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Culture, Transnational Education
and Thinking
This is a series that offers a global platform to engage scholars in continuous aca-
demic debate on key challenges and the latest thinking on issues in the fast growing
field of International and Comparative Education.
Children’s Voices
Studies of interethnic conflict and violence in European schools
Edited by Mateja Sedmak, Zorana Medaric̀ and Sarah Walker
Niranjan Casinader
First published 2014
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2014 N. Casinader
The right of N. Casinader to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from
the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Casinader, Niranjan.
Culture, transnational education and thinking : case studies in global
schooling / Niranjan Casinader.
pages cm—(Routledge research in international
and comparative education)
1. Multicultural education. 2. Critical thinking—Study
and teaching. 3. Transnational education. I. Title.
LC1099.C37 2014
370.116—dc23 2013048892
ISBN: 978-0-415-72350-3 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-85772-5 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
For my sons, Simon and Justin, who are of the transcultural; and
Lee, who has been with me on the journey to transcend it.
This page intentionally left blank
Contents
List of figures ix
List of tables xi
Foreword xiii
Preface xvii
Abbreviations xxi
Index 225
Figures
We live in an era in which cultures cannot exist apart from each other; they are
constantly rubbing up against each other. In a world that is becoming increas-
ingly mobile and complex, cultural exchange has become a norm. The pro-
cesses of globalisation are changing the ways in which we now forge and enact
our identities; our sense of belonging is now shaped by a wider set of cultural
inputs than ever before. It is no longer possible to define cultures solely in
national terms, but through an analytic that is increasingly influenced by the
intensity and scope of circular flows of persons, goods, money, information and
symbols. These flows, resulting largely from developments in communication
technology, have enabled people to maintain communal links and develop new
relations across national and cultural borders. For the first time in human his-
tory, the idea of cosmopolitanism has become a realistic moral ambition, even
if it remains difficult to define, and even if it is surrounded by major dilemmas
of politics and practice.
One of these dilemmas relates to the fact that while we have become increas-
ingly aware of the emerging realities of global interconnectivity and interde-
pendence, we find it difficult to imagine a world beyond the politics of national
and cultural differences. We often exploit such differences in order to preserve
traditional conceptions of identities against the encroaching forces of globalisa-
tion. And although we desire global markets and economic exchange, we none-
theless feel that our cultural distinctiveness is under attack by a homogenised
global culture. And while we are often ready to acknowledge that our problems
transcend national boundaries, we continue to insist upon the prominence of
national interests. What is abundantly clear is that we have yet to develop a
moral vocabulary that recognises the significance of the global flows of people,
finance and ideas but is able to address, at the same time, our anxieties about
these flows.
These moral and political challenges are of course not entirely new. For
many decades, immigrant societies like Australia, the United Kingdom and the
United States have struggled with the question of how best to celebrate cul-
tural diversity and simultaneously construct a moral universe in which policies
and practices operate against a relatively stable understanding of society. In the
xiv Foreword
requires them to possess a new set of thinking skills to better engage in com-
munities whose borders are not easily delineated and are constantly changing.
Yet what is likely to be common to all of these communities are the realities
of dynamism, diversity and displacement. The success that young people might
enjoy will depend on how well they are equipped to negotiate these realities. In
a way that is both distinctive and accessible, Casinader’s book is a major contri-
bution to the debates about how education might enhance their global futures.
Fazal Rizvi
Professor in Global Studies in Education
University of Melbourne
Preface
At a prima facie level, the origins of this book lie primarily in doctoral research
that was undertaken at the University of Melbourne at the end of the 2000s.
However, in reality, much of the intercultural dissonance and conundrum that
guided that investigation was generated much earlier, accumulating during my
childhood and education within a diverse, globalised environment that would
inevitably be now referred to as being ‘transnational’. These foundations, fur-
ther moulded by a career in school education that frequently diverged into
international considerations, often in the context of development studies, led to
an ongoing interest with the impact of historical and contemporary globalisation
on education, particularly in the context of cultural difference. Being involved
with the national and international teaching and research of thinking skills gave
a focus to those contemplations, the ultimate result of which is this book.
Globalisation in its modern phase has inevitably included a strong educa-
tional element, in which learning programs that originate in one part of the
world have been transported to another. In concordance with economic trends
in the contemporary era, this export trade has been primarily one-way. Curric-
ula that were devised in the industrialised societies of more ‘developed’ States –
the so-called West – have been introduced into regions that have very different
cultural, socio-economic and educational characteristics and traditions. Con-
temporary models of teaching higher-order thinking as a discrete curriculum
focus have been part of this movement, particularly since the notion of thinking
skills came to be perceived as central to a school education since the 1970s. As
a result, as a number of thinking skills programs have been developed in edu-
cational systems within economically advanced countries, some have adopted
a deliberate line of internationalism, moving into regions beyond their typi-
cal bases in the United States, Australia and the United Kingdom with vary-
ing degrees of success. Consequently, the discussion within this book seeks to
explore the wider issues involved in the cultural dimensions of this educational
transplantation in the name of global schooling. It does so through the incor-
poration of a research project into the validity of transplanting thinking skills
programs from one system to another on an international scale, focusing on a
trinity of concepts that delineates the centre of this enigma: culture, thinking
and education.
xviii Preface
The writing and production of this book would not have been possible with-
out the expertise, advice and assistance of a number of people, and to them, I owe
my sincere thanks. In the first instance, I wish to acknowledge the scholarship
and expertise provided by Peter Ferguson and Fazal Rizvi in their co-supervision
of my doctoral research at the University of Melbourne, which provided the
foundation for this book. I am also indebted to Fazal, not only for kindly agree-
ing to write the foreword, but also for his encouragement, advice and support
throughout my late career transition into tertiary research and teaching.
The wider support of colleagues at Monash University, Australia, particularly
Graham Parr, Terri Seddon, Cynthia Joseph and Lucas Walsh, was also impor-
tant in its provision of a challenging and thoughtful intellectual environment
in which I could both extend and develop my thoughts on the considerations
at the heart of the book. I am also grateful to my editor at Routledge, Jane
Madeley, and my editorial assistant, Clare Ashworth, for their eternal patience,
advice and insight during the development of the initial book proposal, and the
production of the final volume. The diligence and expertise of the production
team at Apex CoVantage, particularly Renata Corbani and Marianne Fox, was
invaluable. Also appreciated was the expertise of David Panaho, who was able to
turn my illustrations into professionally designed diagrams with ease and clarity.
I am also thankful for the support of Marianne Solomon, Executive Director
of Future Problem Solving Program International, for permission to include
discussion of the FPSPI thinking process.
Finally, I wish to acknowledge my family and friends for their constant
encouragement throughout the genesis and writing of the book. In particular, I
am indebted to my partner, Lee Godden, for her support in all manner of ways
throughout the whole project, including her insightful readings of the manu-
script in the course of its formation.
An explanatory note
There has been, and still is, substantial discourse and concern surrounding the
use of the terms such as ‘West’ and ‘Western’ to describe civilisations and tradi-
tions perceived as belonging to the ‘developed’ world. The concern regarding
the connotations of homogeneity in the face of a more varied reality has valid-
ity, and this is why terms such as ‘Anglo-American’ (Bhabha, 1994) and ‘Euro-
American’ (Brun & Jazeel, 2009) are often used in their place. However, it is not
within the purview of this particular book to explore the philosophical accu-
racy of such terminology. In the context of this project, the terms remain useful
general summations of a particular set of values and approach to life. Hence, the
terms ‘West’ and ‘Western’, in conjunction with the term ‘Euro-American’, will
be used in this book to represent that collective set of related cultures, with the
employment of quotation marks to acknowledge their contestability.
Niranjan Casinader
Melbourne, December 2013
Preface xix
References
Bhabha, Homi. (1994). The Location of Culture. London: Routledge.
Brun, Catherine, & Jazeel, Tariq (Eds.). (2009). Spatialising Politics: Culture and geography
in postcolonial Sri Lanka. London: Sage Publications.
This page intentionally left blank
Abbreviations
early 1960s, as a force that was actively promoting internationalism and global
connections in an era when the desire to avoid global conflict was very much
to the fore. Mine was an experience typical of the post–World War Two gen-
eration who grew up around the Commonwealth, still seeing themselves as
inevitably and inexorably part of the British sphere of influence.
Some refer to this generational group as ‘global nomads’, whose multi-spatial
upbringing has created a set of individuals with a distinct set of outward-
looking perspectives. My primary education, initiated in London, was contin-
ued seamlessly in Africa and Malaysia within local independent schools that
taught British curriculum to children of expatriates and the local elite. At the
age of nine, my contemporaries and I sat official British entrance examina-
tions to enter schools back in our ‘homeland’. As such, we were exemplifying
the assertions of those who hold that, in essence, the character of educational
systems in former colonies was derived from that found in the relevant former
colonial power (Lutzeler, 1995; Quist, 2001). This legacy was a clear demon-
stration that political independence had not led to social, and therefore, cultural
sovereignty, and also posed the central question that was, and may still be, at the
heart of that educational dependence: ‘. . . what are the chances of success and
the implications of a divergence from the universal standard that is Western?’
(Quist, 2001, p. 114).
One salient consequence of this internalised self-doubt was a reflection on
the degree to which my approach as an educator and researcher has been
influenced more by my environmental culture than my genetic one, and a
heightened perception that my own concepts of critical and creative thinking
have been founded very much in the Euro-American tradition (Dahl, 2010).
Such impressions were attenuated, and even coagulated, as my professional
life took me into global thinking education. The extent to which my fam-
ily culture has seeped into this mélange, and the ways in which it might have
modified it, or have been modified by it, therefore became a powerful drive in
the formulation of the research central to this book: where was the ‘Other’ in
terms of education, culture and thinking? Was it externally divided from my
true self, or is it – and perhaps even has always been – part of my being, albeit
unseen, unacknowledged and, as a consequence, unresolved? In any case, in the
language of Appadurai, who also confronted some of the same demons, my ‘. . .
epistemological anxieties are decidedly local, even if locality is no longer what
it used to be . . .’(1996, p. 11), even though my own dilemmas were born out of
Empire within the British milieu, rather than the American.
and incorporeal phenomena. It has been, and continues to be, a facilitator and
generator of mobilities across all aspects of human society, ‘. . . a multi-faceted
process, or set of processes, that are increasing global interconnectedness across
all domains of human activity and breaking down the significance of borders’
(Eckersley, 2007, p. 10). It primarily refers to the increasing spatial integration of
different places located around the world through interactions of varying forms.
Inevitably, this increase in spatial transference has led to the coalescence of phe-
nomena that are different to varying extents, sometimes to the extreme of being
opposites, but the signifier of modern globalisation is the rapidity and frequency
of these flows, ‘. . . not only of capital and finance, images, information and ide-
ologies, but also of people . . .’, leading to a situation where ‘. . . the movement
of people is transforming our social institutions, cultural practices and even our
sense of identity and belongingness’ (Rizvi & Lingard, 2010, p. 161).
Education in all its iterations and modes of substantiation has been part of
this interaction, as has that of culture, a term that itself raises multifarious and
often tangential interpretations. The connection between education and cul-
ture has been a long acknowledged one, most clearly established in the early
twentieth century by Michael Sadler, seen by many as the ‘parent’ of compara-
tive education (Alexander, 2001a; Apple, 2001; Broadfoot, 2000; Crossley, 2000;
Crossley & Broadfoot, 1992). Given its original focus on the study of different
educational systems in various regions, it is in comparative education where the
study of education can be seen to first engage with the processes of what is now
known as globalisation. It was Sadler (1900 / 1979) who consistently reiterated
that the study of education could not be divorced from the cultural sphere in
which it operated:
the things outside the schools matter even more than the things inside . . .
and govern and interpret the things inside. (p. 49)
I. Equatorial Zone.
Roughly speaking, the borders of this zoological zone coincide
with the geographical limits of the tropical zone, the tropics of the
Cancer and Capricorn; its characteristic forms, however, extend in
undulating lines several degrees north and southwards.
Commencing from the west coast of Africa the desert of the Sahara
forms a well-marked boundary between the equatorial and northern
zones; as the boundary approaches the Nile it makes a sudden
sweep towards the north as far as Northern Syria (Mastacembelus,
near Aleppo, and in the Tigris; Clarias and Chromides, in the lake of
Galilee); crosses through Persia and Afghanistan (Ophiocephalus),
to the southern ranges of the Himalayas, and follows the course of
the Yang-tse-Kiang, which receives its contingent of equatorial fishes
through its southern tributaries. Its continuation through the North
Pacific may be considered to be indicated by the tropic which strikes
the coast of Mexico at the southern end of the Gulf of California.
Equatorial types of South America are known to extend so far
northwards; and by following the same line the West India Islands
are naturally included in this zone.
Towards the south the equatorial zone embraces the whole of
Africa and Madagascar, and seems to extend still farther south in
Australia, its boundary probably following the southern coast of that
continent; the detailed distribution of the freshwater fishes of South-
Western Australia has been but little studied, but the few facts which
we know show that the tropical fishes of Queensland follow the
principal water-course of that country, the Murray River, far towards
the south and probably to its mouth. The boundary-line then
stretches northwards of Tasmania and New Zealand, coinciding with
the tropic until it strikes the western slope of the Andes, on the South
American Continent, where it again bends southwards to embrace
the system of the Rio de la Plata.
The equatorial zone is divided into four regions:—
A. The Indian region.
B. The African region.
C. The Tropical American region.
D. The Tropical Pacific region.
Siluridæ—
Clariina [Africa] 12 „
Chacina 3 „
Silurina [Africa, Palæarct.] 72 „
Bagrina [Africa] 50 „
Ariina [Africa, Australia, South America] 40 „
Bagariina 20 „
Rhinoglanina [Africa] 1 „
Hypostomatina [South America] 5 „
Cyprinodontidæ—
Carnivoræ [Palæarct., North America, Africa, South America]
Haplochilus [Africa, South America, North America, Japan] 4 „
Tropical Australia.
Ceratodus forsteri. Osteoglossum leichardti.
Ceratodus miolepis.
Tropical Africa.
Protopterus annectens. Heterotis niloticus.
Not only are the corresponding species found within the same
region, but also in the same river systems; and although such a
connection may and must be partly due to a similarity of habit, yet
the identity of this singular distribution is so striking that it can only
be accounted for by assuming that the Osteoglossidæ are one of the
earliest Teleosteous types which have been contemporaries of and
have accompanied the present Dipnoi since or even before the
beginning of the tertiary epoch.
Of the autochthont freshwater fishes of the Indian region, some
are still limited to it, viz., the Nandina, the Luciocephalidæ (of which
one species only exists in the Archipelago), of Siluroids the Chacina
and Bagariina, of Cyprinoids the Semiplotina and Homalopterina;
others very nearly so, like the Labyrinthici, Ophiocephalidæ,
Mastacembelidæ, of Siluroids the Silurina, of Cyprinoids the
Rasborina and Danionina, and Symbranchidæ.
The regions with which the Indian has least similarity are the
North American and Antarctic, as they are the most distant. Its
affinity to the other regions is of a very different degree:—
1. Its affinity to the Europo-Asiatic region is indicated almost
solely by three groups of Cyprinoids, viz., the Cyprinina, Abramidina,
and Cobitidina. The development of these groups north and south of
the Himalayas is due to their common origin in the highlands of Asia;
but the forms which descended into the tropical climate of the south
are now so distinct from their northern brethren that most of them are
referred to distinct genera. The genera which are still common to
both regions are only the true Barbels (Barbus), a genus which, of all
Cyprinoids, has the largest range over the old world, and of which
some 160 species have been described; and, secondly, the
Mountain Barbels (Schizothorax, etc.), which, peculiar to the Alpine
waters of Central Asia, descend a short distance only towards the
tropical plains, but extend farther into rivers within the northern
temperate districts. The origin and the laws of the distribution of the
Cobitidina appear to have been identical with those of Barbus, but
they have not spread into Africa.
If, in determining the degree of affinity between two regions, we
take into consideration the extent in which an exchange has taken
place of the faunæ originally peculiar to each, we must estimate that
obtaining between the freshwater fishes of the Europo-Asiatic and
Indian regions as very slight indeed.
2. There exists a great affinity between the Indian and African
regions; seventeen out of the twenty-six families or groups found in
the former are represented by one or more species in Africa, and
many of the African species are not even generically different from
the Indian. As the majority of these groups have many more
representatives in India than in Africa, we may reasonably assume
that the African species have been derived from the Indian stock; but
this is probably not the case with the Siluroid group of Clariina, which
with regard to species is nearly equally distributed between the two
regions, the African species being referable to three genera (Clarias,
Heterobranchus, Gymnallabes, with the subgenus Channallabes),
whilst the Indian species belong to two genera only, viz. Clarias and
Heterobranchus. On the other hand, the Indian region has derived
from Africa one freshwater form only, viz. Etroplus, a member of the
family of Chromides, so well represented in tropical Africa and South
America. Etroplus inhabits Southern and Western India and Ceylon,
and has its nearest ally in a Madegasse Freshwater fish,
Paretroplus. Considering that other African Chromides have
acclimatised themselves at the present day in saline water, we think
it more probable that Etroplus should have found its way to India
through the ocean than over the connecting land area; where,
besides, it does not occur.
3. A closer affinity between the Indian and Tropical American
regions than is indicated by the character of the equatorial zone
generally, does not exist. No genus of Freshwater fishes occurs in
India and South America without being found in the intermediate
African region, with two exceptions. Four small Indian Siluroids
(Sisor, Erethistes, Pseudecheneis, and Exostoma) have been
referred to the South American Hypostomatina; but it remains to be
seen whether this combination is based upon a sufficient agreement
of their internal structure, or whether it is not rather artificial. On the
other hand, the occurrence and wide distribution in tropical America
of a fish of the Indian family Symbranchidæ (Symbranchus
marmoratus), which is not only congeneric with, but also most
closely allied to, the Indian Symbranchus bengalensis, offers one of
those extraordinary anomalies in the distribution of animals of which
no satisfactory explanation can be given at present.
4. The relation of the Indian region to the Tropical Pacific region
consists only in its having contributed a few species to the poor
fauna of the latter. This immigration must have taken place within a
recent period, because some species now inhabit fresh waters of
tropical Australia and the South Sea Islands without having in any
way changed their specific characters, as Lates calcarifer, species of
Dules, Plotosus anguillaris; others (species of Arius) are but little
different from Indian congeners. All these fishes must have migrated
by the sea; a supposition which is supported by what we know of
their habits. We need not add that India has not received a single
addition to its freshwater fish-fauna from the Pacific region.
Before concluding these remarks on the Indian region, we must
mention that peculiar genera of Cyprinoids and Siluroids inhabit the
streams and lakes of its alpine ranges in the north. Some of them,
like the Siluroid genera Glyptosternum, Euglyptosternum,
Pseudecheneis, have a folded disk on the thorax between their
horizontally spread pectoral fins; by means of this they adhere to
stones at the bottom of the mountain torrents, and without it they
would be swept away into the lower courses of the rivers. The
Cyprinoid genera inhabiting similar localities, and the lakes into
which the alpine rivers pass, such as Oreinus, Schizothorax,
Ptychobarbus, Schizopygopsis, Diptychus, Gymnocypris, are
distinguished by peculiarly enlarged scales near the vent, the
physiological use of which has not yet been ascertained. These
alpine genera extend far into the Europo-Asiatic region, where the
climate is similar to that of their southern home. No observations
have been made by which the altitudinal limits of fish life in the
Himalayas can be fixed, but it is probable that it reaches the line of
perpetual snow, as in the European Alps which are inhabited by
Salmonoids. Griffith found an Oreinus and a Loach, the former in
abundance, in the Helmund at Gridun Dewar, altitude 10,500 feet;
and another Loach at Kaloo at 11,000 feet.
B. The African Region comprises the whole of the African
continent south of the Atlas and the Sahara. It might have been
conjectured that the more temperate climate of its southern extremity
would have been accompanied by a conspicuous difference of the
fish-fauna. But this is not the case; the difference between the
tropical and southern parts of Africa consists simply in the gradual
disappearance of specifically tropical forms, whilst Siluroids,
Cyprinoids, and even Labyrinthici penetrate to its southern coast; no
new form has entered to impart to South Africa a character distinct
from the central portion of the continent. In the north-east the African
fauna passes the Isthmus of Suez and penetrates into Syria; the
system of the Jordan presenting so many African types that it has to
be included in a description of the African region as well as of the
Europo-Asiatic. This river is inhabited by three species of Chromis,
one of Hemichromis, and Clarias macracanthus, a common fish of
the Upper Nile. This infusion of African forms cannot be accounted
for by any one of those accidental means of dispersal, as
Hemichromis is not represented in the north-eastern parts of Africa
proper, but chiefly on the west coast and in the Central African lakes.
Madagascar clearly belongs to this region. Besides some Gobies
and Dules, which are not true freshwater fishes, four Chromides are
known. To judge from general accounts, its Freshwater fauna is
poorer than might be expected; but, singular as it may appear,
collectors have hitherto paid but little attention to the Freshwater
fishes of this island. The fishes found in the freshwaters of the
Seychelles and Mascarenes are brackish-water fishes, such as
Fundulus, Haplochilus, Elops, Mugil, etc.
The following is the list of the forms of Freshwater fishes
inhabiting this region:—
Dipnoi [Australia, Neotrop.]—
Lepidosiren annectens 1 species.
Polypteridæ 2 „
Percina (Cosmopol.)—
Lates [India, Australia] 1 „
Labyrinthici [India] 5 „
Ophiocephalidæ [India] 1 „
Mastacembelidæ [India] 3 „
Siluridæ—
Clariina [India] 14 „
Silurina [India, Palæarct.] 11 „
Bagrina [India] 10 „
Pimelodina [South America] 2 „
Ariina[23] [India, Australia, S. Amer., Patagonia] 4 „
Doradina [South America]—
Synodontis 15 „
Rhinoglanina [India] 2 „
Malapterurina 3 „
Cyprinodontidæ—
Carnivoræ [Palæarct., India, S. America—
Haplochilus [India, South America] 7 „
Fundulus [Palæarct., Nearct.] 1 „