Desire and Decline: Schooling Amid Crisis in Tanzania (Society and Politics in Africa) - Softcover

Vavrus, Frances

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0820463116 ISBN 13: 9780820463117

Publisher: Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers, 2003

Synopsis

Desire and Decline explores the privileged place of education in local, national, and global development discourses about population, HIV/AIDS, and environmental conservation. «Desire» signals the global consensus on the view that education is central to solving problems of development. «Decline», on the other hand, draws attention to the growing gap between those who have access to basic social services – such as education – and those who do not. Based on multiple periods of fieldwork on Mount Kilimanjaro, Frances Vavrus links local and global narratives about the potential of education to enhance development but also reveals its limitations in postcolonial countries experiencing the pressures of globalization. Vavrus concludes with portraits of local development initiatives that leave readers with a clear sense of the complexity of education’s role in development, and the importance of political economic analysis for global population, health, and environmental policy.

About this title

About the Author:

The Author: Frances Vavrus is Assistant Professor of Education at Teachers College, Columbia University. She received her Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction with a minor in African studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She is the recipient of a Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship for Swahili, a Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, and an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship in Anthropological Demography. Her research and teaching interests are in the areas of international development, gender studies, and demographic change in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Review:

«The book is beautifully written. Frances Vavrus engages us in a powerful and critical analysis of one of the central salvation narratives of modernity – education as panacea for solving society’s ills and making its future. The resulting study illuminates with great clarity the assemblage that connects international agencies’ policies, healthcare programs for HIV/AIDS, and curriculum health projects, with the experiences of family and students in the Kilimanjaro Region.» (Thomas Popkewitz, University of Wisconsin-Madison)
«Frances Vavrus challenges our faith in schooling as necessarily a transformative enterprise and panacea for social ills. Using wide-ranging field data spanning six years, this book provides an exceedingly insightful study of the local meanings of what it is to be educated, exploring the interactions of local forces with global discourses, policies, and practices. Written with compassion and concern, Vavrus’s analysis of empirical data from northern Tanzania advances theory on women’s education in postcolonial societies. This book should be read by all concerned with education and development or with understanding the interaction of gender, fertility, economic decline, and schooling.» (Suzanne Grant Lewis, Assistant Professor and Director, International Education Policy Program, Harvard Graduate School of Education)

About this edition

• Publisher: Peter Lang Inc., International Academic Publishers
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0820463116
• ISBN 13: 9780820463117
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 168