Educational change as social movement: an emerging paradigm from the Global South
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Educational change as social movement: an emerging paradigm from the Global South Santiago Rincón‑Gallardo1
© Springer Nature B.V. 2020
Abstract This paper advances the notion of social movement as a new way to think about and pursue educational change. It articulates a critique to scientific management, the paradigm that has shaped how schools and educational systems have been understood and run for over a century, since the creation of compulsory schooling. Drawing on some examples of radical and widespread pedagogical change in the Global South, the author proposes the notion of social movement as an alternative paradigm with a fighting chance to override scientific management as the dominant paradigm for educational change. The article concludes with remarks on the possibilities for the new paradigm to make its way into educational systems in so called developed nations. Keywords Educational change · Social movements · Pedagogy · Global South · Scientific management · Paradigm change · Whole system reform
Introduction Ideas are powerful forces. They shape how we make sense of the world and how we act on it (Kuhn 1970). They delimit what we believe is possible and desirable (Foucault 1970). For over a century, one particular set of ideas has shaped in profound and pervasive ways how we think about and run schools and educational systems. This set of ideas is scientific management, a paradigm that emerged in the wake of the industrial revolution in the early 20th century. At a time when mass production and efficiency were considered key forces for economic growth and prosperity, scientific management was a revolutionary idea. It proposed that the best way to organize human activity was to break down complex work into small, repetitive The ideas in this article are taken from and further developed in Rincón-Gallardo (2019). * Santiago Rincón‑Gallardo [email protected] 1
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Vol.:(0123456789)
Journal of Educational Change
and routine tasks, with external incentives to ensure adequate execution of the work (Mehta 2013; Pink 2009). Along with many other organizations, schools and school systems were profoundly shaped by the ideas of scientific management. Organizing students by age, breaking down the day in timed blocks with each group following instructions from the adult in the room, and creating external incentives such as grades became, and continue to be, defining features of schools and school systems. The triad of standards, testing and accountability represents the most recent manifestation of scientific management in education reform (Mehta 2013). The idea that system-wide school improvement is best achieved by rationalizing school activities through principles of scientific management took a strong hold and continues to be the dominant logic for education reform in the United States and beyond. Sahlberg (2011) has referred to the spread of scientific management across educational systems around the world as the Globa
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