 2007, pp. 14-26). A
typical example, by Riddell and Nyagura (1991) in 48 Zimbabwean secondary
schools, used class level variables including English and mathematics teachers’
gender, age, qualifications, years of experience, use of time for academic activities
and games and sports, class size, class textbook availability and teaching load.
School variables included day or boarding school, size of school and teacher-pupil
ratio. A further example is a study of mathematics computation and reading com-
prehension among 355 primary students in Jamaica. This study did usefully in-
clude time in whole class and small group instruction among 10 pedagogical proc-
ess variables, but another 42 independent variables were grouped as student, home
background, school level physical input, instructional material, health, school
level pedagogical input (textbooks and teacher training), school level manage-
ment, work-centred environment, community involvement, and school type
(Glewwe et al. 1995, Table 4). Only 9.6% (5 of 52) of F test mathematics results
and only 13.4% (7 of 52) reading results were significant at the .05 level, a total of
11.5%. In other words, the statistical trawling found only some 10-13% of vari-
ables had significant correlations, and nearly half the significant results could have
been Type I false positive errors, an explanation not considered in the article.
Many such school and classroom variables are important, but nowhere in these
studies does the mass of loosely connected quantitative variables add up to teach-
ing style or classroom culture. The implication is that school effectiveness re-
search has been a form of empiricism driven by statistical concerns and largely
devoid of educational theory. As Scheerens (2001, p. 365), working within the
field, reported, “instructional and pedagogical theory appeared to be practically
missing as a source of inspiration for educational effectiveness studies in develop-
ing countries.”
b) Cultural Context. In addition to neglect of classroom processes, a second

and equally serious area of neglect has been the cultural context in which schools
exist. Many papers within the school effectiveness literature have recognised the
need to study culture, but few have actually done so in detail despite the first gen-
eration findings about the importance of context. Parallel to the focus on disaggre-
gated classroom variables rather than teaching styles, attention to context has gen-
erally been through disaggregated structural-functional societal variables rather
88
Chapter 5
than culture (as seen, for example, in Tatto 2008, pp. 500-502). The operational
focus has mainly been on student and teacher socio-economic status and variables
such as school location.
This situation has long been prevalent, as shown by Fuller and Snyder’s (1991)
statement that school effectiveness research from developing countries had failed
to recognise fully the characteristics, cultural rules and cognitive structures that
students bring to the classroom, too often assuming that pupils are invariant tex-
tureless creatures, and ignoring social relations in the classroom. “The meaning
and effects of given teacher behaviors may depend on the social rules that sur-
round the pupil outside the school. Classroom research … rarely looks at the rela-
tional social norms experienced by the child in and out of school” (Fuller & Syn-
der 1991, p. 275). The lack of attention to norms, let alone to cultural paradigms,
has remained apparent in the literature, which usually looks at non-residual factors
within the policy ambit of authorities. Velez et al. (1993), for example, focussed
on alterable factors subject to policy interventions and did not look at context. Of
seven models of educational effectiveness found by Yu (2007, pp. 32-47), four did
make mention of culture; but none of nine effectiveness studies reviewed had any
apparent findings about context or culture and only two of 11 studies from across
Africa apparently raised cultural issues (Yu 2007, pp. 5-26). The main attention by
Boissiere (2004, pp. 22-23, 26-27), as another example, was to student, family and
community characteristics such as intelligence, health, nutrition and socio-
economic status. These are all important, but they do not begin to amount to con-
sideration of cultural paradigms.
Major effort has been expended trying to plant findings and methodology from
developed to developing country contexts despite an absence of cross-cultural
validation. Relatively few school effectiveness studies have focussed on instruc-
tional factors in developing countries, and they have provided only weak and in-
conclusive evidence on the effects of instructional factors that have received em-
pirical support in industrialised countries (Scheerens 2001, pp. 365-368). Yu’s
conclusion from his review was that developed country findings do not provide a
blueprint for the creation of more effective schools and should not be applied me-
chanically without reference to the particular contexts of a school or country; nor
should it be assumed that developing countries are a single entity. Rather they
have different and complex cultures and educational systems, so that the complex-
ity of local conditions should receive much more attention in interpreting and un-
derstanding school effectiveness indicators: “ignoring the different contexts when
interpreting and implementing research findings would be irresponsible and
unlikely to achieve intended outcomes” (Yu 2007, p. 13). Context, Yu reiterated,
matters – but we need to add that context applies not just to socio-economic condi-
tions but to the cultural milieu as well.
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Gerard Guthrie
In sum, comments by Jansen (1995, p. 181) remain still sound 15 years later.
He noted three serious weaknesses in the school effectiveness literature. One was
that even critical reviews have argued within this framework; second, very few
systematic and coherent attempts have been made to propose alternatives; and
third, much of the application of this research has rested erroneously on the fixed
assumption that findings about schooling and resources can be transferred to de-
veloping countries.
5.4 Data Collection Issues

Considerable technical debate has occurred about the relative strengths of school
effectiveness findings emphasising family background or school variables. The
conventional argument is that the lack of many conclusive findings reflects reli-
ability issues, especially statistical test effects and measurement errors, but there is
more to it.
Amid all the study of school effectiveness, findings about effective classrooms
are hidden in a plethora of variables caged by serious technical problems in meas-
uring both contextual and classroom factors. One clue lies in the continual use of
disaggregated data measuring individual variables that in themselves reveal little
about the teaching process. A methodological key to the lack of understanding of
classroom processes is neglect of structured and unstructured observation within
the classroom interior where the tested learning is designed to occur. Fuller and
Clarke’s (1994, p. 139) view was that little empirical work within the school ef-
fectiveness field had occurred inside classrooms seemingly because a serious
weakness of the production-function line was that instructional tools and even
teaching practices were seen as cultureless technical instruments for raising
achievement. This statement was exemplified by Boissiere (2004), who 10 years
later commented that curriculum factors are important, but that only a few of the
production function or randomised evaluation studies approach them in much de-
tail. Apparently considering that teaching of reading was merely a classroom de-
tail rather than one of the most important functions of schooling, he additionally
observed with no apparent regret that, “Curriculum design also includes decisions
about teaching methods and teacher preparation – for example on best ways to
teach reading … It is difficult to do good production function studies on details
such as this, since data on teaching methods for a particular subject are not easily
available or difficult to generate, even in the most advanced countries” (Boissiere
2004, p. 18).
Classroom and teaching process data, such as use of class time, has come usu-
ally from questionnaire surveys of teachers and administrators (e.g. Glewwe et al.
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Chapter 5
1995, p. 237 in Jamaica; IEA studies in Johnson, 1999, pp. 59, 61; and more
widely, examples in Yu 2007, pp. 16, 19, 22-23: exceptions include further work
in Brazil by Fuller et al. 1999, and in India by Clarke 2003, that did incorporate
classroom observation). However, mixed methods studies commonly show that
while questionnaires find teacher acceptance of reforms, classroom observation
finds that the same teachers do not implement them. Teacher dualism is evidenced
in three of the key research studies drawn on in this book that evaluated official
reforms. These studies found mismatches between teachers’ stated attitudes and
what they told researchers about their classrooms, on the one hand, and independ-
ent observation of their actual classroom behaviour, on the other hand.
One study, by Morris (1983; 1985) of the effect of the Hong Kong examination
system on a progressive curriculum reform, reported that curriculum planners had
attempted to introduce innovations involving progressive approaches to teaching
and learning requiring pupil participation and a less didactic teaching style (Chap-
ter 4.1). Lessons were observed with 45 teachers in different schools, and supple-
mented with semi-structured teacher interviews asking what factors had influ-
enced the approach to each lesson. Teachers expressed favourable attitudes to the
progressive approaches, but the classroom observation indicated that only a small
proportion of the total observed time was spent on activities that required active
student involvement, and this time did not generally emphasise heuristic learning.
A second mixed methods study, by O’Sullivan (2004) in Namibia in 1995-97,
used different types of interview and high inference semi-structured observation
with 145 teachers. Teachers were familiar with progressive reform policy and
claimed to be using its learner-centred methods, but did not demonstrate under-
standing of its meaning and, observation showed, in practice still predominantly
used rote teaching. A third study by Barrett (2007) found considerable variation in
the nature of pupil-teacher interactions in Tanzania in 2002-03. She interviewed
32 teachers and observed 28 lessons to compare what the teachers said was good
practice with their classroom behaviour. Teachers’ professed beliefs reflected offi-
cial progressive reform policy, but they actually taught much more formalistically.
The problem with questionnaires and interviews is that they provide only sec-
ondhand reports of classroom behaviour and are, therefore, not a valid source of
direct evidence about actual behaviour. Questionnaires and interviews can be an
important supplementation to observation, in particular to investigate cultural ex-
planations of classroom behaviour. They can also provide key data about student
and teacher perceptions and attitudes to the classroom and its processes. However,
they are unacceptable when the data is interpreted (as did Ginsburg 2009) as rep-
resenting observable behaviours that are actually occurring inside the classroom
because they provide only indirect and often misleading evidence.
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Gerard Guthrie
The underlying issue is that respondents are prone to misrepresent classroom

behaviour because of social pressure – i.e. questionnaires and interviews are prone
to elicit the views that respondents judge researchers seek. Focus groups can add
to such pressures because there can be no confidentiality about participants’
views, especially when the groups contain members holding positions of authority.
The outcome can be inaccurate (invalid) and inconsistent (unreliable) data about
the classroom resulting from varying perceptions among teachers about research-
ers and their roles. In particular, the tendency of teachers to present pictures of
their classrooms that are more consistent with reform ideologies than their real
classroom behaviours can be an issue when official curriculum reforms are being
evaluated in societies where scientific values about truth are less important than
social status and authority. While genuine professions of confidentiality routinely
accompany questionnaires and interviews, these assertions may carry little weight
with respondents. The role of the educational researcher may well be perceived by
teachers as embodying a power relationship that could operate to their detriment,
especially when the researchers are evaluating official reforms or practices.
Teachers may be prone to report conformity with official policy from fear of feed-
back to headteachers and inspectors resulting in negative professional reports on
them.
Use of invalid data provides a trap for the unwary not only in the school effec-
tiveness field, but also in the curriculum field. Over-reliance on loose data collec-
tion techniques helps explain the lack of insight into the classroom that is com-
monly found in school effectiveness studies based on IEA research.
5.5 Methodological Overview

All research has trade-offs between validity, reliability, relevance and generalis-
ability (Guthrie 2010, pp. 10-12). The most fundamental of these elements is va-
lidity, lack of which is the fatal flaw in the stages approach, but validity and reli-
ability issues closely interact. I will draw together the previous analysis by
considering these matters in turn for the school effectiveness field.
a) Validity. A major strength of the school effectiveness research has been

use of student achievement as the dependent variable, giving a highly valid
schooling output measure when test objectives match the taught curriculum. Of-
ten, classroom culture research and evaluations of curriculum reform impact have
not matched this particular strength. However, the shortages of school effective-
ness research on the classroom and cultural context leave two elements that lack
ecological validity.
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Chapter 5
Questionnaires and interviews do not provide valid data about behaviour in the
classroom. A distinction drawn by Gao and Watkins (2001) between teachers’
ideal conceptions of teaching and their competing practical conceptions that
dominate in the classroom provides a perhaps generous understanding of the mis-
match between professed ideals and actual practice. However, it would be naïve to
overlook the effect of power relations in research as part of the explanation for the
mismatch.
School effectiveness research often acknowledges contextual factors, but in the
pursuit of reliability generally underestimates their influence or confines recogni-
tion to easily measured but superficial parameters. A clue about lack of attention
to the importance of context lay in the Chilean example from Noonan (Husen et
al. 1978), which found that the largest measured effect was the residuals, the out-
come being that unmeasured cultural elements disappear pragmatically into the re-
siduals as background noise. Where context has been considered, it has generally
been as structural-functional variables rather than culture. Yet, we saw in Chapter
3.4 that cultural epistemology can be very important in understanding the meaning
that players ascribe to their classroom behaviours. While this has generally been
demonstrated by research from outside the school effectiveness field, the field has
contained evidence consistent with this. For example, Riddell (1997, pp. 198-200)
found from a review of 16 third generation multilevel analyses that the attributes
and background characteristics children bring with them have a greater influence
on subsequent achievement than their experiences at school. Later, Daley et al.
(2005, p. 400) in Kenya found considerably more depth in their findings with the
addition of child behaviour and classroom quality ratings reflecting local beliefs.
The obvious interpretation is that both family and classroom variables are embed-
ded in cultural context.
Husen et al. (1978) were correct in noting that educational administrators can-
not control residual factors, but when the cultural component of the residuals is
known to exist from other forms of research, researchers and educational authori-
ties ignore it at their peril. If contextual research does demonstrate deep seated
cultural paradigms with revelatory epistemologies, progressive classroom inter-
ventions are unlikely to survive the pilot period. On the other hand, improvements
to formalism are highly likely to survive because they are congruent with the per-
vasive cultural setting. Cultural context may not be controllable scientifically or
administratively, but it does exist and it does have real effects.
b) Reliability. From the first generation reviews, school effectiveness re-

searchers have recognised reliability issues, especially with the types of regression
analysis used (Guthrie 1982, pp. 299-300; Boissiere 2004, pp. 3-7). Concerns
about measurement have been expanded upon by Glewwe and Kremer (2006, pp.
93
Gerard Guthrie
984-993), who indicated that the simultaneous presence of both positive and nega-
tive effects in the school effectiveness literature suggested either that studies do
not measure the same parameter or that estimates are biased. The rigour with
which such matters have been pursued has given the research a great deal of statis-
tical strength, but they are embedded more fundamentally in validity issues, as we
have just seen.
A statistical clue to the lack of operational recognition of both teaching styles
and culture lies in Scheeren’s (2001, pp. 361, 368) observation that the range of
variation in teaching practices in some developing countries may be quite limited,
providing a lack of statistical discrimination. The import is that teaching styles
may not be sufficiently dissimilar to give usable statistical results (i.e. they may
lack statistical variance). From this perspective, major commonalities in culture
and in teaching style provide too little information to analyse statistically. This is
because regression analysis uses measurement of variance rather than absolute
scores, not comparing the magnitude of scores to determine whether one group
scores significantly higher than another, but measuring normatively whether there
are significant differences between the groups in distribution of scores (Kerlinger
1977, esp. pp. 603-631). Additionally, multivariate analysis assumes interval and
ratio data that allows for differences in degree rather than kind. Advanced para-
metric techniques are usually robust with nominal and ordinal measurement as
well, but when cultural commonalities basically occur in whole rather than in part,
they effectively provide lower level binary data. To paraphrase Scheerens (2001,
pp. 369-370) on ideology and politics, culture is a precondition to be considered in
studies prior to embarking on further school effectiveness research (Chapter 11.3
will discuss the implications for decision-making). The inadequacy of multivariate
regression techniques in accounting for the presence or absence of cultural phe-
nomena is not just a reliability matter, but is a statistical artefact that generates a
validity issue with real educational import.
c) Relevance. Token recognition of culture and the classroom often amounts

to little more than a disclaimer. The neglect at one end of the educational process
of cultural framework and, at the other end, of classroom processes, has meant that
woefully little light has been cast on some very important issues by school effec-
tiveness research. A clue to the weak relevance, especially to the classroom, lay in
Boissiere’s casual dismissal of teaching of reading as a classroom detail that is dif-
ficult to measure, seemingly based on practical concerns that do not seem to have
stopped researchers operating outside the comfort zone provided by the World
Bank. School effectiveness studies have generally used quantitative survey meth-
ods derived from economics and structural-functional sociology, especially ques-
tionnaire surveys with teachers, and have occasionally made use of experimental
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Chapter 5
designs in natural classroom settings. However, the research techniques most

suited to go behind student achievement to investigate teaching styles and cultural
context are structured observational techniques from educational psychology and
ethnographic techniques derived from anthropology (see Chapter 10.4). Structured
classroom observation lends itself particularly well to the natural experiments
sought by Glewwe and Kremer (2006), while ethnography can provide relevance
in reaching an understanding of the depths of cultural paradigms, as demonstrated
by Tabulawa’s (1997; 1998; 2004) brilliant analyses of classrooms in Botswana.
One element adding both to lack of relevance and validity is the search strate-
gies used in school effectiveness reviews. These strategies generally use relatively
easily-accessed internationally published material rather than local literature. This
was illustrated by the first wave of studies, where the search strategies of the three
main reviews differed radically (Guthrie 1982, p. 299). The first World Bank re-
views were seemingly restricted to literature available through North American li-
brary networks. The search strategy of Husen and colleagues appeared much more
thorough, being undertaken in a number of West European international education
institutes, but too was located in developed countries. Avalos and Haddad used
developing country reviewers with access to their own libraries and networks, and
uncovered 23 times the number of reports in the most comprehensive of the other
reviews. In light of Avalos and Haddad’s (1981, p. 4) comments about the strategy
having stimulated researchers and policy-makers in developing countries, it also
appears capable of promoting direct feedback into the developing countries them-
selves. A later discussion of postgraduate research findings commented similarly
on the dearth of research evidence to inform educational decision-making in many
developing countries and the desirability of attempting to use all available sources
of research, especially because much postgraduate research occurs within these
countries (Guthrie 1989, p. 51). The references on education in Papua New
Guinea used in this book provide a particular example of the importance of local
literature. Of the 149 references, 70% were published within Papua New Guinea
and 30% internationally (but often obscurely in Australia). One study provided
mixed method case study findings on teachers’ perceptions of school effects (Vul-
liamy 1987), but only one was based on IEA data (Wilson 1990). A survey of the
international school effectiveness literature on Papua New Guinea would not pro-
vide many school effectiveness or student achievement findings, and limited evi-
dence about the relevance of context. Of vital importance in understanding class-
room behaviours there is the predominantly qualitative local literature, which
Section 2 will demonstrate in detail.
d) Generalisability. School effectiveness reviews with small numbers of

studies have chased illusory generalisations, such as the premature view in the
95
Gerard Guthrie
1970s that teacher education made no difference. Only with larger numbers of
studies did some patterns emerge from a maze of complex findings, including one
consistent with Beeby’s view that trained teachers do make a difference. However,
numerous findings have actually demonstrated that teacher eduction and teaching
styles effects are so highly dependent on context that very careful attention to the
limits of generalisations is needed to indicate where context outweighs
generalisation (further methodological implications about universalities and gen-
eralisation will resurface in Chapter 12.1). Knowing, for example, that some 55%
of research results show that investment in teacher education is beneficial has little
operational value in any particular setting because the implication is that tosses of
the coin would only be 5% less useful. Whether and how teacher training and
school investment might be effective in Bolivia, Burma or Burundi is fundamen-
tally dependent on local cultural contexts, local paradigms and local pedagogies,
not on international generalisations of little practical value.
The school effectiveness field is very strong at analysing quantitative variables
within education systems, but has been ineffectual at finding usable generalisa-
tions about improving learning. Generalisability failures have come from two di-
rections. One is the failure to generalise findings from developed to developing
countries; the other is to chase illusory universalities when the strongest evidence
is that context is what matters. The lack of patterns basically occurs not because of
the reliability issues, but because the patterns scarcely exist in the first place, as
evidenced by the paucity of statistically significant findings by Glewwe and col-
leagues in Jamaica. Significant findings were so infrequent that false positives
may have accounted for nearly half of them.
The problem of generalisability is embedded deeply in the Progressive Educa-
tion Fallacy. As Fuller and Clarke (1994, p. 124) and Scheerens (2001, pp. 372-
373) also noted, participatory forms of teaching may be at odds with hierarchical
forms of teacher authority that coincide with cultural traditions. From an interven-
tionist position on school improvement, this is a serious issue for project design –
whether it should work with existing conditions and bring about incremental adap-
tations (which this book supports), or whether it should try to change them into
more democratic, open and participatory progressive approaches. Scheerens noted
that it is important to be clear about the distinction between means and goals.
Teaching styles, be they formalistic or progressive, are a means of attaining educa-
tional achievement. Findings that formalistic teaching can work better should not
evoke cognitive dissonance: “school effectiveness researchers should be com-
pletely open to discovering approaches that work in local settings, regardless of
whether they conform to Western fashions” (Scheerens 2001, p. 373).
96
Chapter 5
5.6 Conclusion
In 1975, Alexander and Simmons questioned whether investment in teacher edu-
cation was justified in developing countries. Within a few years, wider evidence
from the first generation of school effectiveness research refuted their finding.
Second and third generation research improved the statistical techniques, but this
chapter has found that they added little in the way of findings about teaching proc-
esses in the classroom or about cultural context. Indeed, Riddell (1997, pp. 178-
186) predicted that the third generation of school effectiveness research was in
danger of being lost without ever having been explored fully, and Yu (2007, p. 13)
concluded his recent review of the international literature by referring to lack of
progress over the previous two decades in producing a recipe for an effective
school.
Culture is an often-recognised element of educational change, but it has gener-
ally received only token recognition in the search for the holy grail of international
generalisations. In essence, much school effectiveness research remains looking
down the wrong end of the telescope in a vain search for illusory patterns. Clearly
enough it behoves all research to improve reliability, but its pursuit is of little
value if critical underlying validity issues are not addressed. In focussing on tech-
nical reliability as an explanation for failure to find useful generalisations, school
effectiveness research has lost heavily in the trade-off with validity and relevance
by underestimating ecological validity or context and by not taking classroom
processes seriously. The second and third generations of technical improvements
to statistical techniques added little of substance to findings about teaching or cul-
ture. In the failure to break free of the reliability shackles, the field has churned
repeatedly over the same barren statistical ground.
While Fuller & Clarke, Riddell, Scheerens, and Glewwe & Kremer, despite dif-
ferences, have all been concerned to see school effectiveness research better ex-
ploring context and classroom, few new research strategies have appeared. The ef-
fect is that school effectiveness research has been in a rut for the last 20 years, and
I have been tempted to conclude that it really is broke beyond repair given its ma-
jor validity, relevance and generalisability problems and its endless and unproduc-
tive pursuit of statistical reliability. However, Daley and colleagues’ (2005) Kenya
study has demonstrated that improvements can still be made if mixed methods are
used to explore classroom culture. The need now is for more school effectiveness
studies to incorporate findings from actual classroom observation and for the stud-
ies to start incorporating ethnographic findings about the broader cultural contexts
and their epistemologies and paradigms.
The distinction in the school effectiveness literature between research driven by
aid agency interests in cost-effective investment and educators concerned with lo-
97
Gerard Guthrie
cal effectiveness has generated considerable differences of opinion. Some consider

the educational policies of international aid agencies such as the World Bank to be
political and inherently ideological. Perhaps a sporting analogy is as appropriate.
School effectiveness research appears confused about the nature of the game being
watched. It certainly understands that the educational game is in practice largely
about results and that the investment football should be aimed at the goalpost of
student achievement. But it does not seem to understand how the game is played
and the tactics needed to score classroom goals. Immense effort is spent trying to
predict the score from measures such as the number of spectators, the length and
breadth of the field, the width of the line markings, the logos on the ball, the
socio-economic status of the players, the training schools attended by the coaches
and the amount of club finance. The distinct impression is that the research does
not actually understand the techniques employed by coaches and, especially, the
teaching methods that they use on the classroom pitch with their student players.
A case in point from a World Bank review was the cavalier dismissal of the best
ways to teach reading as a difficult to measure detail. Reading such comments is
something like reading an art critic who doesn’t know how to paint, or a drama
critic who cannot act. Perhaps more researchers and commentators should spend
time as teachers in developing country classrooms and learn howteaching in their
schools is actually done.
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101
SECTION 2
REFUTATIONS
This section turns to a falsification of Beeby’s stages. In positing a Popperian

refutation of the stages, Beeby was bound up in the positivist quest for inevitable
universal laws. With only limited qualification, he saw the stages and their
progressive philosophy as having applicability to developing countries worldwide.
Beeby (1980a, pp. 468-473) did recognise, however, that his stages hypothesis
could be relatively easily disproved by finding a single substantial exception
among developing countries that have tried to improve their national educational
systems. Thus, his conjecture requires only a single refutation to demonstrate that
universal applicability does not exist, which, as Vulliamy (1990, p. 230) observed,
can be tested by cumulative case studies within a particular developing country.
Papua New Guinea therefore occupies an important methodological position in
this book, acting as a Popperian test that falsifies any claims to the universal ap-
plicability of the progressive approach. It is a highly relevant methodological test
of Beeby’s progressive model because, perhaps more than in any other developing
country, his ideas were put into official practice from the late 1960s and still
continue to influence many curricular efforts to change formalism.
The first three chapters on Papua New Guinea proceed first with a test of a
progressive teacher education hypothesis. Chapter 6 provides a detailed example
of how formalism can provide stability in systems marked by change, using data
from my own evaluation of secondary teacher training programmes. In contradic-
tion to Beeby’s progressive approach, the research found that shorter, cheaper
formalistic diploma courses were more effective than a longer, more expensive
degree course closer to the progressive philosophy. The chapter also shows the
positive aspects of formalism in practice in detailing the operations of the school
inspectorate and the value of the teaching philosophy within which graduates op-
erated.
Chapter 7 broadens the examples from secondary teacher education to evi-
dence about a range of official reforms that were deliberate efforts to replace
formalistic teaching and curriculum. Papua New Guinea is a comparatively
uncommon example of a developing country with an extensive research literature
from the 1960s through to the 1990s that informed educational policy and
practice. The chapter reviews some of the more solid qualitative and quantitative
research on seven reforms, finding without exception that the progressive
103
Gerard Guthrie
directions of change hypothesised by the stages model did not occur. Major
progressive primary and secondary classroom reform efforts have failed for 50
years in Papua New Guinea despite large professional, administrative and
financial inputs. In itself, each example of failure may not be convincing, but in
the absence of any evidence that there have been any sustained successes, the
body of findings amounts to a damning case against progressive reform in Papua
New Guinea.
Clearly, a formalistic teaching style has prevailed in primary and secondary
schools in Papua New Guinea and progressive attempts to replace formalism have
failed. What are the underlying reasons? Chapter 8 delves into long-term cultural
patterns, finding that formalism predated European colonisation in the 1870s, was
reinforced by the teaching style introduced by missions and others in colonial
schools in the 20th century, and has resisted the efforts of educational reformers
since. There is no indication that an evolutionary progression through different
types of teaching from Formalism to Meaning is underway in Papua New Guinea.
The conclusion is that progressive teaching is inappropriate because it is not cul-
turally congruent with the traditional pedagogical paradigm and the revelatory
epistemology on which it is based. Even were working conditions in schools and
classrooms improved, formalism would still prevail in Papua New Guinea.
In the Popperian sense, the failure of progressive education in Papua New
Guinea provides a refutation of the possible universal inevitability of the progres-
sive ideas embedded in the stages model because the predicted changes have not
occurred and are unlikely to in the foreseeable future. While it is theoretically and
methodologically important, arguably this refutation could be of little practical
consequence worldwide because it could be rejected as a small example that is
largely irrelevant elsewhere; but not so China. Chapter 9 reviews the English lan-
guage literature on Chinese education, adding another element to the falsifiability
of the stages by generalising the refutation to show that millennia-old educational
forms make unlikely the adoption of Western models of progressive education in
China. Recent research into classrooms on mainland China has found an appar-
ently stable and widespread approach to formalistic classroom teaching in pri-
mary and secondary schools that is supported by institutionalised practices for
teachers to develop within this style.
104
CHAPTER 6
FORMALISTIC SCHOOLING SYSTEM IN
PAPUA NEW GUINEA
In positing a Popperian refutation of the stages, Beeby was bound up in the

positivist quest for inevitable universal laws. He recognised that his stages
hypothesis could be disproved by finding a single substantial exception
among developing countries that have tried to improve their national educa-
tional systems. Papua New Guinea provides a highly relevant test of Beeby’s
progressive model because, perhaps more than in any other developing
country, his ideas were put into official practice from the late 1960s and still
continue to influence many curricular efforts to change formalism. Chapter 6
provides a detailed example of how formalism can provide stability in systems
marked by change, using data from my own evaluation of secondary teacher
training programmes. In contradiction to Beeby’s progressive approach, the
research found that shorter, cheaper formalistic diploma courses were more
effective than a longer, more expensive degree course closer to the progres-
sive philosophy. The chapter also shows the positive aspects of formalism in
practice in detailing the operations of the school inspectorate and the value of
the teaching philosophy within which graduates operated.
In small developing countries, a few training institutions without many teacher

trainers can have a rapid and long-lasting impact on the school system. In setting
up courses, teacher trainers make decisions on type and level of education to be
included, partly in response to the style of teacher that they wish to shape. How-
ever, tertiary courses that intend to change primary and secondary school teaching
styles may be culturally inappropriate if detailed evaluation of teaching styles has
not been undertaken and national criteria established. If decisions on courses are
inappropriately based on the Progressive Education Fallacy, then all the arguments
in this book about teleology and westernisation apply with equal force.
Although Beeby did not directly discuss the training of teachers in his book,
Musgrave (1974 p. 42) particularly clearly drew the inference that formalistic
teachers would be taught “the one best way” to teach a centrally prescribed sylla-

Gerard Guthrie
bus to a fixed timetable, using a restricted number of authorised textbooks and

leading to external examinations which, together with a system of inspection,
would ensure that standards are met. In contrast, meaning stage education would
prepare teachers to meet children’s individual needs as fully as possible, matching
material with a wide range of methods. Musgrave’s interpretation of the types of
teacher training at different stages had in turn implications for the amount and
type of general and professional education. Formal stage teachers would receive
an emphasis on teacher ‘training’ for an inflexible classroom role and training to
teach specified curriculum content. Meaning stage teachers would receive an em-
phasis on teacher ‘education’ and a more flexible education with a broader aca-
demic approach to disciplinary or inter-disciplinary knowledge.
These two approaches typified the two main teacher training programmes in
Papua New Guinea in the late 1970s, when secondary schools had existed for
barely 20 years and secondary teacher training for only a decade. The small train-
ing system was interesting in itself for a multiplicity of programmes, institutional
conflict between two small training faculties, and differences between their
educational philosophies. More widely, the study is relevant to this book’s con-
cerns for three reasons. One is that it provides a detailed test of Beeby’s teacher
education hypothesis, showing a context where teacher education did make a
difference, but in the opposite direction to that predicted from Beeby’s progressive
conjecture. Second, it illustrates in detail how formalistic classroom teaching and
teacher training can be congruent with wider formalistic inspectorial and
administrative systems, operating in conjunction with them rather than in
antagonism. The third reason is that the study shows that professionals in such
systems may operate pragmatically and atheoretically, but embedded in their
practice can be coherent informal theories of action.6
6.1 Teacher Education Hypotheses

Widespread and on-going professional agreement exists in Papua New Guinea that
formalism has prevailed in schools for half a century:
6 Chapter 6 summarises material in Guthrie (1983a) and (1983b), now published by the Papua
New Guinea National Research Institute, which has been used with the kind permission of the
Institute. A summary was also published in Guthrie (1984), extracts being used here with per-
mission from Elsevier. Changes in the system since the original research were discussed more
extensively in Guthrie (2001).
106
Chapter 6
Formalistic Schooling System in Papua New Guinea
 formalism was pervasive in the 1960s and 1970s (Beevers 1968; Coyne
1973; Donohoe 1974; Larking 1974; Musgrave 1974; Guthrie 1983a;
1983b);
 remained pervasive in the 1980s and 1990s (Matane 1986, p. 15;
McLaughlin 1990; Pearse et al. 1990, pp. 74-84; Ross 1991a, pp. 85-86;
Avalos 1993, p. 110; Burke 1993; Guy 1994, pp. 45-47; McLaughlin
1995, p. 9);
 has continued to prevail in primary and secondary schoolrooms into this
century (Monemone 2003; Wallangas 2003); and
 has been reinforced by formalistic teacher training (Guthrie 1983b; 1984;
McNamara 1989; Avalos 1993; Guy et al. 1997, pp. 36-38; Kiruhia
2003),
 inspections (Guthrie 1983b; Weeks 1985; Boorer 1993; Thompson 1993;
Guy 1994; Mel 2007, pp. 223-224), and
 examinations (Townsend, Guthrie, & O’Driscoll 1981; Ross 1991b; Mel
2007).
Widespread agreement also exists, even among commentators who sought to re-
place it, that formalism has been difficult to change, even at tertiary level
(McLaughlin 1996, p. 15; Guy et al. 1997, p. 40; Boorer 1999; Nongkas 2007, pp.
246-248). This chapter does not so much focus on the classroom as on other parts
of the formalistic education system in turning to my evaluation of the secondary
teacher training programmes in the mid-1970s and the inspections philosophy
within which their graduates operated.
The issue of what effects general and professional education actually have on
such a situation in practice had seen little direct analysis in developing countries at
the time of the 1980 review of Beeby’s model. Then, Beeby wrote that there were
two main hypotheses implicit in his 1966 book:
1. that there is a recognisable progression in the life-history of most educa-

tional systems, and ... one stage ... is a necessary prelude to the stage
which follows, and
2. that passage through the stages is limited by the levels of general educa-
tion and professional training of the teachers (Beeby 1980b, p. 441).
As Beeby (1980a, p. 468) noted, Hypothesis 2 in this form was meaningless unless
Hypothesis 1 were true. The analysis presented in Chapter 3.1 rejected the teleo-
logical and methodological bases of Hypothesis 1 as invalid, and so the formula-
tion of Hypothesis 2 was rejected. However, it was still possible to make sound
107
Gerard Guthrie
analytical sense if the hypotheses were stripped of their surplus assumptions about
stages. My revision of the second hypothesis was:
there is a positive relationship between teachers’ general education and pro-

fessional training as independent variables and teacher performance as de-
pendent variable (Guthrie 1982, pp. 293-294).
The revised hypothesis provides a formal test of progressive theory in a form that
is methodologically sound, testing the progressive conjecture but removing the
teleological bias of progressive teaching as a goal. Some evidence from the first
generation literature reviews in Chapter 5.1 gave support for the hypothesis in de-
veloping countries, but made clear that the nature of the relationships is complex
and varies considerably between different educational and cultural contexts.
In this research, the secondary teacher training programmes constituted the in-
dependent variable. The ex post facto evaluation assessed the five most important
sources of trained teachers arriving in secondary schools from 1976 to 1978:
1. The two-year pre-service Diploma in Secondary Teaching (DipST) at

Goroka Teacher’s College (GTC) for high school leavers.
2. The one-year primary secondary Conversion Course at GTC, funded by a
World Bank loan to speed ‘localisation’ by allowing trained primary
teachers to become Generalist Teachers in the two lower secondary
school grades.
3. A one-year pre-service Diploma in Teaching (Agriculture) at GTC for
trained agriculturalists.
4. The University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG) four-year Pre-service
Bachelor of Education (BEd) at the Faculty of Education for high school
leavers.
5. The UPNG two-year In-service BEd at the Faculty of Education for ex-
perienced teachers with a teaching diploma (Guthrie 1984).
In light of a decision to use inspection reports as the dependent variable, a fur-

ther refinement of the research hypotheses guided the analytical focus of the
study:
1. Increased amounts of professional training will result in graduates being

rated as more professionally acceptable by inspectors.
2. Increased amounts of general education will systematically add to the
professional acceptability of graduates.
108
Chapter 6
The dependent variables were relevant to meeting education system requirements

because this was an evaluation of the professional effectiveness of the teacher
training system in meeting national requirements, not a school or classroom effec-
tiveness study as such. Two main considerations led to the use of inspectors’ rat-
ings of teacher performance: the difficulty of judging ‘good’ teaching in a cross-
cultural post-colonial context (which provided a mixture of validity, reliability and
relevance concerns) and the policy orientation of the research. The study could
have followed the lead of the school effectiveness research then beginning to sur-
face and evaluated the teachers professionally using student achievement. The
problem was that there were no sound achievement tests available. Any imported
from overseas would have raised questions about relevance and cross-cultural va-
lidity; while the Grade 10 Examination used within Papua New Guinea was re-
garded as invalid and unreliable, in part because of lack of specification of sylla-
bus objectives (Townsend, Guthrie, & O’Driscoll 1981, pp. 16-18, 39-40). There
were also doubts about the reliability of locally developed psychological selection
tests (Guthrie & Robin 1977). Use of student achievement would inevitably have
turned the research into an exercise in tests and testing rather than an evaluation of
the teacher training system. A second possible approach lay with study of class-
room interaction, especially through Flanders’ Interaction Analysis. Like testing,
this would have provided a narrow basis for an evaluation of the wide roles teach-
ers were expected to play, would have been of limited value for practical school
subjects, and in any case its progressive assumptions were highly questionable
(Dunkin & Biddle 1974, p. 361; Avalos & Haddad 1981, pp. 37, 49-51). The third
option was use of observational rating schedules. After consideration, the decision
was to use the inspectors’ observational ratings. They had validity on their side in
assessing seven teacher roles, and relevance as the institutionalised means by
which the Department of Education assessed teacher performance, providing what
turned out to be a well considered form of written professional judgement. The
fact that they were also formalistic was not an a priori reason either to use or not
use them; rather their contextual or ecological validity became a subject of the
research. However, no claim was made that the ratings measured ‘good’ teaching
in any sense other than they measured the professional acceptability of secondary
teachers as offically defined in the school system.
A graduate tracer study found 870 formal written inspection reports on 578
graduates, which were used to provide data on two dependent variable sets. The
first use was to generate descriptive statistics on graduate attrition and turnover.
The second was to allow statistical testing of inspectors’ professional ratings of
these graduates to assess their professional acceptability in schools. The mixed
methods research also used available programme materials, official documenta-
109
Gerard Guthrie
tion, questionnaires, interviews, participant observation in both faculties, and non-

participant observation of the inspection system.
6.2 Secondary Teacher Training

The descendants of successive waves of migrants from Southeast Asia have lived
in Papua New Guinea for 50,000 years or more. The rugged island remained little
known to the outside world and contact with European explorers and traders dated
only from the early 16th century. The first European settlement started in the early
1870s with groups of traders and missionaries. The northern, New Guinea half
was a German colony from 1884 to 1914, becoming an Australian territory man-
dated by the League of Nations in 1921 following World War I. The southern,
Papua half became a British colony in 1888 and then an Australian territory in
1906, remaining so until Self Governance in 1973 and Independence in 1975. The
classical colonial period lasted close to 100 years (Weeks & Guthrie 1984, pp. 29-
33).
Prior to the 1960s, very little secondary schooling was provided in either Papua
or New Guinea. Then, however, pressure to expand rapidly meant increased de-
mand for secondary teachers. The 1964 Currie Report on Higher Education envis-
aged an efficient, integrated tertiary education complex in Port Moresby giving
teacher education high priority (Currie et al. 1964; Guthrie 1983c). But in 1967,
impatient with delay and other academic priorities at the newly established Uni-
versity of Papua New Guinea, the Australian Administration’s Department of
Education converted Goroka Teacher’s College, which had commenced primary
teacher training in 1961, to a secondary college. GTC quickly began to produce
teachers with a two-year diploma intended to equip them for lower secondary
classes. A Faculty of Education was not established at UPNG until 1970. It began
a degree programme intended to equip teachers for the full range of secondary
teaching, but output was low and initially was predominantly expatriate. From the
outset, closer association of GTC with UPNG was advocated by the Department
of Education. UPNG was resistant, but when the Department began discussion on
amalgamation of GTC with the rival University of Technology in Lae in 1972,
UPNG moved with uncharacteristic speed and incorporated GTC at the beginning
of 1975. The effect was that the College in Goroka became a faculty of sub-
graduate secondary teacher training providing formalistic one- and two-year un-
dergraduate diplomas. The smaller Education Faculty in Port Moresby
concentrated more on progressive degree education.
The amalgamation did not result in academic or administrative integration. Dis-
tance meant operational rationalisation was expensive and impractical. Any expec-
tation that two institutions 420 kilometres apart and with no road connection could
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Chapter 6
develop a close working relationship was unrealistic; rather they co-existed. While
GTC administration followed UPNG policies, operations were decentralised. GTC
did not initially receive representation on the UPNG Academic Board equivalent
to Port Moresby faculties and largely governed its programme through a lively
Board of Studies. At first, relations between Faculty and College were distrustful.
Closer professional association did develop gradually, but by the late 1970s had
evolved into an acceptance of the status quo of two largely independent pro-
grammes maintaining their existing focusses. In effect, the College remained to a
large extent administratively and academically autonomous.
Two themes intertwined in the programmes evaluated. One theme emphasised
teacher training, the other teacher education. In Western terms, one was educa-
tionally conservative, the other was educationally progressive. The training versus
education distinction governed internal organisation of programmes to a consider-
able but certainly not complete extent. GTC’s pre-service sub-graduate diplomas
aimed to lay a foundation of professional training in teaching methods and content
closely allied to the grades 7-10 high school curriculum. Teaching practice oc-
curred in all years including a foundation year. Academic staff provided courses
with variable approaches to structuring subject and professional content, and
variations occurred between and within departments and over time. Overall, the
DipST and the Conversion Course were both formalistic, while the DipT (Agricul-
ture) during the study period was even more so. The Faculty’s Pre-service BEd
also involved concern for high school realities, but professional education and
teaching practice were end-on in the 4th year following a broad general education
in the Arts and Science Faculties. Despite a shift in professional content in the
mid-1970s from a Meaning to a Transition approach (in Beeby’s terminology),
with more emphasis on the classroom and teaching skills, the differences from
GTC remained clear.
Staff and student recruitment reflected these approaches (Guthrie 1983a, pp.
63-71). Goroka staff tended to have narrower international experience, lower
academic qualifications and publish less, but to have more teaching experience in
Papua New Guinean schools. The main academic reason given for the amalgama-
tion was to raise standards at GTC. Intake levels, based on grade 10 school results,
rose in 1975, but remained lower than those of the Faculty. Most potential stu-
dents made a commitment to teaching at the end of grade 10 and chose a three-
year career path (including a foundation year) through GTC as a more attractive
option than a five-year path through the Pre-service BEd, or a six-year path
through grade 12 at national high school. The Pre-service degree also suffered
from internal competition with other degree offerings, and was unpopular with the
majority of its students who were forced into it through academic streaming
(Lornie 1981, pp. 208-214).
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Gerard Guthrie
Despite differences in philosophy, the programmes had in common the major

target of localising the secondary teacher training force as rapidly as possible.
Quantitative data on efficiency showed that GTC’s concentration on a narrower
range of sub-graduate diplomas produced 1915 graduates between 1969 and 1980
(Guthrie 1981; 1983a, pp. 72-84; 1984, pp. 206-207). The Faculty offered a wide
range of small programmes (from sub-graduate diploma to doctorate) for primary,
secondary and tertiary levels. Its output until 1980 was only 35% of GTC’s, 45%
being secondary-trained teachers (compared with about 75% of GTC’s output),
and with about 60% at degree or graduate diploma level. Cost-efficiency findings
supported the main GTC programme, the DipST, while data on graduate place-
ment and retention seriously questioned the role of the Pre-service BEd in meeting
its stated aim of producing high school teachers:
 Higher output and lower costs made GTC a relatively efficient organisa-
tion. The cost of producing a diplomate was one-third to one-half that of
a degree holder.
 The DipST produced approximately five times the number of teachers
(355) as the Pre-service BEd (74) from 1976 to 1978.
 The tracer study found that 86% to 96% of diplomates commenced
teaching. Only 49% of the Pre-service BEd’s graduates began teaching,
although another 30% took up other educational positions, a total of 78%.
 Teacher turnover from all programmes was high. Attrition of diplomates
ranged from 11% to 13% a year in the first two years of teaching, while
attrition of degree programme graduates was 38% a year.
From the above data, it was estimated that 76% of DipST graduates, 70% of Con-
version Course graduates, and 63% of DipT (Agriculture) graduates would be in
the classroom at the beginning of their third year of teaching. The comparative
teacher survival rate for the Pre-service BEd was 18%. Only half the BEd gradu-
ates took up teaching and attrition rates were three-four times higher than the GTC
diplomates. Thus, the GTC diplomas were more successful in contributing to the
localisation goal, with greater output and higher survival rates from fewer, shorter
and cheaper programmes.
Qualitative data rated numerically also favoured the effectiveness in schools of
the diplomates (Guthrie 1983a, pp. 85-100). The inspectors’ written reports on
teachers were medium to high inference global reports. They contained eight items
covering performance inside and outside the classroom: Preparation and Planning,
Administrative Routines, Teaching Effectiveness, Professional Development, Re-
lationships, Extra-curricular Activities, and School Duties, plus a Summary. Use
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Chapter 6
of item analysis procedures allowed interpretation of the reports according to do-

main sampling theory (Nunnally 1978). The inspectors’ rating procedures were
based on the assumption that overall the reports measured aspects of teacher ‘qual-
ity’ that provided a basis for promotion, which was defined for the study as the
professional acceptability domain. This domain was sampled by the item headings
in the inspection reports, which were assigned scores through coding by the re-
searcher, which was tested successfully for inter-rater reliability against two in-
spectors’ coding (given that the purpose of my coding was to match the system’s
professional acceptability requirements). Total item scores for each teacher pro-
vided scale scores aggregated by training programme and subjected to item analy-
sis. Cronbach’s coefficient alpha was .79 for all 870 reports, well above the .65
necessary to distinguish between programmes. This was particularly high given
only eight scale items: this level of reliability is often not reached with multipoint
tests until they have about twice this number. With alpha = .79 for all reports, 62%
of total variance was explained by the eight items. One-way ANOVA on the total
scale scores then resulted in rejection of the research hypotheses predicting that
the longer programmes would be more successful:
 There were no significant differences between DipST, Conversion

Course, DipT (Agriculture) and Pre-service BEd graduates, with p rang-
ing from .12 to .80.
 Other 1-way ANOVA tests found no significant differences on the eight
inspectorial report headings, although there was a general tendency for
teachers to rate higher on non-classroom than on classroom-centred ac-
tivities.
 The available controls on intervening variables indicated few significant
effects within each year since graduation. Although there might have
been longitudinal interaction effects, their influence on the strong pattern
of null results was judged to be small.
Conceivably the lack of difference between programmes could have been an ar-
tefact of converting written reports to numerical scales. An important triangulation
showed this was not so. The importance in the school system of the null pattern of
results was shown by independent evidence about teacher promotion rates. There
was no significant difference between the four programme graduates’ rates of reg-
istration as teachers and eligibility for promotion as awarded through the inspec-
tion system. Thus, the differences between the programmes had neither statistical
nor educational significance. The theoretically based research and the official
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Gerard Guthrie
promotion system both showed that the degree qualifications had no advantages in
schools.
Delving behind the null statistical results from the inspection reports, question-
naires and interviews showed that in the inspectors’ professional opinion there
were indeed some differences between programme graduates’ performance, in part
according to subject knowledge criteria not included in their formal reports.
Inspectors informally considered many aspects of the diplomates’ performance to
be superior to that of degree holders. The DipST teachers, on average, had the
most satisfactory available combination of teaching skills, professional attitudes
and subject knowledge, although the latter was often not strong. The ex-primary
Conversion Course teachers were often regarded as good teachers at lower levels
of secondary schools but tended to be weaker in subject knowledge. DipT (Agri-
culture) teachers were considered to have very narrow abilities. The best of the
Pre-service BEd teachers were considered the best of all the teachers, particularly
because of their content knowledge, but they were polarised between those with
positive and negative professional attitudes. In effect, degree level knowledge was
considered desirable, but not if acquired through the existing pre-service degree.
In sum, the diplomas were far more cost-efficient and just as effective as the
pre-service degree. The shorter, cheaper formalistic diplomas supplied more
teachers, more of whom entered teaching and stayed there. They were just as pro-
fessionally acceptable as graduates from the low producing, longer, more expen-
sive progressive degree programme. Thus the research hypotheses were rejected:
 Increased amounts of professional training did not result in graduates be-

ing rated as more professionally acceptable by inspectors.
 Nor did increased amounts of general education systematically add to the
professional acceptability of graduates.
Teacher education did make a difference, but in the opposite direction to that
predicted from Beeby’s progressive theory. (Likewise, Roberts (1981), in a study
of primary mathematics teachers in Papua New Guinea supervised by myself, also
found no effects of increased general and professional education on teacher per-
formance.)
Research hypotheses are formal analytical tools whose rejection can be as in-
structive as their acceptance. Rejection of the hypotheses might seem to support
the view that teacher training did not have an important influence. Such an inter-
pretation would be superficial. There were no significant differences in the de-
pendent variable of professional acceptability of programme graduates, but there
were differences in the independent variable of the programmes themselves. This
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Chapter 6
demonstrated that the differences between programmes were both influential and
not in the hypothesised progressive direction. A variety of factors affecting the
type of training counterbalanced the short length of the DipST, in particular. It
was more successful than the longer Pre-service BEd because it laid a concrete
operational foundation of professional skills and syllabus knowledge that later
could lead inductively to higher order understanding of the theoretical principles
from which practice derived. Because the diploma had educational content and
teaching practice each year including the foundation year, it also served the affec-
tive purpose of maintaining student motivation to be teachers. In contrast, the Fac-
ulty degree was based on deductive principles, providing academic disciplinary
knowledge prior to an end-on year of educational studies and teaching theory from
which practical applications could later be derived. By then in their fifth year at
university, the students had often lost any motivation to be teachers. The shorter,
more practical, formalistic GTC training was just as satisfactory in meeting the re-
quirements of the schools and classrooms as the progressive-influenced degree
approach.
One conclusion was that, if Papua New Guinea were to get a secondary teacher
training system capable of operating successfully into the 21st century, the funda-
mental problem of structural inefficiency needed to be faced, and that amalgama-
tion should occur at Goroka (Guthrie 1983d). Educational and economic
considerations justified concentrating investment on GTC given the high cost of
two small teacher training institutions, one of which was not performing. The rec-
ommended approach for the future was inductive formalistic training programmes
focussing on operational skills at diploma level and, after a professional sandwich
of teaching for a minimum of two years, addition of higher level conceptual
knowledge through modular in-service degrees.
The research had little immediate effect on the structure of the teacher educa-
tion programmes, but was an influence on the subsequent amalgamation of secon-
dary teacher education some 10 years later. During the 1980s, the Faculty came
under pressure to justify its existence. It was unable to meet manpower demand
for graduate teachers and its graduates were not esteemed highly by their main
intended employer, the Department of Education. These threats continued directly
and indirectly as part of pressure on an inefficient higher education sector to
rationalise, with a high level Education Sector Committee in 1984 – part of a
major national planning exercise contributing to a Medium Term Development
Plan – being highly critical of inefficiencies in higher education (NPO 1984;
Guthrie 1985). Central planning authorities maintained pressure throughout the
1980s and the Education Faculty ultimately could not escape. Both College and
Faculty staff resisted the final step of amalgamation at Goroka, but in 1992 the
UPNG Council bowed to the external pressure and decided to unify teacher
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Gerard Guthrie
education on the one campus at Goroka. Rather than a modular sandwich

approach, the two-year DipST had become a three-year programme for cost
reasons in the early 1980s; it became a four-year degree course in 1995. Post-
graduate studies soon followed. Political action to establish universities in all four
regions of the country during the lead up to a national election saw the
Government in 1997 declare the University of Goroka as the university located in
the Highlands (Guthrie 2001, pp. 1-2). The University has since mainly run an
expanded secondary Pre-service BEd (albeit partly an end-on model), a modular
In-service BEd (mainly for primary diplomates), and a post-graduate teaching
diploma (to qualify arts and science graduates now teaching in secondary schools
without professional training).
6.3 Secondary Inspection System

Rejection of the formal research hypotheses predicting that the degree programme
would be more successful professionally than the diploma programme was no sur-
prise at all because the College’s approach was more relevant to the school sys-
tem. But what was the inspectorate that adjudicated programme success and what
was the educational philosophy that it represented?
The development of inspections in Papua New Guinea was a classical case of
colonial influence, with a direct lineal connection to inspections that were intro-
duced in England in 1840, followed soon after in the British colony of New South
Wales in 1848, then Queensland when it became separate in 1859, and in Papua
immediately after World War I as part of a payment by results system of grants to
mission schools. After World War II, a formal primary inspection system based on
Queensland practices was established in both Papua and New Guinea. At first,
free-wheeling district inspectors with wide authority were field heads for school
administration and a more systematic classroom inspection system only developed
in the 1960s. The secondary inspectorate came about after 1964 in response to ex-
pansion of secondary schooling and had only been in existence for some 15 years
at the time of this study. Then, there were 12 field inspectors, each responsible for
visiting, on average, 8 schools with 117 teachers three times a year (Guthrie
1983b, pp. 11-19).
Beeby (1967) was a direct influence on the inspectorate’s development as part
of the new National Education System in 1970 with his view that an inspectorate
was a necessary part of formalistic school systems. The intention in the 1960s and
1970s was to promote a change from inspectorial quality control to a curriculum
advisory role more in keeping with progressive tenets. In practice, the evaluative
role continued to dominate, primarily because the system was based on promotion
by ability and needed to evaluate teacher performance. The inspectors retained an
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Chapter 6
administrative role too because they were the only headquarters officers with
constant and frequent field responsibilities, albeit most actually located in the
provinces.
The inspectors’ official duty statement showed a combination of administra-
tive, advisory and evaluative roles that were easy enough to distinguish in princi-
ple but not so clear in practice (Guthrie 1983b, pp. 19-40). These roles were car-
ried out during two “advisory visits” earlier in the school year and an end-of-year
“inspection visit”. In the administrative role, the inspectors acted as liaison offi-
cers between national and provincial headquarters, schools and teachers, also play-
ing an important role in ensuring schools’ proper internal functioning. The advi-
sory role related to in-service supervision, identifying teachers’ professional
problems and providing non-evaluative counsel on overcoming them. The evalua-
tive role involved formal inspections for the purposes of teacher registration and
promotion. This role was primary, and it conditioned the advisory role to give the
term latent meaning. Inspectors gave ‘advice’ during their advisory visits, but if
this was not implemented by the inspection visit, the teacher could receive a nega-
tive inspection report.
The non-participant observation part of the research included following three
inspectors on seven days of school visits. Several features were noted. Inspectors
continually emphasised ‘quality’, broadly covering the ‘tone’ of the school, the
need for planning and preparation in all professional aspects of school life, and in-
service needs. An important feature of the visits was the large volume of work
covered and the thoroughness of investigations and crosschecking of teachers’
daybooks, lesson plans, programmes, assessment records, in-service files and stu-
dent books. The inspector was the system-defined expert on everything from
classroom, subject and school administration, through teaching methods, lesson
planning, programming, and in-service and the curriculum for all subjects, to ex-
ams and assessment procedures. Practicalities meant that the inspectors had to be
generalists with few opportunities to specialise in any particular subject. Perhaps
because of this, lesson observation comments focussed on teaching structure and
process, covering such matters as lesson plans, classroom presentation and lan-
guage use (teachers and students both operated in English as a foreign language),
but rarely focussed on subject content.
All this was in the context of highly inexperienced staff in a new school sys-
tem. Nearly all of the teachers and subject heads were in their first four years of
teaching, while principals commonly had only six years of experience. Clearly,
many teachers had only a superficial grasp of their duties, and some did not attend
to a number of them. With heads and deputies having full administrative loads, in-
spectors played a vital part in ensuring that schools continued to function at sub-
ject department and classroom level. As part of this role, on their first visit of the
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Gerard Guthrie
year the inspectors wrote comprehensive reports on the functioning of each

school, which provided action lists for principals and kept headquarters informed
about field conditions. Inspectors even made confidential quarterly reports to the
Secretary for Education on major issues and problems, which indicated a high de-
gree of confidence in them by the top administrators. Additionally, three confer-
ences a year discussed professional matters, four of which I observed during the
course of the research. The conferences provided quite rapid and often blunt feed-
back to national and provincial administrators on issues such as staff shortages,
mismanagement of school funds and resources, security problems in schools and
shortages of materials.
The final field visit of the year resulted in the formal inspection reports used as
the basis of the teacher training evaluation. These visits showed that the inspec-
tions were a year-long process based on an accumulation of information from a
number of people besides the inspector. By the end of the year, the inspector had
usually observed five or six lessons by each inspectee, held three or four inter-
views with each one, discussed each teacher several times with senior staff, and
usually considered written reports on them by the principal. Through this process
the inspectors built up a file of material on each teacher and between them were
professionally informed about nearly every practitioner in the schools. This was
not a secret process: the teachers were closely involved and legal regulations un-
derlay the procedures. Teachers were made aware of the likely contents of the fi-
nal report before it was submitted, and could challenge the contents. Teachers ap-
peared to accept the system willingly, looked to inspectors for guidance and
sometimes placed considerable trust in them over personal matters.
Inspection reports were then put before the formal end-of-year “ratings confer-
ence” involving all inspectors (Guthrie 1983b, pp. 41-49). The reports were each
subjected very methodically to peer judgement through officially defined proce-
dures, the central part of which was the reading aloud of inspection reports and ad-
judication by fellow inspectors of the grade to be assigned to the report and there-
fore the teacher. These conferences had an air of formality bordering on legalism,
and indeed both inspections and rights of appeal had a statutory basis. The formal
procedures cut both ways, but reinforced the inspectors’ position more than the
teachers’ position for two main reasons: while the reports were written clearly, in-
terpretation of them required esoteric knowledge of the evaluative significance of
wordings; and inspectors had much greater familiarity with the procedures. None-
theless, representatives of the teachers’ union, who were present throughout all
proceedings at the ratings conferences, expressed satisfaction with the processes.
The primacy of the inspectors might create the impression that they were a
generator of conservative even oppressive pressure within the system, but it was
apparent in the conferences that senior administrators – entirely national – were
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Chapter 6
requiring the inspectors – two-thirds expatriate – to strengthen evaluative stan-

dards, for example in giving teachers fewer chances before they could be termi-
nated. The system was very hierarchical and the inspectors were as subject to this
as anyone else was. Formalism was not a peculiarity of the inspectorate, but was
fundamental to the whole system.
6.4 Practical Theory of Formalism

Inspectors were the keepers of standards, their evaluative role dominating advi-
sory and administrative functions. During the period of the research, these three
roles kept the secondary school system functioning adequately. Without the
inspectorial procedures, arguably many schools would have ground to a halt. The
procedures were based on practical experience rather than formal educational the-
ory, but they had a legal foundation and were carefully thought out. As headquar-
ters’ field agents for quality, inspectors closely monitored the high school situation
through their three annual visits. In building up considerable information about the
schools and the teachers, inspectors had knowledge that could carry over for sev-
eral years, providing stability in a school system marked by inexperience and
rapid turnover. The inspectorate was a body of senior professionals trusted by its
own seniors to evaluate teachers and schools, and allowed considerable authority
to do so.
The inspectorate’s approach to rating teachers was underpinned by an informal
theory of formalism consistent with the definition used in this book (Guthrie
1983b, pp. 50-53). Their pragmatic theory placed the teacher firmly in control of
whole-class processing of fixed syllabuses and textbooks, with the main emphasis
on knowing basic facts and principles. Teachers were expected to have dominant
roles and students generally to be passive, although limited overt teacher-student
and student-student interaction was encouraged under conditions controlled by the
teacher. Students were expected to have individual work and, on occasion, group
work. Additionally, formalistic syllabuses, inspections, examinations and admini-
stration, for which the inspectors were keystones, set the tone for schools and
classrooms. The inspectorate had not expressed this formalistic construct in writ-
ing, but the underpinning could be inferred from the statutes, official notices,
handbooks, conference minutes and procedures circulars detailing the inspectorial
system, as well as from observation in the schools and conferences and analysis of
the reports on teachers and schools. The inspectors’ approach constituted what El-
baz (1983) called practical knowledge, which was one of the applications of con-
struct theory noted by Tabulawa (1998). All this provided the backdrop to inspec-
tors’ preference for the GTC diplomates, who best complied with the formalistic
requirements.
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Gerard Guthrie
Inspectorial formalism recognised that unsureness lay at the base of many

teachers’ professional activities and attempted to generate confidence from under-
standing of educational routines whose outcomes were clear. The teacher, isolated
in the classroom and often in a remote school, was linked to the system outside the
school by the inspector and precious few other individuals with whom the teacher
had direct contact. Undoubtedly, the inspection system restricted some teachers,
for example by insistence on the keeping of full daybooks for three years after
graduation. However, nearly all of the Papua New Guinean teachers in high
schools had sub-graduate diplomas giving them only 13 years of formal education,
and were from backgrounds that ensured that even this represented a great educa-
tional distance from their cultural origins. For most, the inspectors were not re-
strictive of classroom behaviours because their orientation was to diversify and
improve teachers’ skills.
Discipline for teachers was largely external to the schools, and the inspectorate
was the agent for this. Such discipline could be considered in two ways. First,
there was discipline of the type that inspectors preferred: compliance with formal
routines, which – even when not fully understood by practitioners – provided a
standard for assessing and improving performance. In their continual emphasis on
lesson planning, daybook keeping, programme preparation, roll keeping, records
maintenance and so on, the inspectors constantly tried to establish a disciplined
approach to teaching. Teachers who followed the routines were likely to receive
positive reinforcement in the form of promotion but, more importantly, their stu-
dents were likely to benefit from a more thorough and systematic approach to
schooling both in and out of the classroom. Teachers who did not follow the rou-
tines were likely to be the recipients of the second side of discipline: punishment
for failure to follow requirements. Failure to be registered or promoted was a seri-
ous matter not taken lightly by the inspectors. Their inspections were designed to
ensure that, within the available resources, teachers were assessed as systemati-
cally as possible, and that the assessment had built-in checks and balances. Be-
cause of their knowledge and control over procedures, the routines gave the in-
spectors much more power than the teachers but, in a period closely following
Independence, the inspectors were under instruction to strengthen both forms of
discipline.
By many, including initially myself, such inspection systems were regarded as
conservative and restrictive. By others more influenced by positivism, they were
also regarded as non-scientific, subjective and therefore invalid. However, the in-
spection system did provide a great deal more than personal impressions of
teacher performance. The inspectors were professionally qualified and highly ex-
perienced education officers who undertook systematic evaluations resulting in
structured reports. Their methodology used a combination of qualitative tech-
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Chapter 6
niques (involving observation schedules, available records and staff interviews)

and their findings were compared closely with those of school administrators; all
of which fed into reports written to strict criteria. The procedures went a long way
towards making formal, written professional judgements through the range of
methods used, formalisation of written reports and strong peer review (Guthrie
2004).
Nonetheless, the reports contained high-inference global judgements about
teachers’ performance. The research found procedures that could be upgraded, in-
cluding a need to reduce the number of single ratings used to rate multiple vari-
ables. There was a high degree of procedural conformity but significant differ-
ences between individual inspectors’ ratings. This indicated a need for training of
inspectors in observation techniques to help improve inter-rater reliability, an is-
sue of which they were well aware. The .79 alpha coefficient was very adequate
for programme level research, but was not at the .85 necessary to distinguish re-
liably between individual teachers, which was the purpose of the inspection sys-
tem. Application of the Spearman-Brown formula showed that to increase reliabil-
ity from .79 to .85 the reports needed 12 items, assuming similar items to those
existing. Content validity was also an issue because domain sampling required that
all content of the domain be sampled. However, the research showed that the in-
spectors considered there were three elements to professional acceptability (sub-
ject knowledge, professional skills and professional attitudes), but subject knowl-
edge was not sampled by the inspection reports. The four extra items in the reports
needed to include teacher subject knowledge to add greater content validity to the
classroom observation schedules.
The technical issues demonstrate why no formal scientific claims of validity or
reliability were made for the ratings procedures. In particular, content validity
meant that the rejection of the teacher education hypothesis was not conclusive.
Perhaps, if inspectors had rated subject knowledge, the Pre-service BEd graduates
would have been more professionally acceptable and the second part of the re-
search hypothesis (that increased amounts of general education will systematically
add to the professional acceptability of graduates) might have been supported.
However, a further possibility was that the depth of the formalistic paradigm
would have outweighed any such effect.
The inspection reports helped optimise validity, reliability and relevance. Eco-
logical validity increased through research into the inspectorial system as a func-
tioning real world entity. Triangulation increased reliability through cross-
checking of data from subjectivist and objectivist research techniques. Relevance
to teacher education increased through evaluating graduate teacher performance in
the field as assessed by the education system’s own criteria. A more positivist ap-
proach, perhaps evaluating teachers under experimental classroom conditions,
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Gerard Guthrie
would have increased the reliability and replicability of the research. However, it
would have reduced validity because of the introduction of artificial controls and
the lack of alternative dependent variables validated in this cultural context. A
more post-positivist approach, perhaps studying the inspectors’ or the teachers’
subjective views, would have increased knowledge of their social constructs, but
not in ways that would have been of much value for recommendations on the ef-
fectiveness of the teacher education system. While validity, reliability or relevance
could have been maximised individually through alternative approaches, it is
doubtful whether the same degree of balance between these competing require-
ments would have been achieved.
The research was used by the inspectorate to review its operations, the Superin-
tendent of Inspections, Neil Murray (1983), making the point that while the in-
spectorate possibly could become rigid in a stable system, there was little chance
of this occurring in one changing rapidly. Although the research was conducted
from 1978-81, it still retains relevance within the country. Schools have continued
in a state of change since the early 1980s and the inspectorial system was modified
along with the rest of the education system during the 1980s and early 1990s
(Boorer 1993; Thompson 1993). The inspection system continues to be updated,
but the fundamental principles are still in place, remaining entrenched as the
means by which the Department of Education maintains operational stability and
professional standards in schools (Mel 2007, pp. 223-224). Its formalistic theory
continues to be the best-tested approach in Papua New Guinea schools to teacher
registration and promotion on ability as defined by teachers’ professional accept-
ability.
The lack of formal theory backing the inspectorate’s professional knowledge
demonstrated the inadequacy of formal theory rather than the inadequacy of
practical experience. These professional educators made considerable use of
informal educational theory constituting a highly developed system of practical
knowledge that the research was able to systematise, thereby broadening
understanding of their constructs. Pragmatic theories of action like the inspector-
ate’s do need critical analysis if they are to provide sound explanatory theory be-
cause, without critical analysis, the long-term value of the pragmatic action is sus-
pect. Equally suspect is the rejection of pragmatic informal theories of education
without an acceptable level of formal analysis.
One implication is that educational reformers in Papua New Guinea cannot re-
ject formalistic teaching as an inspectorial artefact. Progressive critics of the sys-
tem – who these days tend to be aid-funded expatriate curriculum specialists or
overseas trained teacher educators influenced by progressive Anglophone ap-
proaches – have two major dilemmas. One dilemma remains that a more workable
system for ensuring promotion by ability has yet to be devised. The inspection
122
Chapter 6
system is not problematic; it is symptomatic, and the formalistic approach remains

highly appropriate to the teachers and the system. Alternative theories of teaching
would require systematic demonstration that they are more appropriate if they
were to be taken seriously, and this has not happened in the 30 years since the re-
search took place. The second dilemma is that formalism has long pre-colonial
cultural roots in Papua New Guinea. To reject inspectorial formalism is to reject
the deeper cultural paradigm that we will see in Chapter 8. Indeed, to be anything
other than respectful of such traditions opens critics of formalism to political and
cultural attack for having viewpoints scarcely compatible with the post-colonial
rhetoric in which their criticism is sometimes wrapped. It is yet to be seen whether
Papua New Guinean critics will mount any sustained and well-reasoned challenge
to formalism.
6.5 Conclusion
Underlying the teacher training findings were two major relevance issues. The
first was the relevance of formalism to the local educational culture; in effect, its
ecological validity. Essentially, the Faculty’s degree had a progressive teacher
‘education’ approach; the College emphasised formalistic teacher ‘training’. The
undergraduate Goroka diploma, in particular, was more successful educationally
than the Port Moresby degree because it was based on the inductive learning of
professional skills and knowledge, laying an experiential foundation on which
students could later build theoretical principles. The professional success of the
formalistic Goroka approach lay in its congruence with the requirements of the
education system.
The second issue is the relevance of this case study to other countries. The
Papua New Guinea example shows very clearly the extent to which formalistic
classrooms can be embedded in formalistic schools, inspections, teacher training
and administration. These do not just provide practical barriers to change or
generate inertia: there can be many constructive reasons for such systems to
maintain stability. Nor does this amount to an argument for radical change to the
entire system, because formalism is often a manifestation of long and meaningful
cultural paradigms. Even if experimental research does show that progressive
classrooms can generate desired learnings in such cultures (i.e. demonstrate that
the Progressive Education Fallacy is not a fallacy in schools in a particular
context), the cultural depths of revelatory paradigms mean that the broader culture
will likely be resilient to incompatable elements introduced in the relatively minor
classroom setting. Short-term progressive pilot projects may generate temporary
change in parts of such a system, but they are unlikely to change the whole
system.
123
Gerard Guthrie
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126
CHAPTER 7
FAILURE OF PROGRESSIVE REFORMS IN PNG
Papua New Guinea is a comparatively uncommon example of a developing

country with an extensive research literature from the 1960s through to the
1990s that informed educational policy and practice. Chapter 7 broadens the
examples from secondary teacher education to evidence about a range of offi-
cial reforms that were deliberate efforts to replace formalistic teaching and
curriculum. The chapter reviews some of the more solid qualitative and
quantitative research on seven reforms, finding without exception that the
progressive directions of change hypothesised by the stages model did not
occur. Major progressive primary and secondary classroom reform efforts
have failed for 50 years in Papua New Guinea despite large professional,
administrative and financial inputs. In itself, each example of failure may not
be convincing, but in the absence of any evidence that there have been any
sustained successes, the body of findings amounts to a damning case against
progressive reforms in Papua New Guinea.
The remnants of attempts to change formalistic teaching litter the schools of de-
veloping countries. Papua New Guinea is a prime example. Education there has
seen a continual process of change over the last 50 years. The reformers of the
1960s wanted to replace low-level mission schooling with a national education
system to lay a foundation for an independent nation, while the population at large
readily accepted increased schooling as a path to employment. In the 1970s and
1980s, further reforms attempted paradoxically both to modernise the curriculum
and to make schooling more relevant to village life. Planners came to understand
that the most likely long-term future for most school leavers was in the village, but
lack of public acceptance was a key factor in the failure of many relevance re-
forms, while classroom reform efforts failed to replace formalistic teaching. There
is little evidence to suggest that another round of education reform persevered
with since the early 1990s has succeeded in generating classroom change.
Chapter 6 showed two teacher education philosophies in competition but which
coexisted. This chapter turns to seven official innovations originating within the
school system that were all serious progressive efforts to replace formalistic teach-

Gerard Guthrie
ing and curriculum.7 We will look in overlapping chronological order at these re-
form attempts, including the “Education Reform”, which originated in 1986 and
still continues, with support over the last two decades from the Australian aid pro-
gramme in particular. This catalogue of major attempts to modernise the curricu-
lum will find that they have all failed in the sense that none of them has had any
apparent sustained professional success at changing formalistic teaching towards
progressive practice.
In contrast, in a long, deep and wide search of the published literature on edu-
cation in Papua New Guinea, I have not found any evidence of sustained progres-
sive success. In the absence of any publicly documented successes, this chapter
provides a refutation of the stages model sufficient to demonstrate that it does not
have universal applicability. Chapter 8 will show the underlying cultural reasons
that make progressive success improbable.
7.1 Beeby’s Progressive Influence

Beeby (1980, pp. 471-472) stated that his stages hypothesis could be disproved
relatively easily by finding a single substantial exception among developing coun-
tries that have tried, or will try, to improve their national educational systems.
Papua New Guinea provides a highly relevant test of Beeby’s progressive model
because, perhaps more than in any other developing country, his ideas were put
into official practice by the Department of Education from the late 1960s, and they
still continue to influence many curricular efforts to change formalism. Many of
the attempts to change teaching styles away from formalism were directly and
indirectly influenced by Beeby (Alcorn 1999, pp. 270-271, 282-283, 293-297). He
and K.E McKinnon, the reformist Director of Education approaching Self
Government, were at Harvard together in the 1960s. McKinnon arranged for
Beeby to deliver in Port Moresby the 1966 Camilla Wedgewood Memorial Lec-
ture on improving the quality of education (Beeby 1967). This led to his influen-
tial involvement as a member of the important Weeden Committee, which
generated a major overhaul of the education system (Weeden, Beeby, & Gris
1969). McKinnon (1976), in a paper first read in 1971, also used Beeby’s stages as
the basis of a five stage model of curriculum change in Papua New Guinea. This
model named five historical ‘stages’ – Imitative (in the early colonial period), De-
rivative (from Queensland in the 1950s), Venturesome Local (from the 1960s,
progressive syllabuses in eventual preparation for independence), Modern Local
7 Chapter 7 is partly guided by an overview of historical educational change in Papua New
Guinea by Weeks and Guthrie (1984).
128
Chapter 7
Failure of Progressive Reforms in PNG
(from the mid-1960s, highly influenced by international trends in subject sylla-

buses), and Integrated Modern Local (approaching Independence in 1975).
In the late colonial and early post-colonial period, expatriate and national edu-
cation officials were highly concerned to change the education system to over-
come inertia from the colonial period and to make schooling more relevant to the
needs of a country newly attempting to govern itself and to modernise. Progres-
sive philosophies appeared both to reject colonial gradualism and to be relevant to
current needs. These efforts were well meant, but their progressive assumptions
received little critical scrutiny. Since, progressivism has continued to be a major
influence on curriculum reform. The reforms have not always been referenced to
Beeby, although Nongkas’ (2007) recent use of aspects of the stages to underpin
her research on primary teacher education shows that the influence can still be
direct. Beeby’s belief that the Meaning stage would generate the type of Western
intellectual enlightenment that he himself typified thus has been an article of edu-
cational faith followed frequently and uncritically in Papua New Guinea, despite
his own hesitation about using curriculum change in an effort to accelerate teacher
development.
Papua New Guinea is a sound methodological test of Beeby’s stages
conjecture, not only because of Beeby’s strong influence, but because it is a
comparatively uncommon example of a developing country with an extensive
research literature that informed educational policy and practice from the 1960s
through to the 1990s (Guthrie 1989, pp. 45-47). This chapter draws on the more
solid empirical work, both qualitative and quantitative, and on professional
commentaries. Seven major primary and secondary classroom reform efforts are
presented in overlapping chronological order. The list of progressive innovations
is comprehensive in that it includes those where classroom outcomes have been
thoroughly reviewed and published. Professional documentation of efforts with
other subjects tends to be free of data on outcomes in classrooms, and is often hid-
den in official and aid project files. For space reasons, the following makes only
passing references to the community aspects (Smith & Guthrie 1980; Weeks &
Guthrie 1984 pp. 35-38). Little-researched change efforts not covered here in-
clude:
 The 1974 introduction of functional English, one of the first in the world,
was a ‘venturesome local’ attempt to replace structural English in secon-
dary schools (Barnett 1977), causing great distrust among teachers
(Nayar 1984).
129
Gerard Guthrie
 Secondary science and mathematics, which focussed more on making

syllabus content relevant to Papua New Guinea than on fundamental
changes to teaching styles (Palmer 1990; Wilson 1990; Matang 2002).
 Extensive adoption of behavioural objectives in secondary-level technical
education in the 1980s, later replaced by a competency-based approach
(Modakewau & Cortez 2005).
 Elementary school vernacular education introduced in the 1980s and
1990s, which expanded rapidly but had subsequent logistical problems
that were not inherently related to teaching styles (Siegel 1997; Litteral
2000; Kale 2006) (see Chapter 8.4).
7.2 Earlier Curriculum Failures

1. Primary Mathematics. For a decade from the mid-1960s, TEMLAB (Ter-
ritory Mathematics Laboratory) was an ‘early modern local’ attempt (in
McKinnon’s terms) to reform primary mathematics teaching. TEMLAB was based
on the work of Zoltan Dienes, introducing ‘the new maths’, which required
teacher knowledge of the new maths and progressive teaching skills through simi-
lar individual instruction methods to those entering Australia. The progressive
games approach, using local materials that could embody mathematical relation-
ships, ran into serious difficulties with teacher capabilities and supply of materials
despite strong departmental support (Roberts 1978, pp. 205-213; McNamara 1979,
pp. 17-19). TEMLAB failed, but was followed up with an even more ambitious at-
tempt at a new maths curriculum, Mathematics for Community Schools (MaCS),
introduced in 1978 and considered relatively sophisticated compared with Austra-
lian schools. While issuing teachers’ guides, MaCS still used the new maths and a
strong emphasis on activity learning. At startup, many problems existed for teach-
ers, including creating new exercises, programming and timing, printing and dis-
tribution of curriculum materials, lack of teacher training and in-service, and lan-
guage difficulties. An initial evaluation showed poor levels of student mastery
(Roberts 1978, pp. 210-220). A follow-up survey a year later with 70 teachers and
some 700 students in 14 schools found that students generally were achieving
mastery at grade level in lower grades (87% in grade 2 and 69% in grade 3), but
were as low as 4% in grade 6. The report asked whether the syllabus was being
taught in the “recommended ‘spirit’”, finding generally that it was not. Much of
the blame was placed on the teachers rather than an inappropriate curriculum
(Roberts & Kada 1979).
With the failure of teachers to adopt progressivism, research turned to ethno-
mathematics in an attempt to understand cultural issues underlying mathematics
cognition, to which a Special Issue of the Papua New Guinea Journal of Educa-
130
Chapter 7
tion was devoted (Lancy 1978). Rather than the base 10 metric counting system
now prevalent internationally, preliterate Papua New Guinean cultures had a vari-
ety of traditional counting systems. They included ones with prime bases ranging
up to 47, with the base depending on the number of body parts used as a reference
and how they were combined (not uncommonly leading to odd-numbered bases
deriving from the head being used for the median number). While highly interest-
ing from a theoretical perspective, this research produced little of practical value
for teaching and is an example of where culturally-based content may have little
direct relevance to teachers. Later, researchers found that the difficulties primary
school students had in solving elementary verbal arithmetic problems lay in lack
of understanding of English, especially mathematical English (Clements & Lean
1981). Bilingual students more readily comprehended both English (Esling &
Downing 1986) and mathematics (Clarkson 1994) than did monolingual ones.
Since then, indications are that on-going attempts to influence the mathematics
curriculum have come again from progressivism rather than ethnomathematics
(Kaleva 1991, pp. 209-210; Matang 2006, pp. 96-97).
2. Secondary Social Science Syllabus. SSSS was a ‘modern local’ concept-

based spiral development attempt to promote a student-centred, subject-integrated
classroom experience following the principles of Jerome Bruner and Hilda Taba.
With origins in the mid-1960s, it grew to involve a large international team until
the mid-1970s. The design and writing occurred at a time when educational policy
was to provide manpower to localise the formal sector of the economy. Implicitly,
this was a syllabus educating future university students who would become mem-
bers of a new governing elite. SSSS contained an academic perspective on the
world and attempted to provide the sort of knowledge and intellectual skills neces-
sary for a tertiary education. The approach was concept- rather than fact-based;
there was to be a spiral development of concepts from year to year; pupils’ com-
munity experiences were to be the basis of concept development involving as
much as possible material from outside the classroom; and enquiry methods, ex-
perimentation and simulation were to be the key learning methods to develop con-
cepts from pupils’ experiences rather than teachers’ presentations. When planning
started, the assumption was that SSSS would be taught by Australian expatriate
teachers, many of whom would have specialist university subject degrees. Inde-
pendence seemed far away, but Self Government came in 1973 and Independence
in 1975, along with rapid localisation of the secondary teaching force (mainly with
Goroka diplomates). The expectation of expatriate teachers dated more rapidly
than anticipated (Trevaskis 1969; Ritchie 1977; Lornie 1979). Appropriately,
however, much content reflected Papua New Guinea governmental policies, for
example on urbanisation (Guthrie 1980a).
131
Gerard Guthrie
The original version was found to be only a partial success, partly for adminis-
trative reasons that occasioned early delays (Pollock 1978, pp. 69-72; see also
Lornie 1979; 1980a), and finalisation took longer than anticipated. By the end of
1972 materials had been produced for grades 7 and 8, with those for grades 9 and
10 produced from 1973-76. Following trialling, the full course was implemented
from 1977. Classroom and student teachers had many difficulties with SSSS.
False assumptions in its design included an expectation that pupils working in a
foreign language could derive abstract relationships and theoretical principles
from social science concepts, the spiral development of concepts was therefore
sound, and teachers would have a solid grounding in academic subjects (Guthrie
1980b, pp. 98-100). Centrally supplied teacher materials provided background on
the topics that teachers could draw on in the absence of reference libraries to de-
velop their own materials. The original form was a series of folders with 3,600
pages of material covering grades 7-10, which was beyond the English language
skills of teacher trainees and the ability of short teacher training courses to cover.
The progressive emphasis on the teacher’s role as a facilitator of learning was an-
other false assumption, in part because of the sheer volume of background read-
ing, long and complicated guidance on content, and problems teachers had work-
ing out how to use the material.
The claim that the progressive principles made “the curriculum branch of the
Department of Education an international front-runner” (Cleverley 1975, p. 21)
was thus premature. The Department of Education began to revise SSSS almost as
soon as it was implemented. Revisions to grades 7 and 8 were issued in 1979 and
1980, while the approach for grade 9 was rewritten independently as two student
textbooks with matching teachers’ guides (Field, Guthrie, & Lornie 1978a; 1978b;
1980a; 1980b). The textbooks provided specific objectives within the framework
of the existing general objectives, downplayed the concept basis and spiral ap-
proach, and reordered topics, but did add student-centred activities that teachers
might use (Lornie 1979; 1980b; 1982, pp. 61-68; Weeks & Guthrie 1984, p. 50).
Content was pruned for even more relevance to national planning strategies
adopted in the mid-1970s. Subsequently, the textbook approach was adopted for
the whole course, albeit with a hope that it could involve some school-based cur-
riculum development (Lornie 1982, p. 75). Rewriting in the 1980s further down-
played the failed progressive approach and the syllabus was developed as a series
of standalone student books with content becoming a mixture of geography, his-
tory and politics, far removed from the original progressive intentions.
Eventually the revised syllabus was replaced in 2006 with support from an
Australian aid project, the Curriculum Reform Implementation Project, which
supported the Education Reform (see below). Despite the lessons involved in turn-
ing the original progressive syllabus into a more formalistic one, the new syllabus
132
Chapter 7
for grades 9 and 10 dubiously reverted to the progressive enquiry mantras at the
centre of the original design 40 years previously, albeit with the addition of inte-
gral human development and cultural relevance themes. The Progressive Educa-
tion Fallacy was explicit in official documentation on teaching and learning,
which stated that the Social Science syllabus again used a student-centred ap-
proach as a vehicle to guide and facilitate student learning: “with the opportunity
to practice and develop critical and creative thinking, problem-solving and deci-
sion-making skills as well as a range of practical skills and knowledge …. [stu-
dents can] think critically about what they are learning and … take responsibility
for their learning. They learn to teach each other and to learn from each other, to
work cooperatively and to work individually” (Department of Education 2006, p.
8).
Presumably, if the new writers were even aware of the history of failure behind
this approach, they assumed that the situation had ‘progressed’ since the early
days of SSSS 40 years before. The only plausible reasons for reintroducing the
approach could be that there was classroom change in the meantime, teachers had
become less formalistic, or that academic standards had risen: none of which ar-
guments has any evidence to support it.
3. Community Schooling. With Independence in 1975, the education system

was subject to major change to transform primary schools into community schools
in keeping with government policies encouraging community self-reliance. The
school reforms adopted many elements of progressive education as part of an ‘in-
tegrated modern local’ approach to the curriculum. A key element was a curricu-
lum intended to be flexible and school-based, providing only a framework for
teaching so that, “the actual stuff of instruction should be devised by the teacher to
ensure that it is adapted to the community” (Lancy 1979, p. 4).
Teachers were unable to do this. They not only lacked subject knowledge on
which to build local curricula, including in science and mathematics, they could
also lack both general knowledge and local knowledge about the community
(Cheetham 1979, pp. 83-87, 93-95). A Community Life Syllabus introduced to
grade 1 in 1978 without a trial or a teachers’ guide aimed to prepare pupils for re-
turning to life in the rural community (Watson 1979). Its progressive approach re-
quired teachers to be flexible and self-reliant, use improvised materials, and inte-
grate the syllabus with other subjects as well as relate them to community
activities. Teachers in a sample from 16 schools spread across five provinces
voiced difficulties in dealing with many aspects of the syllabus, including obtain-
ing materials, understanding its content and vocabulary, programming topics, and
preparing a programme without a teachers’ guide. Teachers considered excursions
created some dangers for children, found problems with lack of community sup-
133
Gerard Guthrie
port, and preferred to use pre-packaged community life materials when they were
available. Many preferred the previous more formalistic social studies programme.
The progressive syllabus was often unread and ignored.
Within a few years, it was becoming obvious that ‘relevant’ schooling was de-
veloping into a failure, as shown in a 1979 Special Issue of the Papua New Guinea
Journal of Education. From an educational perspective, the community school
concept had not been tested fully. However, the government had not matched the
rural development orientation with a redirection of funds to rural areas, indicating
broader systemic problems in addition to the problematic integrated curriculum.
Overall, Lancy’s (1979, p. 5) conclusion was that, “on the whole, the news is bad
and the community school now has few firm supporters.”
4. Generalist Teaching. GT was another ‘integrated modern local’ approach

used in grades 7 and 8 of provincial high schools from 1975-79. In many ways it
was a high school verson of the progressive community school curriculum. GT
attempted to initiate change from subject specialisation to subject integration using
a primary teaching approach to class and subject organisation, which was a major
change demanding school-based curriculum development and changes to teaching
styles.
Field (1981, pp. 18-35) comprehensively evaluated policy and practice,
including a questionnaire survey of 96 generalist teachers in a random sample of
33 of the 81 high schools, and qualitative case studies of five schools. She found
that many contradictions existed between the policy and practice of GT because it
was poorly planned and badly managed. GT had a top-down approach that
originated in the upper echelons of the Department of Education and was
introduced rapidly to schools by administrative fiat. Administrators directed that
the change be introduced and then expected teachers to take all further initiative.
Schools usually fulfilled the Department’s organisational requirement for one
teacher to take a class for three subjects during at least half of the available
periods, but in the absence of curricular guidelines, teachers’ definitions of GT
were vague. Classroom approaches varied widely within and between schools and
over time. GT teachers reported that 21% taught subjects separately, 29% taught
them separately but introduced linkages, only 16% attempted subject integration,
and 14% attempted thematic teaching. Of the 96 teachers surveyed, 64% were
trained to teach one to three subjects, but 84% had three or more. Of the
respondents, 18% were trained to teach mathematics, for example, whereas 70%
actually taught it. Teachers were equally divided on whether GT was a success,
and only 48% were willing to continue with it. Significantly fewer national than
expatriate teachers were willing to continue.
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Teachers were inadequately prepared and unable to cope with their new
freedoms and responsibilities. Field (1981, p. 99) noted that the initial
headquarters failure was compounded because teachers were formalistic, yet GT
required teachers willing and able to undertake curriculum development and teach
at Beeby’s ‘stage’ of Meaning. GT was very different in concept, structure and
practice to any other method of teaching and learning teachers had previously
experienced, and this worked against successful adoption:
Teachers were given the freedom to experiment, to devise their own aims,
objectives, teaching methods and content. Such responsibility caused
problems because it only showed young, generally inexperienced teachers
more things they could not do, thus magnifying their feelings of insecurity,
confusion and bewilderment (Field 1981, p. 106).
Generalist Teaching was a particularly clear example of an inappropriate and

incompetently managed attempt to promote integrated curricula at lower secon-
dary level without even a pilot project. The effect was that it was implemented in
organisational form but not educational substance. A Departmental enquiry found
it was adversely affecting school standards (Roakeina 1977), and it was allowed to
fade away from the high schools. But, despite Field’s (1981, p. 110) warning that
as a style of teaching and learning, generalist teaching had little future in Papua
New Guinea, it was only to reappear in the 1990s as part of the Education Reform,
when grades 7 and 8 were moved from high schools to primary schools.
5. Secondary School Community Extension Programme. SSCEP was a third

‘integrated modern local’ curriculum attempt that took progressive elements from
community and lower secondary a level higher to middle secondary grades 9 and
10. For some 10 years from 1978, SSCEP was a high school pilot project that in-
troduced a more relevant curriculum intended to lead students to value education
for its contribution to improvement in village life through integrating classroom
and practical work. The theoretical basis of SSCEP, put by a proponent of
community schooling and SSCEP’s main driver in the Department of Education,
Vin McNamara (1979; 1980; 1982), was an attempt to generate behavioural
change with students through a classical conditioning process. McNamara asked
whether school system policy-makers could influence the affective learning
process to establish behaviours that would then act as a basis for a more effective
social system. The underlying problem was the dysfunctional effect of large and
rapidly growing numbers of school leavers without employment prospects in the
modern sector. Given that parents and children generally aspired to modern sector
employment, but the future for most school leavers was rural villages and the
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informal sector, McNamara asked how their attitudes could be changed

constructively. SSCEP was the proposed solution. McNamara (1980, pp. 15-19,
23) posited a classical conditioning process explained as a carrot placed in front of
a donkey (somewhat inappropriately, given the absence of donkeys in Papua New
Guinea). The carrot was selection through the examination system, managed to
focus on the socially relevant nature of learning by developing behaviours that
would survive consumption of the carrot. SSCEP was not a vocational project, but
attempted to apply the grade 9 and 10 high school syllabuses to practical,
community-oriented tasks. Specialist staff would “provide the practical project
management skills to enable the general subject teachers to teach their subjects in
such a way which makes them more meaningful, by applying the concepts and
skills of each discipline to practical on-going school projects that are relevant to
the surrounding community” (McNamara 1980, p. 20). To do this, syllabus
interpretation, assessment procedures, programming and teaching methods would
change. The pupils would have to undertake practical applications of their subjects
to meet the extrinsic motivation of modern sector employment mediated through
the selection function of the grade 10 examination. Hopefully, those who failed
would have internalised the value of practical work so that it became an instrinsic
motivation adapted to problem-solving in the community.
SSCEP ran as an internally-funded pilot project from 1978-82. The project
initially applied in five provincial high schools a revised curriculum designed to
give more practical emphasis to core subject skills. Each project school was
provided with five extra teachers, while a headquarters team of four maintained a
steady round of visits particularly to provide in-service training. SSCEP was heav-
ily researched, notably by Michael Crossley and Graham Vulliamy, and was
hailed internationally as a highly promising pilot programme. An extension phase
from 1983-85 gained World Bank funding for five more schools.
Crossley’s (1984, pp. 80-84) case study of the school-based curriculum
development strategy included 6 months as a participant observer in one of the
pilot schools. On the positive side, the mobile advisory staff provided motivation
to teachers, school-based planning provided a meaningful focus for professional
development and INSET, staff enthusiasm in the pilot period was generally high,
participating teachers were observed to develop increased competence in
curriculum development and pedagogic skills, students voiced few sustained
objections to SSCEP, and 1981 examination results suggested that there had not
been a decline in academic achievement compared with control schools. However,
Crossley wrote, the research was primarily a cautionary tale. The pilot project had
been conducted under especially favourable conditions and over-optimistic
extrapolation from this experience would be unwise. Problems were encountered
with the curriculum change strategy in all five pilot schools, and two experienced
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Chapter 7
major difficulties. Perhaps most significantly, despite the positive impact of the
staff development, many teachers continued to find the development of integrated
teaching-learning and assessment programmes excessively taxing. There was as
yet little evidence to suggest that SSCEP in-service adequately prepared
formalistic staff for the demands of integrated and student-centred teaching
focussing on higher cognitive and affective objectives.
The effects were illustrated further by Vulliamy’s (1985) comparative ethno-
graphic analysis using case studies at three of the five SSCEP trial schools that
had developed outstations to teach practical applications of the core subjects, such
as to vegetable growing and trade store operation. The case studies were carried
out over five months in 1982 through a combination of structured individual and
group interviews with teachers and students, observation, and documentary analy-
sis. Findings included some important differences between student life at outsta-
tions and student life at the main schools, although these differences varied from
school to school. Outstations tended to be more characterised by a family atmos-
phere than was possible in the main schools. The greater informality of staff-
student relations made possible a more student-centred teaching style, greater stu-
dent responsiveness in classrooms, and greater use of both group and discussion
work. Outstations had more opportunities than the main schools to integrate aca-
demic and practical work, and interviews with students suggested that these op-
portunities helped enhance their understanding. The main benefits were attitudi-
nal. Some, but not all, stations could promote greater initiative, leadership skills,
responsibility and intrinsic motivation. However, Vulliamy found that some bene-
fits were not transferable to the main school or to other schools. Students tended to
perceive the integration of practical and academic work as relevant only to the
outstation itself, which suggested that their transfer would be difficult. The provi-
sion of suitable staffing was the most difficult logistical problem faced by SSCEP
outstations, and this could impair the quality of core subject teaching. Within
schools, curriculum was hampered by the unwillingness of staff and students to
move away from core subject study, unreasonable demands on teachers’ time and
skills requiring an enormous level of in-service support, logistical problems of
providing enough practical work, the programming of outstation curricula, and di-
visions between SSCEP and non-SSCEP staff. These difficulties created serious
obstacles to compliance with national regulations governing the internal assess-
ment of students. While considerable successes did occur under the pilot project
conditions, Vulliamy (1985) found that there were major questions of
transferability to other schools, especially when the high level of support available
under a well-funded, aid-supported pilot project would no longer be available.
This was prescient.
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Gerard Guthrie
With the end of the World Bank loan period, from 1986 the project was to be
disseminated across all provincial high schools. Government funding could not be
found to extend it in a difficult economic period, and it faded away by the end of
the 1980s. Apart from the funding issue, what went wrong? Why did professional
changes not quietly survive? Like GT, SSCEP required major school-based
change, including to teaching styles, with progressive teaching methods stressing
integrated curricula and activity methods, and intensive school-based curriculum
development and in-service, as well as outstations. Difficulties arose with the im-
plementation of all these aspects, including a classic conflict between formalistic
and progressive styles (Vulliamy 1983; Lipscomb 1985; Crossley & Vulliamy
1986, pp. 17-23, 41-43, passim). As Vulliamy (1990, p. 230) found:
many of the difficulties teachers were seen to experience – in, for example,
adopting the more student-centred learning strategies, in the integration of
academic and practical skills in their teaching and in using new styles of
school-based internal assessment – were symptomatic of a conflict between
the ‘formalistic’ teaching styles in which they had been trained and teaching at
‘the stage of meaning’.
Despite the strongly funded and supported pilot project, SSCEP is now only a
fond memory among some former participants.
7.3 Later Reform Failures

6. The Education Reform. The Education Reform is a label applied to a ma-
jor series of ‘integrated modern local’ change efforts that have drawn on a number
of the earlier progressive reform failures. The Reform derives from a 1986 Minis-
terial Committee into Education (the Matane Committee) that recommended radi-
cal approaches to comprehensive classroom teaching and to greater equity and so-
cial justice. Progressive change derived from this has encompassed the whole
elementary, primary and secondary school system during the past two decades.
In effect, the Matane Committee took the failed community school concept fur-
ther, providing what Guy (2009, pp. 134-135) has called “an important prologue
for much of the policy documentation and literature on education in Papua New
Guinea today.” The Matane Report’s approach was influenced by the notion of in-
tegral human development found in the Papua New Guinea Constitution. The Re-
port proposed that, “The philosophy is for every person to be dynamically in-
volved in the process of freeing himself or herself from every form of domination
and oppression … education must aim for integrating and maximising: socialisa-
tion, participation, liberation, equality” (Matane 1986, p. 6). One of the members
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Chapter 7
of the Matane Committee reported that members of the various groups charged
with reviewing the education sector, “spontaneously and almost unanimously
reached the conclusion that merely trying to patch the holes in the system would
be insufficient …. Almost in the sense of a sudden illumination, it became clear to
the members of the group in charge of the Sector Review, that … a radical exami-
nation of the educational structure and its contributing elements needed to be con-
sidered” (Avalos 1992a, pp. 312-313). From this brainstorming epiphany came
recommendations for a far-reaching series of structural and curricular changes.
They started with new village-based vernacular elementary schools for the first
three years of schooling in grades K-2 (with a need to establish schools, and re-
cruit and train vernacular teachers), transferred grades 7 and 8 to primary schools
(with an integrated generalist teaching approach and a requirement to retrain pri-
mary teachers for these grades), and added grades 11 and 12 to provincial high
schools (with the necessity for changing curriculum and teaching methodology in
secondary teacher education).
The Matane Report met with professional scepticism. Its introduction was de-
layed until after a professionally-led Education Sector Review (Department of
Education 1991). The result was somewhat ad hoc structural change from 1993,
depending on locally available resources and, in considerable part, driven politi-
cally in the belief that it would reduce student attrition and permit enrolment ex-
pansion at all levels. In this regard, Webster (2006, p. 16) stated that in 2000 the
gross enrolment ratio for the basic education age cohort was still only 64%, al-
though encouragingly Guy (2009, p. 136) said it increased to 81% in 2005. How-
ever, these increases were attributable largely to the establishment of the K-2 ver-
nacular elementary schools, which took off at grass-roots level (see Chapter 8.4)
rather than to increases in primary and secondary enrolments.
At higher levels, there is little evidence to suggest that the Education Reform
met planned school expansion targets or teacher education output requirements.
Maha and Maha (2004) reported that educational planners had made bold
predictions about increased primary and secondary enrolments, but the
Department of Education failed to provide for pre-service and in-service teacher
education to meet increased need for secondary teachers. Results included
unplanned establishment of high schools, engagement of untrained teachers, and a
subsequent need to catch up with postgraduate in-service training for hundreds of
unqualified graduates who had been employed as teachers by secondary schools.
The structural changes remain in place, but quite unclear in the upheaval to the
school system were the merits of high levels of administrative reorganisation,
professional dislocation and financial cost. The structuring gave the appearance of
educational change, but the curricular substance intended by the Matane Report
did not actually require restructuring the whole school system.
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Gerard Guthrie
The late 1990s saw efforts turn from structural to professional issues, in par-
ticular to curricular and teacher training for the vernacular pre-schools. In the
2000s, considerable aid-assisted attention was given to an ‘inclusive’ curriculum
and to subject syllabuses at primary and secondary levels (as seen for secondary
social science). These developments were supported strongly from 2000-05 by an
Australian aid project, the Curriculum Reform Implementation Programme
(CRIP), so much so that the project “has been criticised on the basis that its tech-
nical advisers drive policy decisions and the development of the national curricu-
lum for Papua New Guinea through project activities”, albeit a criticism denied by
the Department of Education (Guy 2009, p. 136; see also Ryan 2008 and Le Fanu
2011, pp. 212-213, who supported the criticism). CRIP carried forward many of
the curriculum aspects of the Education Reform, pursuing a ‘student outcomes’
approach (AusAID 2002, pp. 20-24; SAGRIC 2002, p. 27), which was more con-
sistent with progressive student-centred classrooms than the prevailing and more
formalistic ‘teacher objectives’. Norman (2006, p. 66) valiantly attempted to clar-
ify the intent in explaining that, “The curriculum reform uses outcomes to replace
objectives. Outcomes are phrased in present tense and may be thought of as com-
petencies. Objectives are phrased in future tense. ‘Students identify needs of living
things’ is an outcome. ‘By the end of this lesson students will be able to identify
needs of living things’ is an objective.” Unsurprisingly, the outcomes approach
meant considerable confusion in the teaching profession (Guthrie 2005, pp. 2, 16).
Reference to outcomes in contracted project documents was also ambiguous for
aid administrators used to considering them as project developmental impacts
rather than as student learning. My own report on a related project noted that it
was doubtful whether AusAID generalist project managers were aware of the sig-
nificance of these issues:
Professional educational issues such as teaching styles and attempts to change

them are often buried in coded language in the sub-text of curriculum and
teacher education activity designs, and may not be apparent to aid administra-
tors ... Where such issues are not resolved, or different approaches are taken in
different activities, educational interventions can be professionally counter-
productive (Guthrie, 2005, pp. 10-11).
The evaluation processes that CRIP arranged appear to have been very weak,
however. The closest to publicly available review evidence about the curricular
changes was contained in the proceedings of a first national conference on the re-
form curriculum that was held by stakeholders in 2005 (Pena 2006). The 31 papers
include many discussions of the origins and philosophy derived from the Matane
Report and much earnest professional commentary, but only four papers had sys-
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Chapter 7
tematic research findings related to reform effectiveness in primary or secondary

schools and classrooms, albeit mainly contracted as Impact Studies by consultants
writing to CRIP terms of reference. Morgan (2006) wrote about pilot testing that
occurred in 2003-04. This was a type of school effectiveness research that could
provide baseline data for trend studies, but no numerical results were presented
and no information was provided about curriculum implementation or classroom
teaching. Murphy (2006) reported on a questionnaire survey of 113 elementary
and primary teachers in 12 schools in eight provinces. Teachers reported high use
of new materials in the new vernacular elementary schools, quite high levels of
usage in primary schools, and a considerable amount of in-service. The survey in-
cluded teachers’ perceptions of the materials, but became less credible when it re-
ported that changes in teaching practice had occurred. From 64% to 85% of ele-
mentary, lower primary and upper primary teachers said they had changed the way
they taught, mainly in programming and lesson planning, with some claiming
more child-centred methods. Critically, however, self-report questionnaires like
this have low validity, and there was no classroom observation to investigate
whether the claimed changes were actually practised (Chapters 5.4 and 10.4). Guy
et al. (2006) reported on a large evaluation of primary in-service workshops for
vernacular language bridging. Teachers generally reported positively on knowl-
edge gained in the workshops. However, implementation of the skills learned was
problematic due to lack of materials, school support and language issues. Kaleva
et al. (2006) reported on a study of perceptions of upper primary teachers, finding
that they generally claimed to value the principles and philosophies underpinning
the reform curriculum, but that they also were particularly concerned about im-
plementation issues. In a trial phase with considerable aid-supported assistance,
there were many positives especially with in-service and materials provision, but
the sole reliance on unreliable self-report questionnaires meant that none of these
formative evaluations had any solid evidence about actual changes to teaching
practices in the classroom.
In contrast, an independent study by Le Fanu (2010) found considerable reason
to question the inclusive curriculum reforms. His research was a qualitative case
study in three rural primary schools in the Eastern Highlands Province between
2008 and 2009, involving lesson observation, interviews with the teachers, and
conversations with other stakeholders. The new curriculum identified various in-
clusive precepts that teachers should follow, with the research assessing their im-
pact on teaching and learning practices and identifying the factors that enabled or
inhibited their implementation. Le Fanu found that the teachers were often unable
or unwilling to implement the progressive reforms and employed alternative prac-
tices. Like in GT, teachers were required to integrate subjects; however, the teach-
ers claimed that they found it conceptually difficult to synthesise the different
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Gerard Guthrie
learning areas of the curriculum. They also claimed their teaching was more fo-
cussed and intelligible when they taught subjects separately. Teachers were also
required to provide students with opportunities to take charge of their own learn-
ing; however, the teachers pointed out that it was very difficult to provide their
students with these opportunities given the lack of learning resources in their
schools, particularly print materials. Consequently, teachers tended to give stu-
dents the same tasks and to control tightly the learning process. The new curricu-
lum also recommended that students support one another through peer tutoring.
Although the teachers encouraged their students to help one another in this way,
lesson observation indicated that peer tutoring generally took the form of answer
sharing, as opposed to the explanation and demonstration of problem-solving
processes, and students were highly reliant on the remedial support provided by
teachers as they patrolled the classroom. The new curriculum also expected teach-
ers to deploy expertly a considerable number of assessment instruments to identify
the learning characteristics of students, including class grids, anecdotal records,
student portfolios, self and peer reflective records, observation class lists, demon-
strated achievement checklists, incidence charts, Likert scales, sentence comple-
tions, and tests that could be standardised, objective or free response. Unsurpris-
ingly, teachers said that they lacked the time, energy and expertise to use many of
these instruments, and they tended to rely on tried and tested methods.
Non-implementation, Le Fanu found, could be partly attributed to the gap be-
tween the technical demands of the progressive curriculum and the capacity of the
teachers to meet those demands – for instance, lack of in-service training and ac-
cess to resources. It could also be attributed to culturally embedded teacher resis-
tance to the facilitative roles they were expected to play in the classroom and to
teacher scepticism about the validity of constructivist theories of learning. Al-
though the teachers ignored many of the curriculum’s precepts, some had devel-
oped their own contextually appropriate approaches for promoting student learn-
ing. Many of these approaches assumed teachers should centrally control teaching
and learning and were contrary to the spirit, as well as the letter, of the curriculum.
Teachers also used expertly a variety of strategies to transmit skills and knowledge
to their mixed ability classes. These strategies included speaking in short, simple
sentences, providing examples relevant to the students’ own experiences, provid-
ing concise definitions, using visual aids, and scrutinising the expressions on chil-
dren’s faces in order to check for understanding. The teachers also tended to show
great respect towards their students, an essential approach in a shame-based soci-
ety.
These findings contrasted with the unreliable research commissioned by CRIP,
which either did not observe in classrooms or used very loose evidence to claim
classroom change. In essence Le Fanu’s independent findings showed that the
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Chapter 7
progressive ideas inherent in the new curriculum were little used. There were
some improvements in teaching, but clear English and culturally-appropriate
treatment of students were as consistent with formalistic as with progressive
teaching. The implication, as Le Fanu (2010, p. 1) very appropriately put it, was
that “policymakers should work with rather than against educational realities …”.
7. Primary Teacher Training. In the 1970s and 1980s, the primary teacher
colleges had a prescriptive curriculum based on behavioural objectives,
assessment and inspections (McLaughlin 1995). In support of the 1986 Matane
Report (of which it became, in effect, a sub-set) the 1989 McNamara Report on
Future Directions for Community School Teacher Education argued against the
formalistic approach dominating the theory and practice of teacher colleges. It
recommended a qualitative shift to progressive teacher education programmes that
would encourage students to analyse a wide variety of teaching and learning
situations, encourage students to reflect on these strategies and on their own
performance, and learn to modify teaching strategies for different contexts. Such
programmes would require a shift in teaching behaviour from one preoccupied
with set procedures to a more holistic approach that would provide a learning
environment to promote learning for meaning (McNamara 1989, p. 6). This
progressive approach came to be reflected in official policy, which specified that
the fundamental purpose of primary teacher education was to produce teachers
“able to think critically about the curriculum and their teaching; and adjust the
learning environment to meet the needs of different children and classroom
situations” (Department of Education 2000, p. 47).
The McNamara Report also proposed a three-year training programme, an as-
pect where Beeby’s views were directly influential (O’Donoghue 1992, p. 194).
Teachers’ colleges began upgrading their programmes from two to three years
starting in 1991 (albeit later changing to a two-year trimester programme because
of teacher shortages and costs), the aim being to promote the general education of
students in their subject matter as well as producing good pedagogic performers
(Norman 2003). The Australian Community Teachers’ College Lecturers Profes-
sional Development Project provided support with training and higher degree
study for college lecturers from 1990-95. The appropriateness of a basic skills ap-
proach in the 1970s had been justified on the basis of serious deficiencies in basic
English and mathematics skills due to low teachers’ college entry levels. Now,
college lecturers were said to resent centralised control. Rather than focus on insti-
tutional strengthening, the project took a train-the-trainers approach focussed on
subject knowledge as well as curriculum development and pedagogical skills. Not
surprisingly in a well-funded and intensive programme, a mid-term review found
that professional development opportunities for college lecturers in Australia and
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Gerard Guthrie
Papua New Guinea were having a positive effect on participants’ competence and
self-confidence (Toomey, Guthrie, & Penias 1992, pp. 6-9).
However, project intentions went much further than this. Its Director called for
“a shift in teacher education philosophy away from the predominantly unreflective
emphasis on ‘basic skills’ and the ‘skilled technician’, towards ‘critically reflec-
tive practice’ and ‘meaningful teaching’” (Burke 1996, p. 41). Reformers paid
considerable attention to the radical form of reflection (Matane 1991, p. 144;
Burke 1993; Pickford 2003), which viewed formalism as an ‘ideology’ to be re-
placed, introducing a very value-laden term into a situation where the label ‘cul-
tural tradition’ was rather more appropriate. While the project might have had
long-lasting effects on some lecturers, there is no evidence to suggest that radical
reflection was sustained widely or that it had any flow-on effect to teaching in the
schools. The implication of a statement by Guy (1994, p. 47), who supported
adoption of radical reflection in teacher education, was that any changes were not
sustained: “the expansion of teacher education programmes from two to three
years of study in the early 1990s were ideal times to reconstruct teacher education.
Instead the colleges chose to do more of the same.”
A successor project from 1999-2004, the Australian-funded Primary & Secon-
dary Teacher Education Project (PASTEP), included a somewhat more grounded
approach to capacity building in the primary teachers’ colleges. Rather than taking
lecturers out of colleges and attempting a form of political re-education, this pro-
ject successfully attached long-term advisers to colleges, where they were able to
adapt to local requirements (Guthrie 2005). One controversial professional issue
was embedded in teaching styles. PASTEP followed then Department of Educa-
tion teacher education curriculum guidelines with an ‘objectives’ approach to cur-
riculum and teaching, which was consistent with a formalistic teacher-centred
classroom, but unfortunately contradicted by the overlapping CRIP ‘outcomes’
approach. The confusion may have contributed to the disapproval of Nongkas
(2007, p. 246), whose extensive assessment of PASTEP’s impacts on three pri-
mary colleges concluded, “little has changed in the pedagogies employed by cur-
rent teacher educators.” The majority of primary teacher educators were lecture-
centred formalists, which she primarily attributed to poor work facilities, lack of
subject knowledge and weak educational leadership, underestimating somewhat
the depths of cultural reflex underlying formalism as a deep-rooted cultural para-
digm in Papua New Guinea, to which Chapter 8 will turn.
7.4 Failed South-South Transfer

The reforms attempted by the Matane Report illustrate the principle that borrow-
ings from other developing countries may be as irrelevant as borrowings from de-
144
Chapter 7
veloped countries. The empirical basis of the assumptions underlying curriculum

reform in developing countries has often been sketchy. The apparent focus of
change has been the cognitive aspect of syllabuses, but the hidden agenda has of-
ten been moral and philosophical assumptions about the desirability of promoting
psycho-sociological change. Applied cross-culturally, radical reflection, for exam-
ple, makes heroic assumptions about psychology and may not lead educators very
far in cultures where formalistic teaching is valued:
Reaction against the colonizers’ political assumptions and the desire to replace
their moral perspective on the nature of the colonized have engendered an en-
thusiasm for innovation that has not always been matched by an enthusiasm
for investigating the empirical referents that the philosophy might provide
(Guthrie 1986, p. 81).
Whether the lessons have been learned about the failure of progressivism in
Papua New Guinea is highly dubious. Nearly all the information in this chapter
has been on the public record, but the 1986 Matane Report ignored the earlier
findings. The thinking behind the Report, on Avalos’ (1992a, p. 309; 1992b, pp.
426-431) own evidence as an active leader in the process, apparently came about
in a fit of enthusiasm arising from a single brainstorming session, spiced with
elements of liberation theology and a dose of Chilean-influenced Marxism. Avalos
placed the reforms in the South American context of Ivan Illich and Paulo Friere
and in the socialist tradition of Antonio Gramsci, Agnes Heller and Jurgen
Habermas. While notionally emphasising ‘participation’, essentially the major
school reorganisation recommended by the Matane Report was based in the Marx-
ist-influenced view that structural upheaval is necessary in society to remove tra-
dition as an obstacle to modernisation. Freirian principles were also claimed with
glib pseudo-radical jargon from the Director of the aid-funded Community Teach-
ers’ College Lecturers Professional Development Project to go “beyond critical re-
flection/inquiry to transformative praxis” …. “Underlying the Project’s approach
is the reconceptualisation of professional development in teacher education based
on critical reflection and transformative action. The approach has been developed
so that critical understanding developed through Project experiences will be trans-
formed into a self-sustaining professional development cycle back in the college
context” …. “Basically, lecturers were called upon to see themselves as political
actors in a process of political (re-)socialisation which is self-renewing” (Burke
1996, pp. 41, 44, 47). Quite what the relevance of Latin American radicalism was
to an entirely different context on the far side of the Pacific was never established.
Reasoned criticism of the proposed curriculum principles came from
O’Donoghue (1994; 1995), who argued, correctly in my view, that the Education
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Gerard Guthrie
Reform proposals were seriously misguided. He recommended pragmatically a

major overhaul of the system in order to facilitate greater pupil access to primary
school by taking the much less radical step of increasing the average primary
school class size. He also commented that the Reform proposals were also made to
facilitate introduction of a primary school programme based on a child-centred
notion of curriculum, but that it would have done better to recommend that the
existing primary school educational structures be maintained, the existing subject-
based curriculum be implemented properly, and that steps be taken to improve the
quality of the formal style of teaching with which the majority of teachers feel
most comfortable. As McLaughlin and O’Donoghue (1996, Ch. 3) put it, “Guth-
rie’s (1983) proposal in relation to high school education, namely, that there
should not so much be a changing of formal teachers and a formal system to other
styles but rather one of helping both to improve the quality of their formalism
should now be applied to the community school … a thoughtful knowledgeable
formal teacher is what is appropriate for today’s PNG schools.” The Education
Department was able to resist some of the curricular pressures for a while but pro-
gressive influences crept back through Australian aid projects. Despite
O’Donoghue’s warnings, the curriculum work in the 2000s through CRIP, with
the latest version of the secondary social science syllabus, for example, reiterate
the failed mantras of the earlier reforms directly influenced by Beeby.
The officially published material that is available on the Education Reform is
skimpy and unreliable, providing no evidence that any substantive changes have
occurred to teaching styles or to student learning. No sound published evidence
exists that the curriculum approach from the Matane Report has been successful,
or that teaching styles have changed as a consequence, or that any of the goals of
the politicised rhetoric have been attained, despite large-scale aid funding. Indeed,
Le Fanu’s (2010) case study found the progressive mantras were not being imple-
mented. Predictably enough, the churning created by the structural changes from
the Education Reform appears to have generated a great deal of organisational dis-
location for no apparent educationally substantive outcome.
7.5 Conclusion
Major progressive primary and secondary classroom reform efforts have failed for
50 years in Papua New Guinea despite large professional, administrative and
financial inputs. They have failed in the sense that none of them has had any
apparent sustained professional success at changing formalistic teaching towards
progressive practice. Failure has followed several paths. Three of the earlier top-
down change efforts did not survive the initial attempts at implementation and
were allowed to fade away (Primary Mathematics, the Community School and
146
Chapter 7
Generalist Teaching), while a fourth was so heavily revised that it came to bear
little resemblance to the initial progressive precepts (Secondary Social Science).
Despite initial successes, the two later project-based change efforts did not outlast
aid-funded trial periods (SSCEP, Primary Teacher Training). Or, in the case of the
Education Reform, system-wide structural changes continue to exist, but any
evidence in support of professional change in schools is highly optimistic and
contrary to independent findings. Certainly, many of the curriculum reforms
described in this chapter had measurable benefits in delivery of technical inputs
and outputs, for example in supplying materials to schools. But there is no
evidence that reliably suggests that the progressive reform tenets have had any
sustained professional impacts on formalistic teaching and learning styles in the
classroom.
In itself, each example of failure in this chapter may not be convincing, but in
the absence of any solid contrary evidence that there have been any sustained
progressive successes, the body of findings amounts to a damning case against
progressive education in Papua New Guinea. This is a very strong outcome given
the imbalance in the findings favours formalism 7-0 over progressivism. By the
standards of developing country research literature, the body of findings reported
in this chapter provides very strong evidence. As Le Fanu (2010, p. 1) put it, the
policy-makers would have been better to work with rather than against educational
realities.
Is this entirely convincing as a refutation of Beeby’s universal claim of
inevitable progress to the stage of Meaning? It convinces me, but possibly not
some others. Those less familiar with this particular context may become slightly
more persuaded by Chapter 8. Those less persuaded by the relevance of this case
study elsewhere in the world may be more persuaded by Chapter 9 on China.
Those less concerned about methodological principles may ask for more time
given that 50 years is not overly long in the evolutionary scheme of things. They
do need to remember, first, that there is a history behind formalism in Papua New
Guinea that dates back millennia and, second, that having Meaning recede infi-
nitely into the future is methodologically unrefutable and therefore untenable as a
basis for change. Those with vested professional and financial interests in the aid
projects allied with the Education Reform may claim that the jury is still out. If so,
it is mainly because of the sloppy evaluation processes in CRIP. If there is any
rigorous classroom research providing evidence of sustained progressive success,
let it be brought forth for scrutiny.
147
Gerard Guthrie
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CHAPTER 8
CULTURAL CONTINUITIES AND FORMALISM IN

PNG

schools in Papua New Guinea and progressive attempts to replace formalism
have failed. What are the underlying reasons? Chapter 8 delves into long-
term cultural patterns, finding that formalism predated European colonisa-
tion in the 1870s, was reinforced by the teaching style introduced by missions
and others in colonial schools in the 20th century, and has resisted the efforts
of educational reformers since. There is no indication that an evolutionary
progression through different types of teaching from Formalism to Meaning
is underway in Papua New Guinea. The conclusion is that progressive teach-
ing is not appropriate because it is culturally incongruent with the traditional
pedagogical paradigm and the revelatory epistemology on which it is based.
Even were working conditions in schools and classroom improved, formalism
would still prevail in Papua New Guinea.

schools in Papua New Guinea and progressive attempts to replace a formalistic
paradigm have failed. Curriculum reformers have often attributed the failure to
formalistic teachers and teacher training, but what are the underlying reasons for
their persistence? One major factor is that formalism is associated with long-term
cultural belief systems.
No centralised government or anything resembling Western political, bureau-
cratic, religious or educational institutions existed in Papua New Guinea during
the 50,000 years of habitation prior to colonial rule. Rather, a considerable number
of diverse tribal groupings lived largely autonomous lives isolated by geography
and languages (Lewis, 2009, estimated there are still 830). Indeed, one area con-
taining some one million people was ‘discovered’ only in the early 1950s. There
were few social class divisions, except for hereditary leadership in some areas.
The tribal groups lacked institutions recognisable to Europeans, but they did have
methods of governance, religion and education. Formalistic teaching in modern

Gerard Guthrie
schools has cultural continuities with aspects of teaching and learning dating back
millennia before European contact.
In this chapter, I will analyse the long-term cultural issues associated with the
prevalence of a formalistic teaching style, starting with traditional epistemology
and pedagogy, then the modern period and cultural continuities to the present.8
This analysis shows that formalistic classroom teaching is congruent with tradi-
tional revelatory epistemology and instructional methods, with which progressive
teaching is incompatible.
8.1 Traditional Formal Education

A fond but false belief held by many modern romantics is that education in tradi-
tional cultures in Papua New Guinea was a gentle art of cultural transmission
through childhood socialisation. A related belief is that the colonial period saw the
introduction of a new, authoritarian, formalistic teaching style that is not compati-
ble with traditional socialisation practices. This argument errs by comparing
unlike aspects of education. To correct this, we need to note that traditional Papua
New Guinean societies contained several long-recognised types of education, and
still do.
One type is informal education, of which childhood socialisation is part.
Through socialisation, much knowledge is passed informally from one person to
another, usually from an older person to a younger one within the family or clan,
but also among peers, and often through story-telling. Young children gain their
identity through learning constructs from their elders and siblings that define who
they are and what it means to be a member of their particular group. For example,
Ochs and Schieffelin (1984, pp. 288-294) described how mothers among the
Kaluli in Southern Highlands Province defined young babies’ development
through physical, emotional and verbal interaction. Kaluli described babies as
helpless and having no understanding. They were never left alone, but were rarely
the focus of attention and were rarely spoken to directly. Mothers tended to face
their babies outwards to be part of the social group. Others might address the
baby, but the mother responded on its behalf, using well-formed language that was
assertive, controlled and competent (i.e. that defined her expectations for the
child’s own language). Exchanges were not based on anything initiated by the
baby, partly because in Kaluli culture it was inappropriate to discuss others’ feel-
ings. As a baby became older, it was addressed directly and if necessary corrected
8 Chapter 8 is based on an article that was the focus of a 2003 Symposium in the Papua New
Guinea Journal of Education (Guthrie 2003). The chapter is partly guided by an overview of his-
torical educational change in Papua New Guinea by Weeks and Guthrie (1984).
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Chapter 8
Cultural Continuities and Formalism in PNG
by shaming, but no response was expected. Babbling was not recognised as com-
municative or related to the speech that eventually emerged. Not until a baby used
the words for ‘mother’ and ‘breast’ was it regarded as beginning to speak. The
mother then provided assertive adult phrases to be copied and pushed the child
into situations requiring their use. The child’s own utterances were corrected to
take adult form as part of a hardening process so that eventually it could converse
as an assertive adult in a face-to-face egalitarian society, an ability that defined a
person’s cultural identity. From this example, we can see that socialisation into
culture (in the sense defined in Chapter 1.1 as unspoken, implicit rules of behav-
iour and thought) occurs from children’s earliest years.
A second type of education is non-formal education, where knowledge is
passed from experts in a particular field – gardening, fishing or tribal warfare, for
example – to others who are learning these skills on the job. Aspects of non-
formal education are illustrated by the Bundi on the border of Madang and Simbu
Provinces (Fitz-Patrick & Kimbuna 1983, pp. 44-51). After weaning at about the
age of 4 or 5, children received informal instruction in the skills and beliefs neces-
sary for the physical and social environment. Boys moved into the men’s house,
receiving an arrow to mark the first ceremonial period of their life. During this pe-
riod, they learned by watching and imitating fighting, house building, pig raising
and hunting skills. Throughout childhood, physical and emotional punishment
(especially shaming) was used to direct behaviour to comply with traditional ex-
pectations.
A third type is formal education, through which particular forms of highly val-
ued knowledge were (and still are) passed from one generation to another in sys-
tematically structured ways. In the Bundi example, boys’ passage to a period re-
quiring strict formal educational instruction was marked with a flute ceremony
when they were some 10-14 years old. Learning was now stressful. It involved
much practice of skills and recitation of instructions, with beatings for bad behav-
iour and punishment by fire that could verge on brutality. Correct behaviour, how-
ever, could generate much respect and it earned praise and other rewards. Comple-
tion of the boys’ learning was marked by another initiation ceremony involving
exchange of pig meat, after which they were men capable of taking part in tribal
warfare.
Logically, a comparison of modern formal education should be with traditional
formal education not informal or non-formal education, with which it is usually
compared.
A book by the Australian anthropologist, A.P. Elkin, called Aboriginal Men of
Higher Degree, first published in 1945, put traditional formal education into per-
spective. Elkin’s very title was a radical concept for the time. After all, it was well
known that traditional Aboriginal societies had no written languages. How could
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Gerard Guthrie
people obtain a degree, let alone a higher degree, if they were illiterate and, the
racists of the time believed, of inferior intelligence? Elkin argued, using examples
of Aboriginal medicine men across Australia, that traditional forms of sacred
knowledge in Aboriginal society were highly developed and highly structured.
This knowledge was secret and was passed only to selected people for particular
purposes by elders, who chose and taught their medical students. When students
completed learning this knowledge, their graduation was marked by initiation
ceremonies, which were rites of passage that identified them as having qualified in
their field and gave them access to a life of knowledge and power (Elkin 1978, p.
3). Medicine men could go through a sequence of levels resulting in higher-level
knowledge that was in many ways the cultural equivalent of medical doctors’
knowledge in European society, albeit with considerable touches of the priest and
the psychologist.
Elkin’s analogy was a major insight into traditional Aboriginal culture and the
understanding of it by European Australians. Evident were educational parallels
with European culture that too had various forms of secret knowledge kept by
academic elders responsible for passing it to selected university students. Univer-
sity graduation ceremonies were a public demonstration of the achievement of a
particular level of knowledge, a rite of passage into the medical world as a doctor
or teacher, for example. While Aboriginal formal education was part of an oral
culture and education in European countries revolved around the written word,
many elements of European and Aboriginal education ran parallel.
Elkin did research in Papua New Guinea, but his book drew few of the obvious
similarities between traditional Aboriginal and Papua New Guinean cultures. In
Papua New Guinea too, there were and still are complex forms of knowledge
handed down by elders to selected younger folk, with the attainment marked by
initiation ceremonies. This parallel with Western-style education helps explain the
enthusiasm of university students in Papua New Guinea for their graduation cere-
monies. This enthusiasm appears not to result just from successful completion of
programmes of modern learning, but appears also to resonate with traditional cul-
tural values and practices, which some students symbolise by graduating in tradi-
tional dress.
Elkin’s argument also resonated with the major anthropological debate over
cultural relativism in the 1960s and 1970s. Some Western anthropologists used to
argue that tribal societies in Africa, Australia and the Pacific did not have educa-
tional, legal or political institutions because there were no manifestations readily
able to be understood in ethnocentric European terms. If there were no schools,
how could there be education, they asked; without hospitals, was there medicine?
Cultural relativists argued that it was not the institutional form – schools or hospi-
tals, for example – that mattered. What mattered was that other manifestations, in
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Chapter 8
this case of education and medicine, existed and that they reflected indigenous
systems, however different from culture-bound examples in Western societies. El-
kin himself did not debate cultural relativism in his book, but the book does illus-
trate the issue well. Without literacy or schools, could there be formal education?
There was, Elkin showed, and bush teaching through oral tradition was a valid
way of passing knowledge from one generation to the next. This formal knowl-
edge was marked by initiations, notably celebrating passage from childhood to
adulthood, but possibly continuing throughout adulthood as further knowledge –
higher degrees, in Elkin’s analogy – was gained.
8.2 Traditional Epistemology and Teaching Methods

What forms did knowledge take as it was passed on through traditional formal
education and how was it taught? The anthropological literature describes a mil-
lennia-old paradigm providing a basis for formalistic instruction. From this, we
will see that later versions of formalism introduced into classrooms and teacher
training during the colonial period were highly consistent with traditional cultural
patterns.
Papua New Guinea contained many different cultures, but there were many
similarities in their approach to knowledge. Another key anthropological work has
noted that traditionally people dismissed the principle of human intellectual
discovery except in minor matters (Lawrence 1964, p. 30). Myths were accepted
as the sole and unquestionable source of all important truth. All the valuable parts
of the culture were invented by the deities, who taught men both secular and ritual
procedures for exploiting them. “The body of knowledge was conceived to be as
finite as the cosmic order from which it was contained. It came into the world
ready made and ready to use, and could be augmented not by human intellectual
experiment but only by further revelation by new or old deities. There was no
need – in fact, no room – for independent human intellect” (Lawrence 1964, p.
33). Thus, discussing, relating, sifting, appraising and hypothesising were not in-
herent in traditional knowledge and might even be strongly discouraged. The aim
of preliterate societies was to transmit faithfully an accepted and shared way of
life. In essence, traditional knowledge had a unified epistemology going back to
the ancestors and the deities. Knowledge was revelatory, and this usually applied
to general technical knowledge as well as to secret sacred knowledge. Technical
elements were normally passed on through informal education, which dominated
in childhood, and through non-formal education. Technical skills were available
generally (depending on age and gender) and satisfying in their practicality and
relevance to village life (McLaughlin 1994, pp. 63-70).
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Gerard Guthrie
Sacred elements were normally available only to select initiated males through
formal education as adulthood approached and, later, in adult life. Sacred knowl-
edge was revealed by the gods or through instruction from those who already pos-
sessed it. It was pragmatic and finite, to be accepted not challenged. The task of
the learner was to locate knowledgeable people and to gain knowledge, not by
asking questions, but by looking and listening to people who were known to be
trustworthy (Carrier 1980, pp. 110-113; 1984, pp. 6-7). New knowledge came
from initiation, dreams, purchase or ritual – it was not self-generated nor was it
critically assessed. The purpose of this paradigm was human survival and trans-
mittal of the culture, and it was controlled and regulated to these ends.
Formal education was elaborate and varied (McLaughlin 1994, pp. 73-75). As
with the young Bundi, the process often required separation for extended periods
from the rest of the community and an extraordinary amount of time and effort
could be put into the elaborate ceremonies and rituals. Ritualism, sacred rite and
sorcery were important aspects of formal knowledge. Learners had to master eso-
teric sacred knowledge; it could not be newly generated, but could only be passed
on to initiates by those already in possession. The institutionalised role of leaders
was acknowledged and they played an important personal role in teaching initi-
ates, whether individually or in groups. Teachers often gave didactic verbal in-
struction based on a ‘core curriculum’ of sacred knowledge.
In practice, however, informal education dominated the learning of the young.
Informal teaching methods were characterised by motivation through scolding,
threatening, encouraging, bribing and punishing. Rewarding was based primarily
on reciprocity and approval of task-oriented behaviour. Obedience was esteemed
in most traditional societies and disobedience could be met by severe punishment.
Story-telling and myths were also important aspects of relaying culture: Kaima
(1998) has illustrated how oral tradition in preliterate society operated in all as-
pects of education as a way of defining and transmitting the belief systems of the
Wantoat of Morobe Province. Non-formal education was also made available effi-
ciently throughout life when it was needed (McLaughlin 1994, pp. 70-73). It was
village and activity-centred, involving observation, imitation and repetition in real
life trial and error situations. Institutionalised teachers did not exist, but knowl-
edgeable people acted as mentors, providing guidance through leading, instructing
and demonstrating.
A romantic but false belief is that traditional societies in Papua New Guinea
were marked by notable degrees of equality, the absence of which in modern times
is now sometimes blamed on colonialism and a formalistic school system. Carrier
has refuted this view of equality in relation to Ponam Island in Manus. He noted
that linking formal Western education (and the more general process of colonisa-
tion of which it was a part) with a sort of fall from egalitarian grace remained po-
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tent in the consideration of education and colonialism in Papua New Guinea. In

spite of its potency, the belief is inaccurate:
The crucial element of this belief, the element that gives it particular poign-
ancy and moral force, is the construction of the pre-colonial condition, the as-
sertion that life was one of substantial equality, consensus and communalism
... a fair body of evidence, gathered both retrospectively and at the time of
early contact ... seems to suggest that the pre-colonial system had substantial
elements of inequality, dissensus, and coercion (Carrier 1985, p. 87).
In support of these contentions, Carrier showed that traditional inequality in Po-

nam revolved around the need for poorer young men to put themselves into a life-
long client relationship with wealthy financiers in order to meet bride price pay-
ments, which were the biggest financial obligation of men’s lives. Carrier referred
to other researchers who also identified traditional inequalities in many other parts
the country. Similarly, Mel (2002, p. 411) has pointed out that a “picture of or-
ganic bliss can be misleading” because people traditionally had to fend within
competitive terrains. Indeed, the very existence of formal education or ‘higher de-
grees’ in traditional society meant inequality existed. After all, not all men were
educated in specialist fields, women were excluded from secret men’s knowledge
and vice versa, and not all people gained knowledge equally well. Clearly, tradi-
tional formal education was an intricate part of the unequal distribution of power
and prestige in complex social systems. Colonialism added new inequalities that
sometimes replaced old ones. Schools and formalistic teaching were elements in
this, but elements that were different in degree not kind.
8.3 Modern Formalism

One thing that Europeans did bring to Papua New Guinea in the modern period
was a new form of formal education in schools (here, ‘modern’ refers to the time
from colonial control in the 1870s to the present). Until the 1950s and 1960s, co-
lonial administrations were content to leave in mission hands most of the little
schooling that was provided. Various Christian missions, mainly Lutheran, Catho-
lic, Methodist and Anglican, established the earliest schools. In Papua, the colo-
nial administration did not set up schools, but attempted to control the missions
through regulation and funding, while the Australian administration in New
Guinea set up only six schools by 1940. Most mission schools were in the island
and coastal areas; the highlands were barely known to the colonialists until the
1930s and 1940s. The National Education System was established only in 1970
(Weeks & Guthrie 1984, pp. 33-35).
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Gerard Guthrie
The role of the predominant mission schooling was to convert Papua New Gui-
neans for a limited role as Christian church members, clerks and labourers, with
academic training limited to basic literacy and numeracy (McNamara 1979; Smith
& Guthrie 1980, p. 7). Considerable similarities in teaching and teacher education
existed in different parts of Papua and New Guinea during colonial times, as
shown in studies by Pomponio (1985) in Manus, Smith (1985) in Papua, and Wil-
liamson (1985) in Papua and the adjoining Torres Strait in Australia.
Smith’s historical research into Catholic education by the Sacred Heart Order in
Papua in the first half of the 20th century illustrates the nature of the mission
schooling that dominated during the colonial period. Typical of mission and ad-
ministration educators, the Order promulgated formalistic curriculum and teaching
methods. Its particular methods were set out in a pastoral letter in 1916 that gov-
erned the provision of the mission’s schooling until the 1960s. The letter set out to
regulate and improve the school system by instituting a set programme of work
and organising regular supervision akin to inspections. Foreign religious staff
taught at central boarding schools, which had village feeder schools usually with
paid Papuan teachers. A separate circular for the priests gave detailed instructions
on supervision of these teachers, who had three defined roles: religious leader, vil-
lage schoolmaster, and family model for Christianity. As school teachers, their
main role was to facilitate evangelisation through instructing children in the Chris-
tian doctrine and way of life. Teachers were instructed to prepare their lessons
well, be punctual, keep regular hours for the school, ensure that discipline and or-
der were kept, ring the bell early, keep the children silent and in good order, main-
tain rolls and to be strict. Mission policy banned corporal punishment, but teachers
commonly used it despite contrary instruction. In teaching catechism, teachers
were to use repetition and question and answer until the material was learned off
by heart. Simple charts were supplied as teaching aids. At the discretion of the su-
pervising priests, the secular curriculum was to include reading, writing, arithme-
tic, history, geography and other subjects. In fact, there was a great deal of similar-
ity in all this to the requirements for teachers under the formalistic secondary
inspectorate in the National Education System during the late 1970s, which were
shown in Chapter 6.
At first, formal schooling was imposed in the colonies of Papua and New
Guinea and many indigenous people were reluctant to take it up. Over time, it did
become accepted, indeed sought after, as a route to the advantages of the intro-
duced way of life. Schooling did not create inequalities for the first time, but often
replaced old ones with new. To carry the example of Ponam forward in time, Car-
rier (1985) has shown how education was an important factor in the structural shift
that colonialism brought. The pre-colonial pattern of traditional inequality in Ma-
nus, in which financing of bride price played a significant element, changed to a
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Chapter 8
different colonial one, where education and out-migration gave access to the cash
economy. Schooling allowed Ponams to export labour during the colonial period.
The outcome was changes in attitudes that resulted from migrant labourers seeing
their island in perspective from outside, ability to earn wealth off the island, and
return migrants’ eventual willingness to spend this wealth outside traditional pat-
terns of obligation. This led to a breakdown of the power of the financial patrons
but resulted in new forms of financial and political inequality from differential ac-
cess to employment, business and politics. Colonialism did not introduce inequal-
ity for the first time; it saw traditional systems of inequality broken down and re-
placed with others, and modern schooling was a factor in this.
From 1946, education was gradually taken more seriously by the administra-
tion. Initially, the emphasis was on schooling for rural life in the community. Mass
literacy and a gradualist approach to universal primary education became an ob-
jective in 1955 but remains far from complete (Webster 2006). Gradualism be-
came increasingly out of step with the international agenda on decolonisation, and
the late 1950s and early 1960s saw a wave of expansion of primary schooling, the
establishment of more secondary schooling and an increase in basic teacher train-
ing. From 1960-73, a period of consolidation and expansion of the disparate
school system saw attempts to provide a curriculum that would allow Papua New
Guineans to localise expatriates, who dominated the urban sector and plantation
agriculture. When oversupply of school leavers started to become apparent in the
late 1960s, the focus turned again to attempts to make schooling more relevant to
village life (McNamara 1979; Weeks & Guthrie 1984, pp. 35-38). The signifi-
cance of this is underscored by the fact that Papua New Guinea’s population was
still 87% rural according to the 2000 Census.
Following the 1969 Weeden Report, efforts at educational reforms followed the
two inherently contradictory paths of schooling for the modern sector and for the
community. Nationalistic and liberalising influences within the education system
have kept these issues to the forefront since Independence in 1975, albeit not
helped by a complicated and unwieldy political and bureaucratic system sharing
educational powers between national and provincial governments. Since 1975, in-
fluence has also come through foreign aid-funded programmes, whether in cur-
riculum or the provision of overseas scholarships (Guthrie 2002). The
contradiction remains at the core of government policy even until the present, as
the Education Reform has already demonstrated.
8.4 Community Context

The curriculum and community education reform paths in Chapter 7 have both
largely failed for the same reason: they underestimated contextual factors. An im-
portant contextual factor manifested inside schools was teaching styles.
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Gerard Guthrie
Fundamentally, the curriculum reforms foundered professionally on attempts to

generate progressive teaching. In the 1970s, there was professional agreement in
Papua New Guinea that formalism prevailed in classrooms across the country.
Widespread efforts to change it through the introduction of new progressive sylla-
buses were unsuccessful and they required considerable on-going revision. The
Education Reform introduced in the early 1990s and continued into the present
century saw another concerted effort to restructure primary and secondary school-
ing and change classroom teaching. The restructure occurred, as did some syllabus
changes, but there is no evidence to suggest that teaching styles have changed or
that learning has benefited. Both the curriculum and the community reforms at-
tempted to replace formalistic teaching with progressive enquiry-based methods
that were unsuccessful. In large part, they are quite inappropriate in most primary
and secondary school settings in Papua New Guinea because progressive teaching
is culturally incongruent with with the traditional pedagogical paradigm and the
revelatory epistemology on which it is based.
A second contextual factor in the failure of the reforms was lack of government
resources. Since Independence, the Department of Education, try though it has,
has been unable to deliver the long-term administrative and professional support
that such changes require, and the government has been unable to sustain large-
scale funding, either for SSCEP when it moved past the aid-funded trial phase to
full implementation during a difficult period for the national economy, or subse-
quently for the Education Reform.
The main contextual factor external to the school system was community atti-
tudes. A central concern in many of the reforms was to make schooling more rele-
vant to village life, but the populace saw schooling as an entry to modern life not
the village, and the reforms attempted to give children a type of education that
parents did not seek. Like the community schooling innovations of the 1970s,
SSCEP in the 1980s underestimated attitudes held by teachers, students and the
community. In particular, SSCEP was marked by a tension in schools between the
outstations’ community and vocational emphases and a desire to maintain aca-
demic standards. Parents, however, widely viewed schooling as an investment
with the potential for their children to gain cash employment and the ability to
send home remittances, not an opportunity to learn skills for modernising village
life.
Case studies of education at village level have since given some variable indi-
cations that more realistic recognition of changes in the job market mean that
schooling is no longer always perceived only as a route to modern sector employ-
ment, important though that remains. In some places, some of the secondary bene-
fits of schooling have been accepted slowly as more relevant to village life (Dem-
erath 1996; Guy 1996, pp. 49-50; Avei 1997, pp. 23-25; Guy & Avei 1997, pp.
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Chapter 8
137-138; Khambu 1997, p. 101; Tawaiyole 1997). However, as Carrier (1985) and
Fife (1992) showed, cultural understanding of schooling can be anything but
straightforward. And, even were the primary purpose of schooling now seen as
community education, orientation of formal schooling to village culture would not
change classroom teaching away from formalism. Community-focussed schools
would be open to more influence from traditional pedagogy, not less.
For students, tradition is a real element in their everyday lives and in the infor-
mal learning styles that they bring with them to school. As Ochs and Schieffelin’s
(1984) example of the Kaluli illustrated, early childhood socialisation starts a
process whereby young children gain their identity through learning constructs
from their elders and siblings that define who they are and what it means to be a
member of their particular group. In that example from a collective culture quite
unfettered by Western notions of psychology or constructivist learning, young ba-
bies were largely ignored by the group, their early efforts at language were neither
valued nor even recognised as language, and their thoughts and feelings were not
valued either. In Papua New Guinea, children spend at least their first six years to-
tally immersed in such environments, shaped by traditional culture rather than
modern educational theories. Even after they enter school, a majority of learning
time is spent in informal educational situations that are shaped more by cultural
inclinations than by explicit pedagogy (Eyford 1993, p. 16). For teachers too, local
knowledge systems are an important component of the deep cultural inclinations
that they bring to the classroom and which continue to affect strongly the type of
pedagogy they use and that students intuitively accept. Their formalistic construc-
tion of classroom behaviour helps link classroom pedagogy with the broader for-
malism of the education system as a whole, as well as with traditional culture.
This formalist paradigm also affects the types of change teachers do not accept
and the types of change to which they might be open.
Cultural background includes traditional epistemological expectations, prac-
tices and devices that structure the production, circulation and consumption of so-
cially valued knowledge (Lindstrom 1990, p. 14). Thus, the community context of
schooling can be very complex, which has been illustrated by Fife (1992), who
identified two hidden curriculums in community schools in West New Britain.
The primary one promoted the values associated with urban life and the develop-
ing cash economy over the subsistence-based life of rural villages. The secondary
one revealed that the formal organisation of the modern school could break down
to become more similar to less formally structured community life that reflected
traditional cultural understandings, for example of time, record keeping (or lack
thereof) and differences in acceptable behaviour for boys and girls. Community
conflicts related to this latter hidden curriculum often led to school closures. In-
side the classroom too, as Pickford (1998, p. 6) likewise noted, “there are cultural
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Gerard Guthrie
meanings and sensibilities which mediate the activity structures of classroom prac-
tices, which also require acknowledgement if post-colonial teaching and learning
are to be better understood.” While such beliefs do alter, their essence carries with
the students through secondary school and teacher education (Ope 2003; Kiruhia
2003).
This is not to say that contextually relevant changes will necessarily be easy or
successful, as demonstrated by the Vernacular Pre-Schools. Vernacular education
received some support in the 1970s as a replacement for an English-only policy
(Litteral 2000) and was taken up with community support in Bougainville, where
the Provincial Government introduced it in 1979 in the form of Viles Tok Ples
Skuls (Village Vernacular Schools). Two other provinces soon followed. A
national conference of provincial education ministers in 1985 then supported it
and the Matane Report recommended that the first three years of schooling be in
the vernacular as part of a central concern of the Education Reform to make
schooling more relevant to village life. By 1991, 386 vernacular schools existed.
This schooling expanded rapidly in the 1990s, initally mainly as non-formal
education by church organisations with a variety of aid support. By the end of
1993, the schools operated in 220 languages with over 48,000 students and 3,000
teachers. The formal elementary school system got underway soon after in 1994.
By the mid-2000s, there were over 400 languages in use (Siegel 1997; Ahai &
Bopp 1995 cited by Kale 2006, pp. 202, 209).
Vernacular schooling did have a basis in research on cultural context. It was
neither inherently formalistic nor progressive, but revolved around the issue of
teaching in a foreign language, about which Downing and Downing (1983) and
Esling and Downing (1986 pp. 60-61) reported in Bougainville. A first
experimental study with preschool children suggested that bilingual capacity was a
decided advantage in dealing with language ideas and developing pre-literacy
skills. A follow-up study compared students taught literacy from the beginning in
English and students introduced to literacy for the first two years of school in their
mother tongue and then transferred to instruction in English. Preliminary results
from the 4th year of instruction showed that the children taught to read for the first
two years in their vernacular had similar scores in English to those who were
taught in English from the beginning, even though the latter group had four years
of English instruction instead of two. Furthermore, the students who began in the
vernacular were very much more rapid readers in English than those who began in
English. These results suggested that students who received their initial instruction
in their mother tongue made excellent progress in acquiring the skill of reading
and could apply it to three languages (even one in which they had received no
instruction). In contrast, students introduced to reading in a third and little used
language, English, had not comprehended their instruction. They did not know
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Chapter 8
how to read in English and consequently could not do so in any language. Later,
Clarkson (1994) reported similar effects with bilingual students’ achievement in
mathematics, while Siegel (1997, pp. 210-211) referred to several other positive
research findings. While such findings are context-specific, the basic propositions
are that the vernacular strengthens community culture, provides a more effective
base for learning of a foreign language and of mathematics, and is more efficient
than spending the whole of primary schooling learning the language in which
lessons are to be given.
Vernacular schooling expanded rapidly, but in practice the schools struggled
for several reasons widely acknowledged within Papua New Guinea. One was
conflict between the non-formal vernacular approach and the formal elementary
system, with effect on community support (Siegel 1997). A second problem, as
Gould (2004) reported for the Southern Highlands, was the absence of vernacular
texts in a country with some 830 languages. A third major problem was training
enough vernacular teachers. A related fourth problem was training primary teach-
ers to cope with the transition into English of pupils arriving from vernacular ele-
mentary schooling into grade 3 in primary schools (Siegel 1997; Guy et al. 2006;
Kale 2006, pp. 207-208). Many primary teachers do not know the vernacular of
the locations in which they are posted and thus they have had difficulties with lan-
guage transition because they cannot use examples from the vernacular in which
pupils have been schooled. None of this affects the issue of teaching styles, nor is
vernacular schooling an example of progressive reform as defined in this book,
but it does reflect the magnitude of operational problems that can arise even when
a reform is apparently contextually appropriate.
8.5 Process and Product

The cultural issues impact heavily on teaching styles and curriculum. The most
damning professional criticism of the progressive curriculum reforms reviewed in
Chapter 7 is that they exemplified the Progressive Education Fallacy in confusing
process with product. The assumption that teaching the enquiring mind needs en-
quiry teaching methods in primary and secondary schools was never treated as a
proposition to be debated systematically or as a hypothesis to be tested empirically
in the cultural context seen in this chapter. Dunkin (1991, pp. 54-58) found no ex-
perimental studies in Papua New Guinea on the relationship between teacher train-
ing in changing classroom behaviour and student achievement. Papua New Guinea
participated in the IEA Second International Science Survey in the early 1980s,
but analysis was not related to teaching methods (Wilson 1990). There has been a
marked drop-off in published educational research in and on Papua New Guinea
over the last 15 years and I have not uncovered any experimental studies since or
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Gerard Guthrie
any less controlled research that leads to the conclusion that enquiry teaching and
learning methods generate enquiring minds. The desired product of most of the at-
tempted reforms was the acceleration of the learning of higher order enquiry
skills. However, changes in teaching styles have not been assessed for the extent
to which they might change learning outcomes among students. Specifically, the
adoption by teachers of a meaning or progressive style has not been tested ex-
perimentally to see whether or not it accelerates the development of higher level
cognitive skills.
On the contrary, other evidence is supportive of the hypothesis that formal en-
quiry abilities develop with mental maturation as part of the aging process and that
this development has a strong cultural basis. The evidence that does bear on the
development of the higher order cognitive levels required by formal enquiry is de-
rived from Piagetian research conducted in the 1970s and 1980s. Lewis and Ran-
sley (1977) reviewed a number of such studies from the South Pacific and found
that high school students were predominantly concrete operational rather than
formal operational, as required for problem-solving. Price (1978) found that con-
crete operational students in Papua New Guinea were two to three years behind
their counterparts in first language education in industrialised countries. Shea’s
(1985) review of the Papua New Guinea literature suggested that high school stu-
dents were likely to be developing conservation skills. Wilson and Wilson (1984)
found from testing upper level high school and lower level university science stu-
dents in Papua New Guinea that large numbers were in a transitional period be-
tween concrete and formal operations, although there were strong indications of a
steady development of formal operational thinking during their four years of uni-
versity study. Consistent with these findings, Bleus (1989, p. 83) identified
schooling, culture and language of instruction as three variables that affect the
maturation rate.
The most overriding explanation comes from Lancy (1983), who developed
Piagetian research into a new ‘stage’ theory of cognition from a socio-cultural per-
spective. His ethnomathematical research among students in Papua New Guinea
found that the sequence of Piaget’s developmental stages was similar but not iden-
tical to Piaget’s European findings. Leaving aside objections to stages methodol-
ogy as such, Lancy found that the first ‘stage’ was very similar to Piaget’s sensori-
motor and early concrete operational stages, putting the view that this level is
where genetic programming has its major influence. Here, socialisation is the key
focus of communication and many children’s activities are very similar across cul-
tures. The second, concrete operational ‘stage’ finds enculturation taking over
from socialisation. With culture and environment more influential and genetics
less, different cultures emphasise different knowledge and ideas. The third ‘stage’
of meta-cognition has individuals acquiring theories of language and cognition.
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Chapter 8
Essentially, this level is based on cultural values, with different cultural groups
emphasising different theories of knowledge that represent the values lying behind
language and symbols. Lancy considered that Piaget’s formal operational stage
was a cultural theory emphasised in Western culture, but neither in Papua New
Guinean nor Confucian cultures. One deduction from Lancy’s case is the dubious
nature of any assumption that teaching styles from one cultural context will accel-
erate similar cognitive results in another context. Both independent and dependent
variables in cross-cultural classroom research thus need close consideration.
8.6 Cultural Continuities

In sum, numerous elements of traditional education, especially formal education
involving sacred knowledge, anticipated the formalistic classroom teaching that
was introduced in the colonial period in Papua New Guinea. One key element was
that the traditional paradigm was revelatory. This is consistent with an underlying
element in modern formalism, where the assumption also is that the teacher knows
and transmits and the student does not know and receives. A second key element
was that the learner’s job was to find people who had knowledge and would teach
it, which schools now institutionalise. These views of knowledge in both tradi-
tional and modern times help explain the dominant role of teachers in traditional
formal education and also the acceptability of teachers as the font of knowledge in
modern formal education. Both traditional and modern formalism require students
to play passive roles in receiving the ordained knowledge. Both share an emphasis
on memorising a curriculum of basic facts and principles. The importance of tradi-
tional rites of passage is also evocative of modern graduation ceremonies and the
ritual that goes with them.
Colonialism institutionalised formal education in schools, but it did not intro-
duce formalism. The coincidence between traditional and modern formalism was
fortuitous. There is no indication that colonial educators deliberately sought to re-
inforce traditional teaching styles, but formalism resonated then and now with the
underlying cultural paradigm. Fortuitously too, the leaving of education in mission
hands meant that the revelatory epistemological base of Christianity was compati-
ble with the way knowledge was understood in traditional cultures. In part, the
persistence of formalistic teaching in Papua New Guinea can be explained by
long-standing culturally-based pedagogical techniques grounded in traditional
formal education but consistent with modern formalistic teaching. The grounding
of these techniques in epistemological constructions based on transmission of tra-
ditional sacred knowledge is far more consistent with formalistic teaching than
with progressive Western alternatives: “The conceptual framework for Melanesian
knowledge processes is inspirational, revelationary and transmissional, while
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Gerard Guthrie
western knowledge is characterized by enquiry, reflectivity and creativity”

(McLaughlin 1994, p. 67). As Guy et al. (1997, p. 36), who also emphasised cul-
tural continuities in teaching and learning in Papua New Guinea, put it, “Western
education systems value questioning, creativity and problem-solving behaviours.
In an inspirational system, the problem is to find the right source or text, rather
than engaging with the source or text in a creative fashion”, and, “learning is,
above all, a social construction based on relationships with teachers that are im-
mediate, dialogical, and hierarchical.” In contrast, progressivism is based primar-
ily in a very different paradigm of knowledge construction, intellectual enquiry
and the generation of new scientific knowledge. The lack of emphasis on enquiry,
reflectivity and creativity in traditional epistemology has meant a high degree of
incompatibility with recent Western educational theories that gained currency af-
ter the transference of formalistic school teaching during the colonial period.
Traditional formal education can have considerable elements of authoritarian-
ism, including physical punishment. The definition of modern formalistic teaching
used in this book does not have physical punishment as an element, but in Papua
New Guinea it seems that violence in schools also occurs. Such violence appears
as much derived from traditional culture as modern. Consistent with this view,
Larking (1974) contended that changes in authoritarianism in teaching in Papua
New Guinea would only occur with changes in the social personality of society it-
self.
One major difference between old and new is that traditional formalism is part
of an oral bush culture, unlike the emphasis on literacy inside that institution of
modern formalism, the school. And, of course, the content is very different. Quite
possibly, educators in the colonial period would have been surprised to learn how
similar their pedagogical principles were to traditional ones, but “there was never
any intention that the schools should merely serve to reproduce the values, beliefs
and lifestyles of the societies in which they were placed: in fact, the explicit inten-
tion was the opposite” (Smith & Guthrie 1980, p. 7). In the post-colonial period,
despite curricular efforts to promote schooling relevant to community life, the core
content of literacy and numeracy continues to prevail and partly to be a vehicle for
transmitting aspects of foreign culture.
The continuing relevance of formalism nearly 40 years after Self Government
in Papua New Guinea and the considerable failures introducing alternatives imply
that formalism is not just an outdated colonial impost. The coincidence between
traditional and modern teaching was fortuitous, but formalism resonated then and
now with underlying cultural patterns. Rather than being a barrier to change, for-
malism is consistent both with the rest of the education system and with deep cul-
tural patterns. This does not mean that formalism is appropriate in all parts of the
education system. It is appropriate to most parts of primary and secondary school-
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Chapter 8
ing in Papua New Guinea, but may not fit all parts. An elite education system is
developing in the now misnamed international schools and in other private
schools. Originally built in the colonial period to provide an Australian education
to expatriate children who were not expected to remain in Papua New Guinea, the
growing international school system now predominantly provides schooling orien-
tated to the modern sector for those parents able to afford the fees. These schools
remain influenced by progressive methods, although no evidence about their ef-
fectiveness appears to be available. Tertiary education may also be able to use
more student-centred teaching styles.
8.7 Conclusion
Formalism predated European colonisation in the 1870s, was reinforced by the
teaching style introduced by missions and others in colonial schools in the 20th
century, and has resisted the efforts of recent educational reformers to change it.
The fundamental professional issue underlying curriculum development and
teacher training in Papua New Guinea since the 1960s has been the pervasive dif-
ferences between the progressive and formalistic approaches in the classroom.
Progressive educational reforms during this period largely failed in the classroom,
and there is no counter evidence to indicate any successes at replacing formalistic
with progressive teaching styles. On the contrary, the failed reforms and the on-
going prevalence of a formalistic teaching style in primary and secondary schools
are associated with long-term cultural patterns. Formalistic teaching fundamen-
tally persists because it is culturally congruent with the traditional formal teaching
styles that predated European colonisation.
There is no indication that an inevitable evolutionary progression through dif-
ferent types of teaching from formalism to meaning is underway in Papua New
Guinea. The implication of the theoretical and cultural objections to the progres-
sive stages mentality is that, even were working conditions in schools and class-
room improved, formalism in Papua New Guinea would still prevail. The
anthropological view of traditional epistemology is now recognised, but it has
been approached by educators as an ex post facto explanation for their failure to
‘modernise’ teaching styles. Few it seems have been able to take the next step and
see the problem as an opportunity to take a culturally intuitive formalistic teaching
style and develop it further rather than to try unproductively to have teachers
adopt methods that are counter-intuitive to them.
Some argue that formalistic teaching was an outside imposition. Formalism, as
we have seen, was not new, but having it in schools certainly was. There is no
indication that colonial educators deliberately sought to reinforce traditional
teaching styles. The coincidence between traditional and modern was fortuitous
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Gerard Guthrie
but the underlying similarities in epistemological and pedagogical principles do

help explain why formalistic teaching in schools was and still is congruent with a
pre-existent cultural paradigm in formal education. From the research summarised
in Chapters 6-8, we can infer that formalistic teaching is not an intermediary stage
on the path to educational development, but is a state that is likely to remain
embedded in the Papua New Guinea school education system because it is
compatible with traditional and on-going cultural practices. The concerted
evidence is a refutation of the proposition that primary and secondary teaching
will slowly but inevitably change to a progressive style. In any foreseeable future,
this is highly unlikely to happen.
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CHAPTER 9
FORMALISTIC TRADITIONS IN CHINA
In the Popperian sense, the failure of progressive education in Papua New

Guinea provides a refutation of the possible universal inevitability of the pro-
gressive ideas embedded in the stages model because the predicted changes
have not occurred and are unlikely to in the foreseeable future. While it is
theoretically and methodologically important, arguably this refutation could
be of little practical consequence worldwide because it could be rejected as a
small example that is largely irrelevant elsewhere; but not so China. Chapter
9 reviews the English language literature on Chinese education, adding an-
other element to the falsifiability of the stages by generalising the refutation
to show that millennia-old educational forms make unlikely the adoption of
Western models of progressive education in China. Recent research into
classrooms on mainland China has found an apparently stable and wide-
spread approach to formalistic classroom teaching in primary and secondary
schools that is supported by institutionalised practices for teachers to develop
within this style.
In the Popperian sense, the case of Papua New Guinea provides a refutation of
Beeby’s stages model because it demonstrates that the model does not have uni-
versal application. But, with a population of some 5 million, Papua New Guinea
contains under one-tenth of one per cent of the world’s population. Arguably the
refutation could be of little consequence on a world scale because Papua New
Guinea could be rejected as a minor example that is largely irrelevant to the rest of
the world; but not so China. With at least 1.3 billion people, China’s Confucian
tradition remains a strong influence on Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and
Singapore – altogether containing some one-quarter of the world’s population.
China adds another element to the falsifiability of Beeby’s stages by generalising
the refutation to a country that appears very different from Papua New Guinea, but
which also has long-standing traditions involving revelatory epistemology and
formalistic pedagogy.
This chapter will sketch in the history of the ancient Confucian educational
paradigm that pervades modern classrooms. A major difference between Chinese

Gerard Guthrie
and Papua New Guinean traditional cultures is that Chinese culture was literate.
Its dynastic histories were highly documented and a large amount of written evi-
dence has generated detailed descriptions of its traditions, in contrast to knowl-
edge of pre-colonial Melanesian cultures, which derives from oral tradition and
anthropological analysis. The chapter also summarises relevant research findings
on classroom teaching from the English language literature since the mid-1990s,
finding that formalistic educational forms over two thousand years old make
unlikely the adoption in China of far more recent Western models of progressive
education.
9.1 Confucianism and Other Philosophical Schools

Traditional historical interpretations derived from China’s official dynastic histo-
ries portray a continuous empire with northern China at its forefront. Emerging ar-
chaeological evidence suggests that in many periods since the 3rd millennium BC
other areas within modern China were just as advanced, competing kingdoms ex-
isted, and there were long periods with lack of central control (Keay 2008, pp. 5-7,
25-49, passim). Regardless of the continuities and discontinuities among the poli-
ties, Confucianism provided philosophical continuity that linked dynasties and still
remains a direct influence on Chinese education – a point on which foreign revi-
sionists and Chinese scholars are able to agree (Keay 2008, pp. 3-4; Guo 2006, pp.
7-8). As an historical figure, Confucius the philosopher was somewhat the Chi-
nese equivalent of Socrates. But Confucian moral philosophy laid the basis, first,
for a state religion, then, a popular religion, and eventually it became the cultural
equivalent of the Judeo-Christian tradition in European civilisation.
China had schools and a rudimentary examination system over three millennia
ago. From the 11th to the 8th century BC, education became more sophisticated,
precipitating intellectual ferment as rival schools of thought challenged one an-
other (Cleverley 1991, pp. 1-4; Guo 2006, pp. 128-153). The Confucian tradition,
which began in the 6th century BC, came to dominate existing and subsequent phi-
losophical schools (Needham 1956, pp. 3-215; see also the abridgement by Ronan
1978, pp. 78-126). Confucius himself (Kong Qiu) lived in the 6th and 5th centuries
BC. How much he contributed to the writings imputed to him is problematic.
Some writings derive from his students, but all were modified and added to over
centuries in succeeding layers of scholarship that came increasingly to influence
governance (Keay 2008, pp. 66-71, passim).
In contrast to the central concerns in Western philosophy with the metaphysi-
cal, with rational thought as a distinguishing characteristic of humans, and in the
scientific study of nature, philosophy in China has been concerned more with so-
cial and ethical principles. Modern interpretations impute various materialist and
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Chapter 9
Formalistic Traditions in China
idealist standpoints to different Confucians over the millennia (e.g. Guo 2006, pp.
98-99, passim), but for Confucius the proper study of mankind was man. He em-
phasised a social sense of justice, with nature a given as part of the moral order
inherited from an idealised golden age about five centuries previously and re-
vealed in its writings, rites, poetry and song (Needham 1956, pp. 3-32; Guo 2006,
pp. 38-46). Early revelatory concerns central to Confucian epistemology focussed
on the customary transmission of ancient wisdoms about social relations and the
moral authority of good leaders. Confucianism taught that there was moral order
to the universe in the sense that there was an ideal way to order human society,
and was thus founded teleologically on a belief in design in nature.
China’s governance early came to synthesise ethical Confucian and authoritar-
ian Legalist principles that dated from the 4th century BC (Needham 1956, pp. 1,
204-215; Ronan 1978, pp. 187-189, 273-275). The Legalists had a codified system
of laws and regulations that were the basis of government in the Qin state, while
Confucian views were paternalistically concerned with the orderly administration
of affairs based on historical precedent (Keay 2008, pp. 75-77, passim). Confu-
cianism won the intellectual debate, but in practice the authoritarian Legalist ap-
proach to administrative regulation remained embedded in governance. After be-
ing ignored officially for several centuries, Confucianism became entrenched as
the ritualistic state religion during the Han Dynasty from the 2nd century BC to the
3rd century AD, albeit one usually not followed fully in practice.
Although headed by scholars and officials rather then priests, Confucian con-
tributions to science were almost entirely negative, according to Needham (1956,
p. 1). Rather, proto-scientific thought developed from four other schools of phi-
losophy that had naturalistic world views. Chief among them in the long-term was
Taoism, but none of these schools came to dominate the intertwined systems of
governance and elite education in the same way as Confucianism. The basis for a
Chinese scientific tradition lay in the abstract philosophical ideas of Taoism, the
beginnings of which were ascribed traditionally to a slightly older contemporary
of Confucius, Lao Tzu (Lao Zi) (Needham 1956, pp. 33-164; Wilkinson 1997;
Guo 2006, pp. 132-141). Modern scholarship considers that Taoist philosophy was
more likely an anthology of thinking from subsequent centuries. Early proponents
included philosophers, who not infrequently lived in seclusion away from court
politics in the safety of the countryside. Another influence came from magicians
and shamans who had faith in nature worship. Magic and science were not then
distinguishable and it was not unnatural for the two to combine gradually and de-
velop into a popular religion, which occurred by the time that Confucianism also
became one in the 2nd century AD. Two other schools of thought, the Mohists and
the Logicians, had also pursued an interest in basic scientific logic (Needham
1956, pp. 165-203). Mohism in the 4th century BC particularly had an interest in
175
Gerard Guthrie
mechanics and physics for defensive military purposes. It reached a threshold for
scientific reasoning, with an understanding of conceptual models, induction and
deduction, but did not develop into a theory of science. The Logicians’ similar
school of philosophy, differentiated in the 1st century AD, was also concerned
with logic, particularly the use of paradoxes to analyse change in nature. Both
schools were lost over time, but some of their proto-scientific thought became in-
corporated into Taoism. A fourth group, the Naturalists, gave rise to the earliest
Chinese scientific theories in the 4th and 3rd centuries BC. The Naturalists devel-
oped schemes for classifying the basic properties of material things into five ele-
ments (water, fire, wood, metal and earth) and two fundamental forces (Yin and
Yang), codified symbolically through the Book of Changes (I Ching) (Needham
1956, pp. 216-345; Cleary 2005, pp. 3-35). These schemas represented a view of
nature as an organic, patterned and harmonious whole. Later influential philoso-
phies, such as Buddhism, also admitted elements of scientific thinking, but none
led to scientific method in the modern sense. The I Ching, in particular, resonated
for centuries in Chinese society. Its arcane system of classification and connec-
tions reflected the predominant bureaucratic approach in a feudal system of gov-
ernance.
Taoism came to include three relevant differences from Confucianism. The first
was that it sought both inorganic and biological knowledge about order in nature
through observation and naturalistic practical experimentation. The second was a
denial of the teleological acceptance of design in nature that was held in Confu-
cianism (Needham 1956, pp. 55-56; Ronan 1978, p. 93). Third, like later schools
of philosophy, Taoism admitted a pragmatic interest in change. While Taoism
never developed a systematic natural philosophy, Taoists were adept at developing
the technological consequences of their observations, largely in a practical, em-
pirical and atheoretical fashion. However, the combination of magic and science
remained in force. The type of formal scientific epistemology that eventually de-
veloped in Europe in the 17th century AD did not develop in China, and thus Chi-
nese epistemology has remained revelatory.
9.2 Confucianism and Education

Confucius held in principle that the capacity to govern had no necessary connec-
tion to birth, wealth or position. He taught that this capacity depended solely on
character and knowledge, which depended on education. In principle, every man
(schooling was of little concern for women) was educable. Needham’s (1956, p. 6)
view was that Confucius was greatest as an educator, being “the first who pointed
out that in teaching there should be no class-distinctions. No qualifications of birth
were necessary in acceptance for the … training that Confucius gave. In this we
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Chapter 9
see one of the germs of the bureaucratic system, according to which whoever was
teachable and ambitious for letters could become a scholar and serve his prince.”
With Confucianism becoming the Han Dynasty state religion in the 2nd century
BC, it provided a prototype for a system of bureaucratic governance. Confucian
books were regarded as providing the ideal educational curriculum, with memori-
sation of classical texts the basis for an examination system that developed with a
selection function for official careers. In turn, Confucianism acquired institutional
substance and a veneer of orthodoxy through state endorsement (Keay 2008, p.
129). Although the examination system was not designed to select scientists, or
even to encourage an interest in science, it did nevertheless select educated people
for positions of power, something that was not even contemplated under feudalism
in Europe (Needham 2004, p. 227). Selection by examination was revolutionary
for the times because it was a vehicle for opening up government appointments
based on ability but, in practice, examination access became limited to the ruling
classes that had the leisure and resources for a classical education for their sons.
“The examination system thus came to perpetuate the interests of the ruling
classes. The great respect for learning … together with the idea of choosing offi-
cials steeped in Confucian literature, survived as fundamental characteristics of
Chinese civilization” (Dawson 1972, p. 22). During the 7th century AD, Confu-
cianism was embedded in local government too, with the establishment of Confu-
cian teaching temples in all provinces and counties. Here, stone tablets displayed
imperial decrees for study (Dawson 1972, p. 58). They, together with a script that
has been standardised for some 3000 years and the development of printing before
the end of the first millennium, meant Confucian precepts remained accessible
over the centuries.
While Chinese civilisation remained largely self-contained and stable until the
19th century, change did occur. Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism were mutu-
ally influential at a philosophical level. As religions, they usually coexisted com-
fortably during times of peace and were often intermixed in daily religious prac-
tice. Keay (2008, pp. 196-209) has usefully typified the role of Confucianism as
being a state religion and the guiding philosophy of the ruling elites, but paying
little attention to the ordinary people and despising trade. Taoism was an alterna-
tive for the commercial and agricultural classes, and for dynastic challengers from
within China. It was particularly influential in some periods (for example, part of
the 8th century AD when candidates for the civil service examinations could
choose to be tested on Taoist rather than Confucian texts), reaching a popular peak
in the 12th century. Buddhism more typically was the religion of outside challeng-
ers. Its influence began in the 4th century AD and was particularly strong from the
7th to 9th centuries AD, and again in the 13th century when Kublai Khan estab-
lished the Mongol Yuan Dynasty. However, Confucianism generally prevailed in
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Gerard Guthrie
government, in considerable part because of its principle of the Mandate of

Heaven, which provided legitimacy for rule to pass from an unjust dynasty to a
new one when power could no longer be maintained in the face of rebellion. This
reinforced the role of officials in conducting Confucian rituals, applying precepts
that could legitimise (often retrospectively) changes of government from one dy-
nasty to another, and in maintaining governmental stability (Dawson 1972, pp. 20-
29, passim; Keay 2008, pp. 216-218, passim).
Confucianism waxed, waned and changed too. During the 12th & 13th centuries
AD, a renaissance led to the school known as Neo-Confucianism attempting to in-
vigorate the moral authority of Confucian thought, although in turn it came to be
regarded as tyrannical. Confucian writings were pared down to the Four Books by
the key figure in the development of Neo-Confucianism, Zhu Xi. These became
not just the basis for memorisation in the examination system but also the mark of
an educated man, whose role was to investigate the complex relationships that or-
dered social life rather than to be curious about other areas of knowledge or em-
pirical investigation. Reform of the civil service examination system was short-
lived, although a longer lasting national school system was established with the in-
tention that civil servants would have to attend it before entering the examination
system. At the end of the Buddhist-influenced Yuan Dynasty in the 14th century,
Neo-Confucian examinations were restored. Neo-Confucianism became the domi-
nant ideology for much of the rest of the Imperial period, with examinations
dominating throughout the Ming and Qing Dynasties until the beginning of the
20th century (Keay 2008, pp. 346-350).
In the later half of the 14th century, the first Ming Emperor also had Confucian
schools established in every county, sub-prefecture and prefecture to augment pri-
vate and monastery schools. Only a classical Confucian education was available
beyond school. Senior institutions prepared candidates for civil service selection
through the only path, the ritualistic and highly competitive examination system,
which imbued the ruling elite with Confucian doctrine and could result in progres-
sively higher trappings of office and wealth. By requiring set standards, prescrib-
ing teaching methods and uniform syllabuses, and establishing controlling bodies
of literary superintendents and chancellors, the examination system assumed a
systematic comprehensiveness unknown in the West before the mass education
systems of the early 19th century. The examination system produced more gradu-
ates than the civil service required, but conferred considerable prestige even on
lower-level degree holders who were unplaced in the civil service and for whom
teaching became an option. Additionally, a network of small private Taoist-
influenced popular schools taught literacy to traders and artisans. They were
subject to lower level state control, but were much under-resourced compared with
the elite’s Confucian schools. Taoist education was more practical than in elite
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Chapter 9
schools, although teaching methods were similar. Pupils were taught the values of
filial propriety along with some 2,000 characters a year, plus calligraphy.
Arithmetic and practical skills were usually taught outside school. The effect was
that there were two distinctive kinds of schooling. One taught Confucian-based
high culture to the sons of the governing elite. The other kind, closer to Taoist
concern with nature and the practical, provided schooling for artisans and traders
(Dawson 1972, pp. 142-146, 204-205; Cleverley 1991; Bol 1997; Keay 2008, pp.
395-396).
9.3 Confucian Teaching Styles

Confucian philosophy had three key elements that underpinned its historical
dominance in educational thought. One was its respect for traditional moral
authority, another was the emphasis on memorising the truths revealed in the
ancient lore documented by Confucius, and a third was its pivotal role in social
advancement through the examination system. To these was added content about
human relations that reinforced respect for the teacher as the fount of traditional
wisdom. However, Confucian teaching methods evolved over time (Gu 2001, pp.
189-194). Confucius’ own school used active non-formal educational methods
based on the teacher setting the example in developing moral and intellectual
qualities among gentlemen scholars (Guo 2006, pp. 34-38, 48-75). Some confu-
sion appears in the educational literature about the age groups to which Confucius
applied this method, but the predominant impression is that it applied not at the
lower levels of schooling but to older students in higher education: university level
and adult learning in the higher cognitive and affective domains, in today’s terms.
The development of Confucian thought on teaching during the 3rd century BC
by the second great Confucian philosopher, Mencius (Mengzi), stressed that the
role of a teacher was to identify the most talented individuals and teach and
nourish them. The teachers’ job was to present ethical precepts rather than
advocate critical thinking. Question and answer methods were to encourage
students to persist, in part through reflection (Guo 2006, pp. 94-109). Within a few
more centuries, formalistic schooling became the Confucian norm. The key Book
of Rites compiled in the 1st century BC from the writings of Confucian scholars
laid down a system with first-level village and district schooling and second-level
education for nine years in universities in the capitals. Schooling was closely
structured, with formalistic observance of rituals, lectures, and memorisation of
texts tested through examination. One of the volumes, Records of Learning, gave
considerable guidance to teachers on the use of open-ended questions to elicit
student thinking, elaboration of teachers’ answers, drilling of students, and use of
analogies. Teachers were required to undergo strict training and were ascribed
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Gerard Guthrie
with an absolute authority to generate respect for doctrines (Guo 2006, pp. 153-
168).
Confucianism has always taught that a moral code linked individual and state
as part of a harmonious whole. The family was patriarchal, but the expectation
that extended families related by descent and marriage would share wealth and
good fortune was conducive to nepotism. Beyond the family, society’s aim was
for harmony and unity through educational prescription, ruled by emperors
expected to maintain ethical principles and good management. The five key hu-
man relationships were those of ruler and minister, father and son, husband and
wife, older and younger brother, and friend to friend. Notionally reciprocal, the re-
lationships depended in practice on deference and devotion by the junior partner.
Within families, the old had more rights that the young, males more than females,
and the head of the household more than other members. Children were bound by
filial piety, which required absolute obedience and complete devotion to their par-
ents and, by extension, to their teachers, whom students were taught to revere
(Cleverley 1991, pp. 1-14).
Confucian obligations were initially taught informally within the family. Zhu
Xi also produced a Neo-Confucian handbook on family rituals (Keay 2008, pp.
349-350) with precepts that set the basis for upbringing in the ruling classes, start-
ing with rules for pregnant women on how to nurture the unborn. Young children
were to be taught hygiene, courtesy and correct ways of reading and writing
through imitation and persistence until learned behaviours became natural habits.
A detailed textbook for children prescribed nine years of formalistic primary
schooling up until the age of 15. Rational principles were to be learned from the
works of the sages through formalistic methods of teaching and learning. Teachers
should have well-planned programmes, while students should read articles until
they were memorised, respect the explanations of the ancient masters, practise the
message in their own life, persist in reading, and read with concentration (Guo
2006, pp. 287-309). The teachers’ first task was to teach characters. At eight, a
boy began tutoring to rote learn the Four Books and the Five Classics. By fifteen,
he was apparently expected to have memorised over 400,000 characters of text (at
2-3 English words per character, perhaps equivalent to some 10 books the size of
this one). Once the texts were learned, he had to learn the longer commentaries on
them and begin work on specimen examination answers. Teaching used formalis-
tic methods of imitation and repetition. Students were forbidden to ask questions
lest they transgressed their rank, and a sharp slap from the teacher’s ruler was pos-
sible for inattention. In turn, teachers were controlled formalistically by an inspec-
tion system (Cleverley 1991, pp. 15-19, 25).
As noted in Chapter 3.4, the effect of all this was to generate an educational
paradigm that persists even in modern times and differs markedly from progres-
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sive Western constructs. The Confucian perspective emphasises benevolence and

ethical behaviour. The intelligent person studies hard, enjoys learning and persists
in lifelong learning. The underlying conceptions of intelligence include nonverbal
reasoning ability, verbal reasoning ability, and (notably, given the derogatory view
of it often held in the progressive school) rote memorisation (Ginsberg et al. 2004,
p. 99). Memorisation, however, means more than mere rote learning without
thought to meaning. It is regarded not as an end in itself, but as a vital repetitive
step preceding understanding by ensuring accurate recall (Lee 1996, pp. 35-36;
Biggs 1996, p. 54). This is not far removed from the role of remembering as the
basic building block in Bloom’s Taxonomy of Cognitive Objectives (Table 11.1).
Teaching styles 2000 years later still resonate with the formalism of the Book of
Rites and with the Neo-Confucian approach to primary schooling. Today a
recognised concept is “vernacular Confucianism”, the common beliefs about the
nature of teaching and learning that are held by Chinese teachers, parents and
students (Chang 2000). Vernacular Confucianism includes beliefs that praise
spoils children, scolding builds character, failure results from laziness rather than
lack of ability, and learning requires painful effort. Chang argued for ethnographic
research into these beliefs; the available research since coming largely from Hong
Kong, where Salili (2001) found that traditional child-rearing beliefs about praise
and punishment were reflected in teachers’ classroom behaviour. The examination
system reflected both historical tradition and the highly competitive life chances
for children. “Cultural values are also reflected in educational policies such as the
length of the schooling, the type of role models the textbooks promote, as well as
the manner in which students and teachers interact” (Salili 2001, p.79).
Additionally, respect and obedience to superiors, including teachers, was typical,
so that questioning a teacher could be considered a sign of disrespect. Traditional
Confucian traits that teachers valued in their students included honesty, self-
discipline, respectfulness to parents, responsibility, diligence, humbleness and
obedience. Teachers should appear stern, especially with new classes; they seldom
praised and provided only limited feedback. Ability was perceived as achievable
and dependent on effort through memorisation and repetition.
Many vernacular Confucian beliefs would not be recognised by Confucius or
endorsed by him as Confucian (Watkins & Biggs 2001, pp. 4-5 ff.). The teaching
styles based in vernacular Confucian beliefs are not apparently consistent with
Confucius’ own approach to higher education, but are more consistent with later
Confucian and Neo-Confucian approaches to first-level schooling. Today, China
is largely a secular country. Confucian philosophy is studied, but practitioners of
Confucianism as a religion are rare. However, like Judeo-Christian values in
Western culture, Confucian-heritage values provide a paradigm that permeates the
constructs even of non-believers.
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9.4 Modern Educational Developments

Three distinct educational periods can be discerned in China’s modern history
from the opening up forced by the first Opium War in the early 1840s. The first
period spanned some 120 years through the end of the Qing Dynasty in 1911, the
Republic in the early 20th century, to the early Communist years in the 1950s and
1960s. Ideas from both Confucianism and Taoism coexisted. From a moral educa-
tion perspective, the Confucian tradition emphasised benevolence and doing what
is right, while the Taoist tradition emphasised the importance of humility, freedom
from conventional standards of judgement, and full knowledge of oneself and
external conditions (Ginsberg et al. 2004). However, there was little apparent
change to the underlying culture of formalistic teaching (Guo 2006, pp. 384-577).
The main outcome from this period was widening of educational opportunity. A
key event in 1905 was the abolition of the Imperial examinations. Content also
widened and Chinese intellectuals adopted some elements of progressive Western
educational thought. Educational philosophers criticised rigid teaching of the clas-
sics and grappled with bringing together broader Western academic and technical
knowledge with Taoist-influenced practical learning. Some modernisation of Con-
fucian and Taoist practices also occurred, for example with mission education of
girls. Opening up education to girls became a major accomplishment in the post-
Liberation period after 1949 as part of a push towards universal education under
the Communist government (Keay 2008, pp. 481, 519). The early years of Com-
munist governance prior to the Cultural Revolution also saw modelling of the edu-
cation system on the Soviet Russian approach, which had strong pedagogical tra-
ditions influenced by German thought (Hayhoe 2001, pp. 11-13; Gu 2001, pp.
184-186).
The second period was the seemingly most thoroughgoing educational revolu-
tion of all, the Cultural Revolution. Mao Zedong’s early educational writings were
progressive, emphasising that student learning should focus actively on moral, in-
tellectual and physical development and that students should not be overburdened
with rote learning and examinations. In 1929, he laid out ten teaching methods
that should be heuristic, use lively language, and encourage students to learn in a
lively and active way. Increasingly, he was also against examinations (Gu 2001,
pp. 94-95). By 1964 at the start of the Cultural Revolution, Mao’s views had be-
come radical rather than progressive, emphasising class struggle, the integration of
education and manual labour, and of theory and practice – but carried to a “de-
structive extreme” (Hayhoe 2001, p. 11) that left a generation undereducated.
From 1966 to 1976, formal schools had very restricted programmes mainly com-
prising political education. Millions of young people were sent to the countryside
for non-formal education aimed at breaking feudal tradition and political opposi-
tion. Universities were closed. While studied internationally and sometimes na-
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ively for its educational philosophy, these days the Cultural Revolution is often
seen primarily as a disastrous political strategy within which educational philoso-
phy was used by Mao as a political weapon (e.g. Chang & Halliday 2005, pp. 534-
569; Keay 2008, pp. 519-522). Its significance for this book is that the Cultural
Revolution did include a comprehensive, highly radical and very unsuccessful
revolutionary attempt to overthrow an educational philosophy that embodied
classroom formalism. The failure saw reversion to traditional educational prac-
tices.
The third period, since 1978, has seen considerable educational reform as part
of the modernisation of the Chinese economy and opening up to international
trade (Hayhoe 2001, pp. 20-23; Rao et al. 2009, pp. 216-219). Notable has been
major expansion of a very large and increasingly well-funded formal education
system providing for nine years of compulsory schooling. In 2001, education re-
forms promulgated 22 primary and 16 senior middle school subject syllabuses
(Zhu 2007). They further added to the drive for modernisation by focussing on
student competencies with practical applications and attempting to move away
from examination-dominated approaches. Concern for moral and ethical education
was also apparent from the late 1980s in a “back to tradition” movement. It began
at the grass-roots implicitly teaching traditional Confucian-based virtues, spread to
3,000 schools and one million students within four years, gained governmental
support in 1994 in the name of “Chinese traditional virtues”, and was still going
strong over ten years later (Yu 2008). The moral concern was illustrated by Guo
(2006, pp. 578-590), who particularly emphasised following truth and respecting
ethics, the cultivation of sound personal character, benevolence towards others,
and trustworthiness. These traditional virtues were placed against a concern that
commercialisation and modernisation could lead to “insatiable” and “avaricious”
ways. Recent interest in Confucianism in education is consistent with attempts to
help develop greater respect for laws and to combat corruption through the
traditional Confucian emphasis on moral qualities as well as intellectual ones.
9.5 Recent Classroom Studies in China

Some 20 years ago, Cleverley (1991 p. 29) observed that young Chinese learners
often brought a diligent, even docile approach to learning:
the deference that many display towards their teachers, and the reverence
that they give the printed word have their historical precedents. Large
amounts of factual content from approved texts are still regularly commit-
ted to heart, examination results are highly commended … Teachers can be
found quoting their favourite Confucian precepts ...
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Gerard Guthrie
Much of the recent research on the Chinese classroom has been driven by interest
in what Biggs (1996) labelled the Paradox of the Chinese Learner, which applied
in the Confucian-heritage cultures of China, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Taiwan
and Singapore. Biggs noted that the sort of teaching conditions generally agreed in
Western progressive thought to be required for good learning were rarely to be ob-
served in Confucian-heritage classrooms. On the contrary, classrooms generally
had over 40 students, appeared to Western observers as highly authoritarian, had
highly expository teaching methods focussed on stressful examinations with low
level cognitive goals, and had lower per capita expenditure than is typical in
Western countries. Yet, learners from Confucian-heritage countries consistently
scored towards the top in IEA studies and nearly always higher than American
students in mathematics, science and language. Biggs (1996, p. 49) pertinently
commented:
We thus have some explaining to do, otherwise some well-supported

propositions about the nature of teaching and learning are at risk. And what
of the political implications (not to mention the face lost by researchers), if
large classes, outdated teaching methods, poor equipment, inadequate pub-
lic expenditure per student, and relentless low-level examining can produce
students who see themselves as engaging in high-level processing, and who
outperform Western students in many subject areas!
Biggs (1996, pp. 50-54) put the paradox in the Dunkin and Biddle (1974) frame-
work of student presage, teaching presage, process and product factors operating
in interaction in an open system tending towards equilibrium. The Western per-
ception had these factors out of kilter because high quality outcomes merged from
poor contexts, but what of Confucian-tradition cultural perceptions? The apparent
contradiction between Western progressive and Confucian formalistic perceptions
arose from too narrow a focus on the components of classroom learning. Rather,
the systems theory perspective meant that, “we should interpret a piece of the ac-
tion in terms of the system of which it is part, not in terms of an exotic system”
(Biggs 1996, p. 54).
Several other researchers have since investigated Confucian-heritage learning
from this perspective, notably in papers found in two volumes edited by Watkins
and Biggs (1996; 2001) and revisited in Chan and Rao (2009, see their overview
and update at pp. 3-32). These three volumes contained papers based predomi-
nantly on research in Hong Kong. Essentially, the evidence is that student per-
formance there was not due passively to superior memorisation, but to superior
cognitive strategies. Rather than focussing on ‘surface’ remembering of facts,
teaching encouraged active, ‘deep’ understanding of underlying meaning. The
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2001 volume added an additional issue, the Paradox of the Chinese Teacher. Simi-
larly, the evidence was that Chinese teaching used formalistic methods in a highly
sophisticated fashion that actually encouraged student engagement in the material,
and that the teachers’ operational context encouraged a collective approach to
teaching.
Interestingly, the Confucian tradition provides a rare example of reverse
educational borrowing from a developing to a developed country. Vulliamy
(1998) commented on some borrowing of Taiwanese whole-class teaching
methods for use in primary schools in England in the 1990s. Very properly, he
cautioned against such overseas borrowings without consideration of cultural
contexts in countries both of origin and destination. This warning provides an
ironic mirror image of the key issue underlying risky borrowings from developed
to developing countries.
The rest of this discussion draws mainly on research that has provided exam-
ples from within classrooms in mainland China itself or among teachers there.
Cortazzi and Jin (2001) reported on the perceptions of good teaching as revealed
in open-ended essays by 135 university students in Tianjin. The highest rating
characteristic, mentioned by 67% of the writers, was teachers’ subject knowledge;
25% mentioned patience, 24% humour, and 22% moral example and friendliness.
As mentioned in Chapter 4.2, they also reviewed evidence that large classes in
China were often not reduced in size even when resources were available because
large classes permitted fewer lessons per week for each teacher and therefore more
time for preparation, supervision of study, and the expected individual attention to
students outside the class. Teachers also could deliver the same lesson to different
classes as a kind of rehearsed performance (the virtuoso approach identified by
Paine 1990).
Physics teaching in Guangzhou was studied by Gao and Watkins (2001), who
undertook semi-structured in-depth interviews with 18 senior secondary teachers.
The interviews were focussed using videotaped episodes from the teachers’ les-
sons. They found that the teachers had conceptions of knowledge delivery based
on the view that learning was a process whereby the teachers knew and delivered
knowledge and skills, learning being the process of acquiring them (a view held in
common with formalistic teachers from other revelatory cultures). The formalistic
teacher was at the centre of classroom teaching-learning processes, the learner a
passive receptor accumulating increasingly more knowledge. The course syllabus
and textbooks defined this knowledge, with neither teachers nor learners making
decisions about content. The teachers’ role especially focussed on exam prepara-
tion, with the examination system perceived as an external driver of teaching and
learning. However, students were not regarded just as passive receptors of infor-
mation, but were expected to develop their ability through an active process of in-
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Gerard Guthrie
ternal construction. Teachers should guide the students using a variety of teaching
strategies, relate the learning to the real world, match students’ ability levels, play
a role in motivating students so that their attitudes to learning were promoted, and
guide their conduct. The effect was that teachers had both ideal conceptions of
teaching relating to learning facilitation, and competing practical conceptions ori-
entated to knowledge transmission that dominated in the classroom.
Highly centralised, top-down curriculum reforms introduced in China in 2001
included a more student-focussed model of teaching and learning. There was a
move away from single national subject textbooks, and emphases on discovery
and cooperative learning with a view to laying a foundation for lifelong learning
(Zhu 2007). Three classroom studies since the introduction of these syllabuses
have shown that discovery and cooperative learning did not extend in practice far
beyond apparently increased attention to more closed questions directed by teach-
ers to students to check their engagement in the lessons. The first study, by Ma et
al. (2004), compared mathematics teaching in two urban and two rural primary
schools in Jilin Province for over one month each. Observation and interviews
found few differences in the way in which formalistic lessons were structured. In
40-minute lessons, teachers on average spent about 15 minutes questioning stu-
dents from the front of the class. A closed question/answer format for checking
understanding was commonly used, with students seldom initiating the questions.
Both urban and rural teachers typically used textbooks and exercises. Students
spent 13 minutes on average completing exercises from textbooks, which were
checked extensively.
The second study by Rao et al. (2009) found similar results. They concentrated
on mathematics teaching in six grade 3 and 5 urban and rural schools in Zhejiang
Province against the background of the curriculum reforms. The schools had aver-
age grade 3 and 5 class sizes of 48, ranging from 34 to 61. The children attended
between six and seven 40-minute classes each day. Different rating systems mean
no direct comparisons can be made with Pfau’s Nepal data in Chapter 2.4, but the
overall pattern of teacher lecturing occupying a considerable majority of time was
similar. Despite large class sizes, videotaped lessons showed children were well-
disciplined and very engaged in the learning process. Teachers did not have to
manage disruptive behaviour, children were seldom criticised and the classroom
atmosphere was very pleasant. Lesson structures were very similar across all
schools, and both grades were instructed in a similar fashion. Teachers typically
introduced a new topic, then used closed questions with students, assigned class
work, and finally summarised the lesson. Notably, nine of the 12 teachers ob-
served did not use textbooks; rather they predominantly used question-and-answer
methods and explanation. Whole-class teaching was used for the majority of les-
son time but, consistent with the new curriculum, with questioning to ensure that
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students were actively involved in learning. The research identified lower student
achievement in rural schools, but teaching styles were similar. The common peda-
gogical approaches used by the teachers were ascribed by the researchers to the
school system, the centrally-prescribed syllabus, common textbooks and a uniform
teacher training curriculum. A third, ethnographic, study by Ma et al. (2006) found
similarly that mathematics teachers in two primary schools in Jilin Province
closely followed the new primary mathematics syllabus but had not taken effec-
tive steps to adapt it to students’ individual differences, particularly because of the
exam culture. Several other studies showing the subtleties of formalistic mathe-
matics classrooms in China can be found in Fan et al. (2004).
There are some strong examples of teacher development being institutionalised
in schools. Cortazzi and Jin (2001, pp. 121-125) additionally reported that the
school system could provide incentives for teachers to learn from each other, act
as mentors, model practices effective within their own context, and that they oper-
ated in a school-teacher culture of collective support. The authors also presented
several examples of good teaching at kindergarten and primary levels: the implica-
tion being that good formalistic teaching was considered in this culture to be a
highly developed professional form. A later oversight by Tsui and Wong (2009)
showed that using schools as the prime site for teacher development derived from
the Soviet Russian model adopted in the 1950s, an approach that has continued to
the present. Formal qualifications in teacher education from ‘normal universities’
were regarded as a beginning; much INSET occurred as daily teacher practice
within schools. Standard approaches included “lesson research” (which included
collective lesson preparation, lesson observation and post-observation
conferencing), demonstration lessons and one-on-one mentoring. The researchers
provided a case study based on 12.5 hours of interviews with players in a
programme in Shanghai that was recognised as an outstanding success, and which
has been modelled elsewhere in China (Tsui & Wong 2009). The programme
involved support to schools from district education offices (whose role was to help
teachers understand the standardised curriculum framework and materials and to
provide in-service support) and from district level educational academies (which
undertook action research on teaching). In a number of schools, teacher
professional development was organised systematically, including subject groups
working on collective lesson preparation. Networks among schools had also been
established. The systematic approach to INSET was based on an apprenticeship
model for inexperienced teachers, who were initially lightly loaded. They were
assigned mentors, whom they observed and who provided feedback on subject
knowledge and instructional strategies from classroom observation. Collective
lesson preparation was used to develop virtuoso lessons that would be carefully
planned, critiqued, refined into a standard piece, and rehearsed and repeated,
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Gerard Guthrie
perhaps for decades with standard material. Teaching demonstrations were also
held at school, district, province and national levels, and open to critique from
large audiences. The key proponent of this programme was guided by Confucian
thinking on the integration of teaching, learning and doing, within which any
Western influences were applied (Tsui & Wong 2009, pp. 290-304).
Mok (2006) reported a case study of 15 videotaped lessons from one Chinese
mathematics classroom in Shanghai that was influenced by this teacher develop-
ment programme. The lessons had 67% of time on whole-class instruction, 22%
on individual work and 11% on small group or pair work. The teacher was peda-
gogical in style, with the whole-class instruction including frequent questions to
the students (although hardly any instances of student-initiated questions), and
with some attention to variation within lessons. The consistently attentive students
valued learning of content, but did actively reflect on what was happening in the
lessons. Based on this, Mok argued the somewhat convoluted notion that a
teacher-dominated lesson may actually be interpreted as an alternative form of
student-centredness.
Halstead and Zhu (2010) drew a useful distinction between a central goal of
Western progressive education (the “personal autonomy” of the individual as a
self-actualised decision-maker) and the emphasis in recent educational reforms in
China on the more limited “learner autonomy” (which applies to individuals tak-
ing more responsibility for their own learning, balanced by a recognition of inter-
dependence and collectivism). Their ethnographic research provided a snapshot
from observation of 12 lessons in a senior high school English class in Beijing and
semi-structured interviews with the teacher and 10 randomly selected students.
Even limited learner autonomy was hardly a reality at all in the classroom, the re-
searchers found. The teacher and students expressed a desire for student autonomy
and management of class activities for which the students had responsibility, but
there was very limited implementation in practice. The teacher found her hands
tied both by her own tendency to dominate the learning process (in accordance
with traditional Chinese expectations of a teacher) and by the requirements of the
university entrance examination.
The overall effect of these studies is to show that the heritage of formalistic
Confucian teaching apparently predominates in classrooms in mainland China.
The state lays down syllabuses, textbooks and teacher training requirements, and
the school system has much in common across the whole country. Since the start
of this century, policy had been for teachers to pay more attention to student learn-
ing. Given centralised control and the effectiveness of the INSET strategies, these
policies appear to have been implemented quickly. The effect is not, however, to
introduce progressive liberal or democratic methods, but to upgrade the level of
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Chapter 9
formalism by having teachers direct more closed (rather than open) questions to
students during the predominant whole-class lessons.
Some research based primarily on the Confucian tradition in Hong Kong is also
germane. One finding about the working role and the formalistic culture of
teaching in Hong Kong compared with Australia was that the Chinese teacher-
student relationship was more formal and hierarchical but not necessarily
authoritarian, and was not limited to the classroom. Like in China, there were very
hierarchical classroom practices, but they were surrounded by active and more
informal friendly interactions outside the classroom (Ho 2001). Many students
often initiated informal collaboration in small groups (Tang 1996).
Within Hong Kong classrooms, progressive influences have also come from
Western educated teachers and educators, “who are active in trying to change the
education system of Hong Kong from teacher-centered, examination and textbook
driven to a more student-centered, broader-based and analytical system” (Salili
2001, p. 78). Chan (2001) put a case for Western-developed principles of con-
structivist instruction for the promotion of learning and understanding in Hong
Kong, although Sachs et al. (2003) subsequently found difficulties in transferring
laboratory-based studies of cooperative learning task performance to classroom
conditions. Chan and Rao (2009, pp. 12-22, 326-330), in revisiting the Chinese
Learner Paradox, perhaps prematurely claimed that recent contextual changes to
system structure in China and Hong Kong (decentralisation, school-based devel-
opment, redefinition of educational goals and an emphasis on life-long learning)
have included a paradigm shift from knowledge transmission to knowledge con-
struction. Chan (2009) called this “transforming pedagogy”, with an emphasis on
practices drawing on constructivist and problem-based learning that help Chinese
learners learn how to learn. Yet, the examples of research within mainland China
suggest that the main change to classroom practice appears to relate to teachers
asking more closed questions of their students to check knowledge, which is
scarcely a full-scale adoption of constructivist techniques. Nor do 10 years of mild
change seem to carry the potential to alter dramatically 2000 years of formalistic
Confucian tradition.
9.6 Conclusion
The educational psychologist, John Biggs, using systems theory as a conceptual
framework, reached a similar end point about the importance of context as com-
parative educationalists influenced by anthropology (Chapter 1.1). In this vein, the
Chinese educationalist, Gu Mingyuan (2001, pp. 105-110; see also Wu 2009), has
sensibly argued that a country with strong educational traditions, such as China,
must aim both to preserve cultural identity and to modernise. For Gu,
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Gerard Guthrie
modernisation did not mean Westernisation as such; rather indigenous cultural

traditions must change and develop, partly on the basis of considered choices
about the assimilation of foreign cultural elements.
Recent research into classrooms on mainland China has found an apparently
stable and widespread approach to classroom teaching and teacher development.
This is consistent with the view that teaching in primary and secondary schools is
primarily formalistic, albeit with some very effective institutionalised procedures
for teacher development, especially to have teachers increase closed questioning
of students in class. Three cautions need to be entered about this research,
however. The first is that the studies reported in the international English-language
literature are quite limited in volume and scope. They are mainly from
mathematics classes and from urban and coastal areas, and it may be that further
research will indicate more variation in practice than is apparent so far. The
second is that while the findings are highly consistent, this could be in part a
reflection of limited samples and non-random access to classrooms. Western
commentators tend to fluctuate between extremes in a love-hate relationship with
China: on the one hand, I am conscious of the guided academic reportage on
China during the 1950s and 1960s, which often verged on hagiography, and the
unrealistic enthusiasm that dominated international attention to China when it
opened up in the 1980s; and, on the other hand, of current hostility to China as it
emerges into the international arena on issues such as climate change. The
requirement to meet both cautions is further larger scale research, preferably
including reviews of research published within China.
The third caution about the recent literature is that most of the recent, valuable
wave of research into Confucian-heritage education is based on studies in Hong
Kong, not mainland China. Hong Kong was originally established by Britain and
has been exposed to considerable British educational influence, as well as to a
diaspora of political and economic refugees from China. Hong Kong and China
thus have cultural and structural differences as well as similarities in education
and classroom practice (Biggs & Watkins 2001, pp. 284-288). While seemingly
focussed on the classroom, current critiques claiming that progressive forces are
changing formalistic Confucian tradition need to be seen against the political
background of the severe reservations within Hong Kong about the return of the
territory to China in 1997 and the placement then of liberal educational reform
high on the agenda (Morris 1992). Many attempts to make modern Confucian-
heritage classrooms more progressive currently derive from Hong Kong and seem
to contain some progressive cognitive dissonance stemming from the
contradiction between Confucian heritage emphasising the importance of learning
revealed truths and Western scientific epistemologies emphasising the importance
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of individual enquiry. Time will tell whether these critiques forecast educational
change or embody a rearguard political perspective.
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influences (pp. 183-204). Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University
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SECTION 3
NEW CONJECTURES
Popper’s approach to the development of scientific knowledge involves a series of

conjectures and refutations. Existing conjectures, propositions and hypotheses are
analysed and either accepted, rejected or modified. New ones arise, and they too
are subject to refutation. Section 3 completes a Popperian cycle with some conjec-
tures and prognostications that arise from the old conjectures and their refutation.
The Section’s theoretical and methodological conjectures are new in the sense
that that they are replacements for older ones rather than new in time: some 30
years have passed since the first expression of some of their elements. Their es-
sence is of the positive advantages of formalism. Others, like Beeby, have reluc-
tantly conceded that formalism must be coped with; some like Tabulawa have
pointed to its cultural roots as a paradigm: however, the conjecture here goes fur-
ther in pointing to the positive aspects of formalism. Hopefully, this conjecture
will lead to further academic and professional consideration where, like Beeby’s,
it will rise or fall on its merits.
First, Chapter 10 synthesises the analyses, evidence and findings from earlier
in the book to present a cohesive account of formalism as an educational
paradigm and why it can be relevant in developing country cultural contexts. To
the extent that this material repeats key points from earlier in the book, I crave
indulgence because, after all, repetition is part of the formalistic method. The
chapter also contains a model of five teaching styles that removes the methodo-
logical objections to the stages model for research and considers some of the ap-
plications of the model within and between contexts. It also considers some of the
more immediate technical issues for educational researchers, including options
for classroom observation techniques. Given the inability of educational systems
to cope with revolutionary change, the future for improving the level of teaching
in many developing countries lies in operating within the constraints of formalistic
systems and in working to improve their levels of formalism.
The Progressive Education Fallacy has led to the introduction of enquiry
teaching styles in developing countries, using them to apply theories that confuse
process and product. Particularly to assist educational decision-making, Chapter
11 discusses some of the experimental design issues for consideration in field
testing of curriculum innovations and in framing grounded classroom research.
The critical issue is whether student learning actually benefits from changes to
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Gerard Guthrie
teaching styles, the hypothesis being that formalistic styles are more effective in
revelatory cultures with the lower cognitive levels found in primary and secondary
schools. Considerable caution is needed with prematurely optimistic findings from
pilot projects and research into curriculum change that focusses on teaching
styles as a dependent rather than independent variable. The chapter also clarifies
issues to do with the adoption of innovation and suggests some paths for upgrad-
ing formalistic teaching. Given the conclusion from Chapter 5 that teaching and
teacher education are highly specific to context, these ideas are not prescriptive,
but indicate some of the more straightforward paths that are available.
The cross-cultural implications of the progressive school-based Western norms
embedded in the stages and the strength of other culturally-derived epistemologies
have not received the widespread attention they deserve. The central issue in the
failure of progressivism is not so much the methodological weaknesses of the
stages approach as its circular teleological logic and the failure to address fully
the cultural biases inherent in progressive educational values. Chapter 12
concludes the book in turning to far reaching and contentious issues. Are
educational patterns universal? Is formalism emotionally destructive? Do
Anglophone educational values have widespread relevance? Does neuroscanning
research have implications for the introduction of progressive enquiry techniques
in primary and secondary schools in developed as well as developing countries?
Theoretically inelegant though it may be, educational solutions need to be
grounded in local realities. The time has come to work with rather than against
formalistic teaching.
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CHAPTER 10
EDUCATION IN CULTURAL CONTEXTS
Section 3 completes a Popperian cycle with some conjectures and prognosti-

cations that arise from the old conjectures and their refutation. First, Chapter
10 synthesises the analyses, evidence and findings from earlier in the book to
present a cohesive account of formalism as an educational paradigm and why
it can be relevant in developing country cultural contexts. The chapter con-
tains a model of five teaching styles that removes the methodological objec-
tions to the stages model for research and considers some of the applications
of the model within and between contexts. It also considers some of the more
immediate technical issues for educational researchers, including options for
classroom observation techniques. Given the inability of educational systems
to cope with revolutionary change, the future for improving the level of teach-
ing in many developing countries lies in operating within the constraints of
formalistic systems and in working to improve their levels of formalism.
An issue of fundamental importance to those involved in teaching, curriculum and

teacher education in multicultural settings is which teaching styles should be pro-
moted. Should teaching be formalistic or progressive, should it be teacher-centred
or student-centred? Careful consideration needs to be given to such questions, not
only where teacher trainers and curriculum developers are from other countries,
but also when they have studied at overseas universities. In the first case, interna-
tional contactors may not be fully aware of the significance of cultural differences
affecting teaching and learning; in the second case, progressive international val-
ues may provide culturally inappropriate influences.
A major reason for the prevalence of formalism is its compatibility with revela-
tory epistemologies in societies that value respect for knowledge and for authority,
and that regard ritual as meaningful in itself. This book draws the conclusion that,
despite the disapproval of many progressive educationists, formalism is appropri-
ate in the many educational and cultural contexts where it has positive value in it-
self. Whole-class formalistic processing of fixed syllabuses and textbooks, with its
emphasis on memorising basic facts and principles, is effective in revelatory cul-
tures at promoting learning, particularly at the lower cognitive levels required in
primary and secondary schools. Formalistic teaching is consistent with the formal-

Gerard Guthrie
istic examinations, teacher training and inspection systems that provide coherence
in many educational systems, providing a base on which to build in the many
situations where teachers and students feel comfortable with it.
Rather than repeating the summary of the book in Chapter 1, now the primary
aim is to provide a theoretical synthesis of elements from the earlier chapters,
which draws out the positive elements of formalism. The second purpose of this
chapter is to provide a macro-level model of teaching styles. The chapter also dis-
cusses some of the benefits from using a variety of classroom research methods.
10.1 Formalist Paradigms

Teachers’ intuitive, culturally-derived assumptions about the nature of knowledge
and the ways it ought to be transmitted, and their perceptions of the role of stu-
dents and the goals of schooling, influence their teaching styles. Deep-rooted reve-
latory philosophies about the nature of truth and how it should be revealed often
provide the basis for formalistic educational paradigms, providing long-term pat-
terns for teachers’ and students’ behaviour, notably a didactic approach to revela-
tion of knowledge to learners. In formalistic classrooms, the learner’s basic role is
to memorise knowledge, preferably develop an understanding of it, and later act
on it in an appropriate fashion and pass it on to others eligible to receive it. Even
where teachers are not particularly conscious of the underlying epistemology,
formalism provides a model for the classroom with assumptions that students can
and do share with their teachers.
Clearly, a major commonality in primary and secondary schools in many de-
veloping countries is the wide spread of formalism as a teaching style. The
Kuhnian concept of paradigms – for which we can thank Tabulawa (1997) for
bringing to this discussion – helps explain formalism’s on-going prevalence. Para-
digms are systems of intellectual thought that provide social constructs that consti-
tute ways of viewing reality. Two main paradigms have competed in the interna-
tional educational arena over the last 50 years. Formalism and progressivism
derive from opposed assumptions about the social world, the nature of reality and
the learner. Both traditions have distinct views of what constitutes legitimate
knowledge, how that knowledge should be transmitted, and how it is subsequently
assessed. Formalism is not congruent with the basic tenets of learner-centred
methods because the teacher is the centre of the classroom rather than the student,
and knowledge is to be transmitted not discovered. In short, the two paradigms are
based on incongruent epistemological assumptions and educational values.
This discussion about paradigms is being held in the plural. Commonalities in
formalistic paradigms are their base in revelatory epistemology and preferences
for pedagogy rather than andragogy, but their particular natures vary from cultural
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Education in Cultural Contexts
context to cultural context. As Tabulawa pointed out in Botswana, the prevalence

there of didactic, teacher-centred classrooms is underpinned by a philosophy of
knowledge embedded in a wider culture. The same was true of tribal Papua New
Guinea and Confucian China. The influence of the Confucian tradition in China
suggests that any attempt to sustain progressive changes will have little impact on
a formalistic tradition which has dominated for two millennia. That China should
have a commonality with Botswana or Papua New Guinea is somewhat surprising,
but may be explained by the level of abstraction with which we consider the con-
cepts. The similarities in the principles underpinning their epistemologies (that
knowledge is based on revealed truths from gods and ancestors), obviously should
not be confused with any idea that the contents of their epistemologies (who re-
vealed what, when, how, and to whom) or institutional manifestations (academies
with written records or oral bush tradition) are similar. Equally, the reverse ap-
plies. The differences in the surface manifestations of these epistemologies should
not blind us to their underlying commonalities.
The formalist paradigm in Papua New Guinea, as the most detailed example in
this book, saw revelatory knowledge passed on through ancient pedagogical tradi-
tion. As Lawrence (1964) and Carrier (1980) showed, in essence traditional
knowledge had a unified epistemology going back to the ancestors and the deities.
Sacred knowledge was finite, like the cosmic order from which it came. All im-
portant truth was invented by the deities and passed down through ancestral myths
that provided secular and ritual procedures for exploiting them, and which were to
be accepted not challenged. Independent human intellect and intellectual enquiry
had little to do with this knowledge: it came into the world ready made and ready
to use, and could be augmented not by human intellectual experiment but only by
further revelations from new or old deities. Knowledge was thus revealed by the
gods or through instruction from those who already possessed it. It was pragmatic
and finite. Its purpose was human survival and transmittal of the culture, and it
was controlled and regulated to these ends. Society’s aim was to transmit faith-
fully the accepted ways of life. Learners had to master esoteric, sacred knowledge;
it could not be newly generated, but could only be passed on to initiates by those
already in possession. The task of the learner was to locate knowledgeable people
and to gain knowledge, not by asking questions, but by looking and listening to
those who were known to be trustworthy. The institutionalised role of teachers
was acknowledged and they played an important personal role in teaching initi-
ates, whether individually or in groups. This formal education used formalistic
methods, with its teachers often giving didactic verbal instruction based on a core
curriculum of sacred knowledge. It was coincidental that the formalistic teaching
brought by missionaries and other educators in colonial schools was culturally
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Gerard Guthrie
congruent with traditional epistemology and pedagogy that predated European

colonisation.
(In case anyone should think that this example is irrelevant to the rest of the
world, I suggest rereading the previous paragraph and substituting the fundamen-
talist versions of any major religion for “Papua New Guinea”. For example, “Old
Testament Christianity” and “Radical Islam” fit with remarkably little other ad-
justment. To complete the analogy, then consider how successful science-based
atheism might be in communities where such religious traditions prevail.)
For educators, improving teaching is a legitimate act. None of the above is in-
tended as an argument for accepting formalism in its totalities. Nor is it intended
to legitimise lack of effort to improve the level of formalistic teaching. However,
the thrust of the argument is that incremental change within the formalistic teach-
ing style may well succeed, but attempts to change to another style will not. Suc-
cessful attempts to improve the level of formalistic teaching, it can be hypothe-
sised, might occur where they focus on elements considered marginal to the core
of formalism, but not where they appear in contradiction to its key cultural pre-
cepts. The tensions that these issues generate are indicated by Tabulawa’s research
in Botswana, which added a dimension to formalism that might or might not apply
elsewhere. There, Tabulawa found that learning was the responsibility of the stu-
dent. The teacher’s job was to reveal knowledge; the pupil’s job was to learn it.
Apparently, many teachers did not consider they actually had an obligation to as-
sist the learning process. In a similar environment, O’Sullivan (2004) did find
some teachers in Namibia able to reconsider such a view and, at least in the short-
term, to change their teaching. Whether or not this change would be sustained
(and no evidence was presented either way) could well depend on the extent to
which teachers perceived that helping students would violate cultural standards
about self-reliance. If help were considered an appropriate act, in loco parentis for
example, then the change might sustain. If such help were considered to lessen, for
example, students’ self-reliance and their ability to survive in a harsh rural envi-
ronment, perhaps the changes would not sustain. Teaching is a cultural act, and so
is attempting to improve it.
Formalism has been the subject of many failed progressive curriculum and
teacher education reforms in developing countries for half a century or more. Re-
gardless of any merits of progressive education reforms in the abstract, the evi-
dence strongly suggests that formalistic paradigms prevail in countries with reve-
latory cultures. Pragmatically, one could argue, the high likelihood of failure is the
only necessary reason to reject progressive reforms. However, in looking for ex-
planations for such failures, the instigators often misdirect attention to the teachers
themselves, to teacher training, inspections and the educational bureaucracy,
rather than to the key underlying reason, which is the compatibility of formalism
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Chapter 10
with revelatory cultures. Conversely, cultural incompatibility is a key explanation

for why progressive reforms fail so freely. The introduction of Western progres-
sive cultural precepts into societies with different value systems can be in conflict
with revelatory values. Yes, parents might want modern schooling to help their
children get jobs but, no, they might not understand or appreciate notions of intel-
lectual enquiry that might also encourage the children to reject parental values and
the authority of elders. Nor may they appreciate reform of the examination system
that appears to provide one of the few real opportunities for their children to es-
cape from poverty.
Constructs and the educational paradigms in which they are embedded are not
just individual perceptions, but are culturally framed and derived from the social
environment. Equally, parents, teachers and children do not just passively and re-
flexively apply cultural tradition; their responses can represent purposeful, ra-
tional, thoughtful behaviour. The need is to understand how they perceive curricu-
lum innovation and the extent to which innovations are consistent with their
beliefs about schooling. Relevant here is Rogers’ (2003) analysis. Innovations
perceived as having greater relative advantage, compatibility, trialability and ob-
servability, and as having less complexity, are adopted more rapidly in organisa-
tions than innovations that do not have these attributes. The unwillingness of some
formalistic teachers to adopt progressive innovations is understandable as a ra-
tional response to complex reforms that offer no relative advantage in the class-
room, are not compatible with existing methods, and offer no observable out-
comes for clients such as parents concerned with examination results – which
explains why such innovations rarely survive the trial period. All this adds point to
Vulliamy’s (1990, p. 230) rejection of the naïvety of the “blame the teacher” view
of innovation failure where policy-makers and evaluators do not adequately ad-
dress the socio-cultural milieu in which innovations take place.
The value systems that formalism provides for both teachers and students con-
tribute to the many failures to change didactic classroom practices. Papua New
Guinea provides a detailed example, with the on-going failure in the classroom of
many progressive innovations over a period of some 50 years, and no counter-
evidence to indicate any sustained successes at replacing formalism. This particu-
lar refutation of the progressive claim to universality is supported by many failures
with similar reform attempts in Africa and Asia, including some of the more de-
tailed examples in this book from Botswana, Hong Kong, Kenya, Nigeria, Singa-
pore and Zambia. Likewise, formalistic educational forms over 2000 years old
make unlikely the adoption of far more recent Western models of a progressive
education in China. Research into modern applications of the ancient Confucian
educational paradigm has shown that apparently hierarchical and dominant for-
malistic teachers can and do have concerns for their students’ learning and that it
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Gerard Guthrie
is possible to improve their formalistic teaching to add more overt engagement of

students through closed questions. The claim that this is generating a new student-
centred constructivism seems doubtful, but the Chinese example demonstrates that
formalistic teachers can encourage deep understanding of underlying meaning
rather than relying on surface recall, and that well-institutionalised formalistic in-
service can support teachers along this path.
One of formalism’s strengths is its functionality within the poorly resourced
classroom settings that exist in many developing countries, where teachers often
face large classes in rooms with very basic furniture and materials. The functional-
ity of formalism in schools and classrooms with poor facilities is a considerable
asset, although formalism is not just a response to lack of resources. While more
resources are useful in schools, they will not necessarily be effective in changing
teaching styles. Even were financing of education not highly limited by small
budgets and even were working conditions in schools and classrooms improved,
formalism would still prevail unless the cultural context were to change. Formal-
ism is likely to remain embedded in many school systems for the foreseeable fu-
ture because it is derived from paradigms symptomatic of pervasive cultural con-
tinuities compatible with traditional and on-going pedagogical practices.
10.2 Teaching Styles Model

We need, however, to be more specific about formalism, especially for research
purposes. Trying to better define educational stages is a false lead, given their
theoretical and methodological invalidities. It is more sound methodologically to
develop lower level models, use them to develop an appropriate data bank and
then attempt more sophisticated cross-cultural analyses of classroom practice. One
approach is a model focussed solely on classroom teaching styles rather than
broadly using teachers as a surrogate for education systems, as did Beeby.17 The
model presented in this section is designed to meet the theoretical and methodo-
logical objections to the stages approach found in Chapter 3.1. As an ideal-type
model of teaching styles, the model lacks any pretension to sophistication, but it
may be useful cross-culturally for initially identifying at a macro level variations
in teaching style, an issue of considerable importance to educational professionals.
Such research may become helpful in clarifying some of the conflicts about differ-
ent types of teaching that are implicit in pre-service training, inspections, in-
service training, curriculum design, and syllabus and textbook production in dif-
ferent countries.
17 Chapter 10.2 draws from Guthrie (1981) with permission of the Faculty of Education, now
located at the University of Goroka.
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Chapter 10
So far, this book has written about two predominant classroom styles, which
essentially are teacher-centred and learner-centred, in large part because this is
how the discussion has been couched for several decades now. Alexander (2001)
and Barrett (2007) have stated that the debate on teaching in low-income countries
has tended to assume this over-simplified conceptualisation, and that theory
needed to move beyond a polarised view to allow for teachers to work with a
mixed palate of techniques and ideas. In dealing with this issue, first we need to
clarify some semantics because it seems that the meaning of pedagogy is migrat-
ing. Alexander (2001, p. 507) defined pedagogy as “both the act of teaching and
the discourse in which it is embedded”. While central propositions of this book are
fully in agreement with Alexander that pedagogy is contextually-based in values,
collapsing the meaning of cultural context and teaching style into the one term
removes a useful analytical distinction that I shall retain. Likewise, Barrett (2007)
has broadly used pedagogy as a label for both teacher-centred and learner-centred
classrooms. This usage loses another useful distinction, so I shall continue to use
the meaning that treats pedagogy as a form centrally focussed on the teacher, in
contrast to andragogy centrally focussed on the student.
Nonetheless, the point about over-simplification of classrooms as either
teacher-centred or learner-centred is valid. The Teaching Styles Model in Table
10.1 deals with this in part by positing five classroom teaching styles in a contin-
uum from conservative to progressive. The five teaching styles have common-
sense labels: Authoritarian, Formalistic, Flexible, Liberal and Democratic. The
continuum is based on the four variables of Teacher Role (from authoritarian to
democratic), Student Role (passive-active), Content Approach (teaching-learning),
and Reinforcement (negative-positive). The styles are intended to apply to formal
schooling at primary, secondary and tertiary levels, although in the descriptions
that follow some flexibility is required in interpreting at each level terms such as
classroom, teacher, student and reinforcement. The label Progressive has been
used in this book to encompass both Liberal and Democratic styles, while propo-
nents of progressivism often treat Authoritarianism and Formalism as synonyms.
From a measurement perspective, the model is in the form of a continuum with
five analytically distinct but empirically arbitrary divisions that represent differ-
ences of degree, rather than of kind. The typology represents for explanatory pur-
poses continuous variables on ordinal scales. Such typologies are commonly used
in education, but it is worth reiterating some of the measurement properties of or-
dinal scales to clarify what the table is and is not intended to represent (Guthrie
2010, pp. 150-151). Ordinal scales are based on continuous variables, with each
category incorporating transitivity (i.e. if a>b, and b>c, then a>c). The categories
measure in terms of more or less of the quality expressed by each variable, but
without specifying the size of the interval. Labels are assigned to the categories for
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Gerard Guthrie
convenience, but other labels could be used or other categories added. Boundaries
between the categories are drawn as broken lines, the implication being that they
are arbitrary to a degree and capable of being redefined. Such redefinition, how-
ever, should be consistently transitive in relation to the underlying variables. Any
teacher may combine categories at different parts of each variable to give a domi-
nant style, and it is not intended to imply that the styles are discrete.
The model is intended to remove Western education as the basis for predicting
direction of change. The styles are represented ordinally as being more, or less,
teacher-centred, but the model is intended to be taken at a purely nominal level as
far as evaluation of the desirability or undesirability of teaching styles and their
components is concerned, i.e. no one style is defined as ‘better’ than another. The
evaluative judgement that styles are ‘better’ or ‘worse’ is deliberately excluded as
a matter external to the model. My personal view is that the best teachers can use
any or all of these styles, separately or in combination, as the occasion warrants.
The basis of the model is the teacher, and this deliberately implies that the
teacher is more important than the other variables in creating a classroom teaching
style. The teacher has the most important organisational role whether the class-
room is authoritarian and teacher-centred, with students not allowed to speak at
will, or whether the classroom is democratic and student-centred, with active pupil
participation in decision-making. Even where student-teacher relationships are
based on a form of progressive ethical egalitarianism, the teacher wields consid-
erably more direct and indirect authority as controller of time, knowledge re-
source, organiser of materials, arbiter in disputes and, especially, as the person
usually responsible for allocating student grades. Furthermore, educational bu-
reaucracies and school organisation place the teacher in a key hierarchical role as
implementer of policy, whether progressive or conservative.
The model is intended to represent classroom reality as understood by practis-
ing teachers. Deliberately, the model has not been made more complex, as is the
practice in two other educational fields. The school effectiveness research re-
viewed in Chapter 5 typically collects data on a very wide range of variables of di-
rect and often indirect influence on the classroom. Educational psychology litera-
ture also has an abundance of complex flow charts on teaching and learning (see
examples on the Chinese learner in Chan & Rao 2009). Both school effectiveness
and educational psychology fields clearly represent researchers’ complex attempts
to provide holistic descriptions rather than the more bounded and action-orientated
views of practitioners. Nonetheless, Barrett’s further points, that more nuance is
needed in considering classroom practice than is provided by dichotomous views
of teacher- or student-centred styles, and that teachers need a mixed palette of
techniques and ideas, are taken into account in this model in three ways. One is
the style labelled Flexible. Another is that improvements to Formalism or to any
204
Table 10.1 Classroom Teaching Styles Model
Variables AUTHORITARIAN | FORMALISTIC | FLEXIBLE | LIBERAL | DEMOCRATIC

Teacher Role Formal and | Formal with well | Uses variety | Actively promotes | Leader of
(authoritarian to domineering, | established routines | in methods and some | student-centred class | democratically
democratic) imposing rigid norms | and strict hierarchical | relaxation of | room. Encourages | based group.
and sanctions. | control. | controls, but still | pupil participation | Coordinator
| | dominant. | in decisions. | of activities.
| | | |
Student Role Passive recipient of | Passive, although | More active role | Works within fairly | Actively participates
(passive to active) teacher-defined roles | some overt | within constraints | wide boundaries, | in decisions.
in behaviour and | interaction. | defined by teacher. | especially in learning | Increasingly
learning. Little overt | | | decisions. | responsible for own
interaction. | | | | actions.
| | | |
Content Teaching of | Organised | Some flexibility in | Wide degree of | Strong emphasis on
Approach prescriptive syllabus | processing of | use of syllabus and | curricular choice. | student learning at
(teaching to learn- with closely defined | syllabus with | textbooks, with | Emphasis on | individual pace.
ing) content for rote | emphasis on | attention to learning | learning processes | Teacher a resource.
learning. | memorisation. | problems. | rather than content. |
| | | |
Reinforcement Strict teacher control | Strong teacher- | Greater attempts to | Increased | Positive response to
(negative to posi- with strong negative | based negative | use positive | emphasis on | internal motivation,
tive) sanctions (e.g. | sanctions, | reinforcement, | positive | although with latent
corporal | especially focussed | backed by strong | reinforcement. | teacher authority.
punishment) | on learning. | negative sanctions. | |
enforcing obedience. | | | |
| | | |
Source: Guthrie (1981, p. 158).
Chapter 10
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Gerard Guthrie
other style may involve more variation in classroom techniques, which proposition
encompasses a third point, that Formalism is not defined as narrowly as Barrett as-
sumed. As related in Chapter 2.4, any assumption that formalistic teachers never
use variety in their methods and never involve students is misplaced. The defini-
tion of Formalism in Chapter 1.2 and in Table 10.1 allows for some overt teacher-
student and student-student interaction, as illustrated previously in Pfau’s Nepal
research in Table 2.1.
The five teaching styles in the model are:
Authoritarian. The Authoritarian teacher is very formal and domineering; in-

deed, the prime role of the authoritarian teacher is to promote obedience to organ-
isational requirements. This may be true, for example, of total institutions such as
armies and some religious orders, where use of the style is a deliberate attempt to
socialise recruits into following orders in strongly hierarchical authority systems.
The Authoritarian teacher typically teaches a prescriptive syllabus and operates
through rote learning of facts and principles, whether the 3Rs, recitation of reli-
gious tracts or the operation of a rifle. The teacher defines the norms of behaviour
and of learning, while the student’s overt role is to be obedient and to respond to
directions. In schools, a variety of reasons suggest themselves for teachers to or-
ganise classrooms in such a way. The predominant one is that this style may be
compatible with the teachers’ and students’ culture (or at least the culture into
which students are being inducted). Additionally, teachers may have authoritarian
personality traits, or be insecure and use authoritarianism as a mask or, simply,
large groups may necessitate rigid organisation. Reinforcement is essentially nega-
tive and frequently involves physical sanctions such as corporal punishment both
for breaches of behaviour codes and failure to learn.
Formalistic. The Formalistic teacher is also hierarchical, formal and dominant,

but promotes formalism as a route to knowledge rather than promoting obedience
as such. Students generally play a passive role in whole-class teaching, but limited
overt teacher-student and student-student interaction (such as question and answer
routines and paired work) may be permitted under conditions controlled by the
teacher. Teaching is an organised processing of fixed syllabuses and textbooks,
with emphasis on memorising basic facts and principles, but there is less ready use
of physical punishment as a negative reinforcement. Formalistic teaching is espe-
cially common in the many developing countries with revelatory cultures.
Careful attention to terminology is required here, especially with current and
sometimes ambiguous usage of the label ‘whole-class’. This label is sometimes
used with both formalistic and progressive teaching, the distinction lying in the
type of questioning that applies. The formalist will use closed questions to check
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Chapter 10
student recall, whereas the progressive teacher will tend to ask open questions de-
signed to promote student understanding, i.e. use ‘interactive whole-class’ meth-
ods.
Flexible. The Flexible teacher uses a variety of methods to promote student

learning; however, the different methods are often limited in scope and frequency
of use and are teacher-dominated. The variety may serve as positive reinforcement
of other forms of teaching, to increase interest and motivation, and to adapt to in-
dividual differences. Formal controls may be relaxed and more attempt made to
explain norms to help students to internalise them and use them informally. How-
ever, the teacher retains and uses the authoritarian role and strong negative rein-
forcement is a backstop. Syllabuses and textbooks are used with some flexibility,
and students are encouraged to think problems through and to apply knowledge to
their own circumstances. Many teachers who are predominantly formalistic may
use some flexibility in their methods, for example, the social studies teacher or-
ganising a debate on current affairs or the science teacher supervising student ex-
periments in the laboratory are often doing so in the context of limited variation in
methods of teaching. Even so, the teacher remains clearly in charge.
Liberal. The Liberal teacher is essentially student-centred and works to base

classroom activities around student needs. Students work within fairly wide
boundaries established by the teacher and take an active role in decision-making
about learning. Teachers have a wide range of choice in adapting the curriculum to
class needs and students have a wide range of options between and within curricu-
lums. Syllabuses are based around learning processes rather than cognitive content
and encourage problem-solving. Learning resources are wide ranging. Many pri-
mary classrooms, especially in the ‘developed’ world, operate in this fashion and
secondary and tertiary classes often have similar emphases.
Democratic. The Democratic teacher’s role is to coordinate activities that pro-

mote students’ self concepts, especially through their own decision-making and
encouragement of taking responsibility for their own actions. Students actively
participate in democratic decision-making at all levels, although the teacher,
backed by the school, has considerable latent powers. A major focus is on having
students decide what they want to learn, when and at what individual pace. Inter-
nal motivation is promoted and teacher reinforcement is generally a positive re-
sponse to success. A wide range of study options is available and there is access to
a wide variety of resources and materials. Thus there may be no official curricu-
lum at all. The free school movement in the 1970s had primary schools operating
in this fashion, and postgraduate university studies have many similarities, but
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Gerard Guthrie
secondary level Democratic classrooms are more uncommon if for no other reason
than the higher levels of secondary systems generally become driven by the selec-
tion function of external examinations.
10.3 Applications of the Model

Models of teaching styles can have several uses. They may give clarity for taxo-
nomic use in identifying classroom styles, for analysis of educational processes
producing different types of classroom practice, and for helping separate the ethi-
cal issue of values from the empirical issue of whether changes in teacher educa-
tion result in changes in teacher style. The first function of the model is to provide
a basis for development education research within particular contexts. The model
is intended primarily for systematic within-country classroom research focussed
on teaching styles and learning results, whether comparative qualitative case stud-
ies, sample surveys, or experimental designs to analyse what teaching styles and
methods are actually used in different school types and levels. Such classroom re-
search can provide a focus for analysis of processes that keep styles static, upgrade
them, or move them in either direction along the continuum. The model also has a
second function highly compatible with Alexander’s (2001) call for comparative
international pedagogy, by allowing between-country comparisons of like data
with like.
Analysis of classroom learning can contribute to decisions about teaching
styles by helping separate the empirical issues (the scientific study of what is)
from the ethical issues (the rational analysis of what should be). The model of
teaching styles itself excludes any judgements about direction of change. How-
ever, it can contribute to informed ethical judgements about what teachers should
be doing in any particular context in light of systematic knowledge about what
they are doing. Which approaches create greater student learning in particular cul-
tures? Which approaches develop more skilled workers? Which approaches de-
velop individuals who are constructive citizens? These questions can involve em-
pirical research, preferably with experimental designs if cause and effect is to be
established clearly in the field. The distinction between empirical and ethical
analysis is also important in making judgements about the likelihood of success of
change strategies. Attempts to promote teaching styles too far removed from em-
pirical reality will usually fail. There is little merit in attempting them if their most
likely effect is to show teachers more things that they cannot implement.
Broad though the teaching styles model is, it does help delineate the basic pol-
icy question for many countries: Formalistic or Progressive teaching? Answers to
this question should not be the type of self-fulfilling prophecy of Beeby’s stages,
but should be based on independent criteria relevant to each country. Progress is
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thus not necessarily a case of moving to the right of the continuum (e.g. to the
Democratic style) but can well be a case of improving within a style (e.g. improv-
ing the level of Formalism) (Guthrie 1981, p. 166). Removal of an evaluative di-
mension from the model carries the implication that conscious, independent
choices should be made on what teaching style or styles are appropriate, and these
choices should be based on country-specific criteria. Firm policies on teaching
styles and consistent efforts to implement them would do much to improve teach-
ing in many places, as appears to be happening in China.
When might alterations within Formalism actually constitute a change of style?
This issue was raised by the research of O’Sullivan (2004) and Barrett (2007) pre-
sented in Chapter 2.4. In both cases, teacher change was observed in the direction
of the Flexible style. Barrett (2007, p. 288) asserted that the variation she found in
primary classrooms in Tanzania challenged assumptions in stereotypes of teaching
in sub-Saharan Africa. She considered that the belief by some teachers in the im-
portance of understanding pupils’ conceptualisation of subject matter meant that
they had some values consistent with Bernstein’s (2000) learner-centred “compe-
tence mode”, but they operated predominantly within his teacher-centred “per-
formance mode”, which Barrett equated with poor quality, authoritarian, inequita-
ble and teacher dominated classrooms. This was a somewhat similar view to Gao
and Watkins’ (2001, pp. 37-38) distinction between teachers’ “ideal” constructs of
teaching and competing “practical” constructs that dominate in the classroom.
However, Barrett’s (2007, p. 290) view that, “It is possible to recognise and build
on learners’ prior knowledge; to recognise and cater for different learning styles;
to value individuals’ contributions and celebrate individuals’ achievements within
whole-class ‘teacher-centred’ practice”, is not necessarily inconsistent with the
definition of Formalistic teaching used in this book. An alternative explanation is
that Formalistic teachers may not always ignore student learning, but can try to
understand students’ conceptualisation of subject matter in order to shape their
own preparation and presentation of material, even though in class they apparently
demonstrate little attention to student understanding in asking few if any open
questions when delivering the material.
O’Sullivan’s research in Namibia did find that some basic classroom tech-
niques for checking on student understanding had success in introducing variety
into lessons and considerable improvement in student reading skills. On the basis
of this finding, she reconceptualised the official student-centred policy approach
to indicate the effectiveness of an adaptive strategy examining the realities within
which teachers work. The strategy would use whichever approaches, methods and
skills that best brought about learning-centred teaching rather than a learner-
centred approach. The learning-centred approach, she claimed, challenged my
own 1990 views on the appropriateness of formalism. However, four caveats need
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Gerard Guthrie
to be entered into her finding that teachers did change their approach: the new
techniques introduced were very limited in range (e.g. they involved teachers ask-
ing student opinions, checking students’ understanding by asking questions, and
using time efficiently); the changes were achieved under non-experimental condi-
tions without tight controls; aid funding provided outside support for three years;
and there was no indication that the changes outlasted the INSET programme.
Whether the new techniques thus represented a sufficient change so that the new
label of learning-centred had substance, or whether the label was merely a seman-
tic device for appearing to meet the requirements of a non-functional progressive
policy, seems a moot point. The likelihood is that formalism was being upgraded
with a very limited range of skills. Indeed, on later reflection, O’Sullivan found
that the approach was probably closer to direct instruction techniques than any
others, quoting Rosenshine (1979) on direct instruction as having academically
focussed, teacher-directed classrooms using sequenced and structured materials,
teaching activities where goals are clear to students, time allocated for instruction
that is sufficient and continuous, coverage of content is extensive, the performance
of students is monitored, questions are at a low cognitive level so that students
may produce many correct responses, and feedback to students is immediate and
academically oriented; the goal being to move students through a sequenced set of
material or tasks. This description of structured direct instruction seems predomi-
nantly to be of high level of Formalism close to the borderline with the Flexible
style. The extent to which it falls into Formalism depends on assumptions about
the extent to which formalistic teachers only lecture. My definition is not based
solely on lecturing in that it permits some overt student interaction, which is well
within the range of O’Sullivan’s (and Pfau’s Nepal) examples of teachers check-
ing students’ understanding by asking them questions. This is also consistent with
the efforts to increase teacher questioning through INSET in China in the 2000s.
The effect of this discussion is to illustrate three matters. One is that the For-
malistic style should not be confused with the Authoritarian one. The second is
that Formalism is not as narrow as sometimes assumed. The third is that none of
the styles is intended to be discrete, i.e. the model does not require that teachers’
behaviour be forced entirely into one category. A teacher might have a teacher
role with well established routines and strict control, a content approach emphasis-
ing memorisation shaped by some understanding of students’ own conceptualisa-
tions, and use negative sanctions such as low marks, but on occasion broaden the
student role to become more active (such as choice of assignment topics). In this
example, three of the four categories are formalistic, with the student role on occa-
sion, but not always, flexible. Overall, the teacher might be rated in an observation
study as a Formalist, perhaps with the addition of a high inference judgement that
the teaching is higher level on the grounds that corporal punishment is not used,
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the teacher is conscious of learning outcomes, and students are sometimes allowed
to exercise learning choices.
10.4 Classroom Observation Techniques

A great deal of research needs to be carried out if theoretical propositions are to be
useful in improving education systems. Collection of data on teaching styles using
the model would allow it to be tested for its descriptive utility and to help to iden-
tify conditions and processes affecting changes within and between styles. The
range of potential data collection techniques on teaching styles is wide, for the
methodology of education research on this topic is in advance of the theory, as
was shown in the Chapter 5 review of the school effectiveness field, the exception
being invalid use of indirect questionnaire and interview methods for reporting
classroom behaviour. For direct observation, classroom interaction analysis and
ethnographic research provide major research stimuli, but observational data is
also available from other sources such as the inspection reports in Chapter 6.
Underlying collection of data on teaching styles is a basic and long-standing is-
sue in the study of psychology. The most valid data on teaching styles comes from
observation of classroom behaviour. Structured observation schedules usually at-
tempt to remove judgements about mental processes and require the researcher to
make low inference categorisations of demonstrated teacher and student behav-
iours. This provides externally observable, verifiable and therefore potentially re-
liable (i.e. replicable) data on classroom interaction. It does not, however, provide
data on the mental processes at play among teachers and students, observation of
which requires less reliable high inference judgements by the researcher (Guthrie
2010, pp. 108-117). Is a student who is wriggling paying attention, while another
who is still and apparently attentive actually daydreaming or otherwise disen-
gaged? This question is at the centre of the Chinese Learner Paradox, where for-
malistic teachers’ behaviour in apparently teacher-dominated classes is used to en-
courage active mental engagement with the deep meaning of the knowledge being
taught.
Three studies, in Nepal, Namibia and Papua New Guinea (which were outlined
in Chapters 2.4 and 6) allow contrast of methodological approaches for actual
classroom observation. Pfau (1980) provided particularly helpful methodological
comment on the use of low inference quantitative instruments for direct observa-
tion of classrooms based on his research in Nepal. Highly consistent with one of
the purposes of the teaching styles model, he pointed out that such research can al-
low comparisons across cultures, nations or time to determine the generalisability
of classroom-based theory, identification of variability across cultures to obtain
otherwise unattainable experimental treatments, and provision of information to
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Gerard Guthrie
educational planners and evaluators. Pfau’s discussion identified a variety of types

of data-gathering instrumentation. Indirect methods, such as questionnaires, he
pointed out, also have cross-cultural validity issues. Direct ethnographic observa-
tion provides high inference narrative descriptions that can be high on validity, but
lack precision and be unreliable because they are not standardised. Classroom rat-
ing can either use high inference ratings systems (a risk being a tendency for ob-
servers to regress to the mean, which was true of the global school inspection re-
ports used in Papua New Guinea) or low inference category systems, such as
quantified observation schedules (e.g. Pfau’s use of Caldwell’s Activity Rating In-
strument using 11 categories to code behaviour every 5 seconds). Category sys-
tems require training to ensure high inter-rater reliability in recording behaviours
continuously while lessons are in progress. The percentage of time found on each
activity can be used to provide the type of data in Table 2.1 to allow reliable com-
parison of teaching styles over time, within and between countries. Such proce-
dures allowed identification with some precision of aspects of behaviour that are
specific to particular contexts, differences in the extent to which behaviours occur
within different systems, the degree to which behaviours are related to other vari-
ables found in the systems being studied, and behaviours that are more universal
in nature (Pfau 1980, p. 407). Pfau (1983-84) also reviewed studies that had meas-
ured and compared classroom and other behaviours occurring in different cultures
and nations, pointing out a number of problems, as well as procedures that can be
used to help standardise measurement using systematic observation instruments.
Further very solid analysis of types of validity is found in Kerlinger (1977, pp.
456-476), while existing videos of lessons from different countries can provide a
very useful and non-disruptive basis for analysis.
In contrast, O’Sullivan’s (2004) mixed methods study in Namibia used high in-
ference semi-structured observation, which was very useful in identifying that
teachers normally used formalistic methods, but that they would adopt, at least in
the short-term, a few other skills. However, the methods did not provide data to
quantify teacher behaviours, their adoption of new techniques, or measure the ex-
tent to which the patterns varied over time, within Namibia or compared with
other countries. This demonstrates the reliability issues that go with high inference
observation techniques, but this type of qualitative data can have an overriding
value in identifying behaviours consistent with cultural constructs that can provide
insights into the meaning of quantitative data. Vulliamy et al. (1990) have written
at length about the value of qualitative case studies and ethnographic research into
the classroom. Bray and colleagues’ (2007) book on comparative education re-
search contains several discussions about issues in the study of cultures, while an-
thropology specialises in the ethnographic research necessary to gain deep under-
standing of cultural context.
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The lesson is not that one approach is more correct than another. Rather, highly
structured low inference observation schedules and less structured high inference
ethnographic observation have complementary uses. Quantitative data from struc-
tured observation can provide greater precision and allow systematic comparisons.
Qualitative observation is much more likely to provide valid understanding of the
constructs that explain classroom behaviour. Without such constructs the percent-
ages of classroom time allocated to various activities have little explanatory
power. Only with such constructs can we begin to understand the significance of
the time allocations. However, without quantification of those allocations we can-
not have reliable measurement of similarities and differences.
One approach to optimising methodological benefits is triangulation, the proc-
ess of bringing multiple types of data to bear on the one problem. For example,
my own mixed methods analyses of the secondary teacher training and inspection
systems in Papua New Guinea in Chapter 6 found that using questionnaires and
interviews with the inspectors to delve behind the statistical results from coding
the inspection reports showed that, in their professional opinion, there were differ-
ences between programme graduates’ performance, in part according to criteria
not included in their formal inspection reports. This process progressively re-
vealed issues to do with the content validity of the reports. Similarly, rating, cod-
ing and statistical testing of the inspection reports resulted in no significant differ-
ence between the performance of the graduates of four teacher training
programmes despite the programmes’ different lengths, types, and costs. Was this
an artefact of the method, or was the finding consistent with the education sys-
tem’s own treatment of the graduates? A cross-check against the “stamps” given
by the inspection conferences found that there were no significant differences in
inspectors’ promotional decisions about the graduates of the different pro-
grammes. The result of the triangulation implied that the differences between the
programmes were neither statistically nor professionally significant and that the
research was grounded in professional reality. These findings indicate a need for
caution in interpreting results from educational studies that use a single basis for
evaluation.
10.5 Conclusion
The formalistic teaching that is prevalent in the classrooms of many developing
countries is not a problematic obstruction to modernisation. Formalism is not an
aberration distorting the goals of education systems, but is frequently part of and
highly compatible with a symbiotic whole. Nor is formalism an intermediary stage
on the path to educational development represented by some progressive educa-
tional utopia. Strong theoretical and practical reasons exist for modifying formal-
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Gerard Guthrie
ism in an evolutionary fashion from within rather than trying to replace it with
progressivism. Formalism should not be regarded as a classroom problem readily
subject to educational remediation – it is remarkably difficult to change – but as a
deep-rooted cultural behaviour capable of adaptation and of performing important
educational functions now and in the foreseeable future. Given the inability of
educational systems to cope with revolutionary change, the future for improving
the level of teaching in many developing countries lies in operating within the
constraints of formalistic systems and in working to improve formalism.
The Progressive Education Fallacy, exemplified by but not restricted to
Beeby’s stages, contains an assumption that development of the enquiring mind
needs enquiry teaching methods in primary and secondary schools. This assump-
tion has rarely been treated as a proposition to be systematically debated or as a
hypothesis to be tested experimentally in non-Western cultures. Instead,
formalism either (from the perspective of progressive curriculum innovators) has
been blamed for warping teacher education, or (from the perspective of
progressive teacher educators) warping schools. These excuses were often used to
explain away the failure of the progressive curriculum reforms in Papua New
Guinea that were reviewed in Chapter 7. From such a mind-set, the issue is the
availability of time, effort and money, more of which could generate the desired
change in teacher education or schools so that teaching styles could become more
progressive, to the alleged advantage of pupils. This attitude largely overlooks
cultural precursors and has ignored research evidence that suggests that progres-
sive education reforms will generally fail in countries with revelatory cultures.
Cultural myopia is a particularly weak foundation for educational reform.
References
Alexander: R. (2001). Border crossings: Towards a comparative pedagogy. Comparative Educa-
tion, 37(4), 507-523.
Bernstein, B. (2000). Pedagogy, symbolic control and identity: Theory, research, critique.
Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield.
Bray, M., Adamson, B., & Mason, M. (2007). Comparative education research: Approaches and
methods. Hong Kong: Comparative Education Research Centre, University of Hong Kong.
Carrier, J. (1980). Knowledge and its use: Constraints upon the application of new knowledge in
Ponam society. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 16(2), 102-126.
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Guthrie, G. (1981). Teaching styles. In P. Smith, & S. Weeks (Eds.), Teachers and teaching:
Rust & P. Dalin (Eds.), Teachers and teaching in the developing world (pp. 219-232). New
York: Garland.
Sage.
Kerlinger, F.N. (1977). Foundations of behavioural research (2nd Ed.). London: Holt Rinehart &
Winston.
Lawrence, P. (1964). Road belong cargo. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
Pfau, R. (1980). The comparative study of classroom behaviours. Comparative Education Re-
view, 24(3), 400-414.
Pfau, R. (1983-84). Standardizing behavioral measurements across cultures, nations, and time.
World Education Monograph Series No.1. Stoors: School of Education, University of Con-
necticut.
Rogers, E. (2003). Diffusion of innovation (5th Ed.). New York: Free Press.
Rosenshine, B. (1979). Content, time and direct instruction. In P. Peterson, & H. Walberg (Eds.),
Research on teaching: Concepts, findings and implications (pp. 28-56). Berkeley:
McCutchan.
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Vulliamy, G., Lewin, K., & Stephens, D., (1990). Doing educational research in developing
countries: Qualitative strategies. London: Falmer.
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CHAPTER 11
GROUNDED EDUCATIONAL CHOICES
The Progressive Education Fallacy has led to the introduction of enquiry

teaching styles in developing countries, using them to apply theories that
confuse process and product. Particularly to assist educational decision-
making, Chapter 11 discusses some of the experimental design issues for
consideration in field testing of curriculum innovations and in framing
grounded classroom research. The critical issue is whether student learning
actually benefits from changes to teaching styles, the hypothesis being that
formalistic styles are more effective in revelatory cultures with the lower cog-
nitive levels found in primary and secondary schools. Considerable caution is
needed with prematurely optimistic findings from pilot projects and research
into curriculum change that focusses on teaching styles as a dependent rather
than independent variable. The chapter also clarifies issues to do with the
adoption of innovation and suggests some paths for upgrading formalistic
teaching. Given the conclusion from Chapter 5 that teaching and teacher
education are highly specific to context, these ideas are not prescriptive, but
indicate some of the more straightforward paths that are available.
In the absence of research testing systematically whether enquiry learning requires

enquiry teaching methods, the Progressive Education Fallacy has led to the
introduction of enquiry teaching styles in developing countries that are wide open
to the criticism that the countries are being used naïvely as testing grounds for
untried theories. A damning professional criticism of the Progressive Education
Fallacy is that it has resulted in many progressive curriculum reforms worldwide
that confuse process and product. A desired product of many of the attempted re-
forms has been the acceleration of learning of enquiry skills. However, the adop-
tion by teachers of a meaning or progressive teaching style has rarely been tested
experimentally to investigate whether such a teaching process actually accelerates
the learning of higher level cognitive skills among students in different contexts.

Gerard Guthrie
The purpose of this chapter is to clarify the relationships among variables when
considering choices about changes to curriculum and teaching styles. This mate-
rial is particularly intended to assist educational authorities with the design princi-
ples underlying decisions on whether to proceed with a particular reform or not.
The chapter also outlines some of the types of approach that can be used to im-
prove the level of formalistic teaching. Given the finding in Chapter 5 that teach-
ing and teacher education are highly specific to context, these ideas are by no
means intended to be prescriptive, but indicate some of the more straightforward
paths that are available.
Not many elements of praxis will be found here. Indeed, the approach is the
opposite of praxis, aiming to go from practice to theory rather than theory to
practice. This is a grounded approach based on deriving educational strategies
from analysis of local conditions.
11.1 Framing Pilot Projects

Many proposals for classroom educational reform involve some form of pilot
study. These can range from ‘quick and dirty’ surveys using opinionnaires to
large-scale systematic pilot projects. A widespread and persistent gap in the
literature is experimental and survey research analysing the impact of teaching
styles on classroom learning in developing countries. The following discussion
focusses on formal designs for field experiments intended to assess cause and
effect carefully. The assumed relationship between variables also needs careful
consideration in other types of research, including qualitative classroom studies,
where often such relationships are implied rather than stated. The discussion
covers familiar ground for researchers but is presented here as clearly as possible
to assist decision-makers who are consumers of educational research, who may
not be familiar with experimental design, or who would like some perspective on
qualitative research that has not delineated variables clearly. One effect is that
considerable caution is needed with premature findings from pilot projects.
The many different types of variables and the relationships between them that
come into play in classroom change are illustrated in Figure 11.1. Experiments
measure two key ones: the independent variable (which is the presumed cause)
and the dependent variable (the presumed effect). However, other variables can
also influence the results. Background variables are antecedents that affect the
situation prior to the study, which we can observe but not usually change directly.
Intervening variables are measurable variables that we can anticipate will affect
implementation. Extraneous variables are haphazard occurrences that can be
observed and might affect the outcome during the study, but which cannot be
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Chapter 11
Grounded Educational Choices
manipulated. Alternative independent variables suggest different causes from the

presumed one (Guthrie 2010, pp. 86-95).
A hypothetical example, but typical of the logic implied in much of the
curriculum literature, is illustrated within the brackets in Figure 11.1 with a new
student-centred syllabus tested as an independent variable in an experimental
school trial. The syllabus is hypothesised to generate change from formalistic to
progressive teaching. In a true experimental design, some teachers use the new
syllabus, some the old one, and the results are compared (although few curriculum
reforms are tested this formally). Typically, the dependent variable is teaching
style. An intervening variable is conceptualised as the type of pre-service training
previously undergone by teachers. A background variable is the education system
and any formalistic requirements that it might impose through inspections. An
extraneous variable might be changes in teachers during the trial (some might
become sick, for example, requiring use of substitute teachers). Alternative
variables are considered rarely but, hypothetically, one might be a high level of
media attention to an issue related to the new syllabus, for example media
coverage of global warming influencing outcomes from a new syllabus topic on
the environment.
Figure 11.1 Invalid Curriculum Experiment
INDEPENDENT VARIABLE (new syllabus)
Alternative Independent Variable

(media coverage)
Intervening Variable
(teacher training)
Background Variables
(cultural context, Extraneous Variable
education system) (teacher availability)
DEPENDENT VARIABLE
(teaching style)
Source: Author.
This particular experimental design is invalid. The most important outcome

from the new syllabus should be improved student learning but the dependent
variable is changes in teaching style, so that the design does not test the
assumption that changes in teaching style will increase student achievement.
Often, failure to achieve the predicted change in teaching style is not attributed to
an inappropriate reform but to inadequate technical inputs and conservative
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Gerard Guthrie
educational forces, such as formalistic inspections embedded in the education

system, or on the prevalence of a formalistic mentality from the previous syllabus,
or on previous formalistic teacher training as an intervening variable limiting the
ability of teachers to implement the new syllabus. In effect, these variables are
now posited as alternative independent variables to explain negative results.
Rarely do we see deep consideration given to cultural context as a key background
variable that provides a subtle but powerful influence that can override the
experimental trial to the extent that it is really an alternative independent variable.
As Chapter 5 found, culture is an often-recognised element of educational change,
but it has generally received only token study in the search for international gener-
alisations. In focussing on technical reliability as an explanation for failure to find
useful generalisations, curriculum and school effectiveness research have lost
heavily in the trade-off with validity and relevance by underestimating ecological
validity or context.
We do not very often find empirical consideration of whether a new syllabus
approach is justified by student learning that gains from changes to teaching
styles. The preferred scenario when considering a new syllabus is therefore Figure
11.2. Now the critical dependent variable is student learning. The independent
variable is teaching style, with a control group of teachers using a formalistic style
and an experimental group using a progressive style. The research hypothesis is
that progressive teaching will result in greater student learning. An intervening
variable is student cognitive level (given the indication that progressive teaching
might operate more effectively at higher cognitive levels). Extraneous variables
remain the same. The education system remains a background variable embedded
in cultural context, which can be delineated separately through ethnographic
research.
Whether progressive teaching does result in increased student learning, or
whether formalistic teaching does, a key explanation lies in the epistemological
and pedagogical patterns in teachers’ and students’ cultural frames. In particular,
should the progressive educational hypothesis be rejected and formalism prevail,
cultural context now comes into consideration as an alternative independent
variable, i.e. as one whose pervasive influence has overwhelmed the progressive
experimental treatment such that culture is the underlying explanation for the
success of formalism and the failure of progressivism (as we have seen with cases
in Chapters 3.4, 8 and 9). In this logic, there is no assumption that changes to
teaching style will improve student learning: the point of the trial is to actually test
this hypothesis.
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Chapter 11
Figure 11.2 Valid Curriculum Experiment
INDEPENDENT VARIABLE (teaching style)
Alternative Independent Variable

(cultural context)
Intervening Variable
(student cognitive level)
Background Variables
(cultural context, Extraneous Variable
education system) (teacher availability)
DEPENDENT VARIABLE
(student learning)
Source: Author.
A very clear example of research following this approach is the Zambian high
school study by Mulopo and Fowler (1987) in Chapter 5.2, which found that a tra-
ditional, formalistic approach was efficient for teaching scientific facts and princi-
ples, while the progressive discovery approach tended to be more effective among
formal reasoners in promoting scientific attitudes and understandings. The effect
of such research, as Sternberg (2007, p. 17) put it, “means first understanding …
cultural context, and then tailoring instruction and assessment so that they are
appropriate for the context.” Only after this knowledge is gained should the new
syllabus be written. If the results favour formalism, a formalistic syllabus can be
written. If the results favour progressivism, such a syllabus can be written instead.
Nonetheless, premature optimism from pilot studies provides a major trap.
Many reports on curriculum innovations use superficial questionnaire studies to
claim inappropriate reforms are being implemented successfully. When formative
research relies on indirect techniques such as questionnaires, interviews and focus
groups, it can misrepresent what is actually occurring in the classroom (Chapter
5.4), direct observation being the valid technique for identifying actual teacher and
student behaviour (Chapter 10.4). As we saw in Chapter 8 with SSCEP and CRIP
in Papua New Guinea, this is especially an issue with well-funded aid pilot pro-
jects that provide high but unsustainable levels of professional support.
The sensible, albeit somewhat sceptical, administrator also needs to be aware
that regardless of the actual intentions of aid agencies, consultants and commercial
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Gerard Guthrie
aid project management companies may have vested financial interests in recom-
mending continuance of pilot projects. A salutary warning comes from a recent
parliament-driven enquiry into over-servicing in the Australian aid programme,
which noted that “the use of advisers has also been criticised as being high cost
and supply driven, with weak or unsustainable impacts … long term growth in the
use of advisers to deliver Australia’s aid program … has not been based on clear
evidence of its effectiveness, nor underpinned by robust management systems to
ensure value for money” (AusAID 2011, p. 6). In generalist aid agencies where
the role of desk officers is to act as professional project managers rather than sec-
toral specialists, the coded language contained in project design, monitoring and
evaluation documents may not be understood, let alone questioned for its cultural
appropriateness. Recipient educational administrators, short of funding and pro-
fessional support, may find the collective aid pressures hard to resist, but the ques-
tion to ask is whether the pressures serve children’s interests as well as vested
ones.
11.2 Cognitive Levels

The levels of education at which formalistic and progressive methods are appro-
priate may be judged in relation to Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy of Educational
Objectives. Table 11.1 shows its cognitive domain, which has six levels from
lower to higher order thinking. The typical actions indicate some of what is ex-
pected of learners at each level. The review of research on the effectiveness of
teaching styles in Chapter 5.2, supported by some experimental findings, provided
support for the hypothesis that formalistic styles are more effective with the lower
cognitive levels found in primary and secondary schools and, conversely, some
mixed support for the hypothesis that progressive teaching styles are more effec-
tive with higher cognitive levels and some affective aspects of learning. However,
where these findings might apply is highly dependent on context. The geographic
extent of studies with positive findings about progressive methods at higher cogni-
tive levels has not yet been mapped.
Essentially Beeby’s discussion focussed on the cognitive domain, with Formal-
ism and Meaning, in particular, relating to different styles of student processing of
intellectual data in the classroom. In essence, Formalism seems appropriate to the
lower three levels of remembering (e.g. defining, listing, stating), understanding
(describing, paraphrasing, summarising) and applying (calculating, showing, us-
ing). These levels provide building blocks in primary and secondary school for
later intellectual endeavour focussed on enquiry skills, when they become compo-
nents of the three higher levels of analysing (classifying, comparing, contrasting),
evaluating (assessing, critiquing, justifying) and creating (designing, formulating,
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synthesising). The lower levels are the most appropriate for students in primary
schools and for those in secondary schools whose intellectual abilities currently lie
at those levels.
Table 11.1 Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy of Educational Objectives
Cognitive Levels Typical Actions
Creating: generating new ideas and Construct Formulate

patterns. Design Propose
Devise Synthesise
Evaluating: making judgements. Assess Judge
Critique Justify
Interpret Rate
Analysing: breaking material into Classify Distinguish
parts to explore understandings and Compare Illustrate
relationships. Contrast Investigate
Applying: using information in an- Calculate Practice
other situation. Construct Show
Illustrate Use
Understanding: explaining ideas or Compare Outline
concepts. Describe Paraphrase
Explain Summarise
Remembering: recalling relevant Define Quote
knowledge. List State
Present Tell
Source: Adapted from Anderson and Krathwohl (2001).

When transition from lower, concrete operational levels to higher, formal op-
erational levels is appropriate is an issue that is in part context-based and in part
biological. The type of Piagetian evidence from second language students in the
South Pacific in Chapter 8.6 suggests that formal operations generally started de-
veloping in the later teen years in upper secondary (especially with advanced stu-
dents) and in tertiary education. Why they lie there seems a developmental conse-
quence of human growth. Unlike earlier suppositions when progressive theories
came forth, only in the 20s does the prefrontal cortex, which is the home of the
higher cognitive levels, complete its growth (Chapter 12.5). However, Lancy
(1983) made a case that the nature of higher operations is actually culturally de-
fined, i.e. they develop in interaction with the social environment, so it should not
be assumed automatically that Piaget’s Western intellectual styles will be followed
in other cultures or be an objective in them.
Whether progressive methods are necessary for learning of higher cognitive
knowledge is not demonstrated by this analysis, but the indication is that they
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Gerard Guthrie
would best be adopted in tertiary education not primary or secondary. This hy-
pothesis requires experimental research, however, to investigate whether higher
cognitive skills among students do require progressive teaching styles (Chapter
5.2).
So far, I have put to one side the question of what educational objectives should
be, other than a focus on student learning as the key dependent variable in school-
ing. There are no universal answers to this question. Essentially, educational ob-
jectives are context-specific and, that being the case, they should be chosen by ap-
propriate authorities within each country. Such authorities may or may not benefit
from outside advice. My personal view is that the primary and secondary curricu-
lums are often overloaded, with schools not uncommonly being expected to teach
about everything from drugs to driving. Essentially, the core business of primary
schools is to teach literacy, numeracy, and basic health and hygiene. Secondary
schooling provides more scope for including physical, biological and social sci-
ence, and foreign languages, as appropriate. The standard taxonomy of cognitive,
affective and skills domains provides a convenient tool for development and
analysis of objectives so that curriculum writers and teachers have a clear targets
for their work. However, it should not be assumed that the domains are entirely
separate, merely requiring lists for each type of objective. As we have seen with
the extensive discussion of epistemology and paradigms in this book, teaching
skills not only convey particular knowledge, they also have affective elements
buried deep within, particularly on the nature of intellectual and educational au-
thority. The teaching styles that teachers adopt carry implicit messages about
which educational authorities should be conscious. The teaching medium is a cul-
tural message.
11.3 Adoption of Innovation

Educational administrators cannot control residual factors, as Husen et al. (1978)
correctly noted. However, when the cultural component of residual factors is
known from contextual research, researchers and educational authorities ignore it
at their peril. If contextual research does demonstrate deep-seated cultural para-
digms with revelatory epistemologies, progressive classroom interventions are
highly unlikely to survive the pilot period. Improvements to formalism are likely
to survive because they are congruent with the pervasive cultural setting. Cultural
context cannot be controlled scientifically or administratively, but it does exist.
Researchers are used to thinking of very high levels of probability – 95% or
99% in the social sciences – as being required before accepting a conclusion, let
alone acting upon it in the real world where it might affect people’s lives. Bureau-
cratic systems operate at far lower levels of probability, if they even consider
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Chapter 11
probability at all. A decision-maker can reduce all decisions to a binary choice

(Act / Do Not Act, Implement the curriculum reform / Do Not Implement it), toss
a coin, and make the ‘right’ decision 50% of the time with the superficial appear-
ance of some success, but few decision-makers can hope to achieve anything near
the probabilities of success acceptable in the sciences (Guthrie 2010, pp. 196-203).
Research can act to increase the likelihood of success: good judgement plus in-
creased knowledge increases the probability of correct decisions. Equally, bad
judgement can lower the probability of success. The poor progressive judgement
behind the Papua New Guinea curriculum reforms in Chapter 7 resulted in seven
failures and no long-term successes. Perhaps half of these failures could have been
turned into formalistic successes had the Education Ministers making the final de-
cisions merely tossed coins. Similarly, the teacher education reviews in Chapter 5
found that 55% of research results showed that investment in teacher education is
beneficial. Tossing coins would only be 5% less useful on average in any particu-
lar country, and considerably cheaper than research.
When cultural commonalities basically occur in whole rather than in part, they
effectively provide binary data, as noted in Chapter 5.4. This is because cultural
context is not so much a correlate of educational success as a prior condition. Fig-
ure 11.3 presents the consequences of this binary logic in a simplified flow dia-
gram. The starting point is research reviewing the epistemological nature of the
cultural context.
1. If the cultural paradigm is revelatory (as in Botswana, China and Papua

New Guinea, for example), then the next question is whether traditional
teaching styles are inherently formalistic. If they are (as is the case in the
same three countries), then a syllabus change is much more likely to be
successful if it is based on a formalistic teaching style and confines its
attention to improving formalism rather than trying to change it to pro-
gressive teaching.
2. a) If the paradigm is not revelatory but scientific, then the next question
is still whether teaching styles are inherently formalistic. If they are
(as was the case even in scientific Anglophone cultures until half a
century ago, and is the case in much of non-Anglophone Europe),
then a syllabus change is more likely to be successful if it develops
the formalistic teaching style.
b) If the culture is scientific and teaching styles are progressive, the syl-
labus could adopt a progressive classroom style.
The discussion so far is about the effectiveness of different teaching styles in

improving student learning. If there is no difference between teaching styles, the
225
Gerard Guthrie
issue comes down to efficiency. In this case there is no point in spending scarce
financial and personnel resources on changing to a new style: the existing style
(whatever it may be) is satisfactory and a new one will not improve student
outcomes. Improving the existing style will be more cost-effective.
Figure 11.3 Simplified Flow Chart for Decisions on Teaching Styles
1. Is culture revelatory? YES Is teaching style formalistic?

NO YES
USE FORMALISTIC STYLE
a. YES
2. Is culture scientific? YES Is teaching style formalistic?
b. NO
USE PROGRESSIVE STYLE

Source: Author.
The effectiveness and efficiency issues are shown in Figure 11.4. Situation A in
Column 1 is the default no change, control situation in most experimental designs.
Essentially, it accepts the existing style and makes no effort to change it. In fact,
this is the real situation for most teachers in poor developing countries who are
mainly left to their own devices, and it may be that a valid experiment finds sup-
port for it. Leaving matters thus has a high probability of success in that change is
not intended and little will occur except as a result of individual decisions by
teachers within schools. Counter-intuitive to progressive sensibilities, this may
nonetheless be rational behaviour if the decision is based on judgements that the
present situation is indeed satisfactory (the religious message is being purveyed
successfully, nobody is complaining about examination results, or the field ex-
periment has found it effective, for example). This is also rational behaviour if the
present situation is unsatisfactory, but resources are not available to initiate change
226
Chapter 11
or will not be available to sustain change after the withdrawal of pilot funding.
The default Situation A is only likely to change when there is a high level of ex-
ternal pressure and a high level of acceptance by teachers themselves that change
is needed (e.g. the community demands and teachers believe in changes to their
school, perhaps over vernacular teaching). In this case, there may be innovative
change (e.g. attempts to introduce the vernacular, in which case Columns 2 and 3
come into play), or conservative change (e.g. rejection of the vernacular and rein-
forcement of an existing practice, such as keeping the existing national language
of instruction, in which case Column 1 remains in play).
In Situation B, a moderate degree of change is sought (for example, a valid ex-
periment showed that formalistic teaching was the most effective; now we want an
INSET programme to encourage improvements within the existing formalistic
teaching style). Most teachers will accept such change because it does not threaten
their basic professional identity. Although this approach encourages only a mod-
erate level of change, it is the situation with the highest likelihood of actually
achieving any change at all. In effect, the approach pragmatically accepts that evo-
lutionary change, as discussed in Chapter 2.5, is the most likely outcome of
change efforts.
Situation C represents the seeking of major change, e.g. to a new teaching style
(for example, in the many attempts at progressive reform of formalistic systems
reported in this book). The evidence is that such reform efforts are highly unlikely
to succeed beyond well-funded trials. These changes should not be attempted be-
cause in the long-term they are a waste of time, effort and resources, and are likely
to be counterproductive for morale.
Figure 11.4 Relationships between Amount and Likelihood of Change
Likelihood of Amount of Classroom Change
Success
No Change Moderate Change Major Change
High A
Medium B
Low C
Source: Author.
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Gerard Guthrie
Assuming blanket acceptance or rejection of change by teachers is far too

crude, however. An application of Rogers’ schema of adopters of innovation (out-
lined in Chapter 4.2 could distribute teachers hypothetically along a continuum
based on their different integration as professional groups into an education sys-
tem’s structure:
i. Innovators might be the designers of a new syllabus, usually located in

headquarters and closely tied into official policy concerns.
ii. Early adopters of innovation might be head teachers, deputies and sub-
ject heads in schools who are required officially to support the new
syllabus and who will often be expected to generate in-service training
of teachers, but who operate under field conditions often inadequately
accounted for in official policy.
iii. The early majority are, perhaps, younger teachers with something to
gain from adoption of the syllabus, especially during a trial phase,
perhaps because this may benefit their professional opportunities.
iv. The late majority might be teachers who have reached their ceiling
and for whom professional life is incidental to their personal life ex-
ternal to the school, and who are cautious about the time and effort re-
quired for the new syllabus, especially during the extension phase
when there is less outside support. Should most of this group adopt a
change, it can be considered successful.
v. Laggards may be teachers overlooked for promotion, alienated from
the system, feeling undervalued, and unwilling to invest time and ef-
fort in change.
Because the underlying variable of professional integration is multidimensional,

the schema would best be tested using mixed methods (such as observation, inter-
views and questionnaires) to investigate its appropriateness in any particular con-
text. If valid, the implication is that these professional groups will approach adop-
tion of a curriculum innovation quite differently. Many progressive curriculum
projects do not diffuse far into the third group (let alone the fourth), often receive
only lip service, and are not maintained if the changes offer no relative advantage
once pilot support ceases. Whether a new syllabus, teaching style or wider curricu-
lum change does become accepted by both early and late majorities essentially de-
pends on teachers’ personal and professional constructs, a school’s professional
climate, structural inducements, and on countervailing work and social pressures.
Even if many of these factors are positive, the influence of cultural context on
teachers’ formalistic professional constructs may well outweigh – quite rationally
from their perspective – the alleged benefits of any progressive reform.
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Chapter 11
11.4 Improving Formalistic Teaching

Regardless of the presence or absence of evidence from a field experiment, im-
proving teaching is a professional responsibility and an end in itself that need not
be embedded in curriculum change. Teachers need on-going professional support
through pre-service and in-service teacher training to upgrade their performance,
whether or not new syllabuses are on the horizon.10 If professional opinion does
indicate the prevalence of particular styles, pragmatic preference indicates that
there is no reason to await the outcomes of curriculum experiments. Despite my
concerns about lack of testing of curriculum innovations, the absence of
experimental research is not a reason to ignore upgrading existing classroom
practices; it does, however, provide reason not to attempt to change teachers to
other styles.
One of the characteristics of educational innovations is their high cost and,
given some of the evidence referred to in this book, their apparent lack of cost-
effectiveness. What does the research literature indicate about cost-effective alter-
natives to current practice that are nonetheless compatible with the predominant
formalism in the classrooms of developing countries? The possibilities include: a)
increase time on task; b) increase class size; c) provide textbooks; d) provide sup-
plementary language readers; e) use distance education for in-service pro-
grammes; and f) practise moderate versions of reflection. These approaches illus-
trate some evidence-based paths that are available to educational planners,
curriculum designers and teacher trainers. Two caveats are necessary, however.
One is that there is an abundant literature on all of these approaches, including
many warnings that implementation can be difficult and that they require persis-
tence. The other is that the approaches are not prescriptive given the conclusion
from Chapter 5 that teaching and teacher education are highly specific to context.
a) Increase Time on Task. Increased time on task has long been observed to
correlate with increased student achievement. Montero-Sieburth (1989) examined
literature in developing nations on classroom use of instructional materials and
teacher-managed time to promote learning. For learning to occur, the indications
included that stable teacher and student attendance patterns must exist; the teacher
as classroom manager has the greatest influence on learning; and the use of class-
room time and instructional materials depends on the teacher’s ability to organise,
pace, monitor, and provide feedback to students. Similarly, Abadzi (2009) found
that since the 1970s, studies in schools in developing countries on the use of
instructional time and its impact on student achievement have consistently shown
10 Chapter 11.4 updates parts of Guthrie (1990) with permission from Elsevier.
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Gerard Guthrie
that the amount of time spent in learning tasks is related to student performance,
but that significant amounts of time are often wasted due to informal school
closures, teacher absenteeism, delays, early departures, and poor use of classroom
time. These and other studies show that improved classoom management,
including use of appropriate materials such as textbooks and workbooks, can
allow students to stay on task even when the teacher is otherwise occupied.
Teacher time on task can be increased by reducing absenteeism and time on non-
academic activities, and increasing time on the formal curriculum. Essentially, all
these improvements can be brought about by improved school and classroom
management without requiring complex changes to teaching styles or the
curriculum.
b) Increase Class Size. Contrary to conventional progressive wisdom,

smaller classes do not necessarily increase student learning, at least above a class
size of about 20, as discussed in Chapter 4.3. The apparent reason is that below 20
teachers do have a chance of providing individual attention within a typical 40
minute lesson, but much over 20 and they do not. In a formalistic situation with
teachers dominating the classroom and students either listening or doing individ-
ual work, it does not seem to matter much whether the class size is 20 or 50. The
indication is that increasing student:staff ratios could improve educational effi-
ciency and liberate funds from relatively well staffed educational sub-sectors, such
as tertiary education, for upgrading teachers’ work in other sub-sectors. Increasing
class size was a role recommended for Papua New Guinea by a high-level sector-
wide planning committee in the mid-1980s (Guthrie 1985). While this was educa-
tional policy during the late 1980s, it was never implemented, in part because of
the resistance of entrenched university interests and partly because an economic
downturn in the late 1980s meant that any savings were deployed outside the edu-
cation sector. Even reform proposals that are simple in principle may be difficult
to implement because of educational politics.
c) Provide Textbooks. The provision of textbooks is cost-effective, espe-

cially in large-scale systems. In the late 1970s, studies generally revealed positive
associations between textbook provision and student achievement (Heyneman et
al. 1978). In light of this, the World Bank was notable for funding a considerable
number of textbook projects. While school texts will be more effective if carefully
written in relation to integrated performance objectives, it is possible to do so
without rewriting the original syllabuses or renovating examination systems. Once
written, large-scale production rapidly reduces unit costs, although the design and
logistical problems have been considerable and persistent (Crossley & Murby
1994; Askerud 1997).
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Chapter 11
The relevance of textbooks to the classroom was shown by Kumar (1988), who
described two approaches to textbook use in India. The first type had textbooks
recommended by the authorities and gave the teacher the freedom to decide what
materials to use. The other type required the teacher to follow textbooks prescrip-
tively. In both situations, textbooks can be appropriate for formalistic teachers to
set practice tasks, class reading and homework. Where teachers have the freedom,
the ability and supplementary materials to adapt to the classroom, the result may
turn out to be a higher level of formalism; where they do not, the result may be
low level formalism. Although Glewwe et al. (2009) recently found in a study in
Kenya that textbook provision benefited students with a strong initial academic
background, the bottom line is that a student with some reading skill but a teacher
ill-trained in a particular subject can at least continue to learn independently from
a textbook. However, Fuller and Clarke (1994, pp. 139-142) cautioned that even
textbook provision has cultural implications related to teaching styles, in particu-
lar.
d) Provide Supplementary Language Readers. One simple innovation to do

with book supply has been tested with considerable success in a number of coun-
tries. Elley (2000) reported that it is possible to double the rate of reading acquisi-
tion in developing-country primary schools with a “Book Flood” of about 100
high interest books per class and short teacher training sessions. Studies in Niue
(1979), Fiji (1980-81), Singapore (1985-89), Sri Lanka (1995), Solomon Islands
(1995-98) and South Africa (1997) found that the benefits for reading skill and en-
thusiasm were consistent across diverse cultures, languages and age levels, and
appeared to generate corresponding improvements in writing, listening compre-
hension and related language skills.
One interesting thing about an early experimental study in Fiji was that INSET
was not necessary to improve student achievement. With grades 3 and 5 of 12 ru-
ral primary schools, classes taught by teachers who had undergone in-service
training in a shared book method did not perform significantly better than those
where teachers were not provided with assistance other than instruction to provide
20 to 30 minutes a day for silent reading. Both groups had much higher propor-
tions of students passing the grade 6 examinations than a control group, with the
benefit of the programme accruing to all examined subjects (Elley & Mangubhai
1981a; 1981b). Classes where teachers did little other than provide silent reading
time for students to read books of their own choice had twice the expected gains in
reading comprehension and grammatical structures. They also had smaller but
considerable gains on tests of writing, word recognition and oral language, but not
on a test of writing skills. Here is a simple method for improving student
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Gerard Guthrie
achievement involving low costs, little support, and easy for even the most lack-
lustre teacher to implement.
e) Use Distance Education for INSET. Distance education can be a cost-

effective alternative to other types of in-service. This need not be complicated or
credentialled. For example, in a simple experimental study in Zaire, Biniakunu
(1982) found improved student performance in French reading was associated
with a correspondence in-service course for teachers untrained in teaching the lan-
guage. The in-service course consisted of instruction in types of reading, purposes
of reading, the identification of general ideas and specific information, practical
application and critical evaluation. No other assistance was given to the teachers.
Distance education in subject content and teaching methods thus bears consid-
eration, although it should be noted that the economics are such that it is better re-
served for courses with large-scale enrolments (Guthrie 1990 & 1991). The costs
of physical and administrative establishment can be high, course development
costs are high regardless of the number of students, and costs are heavily depend-
ent on the type of media used. However, unit costs decrease rapidly as enrolments
increase, which is a major potential economic advantage over school- or college-
based INSET. In some situations, a major area of potential cost savings lies in op-
portunity costs because savings may accrue both to teachers who do not have to
face loss of income during full-time study, and to schools not required to find sub-
stitute teachers.
f) Practise Reflective Formalism. In its more radical forms as a particular

teaching style, reflection is open to the criticism that it represents a naïve transfer
of fashionable ideas. In its more moderate forms, as a process of self-reflection, it
may have the potential to become an active tool for improvement by formalists of
their own formalistic teaching.11 Moderate reflection has the potential to upgrade
teaching without necessarily threatening cultural identity. The role for this form of
reflection is more from the point of view of teachers being encouraged in pre-
service and in-service education to cogitate on and develop their own professional
processes in teaching. The moderate approach can be consistent with undergradu-
ate and postgraduate teacher education courses, as the following course descrip-
tion from the University of Goroka illustrates: “The emphasis of this course is on
the improvement of the processes of conceptualisation, planning, and practice of
teaching and learning through critical reflection. The course will equip the stu-
11 I would like to acknowledge the role that my University of Goroka 2003 BEd Honours
class (Wata Apingi, Sakaya Botu, Lawrence Gerry, Tom Monemone, Wayne Powae, Cecelia
Tuo and Gordon Wallangas) played in stimulating my thinking in this area.
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Chapter 11
dents with the essential knowledge, skills, and attitudes to systematically plan, im-
plement, and evaluate their own performances” (University of Goroka 2003, p.
26). Nonetheless, even moderate reflective practice can be incompatible with cul-
tural values, as Minnis (1999) found in Brunei Darussalam.
Other possibilites for upgrading formalistic schools are deliberately excluded

for reasons similar to Gannicott and Throsby (1992), who presented ten similar
propositions from the literature for improving schooling in five South Pacific
countries, but found that small class size, lavish facilities and curriculum reform
were not effective. As shown in Chapter 6, in particular, formalistic teaching is of-
ten embedded in formalistic teacher training, examination, inspection and admin-
istrative systems. These are often parts of a symbiotic, mutually reinforcing whole
– but elements can be dysfunctional, for example in parent- and teacher-generated
examination stress for children in Confucian education systems. Progressive or
radical attempts to replace them are unlikely to succeed, but, like teaching within
the classroom, they are open to evolutionary improvement (see also Chapter 4.3).
However, even simple changes can face major implementation problems, which is
a reason to persist with recurrent funding rather than to search continually for new
projects. Nonetheless, there is plenty of scope for upgrading formalistic teachers’
skills within the classroom and its school setting. Improving professional skills
does not require rocket science, and plenty of textbooks provide tips on tech-
niques. One written for Melanesia abounds with constructive ideas that are neither
overburdened with angst about the formalism of schools nor unapologetically ac-
cepting of it (Kubul 2001).
11.5 Conclusion
The Progressive Education Fallacy has led to the introduction of enquiry teaching
styles in developing countries, using them, in effect, to test theories that confuse
process and product. To echo Le Fanu (2010), such reforms require educational-
ists to work against formalistic teaching rather than with it. Yet, progressive teach-
ing styles have rarely been tested experimentally in developing countries to inves-
tigate whether they accelerate learning. Traps for which administrators should be
alert include premature optimism from pilot studies based on superficial question-
naire studies rather than direct observation in the classroom. Another area for
alertness is lightweight research into curriculum change that focusses on teaching
styles as dependent rather than independent variable. The critical issue is whether
student learning actually benefits from changes to teaching styles, the current hy-
pothesis being that formalistic styles are more effective with the lower cognitive
levels found in primary and secondary schools and, conversely, some mixed sup-
233
Gerard Guthrie
port for the hypothesis that progressive teaching styles are more effective with
higher cognitive levels and some affective aspects of learning. However, where
findings consistent with these hypotheses might apply is highly dependent on con-
text and their geographic extent has not been mapped. Even where curriculum
change is appropriate, various groups within schools have different incentives to
adopt or reject change. The outcome is that there are strong reasons for modifying
formalism in an evolutionary fashion from within rather than trying to replace it
with progressive styles. It is also well to be alert in hard-to-resist aid projects to
project managers who may have vested commercial interests. Their interests can
lie in profiting from more financial inputs to promote progressive change when the
real issue is the pervasive cultural context that makes incremental change to
formalism the more constructive path.
There are examples of cost-effective innovations compatible with formalistic
teaching, but the intention is not to recommend their uncritical adoption. Borrow-
ing innovations from other developing countries can be as questionable as from
developed countries (Chapter 7.4). Educational effectiveness is so dependent on
context that sweeping solutions are unusual. However, the types of innovation
summarised in this chapter indicate that there are alternatives in improving teach-
ing that do not involve complex curriculum development projects and which need
not threaten the competence of classroom teachers. The tendency is to look for
complex solutions to complex problems, but on occasion simple solutions may
suffice.
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developed countries. Staff Working Paper No.310. Washington: World Bank.
Kubul, G. (2001). Practical tips for teachers in Melanesia: A survival guide for student teachers
and beginner teachers. Sydney: Longman.
Kumar, K. (1988). Origins of India’s ‘textbook culture’. Comparative Education Review, 32(4),
452-464.
Press.
Minnis, P. (1999). Is reflective practice compatible with Malay-Islamic values? Some thoughts
on teacher education in Brunei Darussalam. Australian Journal of Education, 43(2), 172-185.
Montero-Sieburth, M. (1989). Classroom management, instructional strategies and the allocation
of learning resources. BRIDGES Research Report Series No.4. Cambridge: Institute for Inter-
national Development, Harvard University.
Mulopo, M., & Fowler, H. (1987). Effects of traditional and discovery instructional approaches
on learning outcomes for learners of different intellectual developments: A study of chemis-
try students in Zambia. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 24(3), 217-227.
22.
University of Goroka. (2003). Handbook of postgraduate studies in education, 2003-2004.
Goroka.
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CHAPTER 12
IN FAVOUR OF FORMALISM
The cross-cultural implications of the progressive school-based Western

norms embedded in the stages and the strength of other culturally-derived
epistemologies have not received the widespread attention they deserve. The
central issue in the failure of progressivism is not so much the methodological
weaknesses of the stages approach as its circular teleological logic and the
failure to address fully the cultural biases inherent in progressive educational
values. Chapter 12 concludes the book by turning to far-reaching and conten-
tious issues. Are educational patterns universal? Is formalism emotionally de-
structive? Do Anglophone educational values have widespread relevance?
Does neuroscanning research have implications for the introduction of pro-
gressive enquiry techniques in primary and secondary schools in developed
as well as developing countries? The conclusion is that, theoretically inele-
gant though it may be, educational solutions need to be grounded in local re-
alities. The time has come to work with rather than against formalistic teach-
ing.
Analysis of teaching styles has gone through three overlapping phases in the last
50 years. The first phase, typified by Beeby, was to blame teachers for inability to
change away from formalism to more progressive teaching styles, with more pre-
service and in-service teacher education as the perceived remedies. The second
phase was to blame lack of change on teacher training and curriculum, and there-
fore to attempt to alter either or both. Both of these phases were widespread fail-
ures. The third phase has been a growing concern for context, for identifying
teaching styles that are culturally appropriate. A consequence of the contextual
approach is provision of teacher training and syllabuses that aim to upgrade the
level of the relevant style rather than to repeat earlier failures, for example by im-
proving the level of formalism rather than failing yet again to replace it with pro-
gressivism.

Gerard Guthrie
Key issues currently lie in the legacy of the first two phases (i.e. with the false
association of improvement in the quality of education with change to teaching
styles) and with the Anglophone cultural values often found in attempts to change
teaching in a progressive direction. Such literature still strongly influences aid
agencies and developing country practitioners. Professional educators, especially
in internationally funded teacher education and curriculum projects, frequently
make ill-considered and unnecessary attempts to transform classroom teaching by
replacing formalistic teaching with inappropriate teaching styles. Recipient coun-
tries and aid donors continue to waste considerable efforts on changing teaching
styles on the unverified assumption that student learning will somehow improve as
a result.
The central issue in the failure of progressivism is not so much the measure-
ment weaknesses of the stages approach as its circular teleological logic and the
failure to address fully the cultural biases inherent in progressive educational val-
ues. In extensive reading for this book, I found little analysis of the extent to
which progressive values are culture-bound. Beeby was just one of many educa-
tionalists who have not understood fully that teaching could be based on different
paradigms that constitute other ways of knowing. The cross-cultural implications
of the progressive school-based Western norms embedded in the stages and the
strength of other culturally-derived epistemologies (as seen in the Papua New
Guinean and Chinese formalistic traditions) have not received the widespread at-
tention they deserve. Yet, as we saw with the case of the Goroka diplomates in
Chapter 6, formalism can be effective professionally.
The aim of this concluding chapter is to present a commentary on the theoreti-
cal perspectives that the book has generated, and some hopefully contentious im-
plications of language groups and recent neurobiology.
12.1 Universal Patterns?

Three terms need clarification. In this chapter, universality is used in the positivist
sense as the objective of research to find univeral laws, to which Popperian meth-
odological principles apply. Generalisations are findings from research samples
that may apply in whole or in specified part to the populations from which the
samples were drawn. Commonalities are elements that may be found in many set-
tings, but whose extent cannot be defined accurately. The paradox that underlies
this concluding chapter is that the only universal law in education is that there are
no universal laws. The resolution to the paradox is that the hypothetical presence
of something also implies its absence. The positivist quest for universal laws that
might give theoretically elegant predictions about the educational future, as at-
tempted in Beeby’s progressive model of educational stages, will not be found
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Chapter 12
here. Nor will any universalistic psychological or cultural assumptions be found,

or ill-considered learning theories and practices from education in developed
countries. Any universality is in an eclectic use of methodology to seek local solu-
tions to local problems.
Beeby’s attempt to develop a progressive model of education with universal
application has been formally refuted. The stages model is invalid and unreliable
methodologically, and the progressive values embedded in it are of marginal rele-
vance to many developing countries and of limited generalisability to them. As
Barrett et al. (2006, p. 4) commented, “Beeby’s fourth and final stage of meaning
represents the notions of quality education and characteristics of [an] education
system that predominated during the sixties in high income Commonwealth coun-
tries. More accurately, they represent a certain view that was popular amongst
educationalists in English-speaking Western countries.” The failure of some edu-
cationalists associated with the World Bank to distinguish Beeby’s quality con-
cerns from the methodological issues associated with stages teleology remains a
surprising exception to the economic literacy of the Bank, given rigorous rebuttal
of Rostow’s methodologically similar stages of economic growth (Chapter 2.3).
More limited in its claims, some of the empirical school effectiveness research
that has been conducted using international data sets has provided sound generali-
sations. The main finding from the analysis in Chapter 5 was that the impacts of
teacher education are context-based. Effectively, such a generalisation is to the
presence of a null pattern rather than a positive one. Put another way, any apparent
patterns are quite possibly random ones. This is a trap because random distribu-
tions always contain clusters that can give the illusion of possible systematic pat-
terns and of potential generalisability. We saw the effects in the teacher education
reviews in Chapter 5.1, where reviews with small numbers of studies chased illu-
sory generalisations, such as the premature finding from the earliest review of nine
studies by Alexander and Simmons (1975) that teacher education made no differ-
ence. Only with larger numbers of studies did reliable patterns appear to occur, in
this case that teacher education does, in general, make a difference. But, as we saw
in Table 5.1, some 45% of results were null or negative. The maze of complex
findings in the various studies actually demonstrated that the findings were highly
oriented to context. The Papua New Guinea secondary teacher study summarised
in Chapter 6.2 gave a particular example, showing that teacher education did make
a difference in that context, but in the opposite direction to that predicted from
Beeby’s progressive theory.
With few current meta-analyses of classroom teaching in developing countries,
the state of the art, if so it can be called, is very much at the level of educational
commonalities such as formalism, which may be found in many cultural contexts.
Essentially, in the absence of useful work on teaching styles in the school effec-
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Gerard Guthrie
tiveness field, the available classroom research in developing countries is an ac-

cumulation of ad hoc case studies and surveys. Taken together, they could provide
a basis for wider literature reviews to take the analysis of teaching style research a
step further than undertaken in this book. At this time, accurate definition of for-
malism’s extent is not possible, and this book is as much bounded by that as any
other in the field. While my searches of the international journal literature were
thorough, they were not randomly drawn or complete, nor have I been able to
delve into locally-published work except in the case of Papua New Guinea. Even
the claims about formalism, based as they are on consistent research evidence that
shows many similarities in various parts of the developing world, are conditional
methodologically. The original choices about research sites were essentially hap-
hazard or purposive rather than random, and the English-language comparative
education journals publish papers predominantly on Commonwealth and lesser
developed countries in Africa and Asia.
To develop methodologically sounder generalisations from commonalities,
formal meta-analyses of the research literature are needed. Context-specific re-
views of the local literature can show the limits of international generalisations
and generate policy-oriented findings for decision-makers operating within those
contexts (Avalos & Haddad 1981; Guthrie 1989). Numerous studies in compara-
tive education, often of high quality, bear on the issues, but they have varying
methodologies and need careful analysis. Meta-analyses need classification of
studies by distribution (by first language group as well as geography), methodol-
ogy (positivist, post-positivist), research design (case study, survey, experimental
and mixed method), and data analysis techniques (qualitative and quantitative, and
in the latter case, non-parametric, univariate and multivariate). The sampling dis-
tributions for positive, null and negative findings in relation to any given hypothe-
sis would give further evidence about the generalisability of the findings in inter-
national analyses, but careful attention to their limits is also needed to indicate the
many occurrences where context outweighs generalisation.
Academics, especially in the school effectiveness field, may find the concern
for context confusing or counter-intuitive, but administrators rarely need any con-
cern other than for their own situation, so context is not a practical administrative
problem within educational systems. Methodological limitations are also of re-
duced concern in the real world of educational decision-making. Case studies can
be appropriate for use by context-based decision-makers, which is highly relevant
to the promotion of grounded educational change. Of great relevance here is Pop-
per’s (1979, pp. 13-23) distinction between “theoretical preference” and “prag-
matic preference”. One is the scientific quest for truth, especially true explanatory
theories; the other is a policy concern for practical action. One proceeds through
the process of falsifiability; the other proceeds through use of the best-tested alter-
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Chapter 12
native, i.e. the option that has the most information available to support it at the
time when action has to be taken. A decision-maker with a deadline cannot wait
years for authoritative scientific evidence. From a pragmatic point of view, in-
complete research results may have to be used because they are the only data
available. Administrators and politicians must rely on their professional judgement
(Guthrie 2004; 2010, pp. 196-203).
In all, the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD lists some 155 de-
veloping countries and territories. Country-by-country reviews of their literature,
initially along the lines of Chapters 8 and 9, could provide enough evidence to al-
low aggregation beyond imprecisely scoped commonalities to some useful gener-
alisations about the distribution of formalistic teaching. Were a dozen post-
graduate students in each of a dozen universities to tackle the task, and allowing
for the inevitable disputations over review findings, a considerable coverage of
developing countries could readily provide meaningful generalisations within five
or ten years. Compared with the 40 years it has taken school effectiveness research
to achieve next to nothing about classroom methods in developing countries, this
would be rapid indeed.
12.2 Emotional Atmosphere

One of the main barriers to an acceptance of formalism as having desirable prop-
erties is its connotation to westerners of a domineering authoritarianism, indeed
even as a contributor to the notion of schooling as violence (Harber 2002). Rather,
not atypical perhaps is a benevolent paternalism, as found in a classroom observa-
tion study in Papua New Guinea. The study found teachers did nearly all the struc-
turing, soliciting and reacting; pupils did almost none of these but did all the re-
sponding. While critical of such an approach, Dunkin (1977, p. 10) found it
appropriate to comment that, “the teachers were warm and supportive in their
dealings with the children and the atmosphere in all classes was one of enthusiasm
and interest.” One of the findings from the Confucian-heritage research in Chapter
9 was that Western perceptions of formalistic teaching as authoritarian are not
shared in Chinese culture, where the teacher-student relationship is hierarchical
and the teacher is dominant but not necessarily authoritarian. The two country
cases used as the basis of refutation in this book thus question the view that for-
malistic teaching is necessarily seen as authoritarian. If such findings are common,
then the affective consequence of formalistic teaching may indeed be rather less
negative than is commonly assumed.
The complexity underlying apparently authoritarian behaviours was demon-
strated in Tabulawa’s study in Botswana reported in Chapter 2.4. It found that
teacher-student relationships were paternalistic and formal, and that corporal pun-
241
Gerard Guthrie
ishment was common in the case study school. Teachers emphasised attentiveness,
formality and orderliness in their lessons, expected traditional respect and defer-
ence from students, and maintained a social distance. However, in many instances
teachers were “forced” into a dominant position by the students themselves, who
had a measure of informal countervailing power through their contribution to the
teachers’ reputations, so that teachers actively avoided teaching acts that might
lead to them being labelled as incompetent by students. If they knew the required
syllabus knowledge and explained it well, they could gain students’ respect, and
not need to attempt to maintain control by resorting to corporal punishment, which
in effect was a sign of failure. The teachers’ apparent dominance was not so much
imposed as co-constructed, a negotiated authority that was a product of teachers’
and students’ mutual expectations of schooling derived from their cultural context.
Caution is needed, nonetheless, with any assumption that Formalism necessar-
ily involves corporal punishment. Boorer (2003), for example, raised this concern
about teaching in Papua New Guinea. The most teacher-centred style in the teach-
ing styles continuum in Table 10.1 is defined as Authoritarian and described as
frequently involving physical sanctions such as corporal punishment, essentially
because it is most commonly found in total institutions whose role is to induct re-
cruits into total obedience to organisational norms. Formalism is the next most
teacher-centred style and is described as involving strong negative sanctions fo-
cussed on failure to learn. From a technical perspective, the model is intended to
present modal characteristics of teaching styles, common among their practitioners
but not necessarily universal. Not all formalistic teachers use violence; nor is the
definition tied to this. Some formalistic teachers do use physical punishment
(which I regard as a sign of low-level formalism) and others do not (which can be
considered a necessary but not sufficient condition to be a high-level formalist).
Other types of weak teacher may use corporal punishment too – it seems more an
issue of personality than teaching style and, no doubt, these teachers need help to
reduce the worst aspects of authoritarianism involved in physical and psychologi-
cal abuse (Boorer & Pat 1992). As Larking (1974) observed, the authoritarian per-
sonality is common and changes from this may only occur with changes in the so-
cial personality of society itself.
12.3 Cultural Context

The methodological principles put in previous chapters are expressed as clearly as
possible, but care needs to be taken not to oversimplify the issues. This is espe-
cially so in coming to an understanding of the background variable of cultural
context and its many potential impacts. A deep-reaching review by Sternberg
(2007) of experimental cross-cultural research found ten lessons learned about cul-
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Chapter 12
ture, instruction and assessment. The findings show the complexities that can be
involved with finding evidence about some of the experimental variables dis-
cussed in Chapter 11.1:
1. The very act of assessing cognitive and educational performance affects

that performance differentially across cultures (e.g. with static rather than
dynamic testing).
2. Individuals in cultures may think about concepts and problems in differ-
ent ways, so that teachers of one culture teaching students of another cul-
ture may not understand how they think (e.g. linear Western teachers may
not comprehend dialectical Asian students).
3. Behaviour that is viewed as smart in one culture may be viewed as not
smart or even stupid in another (e.g. classifying hierarchically rather than
functionally).
4. Students do better on assessments with familiar and meaningful material.
5. Children may develop contextually important skills at the expense of
academic ones (perhaps having adaptive skills that matter in their own
environment but that teachers do not view as part of ‘intelligence’).
6. Children may have substantial practical skills that go unrecognised in
academic tests.
7. Failure in school may reflect children’s ill health not lack of ability.
8. Children may do poorly in school not because they do not understand the
material, but because they do not understand the instructions about what
to do with the material.
9. When children are taught in culturally appropriate ways, their achieve-
ment increases (although this finding did relate to data on teaching con-
tent rather than teaching method).
10. What it means to be smart may vary from one culture to the next (stu-
dents in different cultures may have different views about the meaning of
intelligence).
In sum, Sternberg concluded, when cultural context is taken into account, indi-
viduals are better recognised for and are better able to make use of their talents,
schools teach and assess children better, and society uses rather than wastes the
talents of its members. “We need to teach to who the students are, not some ide-
alization of who we might want them to be. In that way, we make instruction cul-
turally relevant rather than culturally blind, deaf, and dumb” (Sternberg 2007, p.
17).
In all this, I am not making a case for culturalisation of content; rather the case
is for culturalisation of method. I do not doubt that using relevant examples from
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Gerard Guthrie
students’ own communities will help them understand what a teacher is talking
about inside the classroom, but the basic role of primary schools, in particular, is
to teach ‘modern’ knowledge, especially numeracy and literacy. Learning folk
dances in school may be good fun and show respect for local customs, but it is not
culture in the sense being written about in this book, which is as “a set of unspo-
ken, implicit rules of behaviour and thought that controls everything we do … [it]
defines the ways in which people view the world, determines their values, and es-
tablishes the basic tempo and rhythms of life” (Hall 1983, pp. 6-7). Such values
are part of our sociolinguistic cultural identities, initially defined by our mother
tongues, and principally learned informally through socialisation in the family.
The family embedded in the community remains the appropriate place to learn
them. Using the classroom to teach about local cultural values seems dubious as a
curriculum strategy. Practically as well, teacher mobility is common in school sys-
tems, one practical consequence being that many teachers simply do not know a
great deal about local cultures. Even when teachers do have this knowledge, it is
faintly ridiculous to suggest that the school should supplant the family in such
matters.
12.4 Values and Language Groups

Values are a deep-seated linguistically embedded element of culture as defined in
this book. As Alexander’s (2001) case studies of progressive thinking showed, the
values encoded in progressivism are essentially Eurocentric, especially Anglo-
phone. A major pedagogical divide between English and non-English speaking
countries reflects different sets of values whose influence is commonly underesti-
mated:
Values … spill out untidily at every point in the analysis of pedagogy, and it is
one of the abiding weaknesses of much mainstream research on teaching, in-
cluding the rare accounts that appear in the comparative education literature,
that it tends to play down their significance in shaping and explaining observ-
able practice (Alexander 2001, p. 517).
Progressive Anglophone values have especially influenced quite different schools

of thought about educational quality in non-Western countries, while countervail-
ing formalistic values have been widely underestimated by educational reformers.
Alexander (2000, summarised in 2001, p. 520) identified three basic sets of values
that are highly pervasive at both school and classroom levels. Individualism em-
phasises choice, freedom of expression, self-actualisation, rights over responsibili-
ties, personal knowledge, differentiated learning, divergent outcomes, and the in-
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Chapter 12
dividual. Community emphasises respect for others, sharing, caring, the balance of
responsibilities and rights, collaborative learning, and the group. Collectivism
identifies social cohesion, common ownership, shared values and norms, respon-
sibilities before rights, joint learning, convergent outcomes, and the class. Clearly
enough, progressivism most supports the values of individualism, the widespread
examples of formalism from Africa and Papua New Guinea that illustrate the pre-
sent book relate most clearly to the values of community, while the China example
relates most clearly to collectivism.
Alexander illustrated the competing role of these value sets with a dismissal by
the World Bank and the OECD in the 1990s of Russian teaching as old-fashioned
and authoritarian and pressure for more democratic student-centred approaches,
yet Russian children were outperforming American ones in mathematics and sci-
ence. The implication is that in the World Bank and the OECD, the democratic
values of individualism outweighed the academic achievement valued in a particu-
lar collective culture. Barrett further observed that individualism, personalised
discourse and diffuse interaction are characteristics of North American and British
practice, but “if constructivism, personalized learning and celebration of learner
creativity do not necessarily come bundled together as a package in East Asian or
central European countries, where value is placed on collectivism, objectified dis-
course and effort … it should not be assumed that they must in sub-Saharan Africa
or South Asia” (Barrett 2007, p. 290).
A key element in the widespread and persistent influence of the progressive
paradigm has been the role of English language universities in the United States,
United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and New Zealand. They continue to provide
the bulk of overseas university study for developing country teachers, researchers
and aid professionals, who often imbibe individualistic progressive educational
values as international students. These theories can be superficially attractive in
that they implicitly attack old-fashioned Western educational values commonly
associated with colonialism, but if paradigms about modern education are not de-
constructed, culturally-based and possibly false assumptions about teaching styles
remain unexamined and untested. This book, too, reflects the role of the English
language as an international academic medium. It is biased towards Africa, Asia
and the South Pacific by the available English language literature and has little to
report that draws directly on research from those parts of the developing world
with colonial inheritances from French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish tradi-
tions, in particular. Hopefully, these gaps may encourage others more linguisti-
cally competent than I to analyse their research literatures on progressivism and
formalism.
The modesty with which claims for universal predominance of Anglophone
progressive educational values should be exercised is indicated by the numbers of
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Gerard Guthrie
speakers for whom English is the first language, and therefore the initial vehicle
for transmission of sociolinguistic cultural identities. While numerical estimates
vary among sources, Chinese is always placed well ahead of any other language,
while English has a relatively small proportion of first language users worldwide.
The Summer Institute of Linguistics recently estimated that Chinese is spoken by
more first speakers than any of 6,909 known languages (Lewis 2009). These esti-
mates had Chinese spoken by some 1.213 billion people in 31 countries, 20.4% of
the world figure of 5.960 billion. Next at 5.5% was Spanish, at 329 million first
speakers in 44 countries, and English virtually the same at 328 million, but in 112
countries. They were followed by Arabic (221 million first language speakers in
57 countries), Hindi (182 million in 20 countries) and Bengali (181 million in 10
countries). Portuguese, Russian, Japanese and German rounded out the top ten.
Five of the 10 languages were European, but the most widespread of these, Eng-
lish, had only 5.5% of the world’s population using it as a first language, and
therefore likely to have it as the vehicle for culture in the sense used in this book.
The clue to the international influence of English as a global language is the high
number of countries with first language speakers and the fact that it is the world’s
premier trade, scientific and diplomatic language (Crystal 2003). Estimates of the
numbers of second language users vary widely, from around half a billion to over
one billion, depending on how language competence is defined. However, use of
English as a second language indicates its practical global utility, not the distribu-
tion of deep Anglophone, progressive educational values. Children do indeed ap-
pear to be valued in all cultures, but the ways in which they are valued and the ex-
pectations of appropriate intellectual and emotional development, and of
appropriate behaviours, vary hugely around the world. The notion that English-
language educational values should be a universal model merits little short of ridi-
cule.
12.5 Growth of the Brain

The Progressive Education Fallacy in developing countries is based on the dubi-
ous premise that teaching variously labelled as student- or learner-centred, en-
quiry, problem-solving or democratic is necessary in primary and secondary
schools to develop student cognitive abilities that are consistent with intellectual
enquiry skills. The central focus in this book about the failures of progressive re-
forms has been cultural issues. Yet neurobiological brain scanning research,
briefly reviewed here, has emerged this century to suggest that underlying the cul-
tural issues may be one of physical maturation. This finding could have worldwide
implications.
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Chapter 12
A considerable part of the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex is the prefrontal
cortex, which is one of the last parts of the brain to develop. The entire prefrontal
cortex is dedicated to the memory, planning or execution of actions in goal-
directed behaviour. It has the central executive role of problem-solving in intellec-
tual enquiry, such as forming goals and objectives, and then in devising plans of
action required to attain these goals. “It selects the cognitive skills required to im-
plement the plans, coordinates these skills, and applies them in a correct order. Fi-
nally, the prefrontal cortex is responsible for evaluating our actions as success or
failure relative to our intentions” (Goldberg 2001, p. 23). The lateral aspects relate
to cognitive functions such as analysis, judgement, planning, problem-solving and
fluid intelligence (Waltz et al. 1999; Fuster 2001; Ellis 2006, pp. 349-353). In the
2000s, considerable evidence from brain imaging has showed that complex rea-
soning functions localise within the rostrolateral prefrontal cortex (Burgess et al.
2007).
Another important finding from neuroimaging is that the brain’s growth may
not finish until the mid-20s, unlike earlier progressive suppositions that it was
formed fully by the early teens. Based on 829 magnetic resonance scans of 387
healthy people aged between 3 and 27, Giedd (2008) reported a general pattern of
childhood peaks of gray matter followed by adolescent declines, functional and
structural increases in connectivity and integrative processing, and a changing bal-
ance between limbic/subcortical and frontal lobe functions that extended well into
young adulthood. Badenoch (2008, p. 287) explained this in less technical terms:
essentially, in adolescence the brain undergoes a thorough reconstruction.
Changes in connectivity, transmission speed and functional balance pave the way
for a fully mature brain in the mid-20s, without which teens have less than consis-
tent capacity for an integrated brain and a coherent mind.
The evidence detailing specific areas of brain growth and function does not add
up to a case for biological determinism. The social environment is particularly in-
fluential on the way in which the brain develops, especially during later periods of
growth. The mind emerges in interaction between neurological and interpersonal
processes and with other environmental features, developing as ongoing experi-
ence shapes the genetically programmed maturation of the nervous system (Siegel
2006, pp. 248-249). When neurons become activated, both experience and genes
create the connections between them. In particular, the cortex is largely undiffer-
entiated at birth, i.e. it has neural plasticity and is shaped heavily by experience
and behaviour, developing executive functions that can change during its lifetime.
“Consciousness may play a direct role in harnessing neural plasticity by altering
previous automatic modes of neural firing and enabling new patterns of neural ac-
tivation to occur” (Siegel 2006, p. 250), which is consistent with Lancy’s (1983)
view that the nature of formal operations is culturally derived.
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Gerard Guthrie
All this has implications for educational research. Obviously enough, schooling
is an important part of the social environment that helps shape neural activation,
so “another important direction forïfuture neuroimaging studies will be increased
integration with social and educational science, which have remained relatively
separate despite the shared goal of guiding individuals through the adolescent
years safely and optimally prepared for the adult world” (Giedd 2008, pp. 340-
341). The implications for schooling of the recent increase in knowledge about
brain growth only began to surface in the late 2000s. Some directions are indicated
by consideration of curriculum implications in a collection edited by Meltzer
(2007), the use by Duijvenvoorde et al. (2008) of imaging to analyse the effects of
different types of feedback on 8-9, 11-13 and 18-25 year olds, Gilbert and Bur-
gess’ (2008) discussion of the implications of executive function and social cogni-
tion for education, and Schmidt-Wilk’s (2009) questions about the role of reflec-
tion in learning relative to recent advances in brain science.
Possibly neurobiology provides an explanation for a feature of Russian educa-
tion observed by Alexander, that it aims to outpace natural development rather
than follow it. In doing this, it may generate a proactive approach to, quite liter-
ally, building the brain’s neural pathways. This does not necessarily imply pro-
gressive teaching methods, for it is coupled in Russian schools with traditional
pedagogy, but neurobiology does appear to provide a systematic and independent
basis for reviewing curricular approaches. There may well be implications for
structuring of the school curriculum, types and timing of classroom activities that
may work in conjunction with the development of the brain, and for teaching
styles. One question that arises from this book is the possible effect that late matu-
ration of cognitive functions, such as judgement and planning, might have on the
development of higher order enquiry skills. Does biological maturation help ac-
count for mismatches found in Piagetian research between the formal operational
tasks that many advanced secondary and undergraduate tertiary students are asked
to do and their concrete level cognitive performance? Correlations between
changes in the coherence of EEG signals from different parts of the brain and the
Piagetian capacity for formal operations were reported some time ago (Hudspeth
& Pribram 1992). What will imaging technologies tell us now?
The development and functioning of the brain are highly complex issues only
briefly canvassed here. There is some way to go before there may be usable find-
ings for schooling from studies of hypotheses about interactions among physical
maturation and culture, the location in the lateral prefrontal cortex of complex rea-
soning, the type of teaching methods used in primary and secondary schools, and
the timing of curricular activities. This has implications for the earlier progressive
assumption that the brain is fully developed by the early teens and that enquiry
teaching is appropriate early in school. Rather, it seems, advanced capacities are
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Chapter 12
not fully formed in the brain until a decade or so later, the implication being that
progressive attempts to utilise such abilities in the mid and late teens may be pre-
mature. The hypothesis that the introduction of enquiry learning methods in pri-
mary and early secondary school is premature, given the later growth of the lateral
prefrontal cortex, may be a stretch, but the issue is on the table. If physical matura-
tion is one key factor, the underpinnings of the failure of progressive teaching in-
novations may in part be biological, and not just educational, cultural or social,
and therefore apply as much to youth in developed as developing countries. If this
book helps provoke further investigation into this matter, the results may raise the
possibility that progressive education is as much a fallacy in developed countries
as developing ones. One can only hope that this generates careful research rather
than a quasi-ideological struggle among educationists.
12.6 Conclusion
A widespread educational commonality is implied by the conjecture that formal-
ism is relevant to developing countries. As far as I can tell, this is a very strong
conjecture. But the general claim for favouring formalism in developing countries
will not be true of all of them, or of all cultures within them, or of all schools, or
of all teachers, or of all classrooms. Superficially, a simple answer to lack of local
research is borrowing solutions from research and practice elsewhere, but the fail-
ures of international borrowings, due in considerable part to their cultural limita-
tions, seem more widespread than the successes. Nor may South-South transfer of
findings about formalism from one developing country necessarily be relevant to
others, as we saw in Papua New Guinea. They will possibly be more relevant than
North-South transfer from developed countries, but they will always need adapta-
tion to local circumstances. Just because China and Papua New Guinea, oddly
enough, have some elements common to their traditional epistemologies and
pedagogies does not necessarily mean that modern applications will be similar.
They may, but they may not. Academics, especially in the school effectiveness
field, may find all that confusing or counter-intuitive, but administrators rarely
need any concern other than for their own situation, so concern for context is not a
practical administrative problem within educational systems.
Theoretically inelegant though it may be, solutions need to be grounded in local
realities. This is not to say that there are no valid generalisations about education
across the globe. There are many, but they may or may not be relevant to any par-
ticular context. For example, old conjectures about the application of progressive
Western models of educational change in developing countries have been rejected
herein as not being of general validity. But that is not to say that progressive mod-
els are never appropriate. They may be effective with higher cognitive levels in
249
Gerard Guthrie
schools; they may be relevant in those parts of educational systems that aim for an
‘international’ education; and they may be appropriate in some cultural settings.
Lest that be taken as an escape clause for on-going attention by values-bound pro-
gressivists, I trust that we can agree to focus on formalistic classrooms because
they are the vast majority in the poverty-ridden developing countries that most
need support. The time has come to work with rather than against formalistic
teaching.
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251
Index
A Brazil, 91
Africa, 16, 29, 55-56, 58, 67, 79, 82, 86, bureaucracy, 5, 200
88, 89, 156, 201, 209, 240, 245 C
Alexander, R., 11-12, 13, 54-55, 203, 208, Cambodia, 11
244-245 Canada, xxiv, 245
Alternative independent variables, 218-222 Caribbean, 87
Anglophone issues, xxi, xxiii, xxvi, 6, 55, cerebral cortex, 246-249
58, 122, 196, 225, 237, 238, Chile, 81, 93, 145
244-246 China, ix, x, xiv, xviii, xix, xx, xxii, 1, 3, 7,
Asia, 16, 26, 35, 55, 57, 58, 67, 79, 82, 84, 16, 17, 30, 35, 36, 69, 104, 147,
86, 110, 201, 240, 243, 245 173-193, 199, 201, 209, 210,
AusAID, xviii, xix, xx, 128, 140, 148, 222 225, 245, 249
Australia, ix, x, xiv, xv, xviii, xxiv, 26-27, Chinese Learner Paradox, 15, 35, 84, 184,
35, 72, 95, 110, 130, 131-132, 189, 211
140, 143-144, 146, 155-157, class size, 17, 68-69, 88, 146, 186, 229,
159, 189, 245 230, 233
authoritarianism, 4, 14-15, 23, 26, 35, 38, classroom observation, 10-11, 31, 32-33,
154, 168, 184, 203-207, 209- 64, 72, 78, 85, 87, 90-91, 94-95,
210, 241-242, 245 97, 109-110, 117, 121, 137,
B 141-142, 158, 186, 188, 195,
Background variables, 79, 81, 85, 218-222, 197, 211-213, 221, 228, 233,
242 241
Barrett, A., 6, 8-9, 22, 28, 32-33, 37, 63, cognitive levels, 4, 82, 86, 166, 196, 197,
87, 91, 203-205, 209, 239, 245 210, 217, 220, 222-224, 233-
barriers to change, 2, 12, 61, 62, 67-74, 234, 249
123 cognitive skills, xxvii, 9, 57, 86, 166, 217,
Beeby, C.E., x, xiii, xv, xvi, xvii-xviii, xxi, 224, 247
xxii-xiii, xxiv, 1-2, 5-6, 8-14, collectivism, 188, 245
16, 21-30, 31, 36, 37-38, 43-60, colonialism, xix, xxiv, 158-161, 167, 245
61-62, 63, 66, 67, 72, 74, 77-78, commonalities, 32, 94, 198-199, 225, 238-
84, 96, 103-107, 111, 114, 116, 241
128-130, 135, 143, 146, 147, community, xxii, 68, 70, 88, 129, 133-138,
173, 195, 202, 208, 214, 222, 143, 161-165, 168, 171, 244,
237-239 245
Biggs, J., xi, 7, 15, 35, 70, 181, 184, 189, comparative education, xvii, xviii, 13, 54,
Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational 56, 212, 240, 244
Objectives, 181, 222-223 Confucianism, xx, 15, 16, 35, 57, 84, 167,
Botswana, xi, xvi, 7, 11, 30, 32, 33, 55-56, 173-193, 199, 201, 233, 241
83, 86, 95, 199, 200, 201, 225, Confucius, 174-176, 179, 181
241

of Formalism, DOI 10.1007/978-94-007-1851-7, © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011
Gerard Guthrie
conjectures, x, xvi, xxi, 1-2, 3, 15, 49-50, E

61, 77, 103, 106, 108, 129, 195- ecological validity, 10, 77, 87, 92, 97, 109,
186, 195-196, 197, 249 121, 123, 220
constructivist learning, 6, 8, 34, 63, 73, 83, Egypt, 11
142, 163, 189, 202, 245 empirical issues, 58, 208
constructs, xv, xvi, 2, 57, 61, 62-65, 70, empiricism, xxiii, 88
74, 119, 122, 154, 163, 167-168, England, 26, 54-55, 116, 185
181, 198, 201, 209, 212, 213, English language, xxiv, xxvi, 132, 244-246
228, 242 epistemology, xx, xxii, 13, 16-17, 53, 56,
context, ix-xii, xv, xxii-xxiv, 1-2, 3-4, 9, 58, 64, 73, 93, 97, 104, 154,
10, 13-15, 17, 21, 26, 28, 31, 35, 157-159, 162, 163, 167-168,
36, 44, 54, 56-57, 61, 64, 66, 69, 169-170, 174-176, 190, 196,
73-74, 77, 78-101, 106, 108, 198, 199-200. 222, 224-226,
109, 117, 122, 123, 142, 143, 237, 238, 249
145, 147, 161-165, 167, 184, ethical issues, xxiii, 208
185, 187, 189, 195-196, 198- ethnomathematics, 130-131, 166
215, 217-218, 220-225, 228, examinations, 2, 5, 12, 14, 34, 61, 63-64,
229, 234, 237, 239, 240, 242- 65, 67, 70, 85-86, 91, 106, 107,
244, 249 119, 136, 174, 177-189, 198,
costs, x, 12, 67, 71-72, 112, 143, 213, 230, 201, 208, 230, 233
232 experimental research, xx, xxi, xxv, 9, 79,
CRIP, 140-142, 144, 147, 149, 221 82-86, 94, 121, 123, 164, 165-
Crossley, M., ix-xii, 13, 36, 62, 67, 70, 166, 195, 208, 210, 211, 214,
136-138, 230 217, 218-222, 224, 226, 229,
Cultural Revolution, 182-183 231, 232, 233, 240, 242-143
culture, ix, xi, xix, xxi, xxiii, xxvi, 2, 3-4,
9, 10, 13-14, 17, 30, 33, 35, 37, F
51, 54-58, 64, 77, 86-94, 97, Fiji, 231
123, 131, 145, 153-172, 173, formal education, xvi, 119, 120, 154-157-
179-181, 182, 184, 187-190, 159, 167, 168, 170, 183, 199
196, 197-215, 217, 218-221, formalism, xv, xvi, xx, xxi, xxiv, xxv,
223, 225, 231, 238, 242-245, xxvi, 1, 3, 4-5, 7, 9, 14-17, 21-
246, 248,-249 42, 44, 48, 55, 56, 58, 61, 63,
curriculum reform, x, xx, xxv, 2, 4, 8, 10- 73, 86, 93, 103-104, 105-126,
11, 12, 27, 28-30, 56, 61, 62-65, 128, 144, 146-147, 153-172,
71-72, 74, 87, 90, 91, 92, 103, 173-193, 195-196, 197-208,
127-152, 153, 161-163, 165, 209-210, 213-214, 220-221,
186-187, 195-196, 200-202, 222, 224, 225, 229, 231, 232-
214, 217-222, 225, 228, 229, 234, 237-251
233-234, 238, 244, 248 France, 54-55
Fuller, B., 13, 32-33, 83, 86-87, 89, 90, 91,
D 96, 87, 231
dependent variables, 10, 11, 79, 87, 88, 92,
108-109, 114, 122, 167, 196, G
218-223 generalisability, xxii, 16, 27, 29, 92, 95-96,
development education, xviii, 25, 208 97, 211, 239-240
direct instruction, 210, generalisations, 238
Ghana, 36
globalisation, 36, 57
254
Index
Goroka Teacher’s College, xiv, 108, 110 Meaning, xxi, 2, 3, 5-9, 23-25, 30, 31-32,
Guthrie, G., x-xii, xiii- xxxii, 5, 8, 12, 22, 43, 44, 46, 48-54, 58, 61, 72, 74,
25, 29-30, 37, 49, 52, 62, 70, 92, 104, 106, 111, 129, 135, 138,
93, 95, 106-126, 128, 129, 131, 144, 147, 153, 166, 169, 217,
132, 140, 144, 145, 154, 159, 222, 239
161, 168, 202, 203, 205, 209, measurement scales, 47-48, 94, 225
211, 219, 225, 229, 230, 232, Melanesia, xxvi, 167, 174, 233
240, 241 meta-analyses, 239-240
H modernisation, xxvi, 4, 17, 53, 145, 162,
Hall, E., 13, 244 183, 189-190, 213
higher operations, 223 Morris, P., 7, 63-65, 70, 91, 190,
Hong Kong, 7, 26, 35, 63-65, 84, 86, 91, Myrdal, G., 29, 43-48, 51-52
173, 181, 184, 189, 190-191, N
201 Namibia, 8, 30-32, 71, 91, 200, 209, 211-
I 212
IEA, 78, 80, 81, 83, 84, 91, 92, 95, 165, neo-colonialism, xxiv, 57
184 Neo-Confucianism, 178, 180-181
independent variables, 88, 108, 114, 196, Nepal, 30, 31, 71, 186, 206, 210, 211-212
217, 218-222, 233 New Zealand, ix, xiii-xiv, xvii, xxiv, 21,
India, 7, 30, 54, 57, 63, 81, 91, 231 27, 29, 47, 50, 245
individualism, 244-245 Nigeria, 83, 84, 86, 201
informal education, 154, 157, 163 Niue, 26, 231
INSET, 29, 33, 71, 72, 136, 187, 188, 210, non-formal education, 155-158, 164, 179,
227, 231, 232 182
inspections, xiii, xvi, xxi, 5, 14, 15, 23, O
101, 106-110, 112-113, 114, O’Sullivan, M., 8, 68-69, 72-73, 87, 91,
116-123, 143, 160, 180, 198, 200, 209-210, 212
200, 202, 211, 212, 213, 219- observation, 10, 11, 31-33, 64, 72, 78, 85,
220, 233 87, 90, 91, 94-95, 97, 109-110,
international education, ix, xvii-xviii, xxii, 117, 119, 121, 137, 141-142,
95, 198 158, 176, 186, 187, 188, 195,
J 210, 211-213, 221, 228, 233,
Jamaica, 7, 88, 91, 96 241
Jordan, 11 OECD, 5, 241, 245
K P
Kenya, 85,-86, 93, 97, 201, 231 Papua New Guinea, ix-i, xiv, xv-xviii, xx-
Korea, 36, 173, 184 xxii, 1, 3, 8, 11, 15-16,, 17, 21,
Kuznets, S., 29, 43-44, 46-48 26-27, 28, 36, 53, 68, 71, 72, 95,
Kyrgyzstan, 8, 11 103-104, 105-126, 127-152,
153-172, 173-174, 199-201,
L 211, 212, 213, 214, 221, 225,
Latin America, 79, 82, 87, 145 230, 238, 239-240, 241-242,
M 245, 249
Malawi, 11 paradigms, ix, xvi, xxiv, 2, 4, 6, 9, 10, 15,
Matane Report, 138-139, 140, 143, 144- 17, 22, 37, 43, 44, 51, 54-58, 61,
146, 164 63, 74, 89, 93, 95-96, 97, 104,
maturation, xxvii, 9, 17, 166, 246-249 121, 123, 144, 153, 157, 158,
255
Gerard Guthrie
162, 163, 167-170, 173, 180, 121-122, 123, 127, 131, 133,
181, 189, 195, 197, 198-202, 145, 147, 168, 196, 220, 231,
224-225, 238, 245 237, 239
pedagogy, x-xi, xxi, 4, 8-12, 16, 17, 33, 37, reliability, 2, 10, 49, 77, 90, 92, 93-94, 96,
54, 57, 65, 83-88 96, 104, 143- 97, 109, 121,-122, 212, 220
145, 153, 154, 162-163, 167, revelatory knowledge, xxi, xxii, xxvi, 2, 4-
168, 170, 173, 182, 187-189, 5, 17, 43, 71, 93, 104, 123, 153-
198-201, 203, 208, 220, 244, 154, 157, 162, 167, 173, 175-
248, 249 176, 185, 186, 197-201, 206,
Pfau, P. , 31-32, 186, 206, 210, 211-212 214,217, 224, 225
Philippines, 83 Rogers, E.M., 12-13, 65-67, 201, 228
Piagetian research, 166-167, 223, 248 Russia, 26, 54-55, 182, 187, 245, 248
Popper, K., xv, xvi, xxi, xxv, 1-2, 3, 15-16, S
43, 49-51, 58, 103-104, 105, school effectiveness research, ix, x, xxvi,
195-196, 187, 238, 240 1-2, 3, 10, 28, 44, 63, 68, 77-
practical knowledge, 63, 119-123 101, 109, 141, 204, 211, 220,
prefrontal cortex, xxvi, 17, 223, 246-249 239-241, 249
process and product, ix, xx, xxv, 2, 4, 9, Singapore, 26, 83-84, 86, 173, 184, 201,
10, 35, 56, 77, 80, 84, 85- 86- 231
90, 91, 94, 97, 117, 119, 142, Solomon Islands, 26, 231
158, 165-168, 184, 185, 186, South Africa, 8, 56, 231
188, 195,197, 200, 205-207, South Pacific, xvii, 2, 21, 26, 29-30, 36,
217, 233, 242 43, 47, 58, 166, 233, 245
progressivism, ix, xv, xvii, xx-xxviii, 1-2, Sri Lanka, 231
3-20, 21, 22-31, 36, 38, 43, 44, SSCEP, 71, 135-138, 147, 162, 221
52-58, 61, 63-65, 67-69, 71, 72- stages, ix, x, xv-xvii, xxi, xxii, 1-2, 3, 5-6,
73, 74, 77, 83-86, 91, 93, 96, 8, 9-12, 16, 21-42, 43-60, 61-
103-104, 106, 108, 109, 110- 62, 74, 77, 85, 92, 103-104, 105,
111, 114-116, 122, 123, 127- 106-108, 127,128-129, 166,
152, 153-154, 162, 164, 165- 169, 173, 195-196, 197, 202,
170, 173, 174, 180-184, 188- 208, 214, 237, 238-239
189, 190, 195-196, 197-214, Sternberg, R., 14, 221, 242-243
217, 219-228, 230, 233,-234, Sudan, 26
237-239, 244-250 syllabuses, 2, 4, 14, 23, 61, 62, 64, 68, 70,
Progressive Education Fallacy, ix, xx-xxii, 74, 105-106, 109, 115, 119,
1, 3-4, 11, 84, 96, 105, 123, 133, 128-136, 140, 145, 146, 162,
165, 195, 211-213, 221, 228, 178, 183, 185-188, 197, 202,
233, 246 205-207, 218-221, 225, 228-
Q 229, 230, 242
questionnaires, 10, 78, 90-94, 141, 212, T
213, 221, 228, 233 Tabulawa, R., xi, 7, 11, 33-35, 37, 55-56,
R 58, 63, 87, 95, 119, 194, 198-
refutation, x, xvi, xxi, 1, 3, 15-16, 44, 49- 200, 241-242
51, 103-104, 105, 128, 147, 170, Tanzania, 8, 32-33, 91, 209
173, 195, 197, 201, 241 Taoism, 175-176, 177, 182
relevance, ix, xx, xxv, xxvi, 6, 10, 13, 66, teacher education, teacher training, xiv-
71, 77, 80, 92, 94-95, 97, 109, xvi, x, xx, xxvi, 2, 4-5, 8, 14, 15,
256
Index
25, 26, 28, 69, 77-82, 85, 88, 96, University of Goroka, xiv, 116, 202, 232-
103, 105-116, 121-122, 123, 233
127, 129, 130, 132, 139, 140, University of Papua New Guinea, x, xiv,
143-144, 145, 147, 153, 157, 108, 110, 170, 172
160, 161, 164, 165, 169, 187, USAID, 6, 11
188, 196, 197-198, 200, 208, V
214, 217, 218, 220, 225, 229, validity, xv, 10, 25, 29-30, 31, 44-49, 66,
232, 233, 237-238, 239 77, 87, 92-93-97, 109, 121-123,
teaching styles, x, xv, xx-xxi, xxv, 1-2, 3- 141, 212, 213, 220, 249
20, 22-24, 27, 31, 37, 47, 49, 57, values, xi, xxii-xxvii, 2, 6-9, 12, 13-14, 21,
61,64, 67-74, 77, 78, 82-86, 87- 28, 36-38, 51-57, 65, 69, 85, 92,
88, 91, 94, 95, 96, 104, 105, 156, 163, 167-168, 179, 181,
128, 130, 134, 137-138, 140, 196, 197-198, 201, 203, 208,
144, 146, 153-154, 161, 162, 209, 233, 237, 238, 244-246,
165-167, 169, 179-181, 187, 250
195-196, 197-211, 211-214, Vernacular Confucianism, 181
217-222, 224, 225-228, 230, vernacular schooling, 164-165
231-234, 237-242, 245, 248 Vietnam, 8, 45
Teaching Styles Model, viii, 202-211 Vulliamy, G., 95, 126, 136-138, 185, 201,
teleology, xv, 2, 8, 9, 30, 43-60, 84, 105, 212
107-108, 175, 176, 196, 237-
239 W
textbooks, xxvi, 4, 14, 17, 23, 29, 32, 34, Western, ix-x, xi, xv-xxvi, 1, 3-4, 6, 8--9,
87, 88, 106, 119, 132, 181, 185, 35, 36, 37, 46, 47, 49, 52, 53,
186-188, 197, 205-207, 229, 57, 71, 78, 84, 86, 96, 104, 111,
230-231, 233 129, 153, 156-158, 163, 167,-
Tonga, 69 168, 173, 174, 181, 182, 184,
188, 189, 190, 196, 201, 204,
U 214, 223, 237, 238, 239, 241,
Uganda, 8 243, 245, 249
UNDP, 6 westernisation, 8, 45, 46, 51, 105
UNESCO, xi, xvii, 5, 6, 21, 27-28, 49, 67- Western Samoa, xvii, 21, 29, 37, 47,
68 World Bank, xix, xx, 1, 6, 21, 22, 28, 29,
UNICEF, 6, 67 38, 44, 71, 78-80, 84, 94, 95, 98,
United Kingdom, xxiv, 245 108, 136, 138, 230, 239, 245
United States, xxiv, 26, 31, 54-55, 62, 78,
245 Z
universality, xxi, 9, 13-16, 30, 47, 49-50, Zaire, 232
53, 96, 103-104, 128, 147, 173, Zambia, 82-83, 86, 201, 221
196, 201, 212, 224, 237, 238- Zimbabwe, 88
241, 245-246
257

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The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing

The Progressive Education

ISBN 978-94-007-1850-0 e-ISBN 978-94-007-1851-7

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011931525

© Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

Printed on acid-free paper

Springer is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com)

SECTION 1 OLD CONJECTURES.............................................................. 1

CHAPTER 1 THE PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION FALLACY ................. 3

CHAPTER 2 FORMALISM IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES ............... 21

CHAPTER 3 STAGES OF EDUCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT? ........... 43

CHAPTER 5 CLASSROOM TEACHING AND

SECTION 2 REFUTATIONS .................................................................... 103

CHAPTER 6 FORMALISTIC SCHOOLING SYSTEM IN

CHAPTER 7 FAILURE OF PROGRESSIVE REFORMS IN PNG....... 127

CHAPTER 9 FORMALISTIC TRADITIONS IN CHINA ...................... 173

SECTION 3 NEW CONJECTURES......................................................... 195

CHAPTER 10 EDUCATION IN CULTURAL CONTEXTS..................... 197

CHAPTER 11 GROUNDED EDUCATIONAL CHOICES ....................... 217

INDEX ................................................................................................................. 253

Figure 2.1 Stages in the Growth of a Primary School System ........................ 23

Table 2.1 Contrast between Formalistic and Meaning Teachers ................... 31

This book is written by a seasoned academic and development consultant with

bution to the international literature on education and development. While some

demonstrating how contextual factors deserve greater attention in much educa-

My ambition was an academic career, so I was pleased to escape in 1971 to a posi-

habit of debating the nature of geography. My first degrees at Victoria University

on an evaluation of the secondary teacher education programmes, which were split

methodological schools (including positivism) originate as mental constructs, and

Despite the interesting exposure to the international diplomatic environment,

as an aid bureaucrat with little direct involvement in universities, I was determined

The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour of For-

A consequence of progressive influences is confused attempts at curriculum re-

going cultural practices. Formalism in many countries is symptomatic of age-old

Karl Popper’s approach to the development of scientific knowledge involves a

THE PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION FALLACY

Karl Popper’s approach to the development of formal knowledge is as a se-

A common educational fallacy is that the variously labelled ‘enquiry’, ‘meaning’,

G. Guthrie, The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries: In Favour 3

 there is no necessary indication that enquiry intellectual skills must be in-

The formalistic teaching that is prevalent in many developing country class-

1.1 Progressive Influences

2. Movement through the stages is inevitable, usually sequential, and evolu-

 were well-established and widely studied, mainly in industrialised coun-

 the majority of current programmes had been developed recently and on a

1984; Jennings 2001), Kyrgyzstan (de la Sablonniere et al. 2009), Namibia

on ideological rather than pragmatic grounds a radical progressive/

a Western-bias, demands attention be given to other possibilities” (Barrett et al.

1.2 Theoretical and Methodological Objections to Stages

1. Curriculum studies continue to use invalid assumptions to evaluate the ef-

hind classroom behaviour, as illustrated by Richard Tabulawa’s (1997;

1.3 Practical Objections to Progressive Reforms

1. Classroom conditions may not be appropriate for some teaching styles.

1.4 Cultural Context and Formalistic Classrooms

context matters, and comparative and international research in education is

there is an underlying, hidden level of culture that is highly patterned – a set

1. Formalistic teachers do not necessarily rely just on lecturing.

These findings derive from studies in different countries. There is no indication

1.5 Country Studies of Formalism

 Formalistic teaching is culturally congruent with traditional epistemology

class sizes, provision of textbooks, provision of supplementary language readers,

Guthrie, G. (1990). To the defense of traditional teaching in lesser developed countries. In V.

FORMALISM IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES