Schools as Protection?: Reinventing Education in Contexts of Adversity

264 Pages·2016·2.28 MB·English

by  Bjorn H. Nordtveit (auth.)

Bjorn H. Nordtveit
Schools as
Protection?
Reinventing Education in Contexts of
Adversity
Introduction by Vachel Miller
Schools as Protection?

Bjorn H. Nordtveit
Schools as Protection?
Reinventing Education in Contexts
of Adversity
Introduction by Vachel Miller
Bjorn H. Nordtveit
Center for International Education,
College of Education
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Amherst , MA , USA
ISBN 978-3-319-25650-4 ISBN 978-3-319-25651-1 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-25651-1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016934708
© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016
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Acknowledgements
This book is written in the hope to provoke thinking outside-the-box. It is written to
give a voice to those children we so easily forget: those working, those being bul-
lied, those being afraid and unhappy in school and those simply wishing to learn to
read.
M any people have contributed to the book; fi rst and foremost the children I have
interviewed and discussed with. The book is dedicated to them.
A lso, I would like to thank Vachel Miller, Professor at the Appalachian State
University for reading a fi rst draft of the book and providing many insightful com-
ments, and for writing a thoughtful and compassionate introduction. Jayne Symons
from the University of Hong Kong provided invaluable comments on the chapter on
child marriage and generously shared materials from her own research in Sudan.
Also, Trey Menefee of the Hong Kong Institute of Education read my earlier papers
on complexity theory, which he then very gently deconstructed. My new refl ection
on complexity is largely infl uenced by our correspondence, for which I am very
grateful.
Further, I would like to thank personnel at the US Department of Labor and the
International Rescue Committee for the work they are doing to fi ght for children’s
rights internationally – and for associating me with some of their work. I should like
to underscore that my writing does not represent any agency, and that any errors
remain mine alone.
I would also like to thank for their great support my colleagues at the Comparative
Education Research Centre at the University of Hong Kong (the research related to
this book started there) as well as at the Center for International Education at the
University of Massachusetts Amherst (where I completed writing this book).
My heartfelt thanks go to my beloved wife, Aleksandra, and to my children Sofi e
and little Eilef for bearing with me during all my travels, research and writing. I
should also like to thank my parents, Helga and Per, and my parents-in-law, Raquel
and Radislav, for their unending support and love.
Amherst, MA, USA Bjorn H. Nordtveit
August 9, 2015
v

Contents
1 The Century of the Child . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Understanding Adversity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Methodology and Sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
Complex Environments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
2 Aims of Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
The Theoretical Debate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Keeping Children Safe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Enhancing Resilience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Experience-Based Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
3 Discourses of Childhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Discourse as a Fixation of Meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Illiteracy and Poverty as a Disease . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
International and Legal Discourse: Child Labor and Early Marriage . . . . 45
The Possibility of a Third Space? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 57
4 Identification and Impact of Abuse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Child Abuse; Maltreatment, and Welfare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Emotional/Psychological Child Maltreatment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Physical Abuse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Bullying. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
5 Child Labor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Defi nitions, Historic and Legal Frameworks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Prevalence of the Worst Forms of Child Labor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Agriculture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Construction, Mining and Industry . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Domestic Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Education and Child Labor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
vii
viii Contents
6 Child Marriage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Defi ning Early and Child Marriage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Reasons for Child Marriage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Problems Related to Early Marriage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Risks for HIV/AIDS and Other Sexually Transmitted Diseases . . . . . . . 117
Pregnancy-Related Complications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Obstetric Fistula . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Power Relationships and Violence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
The Role of Education: To Prevent and to Heal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
7 Contexts of Adversity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Poverty and Hunger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Confl ict and Post-confl ict . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Discrimination and Social Exclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Drugs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
HIV/AIDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139
Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies’
Minimum Standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
8 “Engineering” Responses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Social Embeddedness and Bounded Rationality in Policy-Making . . . . . 147
Age-Related and Administrative Barriers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Direct and Indirect Costs of Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
The Physical School Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
9 Hidden and Planned Curricula . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Formal Schooling: Public and Hidden Curricula . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
Vocational and Skills Training: Theories . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
Pre-vocational and Vocational Training in Primary
and Secondary Schools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
Short-Term Courses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Apprenticeships . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178
Non-formal Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 180
Life Skills . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 184
Psychosocial Support in Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 188
10 Teaching in Adversity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Teachers’ Voices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Teacher Training . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198
Teacher as a Villain and a Hero: Gender Based Violence
and HIV/AIDS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202
11 Conclusion: Reconstructing Education as Protection . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
Teacher Training and Curriculum Reform . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
Complexity, Education, and Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
Final Argument and Recommendations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
Contents ix
Annex 1: Source Documents (Coded in NVivo) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
Dataset 1 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
IPEC Projects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 226
Dataset 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
Asia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 229
Middle East/Europe/North Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230
Annex 2: Definitions of Child Abuse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
Giovannoni and Becerra’s 1979 Thirteen Categories of Abuse . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
Abuse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
Neglect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
Household Dysfunction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 247