ISSN 1653-2244
MAGISTERUPPSATSER I KULTURANTROPOLOGI – Nr 3
Parents’ Wishes and Children’s Lives
Where Does Education Lead?
Social Change and Change of Mind among Young
People in West-Central Tanzania
Report from a Minor Field Study by
Hanna Tjernström
Master Thesis in Cultural Anthropology (20 Swedish credits) Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology
Uppsala University
Master Thesis, Report from a Minor Field Study, Uppsala Universitet, Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology, Hanna Tjernström, June 2005.
Title
Parents’ Wishes and Children’s Lives – Where does Education Lead? Social Change among Young People in West-Central Tanzania.
Abstract
This paper is about the transformation of a society in a rural area among the Nyamwezi of West-Central Tanzania. It deals with the change of people’s attitudes toward themselves, their lives and the surrounding world, brought on by the introduction of ‘modern education’. The discussion evolves around the theories of education and the socializing role of schooling. The paper treats the issue whether the education provided is relevant in relation to local life, or only directed toward the realization of a radically new way of living. Further this paper debates the impact of modernization through institutions other than the schools, and the future of small communities in an increasingly globalized world.
The issues in this paper are discussed from the perspective of young students in secondary schools and their parents. The background to the discussions throughout the paper is the secondary school itself, the educational system, the rural community and developing countries.
Keywords
CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... 4 INTRODUCTION... 5 THE PROBLEM... 7 ON METHODOLOGY... 9 BACKGROUND ... 12 GENERAL BACKGROUND... 12 THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM... 16 THE FIELD ... 21 BUKENE DIVISION... 21
KILI SECONDARY SCHOOL... 21
Form III ... 23
DEVELOPMENT ... 26
EDUCATION AS THE ULTIMATE SALVATION... 28
QUALITY OF THE EDUCATION... 31
SOCIAL SCHOOLING... 34
A COMMUNITY IN THE MODERN WORLD ... 42
IMPACT OF MODERNITY... 45
MODERN WORLD... 53
MODERN MAN... 56
STUDENTS IN THE COMMUNITY... 58
CONCLUDING DISCUSSION ... 61
CONSEQUENCES OF THE EDUCATION... 63
CONTRIBUTIONS OF EDUCATION... 64
THE FUTURE,L´AVENIR AND FUTUR... 65
BIBLIOGRAPHY ... 68
PUBLISHED SOURCES... 68
UNPUBLISHED SOURCES... 71
WEBPAGES... 71
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The Minor Field Study I conducted would not have been possible without help and assistance before, during, and after the summer of 2004, which I spent in Bukene division, Tanzania. My informants in the field deserve gratitude for taking their time to answer my questions and discuss their futures with me. They were all very friendly and welcomed me to take part of their lives.
I want to thank the Honourable Mr. Kahumbi from Dar es Salaam for guidance and help with transportation when ‘lost in the jungle’ and stressed out. Without him I would never have arrived to Bukene.
From the sub-village Itanana my local supervisor, the Honourable Mr. Joseph Kasswa, whom I would like to thank for the warm welcome I received, for guiding me through the countryside, for introductions to people and places, and especially for the many laughs he gave me- invaluable in a situation, where one can feel out of place. To my friend and interpreter Mr. Makaya William, for help, support and friendship I owe many thanks. Without the kick start he gave me, the untiring devotion and the positive attitude, the work would have been much harder.
I also want to express gratitude to Kili secondary school, the headmaster, the teachers, and the students- namely the Form III, for letting me participate in classes and meetings and for discussing the education, flaws and all, with me.
All the way my friend Karin Brunn-Lundgren has been an incredible support without whom the fieldwork had never been the same. Thank you for the good times filled with laughter and for being of tremendous support when things felt rough.
In Sweden, my supervisor Per Brandström at the Department of Cultural Anthropology and Ethnology has been of invaluable help before the fieldwork by putting me in contact with the field, introducing me to the area, the knowledge of the Nyamwezi and the connections he has there, which have proved crucial. Also, he has been of great support throughout the process of writing this paper.
Finally, for the financial support without which this study would not have been possible, I want to thank Sida, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency.
Despite the invaluable help I have received from everyone without whom this study would not have been carried out, possible flaws in this paper are solely mine.
INTRODUCTION
My fieldwork was carried out during June, July and the beginning of August of 2004, in Bukene division,1 which is a sub-division of Nzega district in west-central Tanzania. My aim with the study was to investigate the impact of ‘modern education’2 on social change and development in a rural area. The general interest of the study concerns Nyamwezi youth who attend secondary school in a rural environment, along with their parents. In the background of all the questions raised in this paper lie the perspective, as stated in the policy paper issued by Sida, Perspectives on Poverty, that even though “poverty is becoming more and more an urbanized, ... the majority of poor people are still found in rural areas. ... The essence of poverty is not only lack of material resources but also lack of power and choice” (2002: 9). As education is often seen as the salvation and path to development, will young people in the area gain more power and ability of choice through their education?
Since the time of independence from colonial rule in December, 1961, Tanzania has had highly ambitious plans for basic and primary education. In 1962 only 500 000 out of 12 000 000 children were attending school (Lindhe 1999: 65). 3
In his policy paper, “Education for Self-Reliance”, of March 1967, president Nyerere called for a kind of education that would be relevant not only to the few who would have the opportunity to continue with higher education, but also for the many who would have to stay in the village and make their living there (Nyerere 1969:267-290).
1
The Tanzanian society is divided into areas as such, from biggest to smallest: Nation, Region, District, Division, Ward, Village, and Sub-Village. Bukene division is located in Nzega district and consists of a number of wards out of which one was Uduka ward where I stayed in a Sub-Village called Itanana. In this paper when mentioning Bukene I refer to Bukene Division.
2
With the notion of ‘modern education’ I refer to the western kind of education, striving for academic knowledge, preparing the students for the next level of the education system, rather than for a “practical life”. Hereafter I will not use quotations around the notion, but always use it as described here.
3
In 1974 the government decided on a program called UPE (Universal Primary Education) to be implemented by 1977. As the situation concerning the number of children attending primary school had not improved radically by 1978, the government put together the Education Act. The Education Act working alongside the UPE made primary education compulsory for all children for seven years, as opposed to the four years that was the previous duration of primary education. The act increased the number of students in primary school to 3.2 million. This was made possible by the effort put in by the government as intended by the UPE reform to have a primary school within walking distance for all children. I have been told this distance to be 6km at the most. Also, to cover the demand for 62 000 additional primary school teachers (from 28 000 to 90 000) for all the new schools, crash-course trainings were put in place. Massive funds and stakes were invested in education in the hope of it leading to a social transition, a ‘revolution by education’ (Lindhe 1999: 65 ff). Official statements from Tanzania’s official website confirm that this still is the objective:
The United Republic of Tanzania realizes that quality education is the pillar of national development, for it is through education that the nation obtains skilled manpower to serve in various sector in the nation’s economy. It is through quality education Tanzania will be able to create a strong and competitive economy which can effectively cope with the challenges of development and which can also easily and confidently adapt to the changing market and technological conditions in the region and global economy.
(http://www.tanzania.go.tz/education.html)
because of an increase in primary school access but no growth in numbers of secondary schools or training colleges.
However, during the 1980s and 1990s, the development of the educational sector has not, due to various constraining factors such as “deteriorating national economy and increased dependency on external financing” (Liljeström et al. 1998: 12), continued its earlier rate of increase. Therefore, in 2002 a new program, National Primary Education Development Program (NPEDP) came about, as the UPE had been disappointing, failing, despite its efforts, in a number of ways to equip and staff schools.
Now however, through the period of 2002-2006, the Educational Fund will annually devote 10 US$ to each child aged 7-13 enrolled in primary school (News from Africa April 2004). Yet not enough funds are set aside for building or maintaining secondary schools, and, as a consequence, the numbers of students continuing from primary school are unsatisfactory. According to the National Bureau of Statistics of Tanzania, 2002, there were almost 6 million children enrolled in primary school, but only approximately 323 000 children, equivalent to 5.4 percent, attending secondary school, governmental and private (www.nbs.go.tz/education.htm).
The Problem
education changed these expectations in any way that would not have come about without schooling, and, in coherence, what impact has the educational system had on village-life? Furthermore, I wanted to see what impact education has had on gender roles and perceptions about gender.
As an addition, once out in the field, I became interested in the question what impact the English language has on the changing of social capital and on local culture? This last question arose from considering that all teaching from secondary school up through higher education was in English, although English is not a spoken language in the everyday life nor is it commonly spoken nor understood through most part of the communities.
The knowledge brought to people through education is not practical knowledge preparing the students for ‘life’ but rather for continuing education as it is done in the Western world, a luxury far from all in Bukene can afford or consider necessary.
During the time I spent in Bukene all my informants agreed in theory that it was very important to continue schooling after primary school in order to get a good job and to become able to support their families. The parents expected their children to take care of them as they got older and the children intended to do so. Some of these families spent considerable amounts of money on private secondary schools, as they did not believe the government schools to be good enough. Others could not afford them, instead being directed to the governmental secondary school. Most families realized that there was no academic future nor any paid employment in rural areas, and understood therefore that their children’s future would not be in the village with them. No one though reflected over the issue of growing urbanization leading to unemployment in the cities (Field Note Book 1&2 passim).
planning, there is often “[m]uch talking, little listening and poor achievements” (1998:75).
To be able to sort out the statistical data, previous research on the subject, and my personal experiences from my fieldwork, I have chosen various approaches supported by anthropological and sociological authors and theories. Some theoretical tools used in this paper will be the notions developed by Pierre Bourdieu, of avenir and futur, meaning the mode of planning in either short-term or, alleged in the capitalistic modern society, that of more rational long-term. I will also use his theories concerning social capital. This capital is formed mainly in educational environments through incorporation of thought-categories. These through-categories are used by people when interpreting their surroundings. Of course, if the incorporation of values is successful, they have a huge impact on changes within a society or community. In illustrating this I have used some of Bourdieu’s own writings, but also summaries of his works by Donald Broady.
For the following discussion on community and society, ‘Gemeinschaft’ and ‘Gesellschaft’, various authors appear, but the ones I will use primarily are Ferdinand Tönnies, Robert Redfield, and Anthony P. Cohen. In this discussion, the notions and occurrence of modernity and globalization are also employed, where my main source and inspiration derives from Zygmunt Bauman’s writings and various authors contributing to the book From
Modernization to Globalization. Perspectives on Development and Social Change, (2000), edited by J. Timmons Roberts & Amy Hite.
On Methodology
Because of the fact that I arrived at Bukene not many days before the school closed down for summer break, I was faced with what might seem as a reversed scenario regarding the information I collected.
really believe there is a possibility of a different life for them other than the one provided in the villages? The very formal setting of these interviews, along with the fact that I needed an interpreter, made me very nervous, and, I feel that due to my lack of confidence, I probably did not get as much as would otherwise have been possible out of these interviews. I also made the mistake of not explaining well enough to my interpreter what my study was about. Further, he did not understand at all the part of anthropology where I did not want strict ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers, but rather longer stories. This leads to some misunderstandings and a lot of stress on my behalf.
As I finally got to attend the school as they opened up again on July 12, and as the most part of the staff spoke good English and the students could understand me for the most part and I them, I decided to drop the formal, very structured interviews. Instead, I interviewed in a much unstructured conversational mode of interview students at Kili secondary school about their thoughts on the village life they and their families lead, and asked them about their dreams for their future, as well as how they felt about their education. There were a few conversations that had longer settings, for example when invited home to students for lunch; otherwise I mostly had brief discussions with the students, some in groups and some one on one. When in class, I took many notes and the interviews were diligently noted. I did not have a tape recorder or any such devise.
Regarding participant observation, I spent every week-day during three weeks at Kili secondary school with the Form III class, attending their classes, free-study periods and the breaks between. I also attended a school
baraza, a ‘general assembly’, which was held the first Friday after opening,
where issues relevant for the development of the students and the school were discussed. I also spent time outside school with a few students in their home, having meals and meeting their families. During participant observation, the time spent with people, I did not take any notes. Instead, I tried to write from memory when I came home, as detailed as I could. Additionally, during the first days, I introduced myself and my project to the class, posed some questions for the students to be answered in writing.4
4
The method used thus consisted in a combination of a ‘survey’, participant observation and structured as well as semi-structured interviews, both in groups and individually and more informal conversations.
BACKGROUND General Background
Tanzania is still basically a rural country, where approximately 70 percent of Tanzanians live outside urban areas; hence most of the young people are born and socialized in a rural environment. The future of an increasing number of youth though will probably not be in the countryside. Growing urbanisation and industrialization, hand in hand with a lack of resources in rural economy, have made the youth look for a livelihood outside the rural sector.
During the mid-1980s, following structural adjustment policies, the educational programmes as well as programmes concerning health-care were heavily reduced and suffered from bad maintenance and lack of care. Through the 1990s, there were no great signs of improvement. Lately, however, there have been signs of positive changes, although many schools still lack materials such as books, desks, teachers and technical lab equipment (Liljeström et. al. 1998: 12; Lindhe 1999: 61ff; Statement from the Swedish Embassy of Dar es Salaam 1999 06 01:4; Sida´s Land Strategy for Tanzania 2001-2005:4) Now, the President, Benjamin Mkapa, has, in accordance with the NPEDP, devoted a big part of the country’s budget to expand the education by building schools. He has also taken action to enable more children to continue schooling after primary school by reducing the fee for government secondary schools from 20 000 Tsh per term to 10 000 Tsh per term5. This is a positive improvement because, although “one aspect alone is never the sole determinant of poverty, focusing on a single issue of strategic importance [...] can be an effective course of action in a given situation”, and, as “[e]ducation has repeatedly been identified as a highly significant factor in reducing poverty” (Sida 2002.: 25, 30), it is probably an aspect beneficial to focus on. For the first time, energy and funds are not only put into primary but also into secondary education.
5
Regarding the topic of concern of my field, Bukene, in west-central Tanzania, Abrahams wrote some thirty years ago, in Changing Cultures. The
Nyamwezi Today. A Tanzanian People in the 1970s, that "many parents
would like their children to be able to continue their education beyond primary school level" (1981: 17).6 But he also recognized the problem of the need for labour in the day-to-day life as agro-pastoral peasants, and "because of difficulties of this sort, some parents keep their children out of school from time to time though they can be [...] prosecuted and fined for it" (ibid.). Even today, almost thirty years later, parents can be reported for not sending their children to primary school as well as government secondary school, if, that is, their children have been admitted to the secondary school.
Only the best achieving students from primary school are accepted to join government secondary school, others have to look for other solutions. There are a steadily increasing number of private schools since 1984, when they were again allowed to operate. Already in 1994 they outnumbered the governmental secondary schools 260 to 177 (Lindhe 1999: 79). The private schools, although obviously popular, are a lot more costly. Students have to pay a considerable amount, approximately 380 000 Tsh per year, in my study area. On the other hand, they are much better equipped and staffed than the governmental schools. Most parents wish for their children to attend these private schools, but only a few privileged can afford it.
As Broady interprets Bourdieu’s description of the school system in France to be dualistic, I find the same applies for Tanzania. There are two parallel paths of education. One path is for the privileged i.e. through private schools gives them the opportunity to access the social elite, which they probably already were born into. The other path of education, namely through governmental schools, is for those with little chance of ever being included in that sphere of society (see Broady 1998: 75). To stay in the sphere of the rural community, living a peasant life, cuts people off from the connections, leading, in effect, to a lesser chance of succeeding in the social life of the ‘modern world’ and the official jobs that go with it.
6
The reason parents keep the children at home from government secondary school is not only due to a traditional way of life where the children need to help their families with work. It can also be because of economy in one way or another, i.e. that they either cannot afford it or they might see it as an unnecessary way to spend money.
Young girls are the ones mostly held back from school because training to become a woman and a housewife has priority since there is a reward in getting the girls married. Educated girls are generally valued less in terms of bride-wealth according to some informants (0407-- Field Note Books). This is most likely to occur in rural areas, where livelihood depends on farming and livestock keeping, and where an academic education is not necessarily seen as a helpful asset for a wife or a mother. Also, traditions of girls helping their mothers in the household from a young age and marrying relatively young still play a part in peoples’ planning for theirs and their daughter’s lives.
In more urban areas, an educated girl can instead be seen as an asset and big help in the family. These girls are also more likely to lead a life with salaried jobs and not as bound to the family household. Nowadays though, most mothers, in rural, as well as urban areas, want their daughters to attend school and get a good education because that is what they would have wished for themselves. But as they are not the financial providers in the families, they do not have the final say in the decision regarding schooling, although I believe they have great influence on their spouses.
Students in private schools do not face the problem of cutbacks in schools as their families are better off economically. These families are, for the most, not peasants but have a salary-based occupation. And, of course, because they have made an active choice to put their child through school, it would be self-contradictory to put an abrupt end to the child’s schooling.
Pastoral and agro-pastoral7 people have been described often among planners and development experts as ‘backward’ when they keep their children home
7
from school. As remarked by Cohen, the old Chicago school of sociology once declared that “the city person is really the product of a later evolutionary stage and is rather more refined species of the genus than his rural cousin” (Cohen 1993: 25). However, parents in rural areas are frequently caught in an existential dilemma, both in terms of labour and in terms of local knowledge relevant for their livelihood. The question only they ask themselves is whether the education offered will provide scientific knowledge and not sustain existing relevant local knowledge, i.e. knowledge of surviving with little resources and traditional skills to provide for yourself and your family in times of crisis (see Brandström 1990).
In other words, to what extent will education provide an input for development in the village and not only function as an incitement to look for a livelihood outside the rural sector? A crucial question is thus, what are the advantages and disadvantages of modern education in an agro-pastoral environment like that of Bukene?
Nonetheless, young people in Bukene have the opportunity to obtain primary education, and most seize this opportunity. The education is of course not of practical character, but may still provide knowledge helpful in everyday life. As Abrahams wrote,
the modern educational programme in which the young people are all expected to at least receive primary education, which includes political education and the learning of Swahili, may help gradually to produce a rural population that is better equipped [...] to take advantage of the democratic potentials of the new political system [...]
(1981: 53).
hard to find outside the district centres, in this case Nzega, the district-town, where they arrive one day late.
Not only is it good to be able to know what is happening in the nation, but media is also assumed to be an accelerator of change, exposing people to abstract situations outside their own lives, compelling them to think beyond their own borders, and, therefore, expand their minds (Roberts Timmons & Hite 2000: 10).
The Educational System
Children in Tanzania may start primary school at age seven, but not all do. Today there are many more primary schools compared to just a few years ago, enabling many more children to enrol. The goal of the educational system is that every village should have both a primary school and, within a close range, a secondary school in the near future (Field Note Book 1, PRA-meetings).
Primary education is free of charge8 and mandatory. At the primary school at the village of Itanana, where I lived during fieldwork, the children started at seven in the morning and finished at five in the afternoon, these being the normal hours for schools in rural areas. In the bigger cities, the days are somewhat shorter; usually starting at eight and ending at three or four in the afternoon. During the school days, there are some shorter breaks and a longer one for lunch. Lunch is not provided by schools so the students must either go home to eat or, for the ones living too far from school, bring something from home. It has been suggested that the parents pay the small amount of 1000 Tsh per term for the school to serve the children a simple lunch, but this has not been put into practice, why many children still today spend long days in school without a decent meal (personal conversation).
There is also a possibility, as a substitute to the last years of primary school, to attend what is called Middle school, where the language of
8
instruction is English. These are run privately and charge for attendance (Interview 040721).
Generally, the education system has three levels, namely: Basic, Secondary and Tertiary Levels. Basic or first level education includes pre-primary, primary and non-formal adult education. Secondary or second level education has Ordinary and Advanced level of secondary schooling, while Tertiary or third level includes programmes and courses offered by non-higher and non-higher education institutions (http://www.tanzania.go.tz).
Primary school consists of Standard I-VII. In Standard VII, all students must pass an exam to be enabled access to secondary school, and they receive a School Leaving Certificate. A selection-board then reviews the results to determine which students will be admitted to governmental secondary school. In 1993, the average result of these examinations was hugely disappointing where only 15 percent managed to score 50 percent or more on the exams, and out of the ones with higher scores only 15 percent continued to secondary school. This was the lowest ratio in the Sub-Saharan countries (Lindhe 1999: 83). I saw no indication that these numbers have increased.
Primary school students, who do not perform well, still have other alternatives if they want to attempt further education. The private secondary schools are one option, as they are open for all who have funding to pay the much higher school fee. Most of these are full boarding schools charging a fee of 380 000 Tsh per year.
If feeling unprepared for secondary school after the primary education, one can attend a pre-form school for one year. These schools are not numerous and since they are run privately the annual school fee is almost as costly as the private secondary schools, 280 000 Tsh. Few students attend these as the cost are high and place availability low. The results attained here will not help the students enter into a governmental secondary schools as the latter’s admissions are based strictly on the Standard VII examinations. But as one must have a decent amount of money to send children to a pre-form school, the likely future aim is to send them off to a good private school.
attend a training college. These schools are vocational, with a number of different alignments. For girls the choices are e.g. tailoring, and for the boys mechanics, or woodworks.
Until the term starting January 2005, the students had to pay 20 000 Tsh per term for governmental secondary schools. Now, the government has cut the fee in half to 10 000 Tsh, in agreement with the plan to increase the number of educated people in the country. If the students need or want boarding, the fee is 60 000 Tsh per term, a fee that was not reduced together with the regular fee.
Secondary school has four grades, Form I-IV. Each term there are mid-term examinations and also a final examination at the end; in January and in June. In Form II and IV the examinations are of national standard and very crucial. If the Form II examinations in January are failed, the students are not allowed to continue to Form III. The Form IV examinations are important for the sake of the future as the screening for the next level of education is the same as the one for secondary school; only the best achieving students will be admitted. If passing the exam the student receives an ‘O’-level certificate.
Form V-VI, in secondary school is often referred to as High school, after which those who receive an ‘A’-level certificate9 can attend college or university, depending, as always, on money. One can either recieve scholarships to finance the studies or pay for them privately.
It is a common attitude that good education, i.e., sufficient to get a good job, does not have to stretch further than an ‘O’-level certificate from Form IV, at the most an ‘A’-level certificate for finishing Form VI (Field Note Book 1).
In Nzega district, with a population of 417 094 people in 2002, 37 percent do not know how to read or write. The good news though is that 13.75 percent of former adult illiterates have gone to adult education and learnt how to read and write (http://www.tanzania.go.tz/census/districts/nzega.htm; Field Note Book). But these levels do not yet reach the average of Sida´s count in their
9
policy paper, where it is said that in developing countries “[i]lliteracy has been almost halved in the past 30 years” (2002: 19).
According to a high positioned politician of Nzega district, only 43 percent of the children in the district attend primary school and 7 percent of them reach secondary school. The number of children who attend higher education is immensely small; only 300 out of the approximately 50 000 who start primary school. That is equivalent to the mere percentage 0.6 of students who continue beyond secondary school (040701 Field Note Book).
Tanzania as a whole, according to national statistics, is at just about the same level as Nzega district where 6 percent of the children starting primary school continue to secondary school. Here the percentage of children reaching higher education is 0.86.10 These numbers were calculated by Sida in 2003, where data was collected on enrolment for two consecutive years. The numbers are also roughly the same for primary school, where 46.7 percent of the children are said to be in primary school. In secondary school the drop-out rate is higher, decreasing the number of students enrolled to 4.38 percent (Sida 2003:38). The numbers for Nzega district supplied by the politician may not be fully accurate. According to an NGO worker in the area Nzega, the district was the second worst in the country concerning development in education, but the figures above show a grim picture for the whole country.
As students continue from primary to secondary school, the medium of instruction is shifted from Swahili to English, a legacy from the colonial rule after World War II. There are those who are against this policy, but most of the people I met thought it was good because it would enable them to get better jobs and connect them with the rest of the world. Not surprisingly, these opinions were in accordance with Tanzania’s official policy:
10
The main feature of Tanzania’s education system is the bilingual policy, which requires children to learn both Kiswahili and English. English is
essential, as it is the language which links Tanzania and the rest of the world through technology, commerce, and administration. The learning
of the Kiswahili enables Tanzania’s students to keep in touch with their cultural values and heritage. English is taught as compulsory subject in the primary education whereas at post primary education is the medium of instruction.
THE FIELD Bukene Division
Bukene is located in the South-Western outskirts of Nzega district in West-Central Tanzania. The district is inhabited by approximately 415 000 people. The absolute majority of people living in this area are dependent on their crops and animals for their day-to-day living. Rural population in the district amounts to approximately 386 000, i.e. 93 percent. This is a significantly larger percentage than the average rural population in the country, where, as mentioned above, 70 percent live outside urban areas.
Without sufficient modes of transportation, most people are restricted to the neighbouring area if they want to sell their products11. In Bukene, there is a market, which mostly trading foods, along with a strip of shops, along the big street, predominantly selling fabrics and tailoring. For peasants to sell their crops the profit is small since most people in the area are also growing the same ones.
In the area, there are a number of primary schools, one secondary school - Kili, the school I attended - two Medical Health Centres and Offices for some of the political parties; the ruling CCM and a number of smaller parties. There are also a few pharmacies but these are run privately as businesses in the same manner as the fabric shops. Hence, places offering employment for educated people are the secondary school and the two Medical Health Centres, none of which could at the time I was there provide sufficient salaries for the employees. This is, I believe, a common situation in many rural areas in Tanzania.
Kili Secondary School
Kili secondary school is located close to the township of Bukene, which is the headquarters of Bukene division. The school is also close to a few
11
surrounding villages. For students located far from the school, there is a possibility of boarding, made use by sufficient number to almost fill the lounges to capacity. Girls and boys are, of course, boarded separately with houses on opposite sides of the school ground.
Most families in the surrounding villages do not have an educational background beyond primary school and rarely a cash-income livelihood. They are ordinary peasants and only few have salaried jobs. Therefore the school struggles both to motivate its students as well as to engage the families to help the students with their homework or even to allow for the children to have time for their studies.
The school-fee is also a problem leading to children being held back from school. The first week of the school term, during the time I spent at Kili, was devoted to sending children back home to collect the term fee of 20 000 Tsh, and I was told that this was the common occurrence. Some children did not return for many days. Apart from the school fee, the students need to pay 10 000 Tsh to be allowed to take the nationals examinations in Form II and 20 000 Tsh to participate in the national examinations for Form IV (0407-- personal observation; 040729 Interview). As discussed above, most families in this area are peasants without potential to make earn cash. Therefore, the amount of between 20 000 Tsh and 40 000 Tsh, which can be seen as a very moderate sum for people with salaried jobs, is still a large amount of money for those without financial income.
Kili secondary school has capacity for 320 students; 40 girls and 40 boys in each form. Today the school is not filled to capacity; the shortage of 121 students is mainly showing in the last two Forms. As mentioned above, when in Form II, the national exam is of uttermost importance because without a pass the students are not allowed to continue to Form III. It is often the case that students do not pass, why the Form II is filled to capacity because of the many students having to repeat it. For the same reasons Form III has a very poor number of students.
BOYS GIRLS TOTAL FORM 1 30 39 69 FORM 2 40 40 80 FORM 3 12 9 21 FORM 4 23 6 29 TOTAL 105 94 199
Fig. 1.1 Number of students attending Kili secondary school the year 2004
One of the problems shown in fig. 1.1 is that the school does not have as many attending students in Form I as expected or as the capacity allows. This is the case because some of the students which are admitted to government secondary school choose to either turn to a private school or not to attend at all. Strangely, this does not lead to new students being accepted to attend the school. The seats of the students who fail to show up remain empty (040714 Field Note Book 1).
Since Kili opened, only one student has continued to level ‘A’ secondary school, also known as High school. This occurred in 2001. No one else has followed since then (040610 Interview).
Form III
The class I focused most of my attention on during the fieldwork was a Form III, due to reasons discussed in the section ‘On Methodology’. In June they had undergone their term exams, with uniformly poor results. Almost half of the students (11/25; 44 percent) failed, achieved only an ‘F’ on the exams, ten students got a ‘D’, three students achieved an average of ‘C’, and one succeeded to a ‘B’.
secondary school has since its start not had any natural science teachers, nor a laboratory or equipment for exercises. Although many students took the exam in basic maths, only five passed. Fewer took the biology exam but six actually passed, while only two students took physics and told me that by doing so they were forced to rely on self-studying or private tutors.
For me having attended high-school in Michigan, USA, and taken part of the same grading system i.e. ‘A’-‘F’12, I was stunned that the average and the expectations on the students were so low. At the same time as the students were publicly, in front of the class, embarrassed by the teachers for being dumb and the ‘smart kid’ in the class got praised, it seemed as no one was actually very disappointed with the poor achievements.
I did not have the opportunity to stay in the class long enough to see how many of the students that would eventually return to school. During the three weeks I attended school after the start of the new term, only three of the students attended every day from day one, but the number slowly increased to eighteen by the end of the third week.
For the most of the first three weeks the teachers went through the exams that the students had undergone in June. The exams were made up of mostly multiple choice and matching character questions, and some longer discussion questions where the students were supposed to answer in an essay form. This seems to be the type of examination common throughout Tanzania (Lindhe 1999: 83).
In the national exams for Form IV, the students did not perform much better than the Form III had on its term examinations. Still the headmaster was immensely proud that Kili secondary school, which this year for the first time did not perform an average grade of ‘F’ in the Form IV national exams. A ‘D’ was as good as he could expect. He told the students at the school baraza that he had stood proud in front of the educational officer of the Western Zone who would not put him down for failing to make the students perform. Still he tried to encourage the students to do better, but to me it seemed the bar had already been set too low (040715 Field Note Book 2).
12
DEVELOPMENT
The notion of development is associated with progress in the name of modernity. As opposed to change as a neutral term, it assumes that development has a purpose and a goal (Gunnarsdotter 2005: 20). And, as Carnoy and Samoff state:
Education is seen in ... societies [in developing countries] as a route to all things. It is expected to be the primary vehicle for developing and training skills to ensure that the next generation in the society is adequately prepared for the specific tasks that the society expects of it. It is expected to be the place where appropriate ideas, values, and world views will be developed so that from the process of schooling there emerges a new person- not simply someone with skills, but also someone with understanding of his or her role in the world and what is important for that society.
(Carnoy & Samoff 1990 in Lindhe 1999: 67)
These expectation are set very high and put a huge burden on education as the path to a “good life”, as many of my informants expressed when asked what they thought education could give them (Field Note Book 1&2 passim). ‘We’ often take for granted that development in developing countries must bring ‘them’ closer to ‘our’ modern world and our way of thinking. And not only do we take this for granted but so do most people in the developing countries, believing in the salvation of modernity. Development is often seen as the same as going from tradition to modernity, much in the same manner as it is easy to draw parallels between cash income and a richer life (Crewe & Harrison 1998: 25).
‘modernization’ of traditional societies but also recognise the importance of development in all sectors, both agricultural and non-farm activities.
I believe we can all agree that education is central for any change occurring in a society, as health is important for development and well-being. But the question is what kind of education actually leads to a ‘meaningful life’. Are our lives, in the Western world, more meaningful than those of people in the developing world?
How do we define development? In a policy paper Sida stated that “[d]evelopment can be seen as a sustainable process of enhancing the freedom, well-being and dignity of all people within an equitable and secure society. Poverty reduction is an integral part of this development process” (ibid. 2003: 14). The paper continues to explain that “[t]he role of development co-operation is to create conditions and to support processes that lead to poverty reduction [...]” (2002: 9). In my field, this is a role that the community, the local politicians and wealthy private organisations and businesses have taken on. During the time I spent in Nzega district, there were several meetings on development in many villages. These were initiated partly by the Nzega goldmine13, and also by politicians and eager supporters to educate the villagers in sustainable development.
I attended three closings of the PRA-meetings initiated by local development workers and the goldmine,14 taking place in Bukene, Itanana and Ikindwa, all villages in Nzega district.
The participation of local people and the mode of engaging them in the development, letting them speak their mind about what they find most troublesome, works well in the new times where development organizations want to “put local people in the driving seat” (Crewe & Harrison 1998: 155). Sida is conforming to this expressing that
13
The Nzega goldmine has, because of great profit, to help out with financial support for building of new schools and well-digging for example.
14
it is vital that the ultimate stakeholders (namely the poor) are given the opportunity to participate and influence directly or indirectly, through decision-making assemblies, the process of change in their societies.
(Perspectives on Poverty 2002: 47)
Education as the Ultimate Salvation
During the days I attended the PRA-meetings, people were wrapping up what had been discussed during the three previous days of the meeting. The three villages all came up with the same critical areas which needed financial support and development.
The lack of education was said to be main problem. As a solution the villages wanted to build more schools, both primary and secondary. The second issue brought up was the water-supply, and more wells were planned to be dug. It was somewhat suspect that all villages ‘independently’ brought up the same problems, problems that also went along very well with the political aims of this period. I got a feeling that much of what was discussed was initiated by the leaders of the meetings; the goldmine representatives and local politically involved representatives.
Hobart fortifies this image as he claims that the ‘bottom-up approach’ generates a sense of active involvement of locals and peasants, but that actual actions are still very much defined by the superiors (1993:15-16). Hopefully though, the case is what Crewe’s and Harrison’s describe where “[i]ndividuals have internalized the interpretations of ‘development’ by developers, but have also formulated their own ...[so that] local people recognize projects as a source of resources to be used to meet immediate needs” (Crewe & Harrison 1998: 157).
It would be interesting to return to Bukene in a few years time to see what changes have actually been implemented, as an effect of the meetings or for any other reason.
primary school as was offered at the time of his youth, but said that those who attended school later have learnt a better mode of planting and sowing from education. Before they had only scattered the seeds over an area and then waited to see what came out of it, but now people planted in rows in a more strategic sense (040622 Field Note Book 1).
I found this very interesting and uplifting that education could, opposite my initial beliefs, have such a practical effect. But as I returned home and gladly told my supervisor, who has been living in this area for many years and also some time ago about this, the story of the tailor was denied. People in this area had for a very long time used the same cultivating methods as they do now (personal conversation; Brandström 1998: 77-78).15
Although somewhat dejected about the fact that now I had no practical positive tales of how education had changed peoples lives, this new information went better along with the other information I had received in the field. Of course, I cannot say, nor do I mean, that there is anything bad about being educated or attending school. But there was almost a sense of people having bought the propaganda of the government and development workers without reflecting upon their own role in the educational system or their possible gain to come out of it.
In school under the topic of ‘Civics’, students are taught about their surroundings and are sometimes called to reflect on issues in their society, issues which were previously not always looked upon closely. I sat in on a few classes when scheduled as ‘Sex and Gender Concepts’.
The teacher introduced the subject by proclaiming that men and women perform different roles in a given society.16 These roles could then be divided into social roles and biological roles, where the latter were distinct and fixed roles e.g. child-bearing for a woman. As the teacher then started to ask the
15
For an historical description of the agricultural system of the Nyamwezi see Kjekshus, Helge 1977 Ecology control and economic development in East African history: the case of
Tanganyika and for description of the cultivating system during colonial times see Rounce,
N.V. 1949 The agriculture of the cultivation steppe of the Lake, Western and Central
provinces.
16
students about what different tasks would fall under what category, they had a hard time separating social behaviour from biological. Most of the students saw taking care of children, cooking and collecting firewood as the biological role for a woman. It was allegedly also the biological role of a man to bring in money and food. These claims were disregarded by the teachers, only child-bearing and nursing were correctly placed under the biological characteristics.
When turning the attention to the social roles, women’s tasks were so many I lost count, whereas the men’s were still to bring in money, food and ‘take care’ of the family. Although gender equality was brought up and this was an interesting class, not least for talking about the gender roles in a society, it was never mentioned that men could do women’s tasks. In the end, advantages of being one gender or the other was discussed, but as one student asked about the advantages of being a woman, no one could think of any (Field Note Book 2).
As for the language factor, and in accordance with the title of this section, many of my informants felt that by using English in secondary school, people would be brought closer to the ‘modern world’ (personal conversation; Field Note Book 1&2). The fact that Swahili is the official language and also the medium of instruction in primary schools is believed to have joined the nation together, as Goke-Pariola put it “[t]he role of ... Swahili as a nation-building and political access for the masses cannot be overemphasised” (1993).
With the introduction of English as the medium of instruction in secondary school, yet another language aside from people’s mother tongue (various local languages) is introduced and perceived as more important. English is associated with the outside world and values, technical innovations, and a key to social prestige and power, whereas Swahili symbolizes Tanzania’s traditional national values. The attitudes today to English as a medium of instruction,17 and the language policy arising out of
17
this will probably affect not only schooling but the development of society, decisions that will affect generations in the future (Petzell 2000: 7-9). Some of my informants felt that the issue of language was not of great importance; instead they felt that a language can change, but that does not mean that the culture will do so (Field Note Book 2).
Quality of the Education
Every year statistics are compiled from the Form IV exam results to rank the secondary schools from all over the country. The schools ranking is measured after the average result, but there are also separate rankings for all subjects.
SUBJECT GRADE SCORE RANK HIGHEST RANK RESULT LOWEST RANK RESULT AVERAGE D 34.99 46 65.48: B // CIVICS D 36.38 54 70.13: B 20.44: F HISTORY F 21.81 65 48.72: C 10.32: F GEOGRAPHY C 50.19 24 70.2: B 23: F SWAHILII C 49 8 61.39: B 27.7: F ENGLISH C 49 25 69.92: B 24.35: F B/ MATHS F 3 84 50.23: B 3: F BIOLOGY F 25.7 63 57.68: C 13.98: F PHYSICS / / / 62.56: B 10.12: F CHEMISTRY F 16 83 68.01: B 16: F
Fig. 1.2 Ranking and score by students in form IV of Kili secondary school in comparison
with the other secondary schools in the Western zone. Top score on all exams are 100. Only the subjects that are taken at Kili secondary school are taken into consideration, with the exception of physics which is a subject that is scheduled but due to the lack of teachers it is dependent of self-studies and hence no student took the exam (Statistics by Ministry of Education 2004).
There is a widespread culture of rewarding and punishing at the school. During the school baraza students from all Forms, who had achieved ‘A’ or ‘B’ at the term exams were called-up, applauded and given writing books and pencils. No students in Form IV had achieved these grades, only one in Form III, but three in Form II and eight in Form I. Out of all these only two (in Form I) were girls, but on the positive note one of these girls had an average of ‘A’. This was applauded by the whole school, encouraged by the principal and the teachers and leaving this young and petit girl very embarrassed.
During the time I spent at Kili there was no physics-, chemistry-, biology- or maths teacher for the Form III.18 And they did not expect any to arrive.
The headmaster was on his way to Dar es Salaam and the Education Ministry to apply for more teachers, but he was uncertain of receiving any. And even if they appointed teachers to take a position at Kili, he was not hopeful that they would actually arrive. History has shown that a teachers job at government schools in rural areas is not very popular due to low salary, none in troubled times, hard living conditions and isolation. Instead they tend to turn to government schools in the cities or private schools that are able to offer higher salaries.
To make up for the poor salary at government schools, many teachers have tutoring as a side business. The cost for this can vary between 3000 Ths for one night to the same amount for a week’s nights. Many students complained about this, as the teachers would continuously refer students to tutoring sessions if they asked for help in school. If they had no money to pay for this help, or lived too far from Bukene to be able to stay late at night this was not a viable option (Field Note Books 1&2). This vicious circle maintained segregation in education between people with money and those without, and people with power will keep on reproducing people with power. As it is expressed by Sida above: knowledge is power.
In Bukene there were some people, with various ranks within politics, nationally and locally. These people are, through their positions, to a degree responsible for both improvements and deterioration in the infrastructure of the society. And through their positions they will have to answer to the people if questions arise about the conditions of the schools etc. What struck me as very ‘politically incorrect’, at least in Swedish terms, is that none of the politicians would consider putting their children in a government school. One of these men had older children who had not been very interested in school, and who now worked in his various companies. But the others bluntly told me that their children were or were going to go to private schools from
18
pre-form and on, simply because the standard of the government schools were too low.
To me this is a sign that an improvement of the public schools will not come about soon. The ones who have a say concerning issues in the society are people who are actually not affected by the situation. Influential and privileged people have the finances and therefore a choice to turn to the better functioning institutions, often run privately. But this is also a direction strongly opposed by higher ranking political leaders today, lending hope that the growing segregation in Tanzania might subside. At a political convention this year, President Mkapa held a speech concerning the issue. Issa Shivji compiled the important issues, which the President had brought up:
One, that over the last two decades the national consensus in our society has begun to disintegrate pausing a veritable threat to national unity and social solidarity. Two, that the adoption of neo-liberal policies and orientations has begun to polarize our society. The emergence of the filthy rich and pathetically poor in our country is undeniable. Three, that there is a need to reconstruct national consensus and concord.
(Shivji 2005)
Social Schooling
Pierre Bourdieu has in his theories of society put much weight on the socializing responsibilities of the schools. This responsibility can often be turned into power as these institutions have the means to mould young people.
The schools make it possible for the students to create new networks other than the ones they are born into, and introduce them to the morals and values of the social capital currently in effect outside the rural area. These values are often in accordance with current political social movements.
Following, the networks people seek or create will also be in line with these movements. Young people are the future of any given social grouping and therefore the impact of education on a society is immense according to Bourdieu (see Bourdieu 1990; Broady 1996). If the values they are ‘taught’ are incorporated thoroughly and ‘correctly’, a society will function smoothly, without great oppositions or revolts.
The educational institutions may not implement these values and thoughts deliberately, but being subordinate to the state, and the teachers having gone through the same incorporation, they are unwitting culprits.
Furthermore, the social capital has great impact on the symbolic capital; what is recognized and acknowledged as something containing value, and is at the same time a part of it (1977: passim). Symbolic capital is actually a fusion of the different categories of capital where one’s ‘total value’ is set, and evaluated.
As new values are advocated through education, some of the traditional values are bound to be abandoned or compromised. Therefore the introduction of modern education in rural villages will have an impact on the views of life-fulfilment, on what is acknowledged as valuable. It is of great importance though not to confuse the ability to create networks and resources, with the networks and resources themselves (Portes in Gunnarsdotter 2005: 277). Even though one can have a good amount of social capital, without the environment to support it, it is actually useless.
As in the case of Bukene, the social capital the students acquire in school is not fully in accordance with the symbolic capital in the district, why they need to look elsewhere to attain the full value. The networks can be created, but do not stand on solid ground in rural areas yet.
answers I received from informants at many times. These attitudes, though, often came across as shallow and not yet worn in. Not only were the answers similar, but the formulations were basically identical, leading me to believe that there had been little reflection over the attitude adopted.
One example is the answers I received when asking the students why education was good. They all answered, with little variation, as follows, mentioning some or all of the reasons: ‘Education will improve my life’, ‘Education will teach people how to read and write’, ‘Education will give us employment’, ‘Education will give you knowledge’, and ‘Education will help a person to control his life’ (appendix I 1-6).19 These replies came automatic and seemed to me to be very vague.
I experienced this in the same manner as the way Petzell describes her case of students in Zanzibar, where it seems as the students are taught what to appreciate. She says: “I felt the replies were more or less automatic. People are strongly influenced by school and it was difficult not to get society-generated views as answers to my question” (2000: 26).
Philip Mayer lent us a definition that “[s]ocialization may be broadly defined as the inculcations of the skills and attitudes necessary for playing given social roles” (1970: xiii). The inculcation, or what I hereafter will refer to as incorporation,20 of these attitudes and values can occur in many different settings. In Bukene division, and probably all over the world the school has, to a bigger or smaller extent, taken on a socializing responsibility. During the school baraza the headmaster spoke for a long time about different students, not mentioning their names, about what they were doing in their time out of school; that so and so hang out with the wrong kind of people, how he knew that this girl and that boy were seeing each other and that it should not go on, they must focus on their studies (he jokingly
19
Of course it could be said that the same would be the case for young Swedish students, that the answer to “Why is education good for you?” is bound to be vague. But I believe that Swedish youngsters would not answer with phrases as alike and probably could give me the answer “I don’t know”.
20
expressed that these boys should give the school cows for the girls)21. One worry he had for his students was for the girls to become pregnant, something that would affect their lives profoundly. If a young girl gets pregnant she is without extenuation kicked out of school and never allowed back. For the boys there is a possibility, given that the girl or her family wants to pursue it, he is sentenced of rape and sent to prison22. Also there is the question of HIV/Aids. The students would not only get infected themselves if they start having sex at an early age but continue to spread the disease throughout their lives.23
However, breaking up couples was not done in the line to separate boys from girls. The headmaster declared that as of Monday girls should be seated next to boys and not in a group away from them. He felt that this would benefit them in their studies. It would benefit them because the boys, so it was argued, had more intellectual discussions, and were smarter in general. He quickly added though that this was not a biological fact but a social one. He claimed that the girls are not taught that studying is for them. As they return to their homes, they have many chores to do, leaving them with little time to do their homework. But that cannot be the only reason for poor results since boarding girls also suffered from very poor grades. The headmaster concluded that it was probably not in the girls ‘culture’ to be intellectual or academic, and this had to be changed.
This ‘interference’ of student’s private life, made by the headmaster follows from what Inkeles calls the “informal, implicit, and often unconscious program for dealing with its young characters” (2000: 137). In Sweden, due to cut-backs in the social sector and possibly a general change in attitude, the responsibility of socialization is no longer a responsibility of the school, as I believe it has been, although not solely, in earlier days.
21
The students were considered to be teenagers who could not control their bodies or lusts. Therefore the school had to intervene if they suspected that any of them had relationships or affairs, as one teacher explained to me as he was taking a boy into the teachers lounge for ’a chat’ (Field Note Book 2).
22
In Tanzania a somewhat new law sets that if a young girl, a minor, becomes pregnant the man or boy she had sex with can be sentenced with rape, a verdict that will automatically send the boy to 30 years in prison (Field Note Book 1 & 2).
23
Instead, it seems we have shifted back to an attitude where it is the duty of the parents to prepare their children for the social world. As shown in the example above, the school in Bukene intervene in the student’s personal life, probably because they feel that the parents do not get involved with their children on these issues.
The school’s socializing responsibilities are not only shown as directly as during the school baraza. The most influential element is most likely to be silently implemented, where the students unconsciously adapt values and attitudes and learn how to interpret information from the outside. As mentioned above, the fact that people are living in a rural area means that they will have to work extra hard because they have nothing for free. In the more urban areas there is access to newspapers, radio and perhaps TV, pumping out information and keeping people updated and exposing to mediums where what is taught in school can be applied. The headmaster brought up this issue at the school baraza, telling the students it was up to them to find this information because the information would not find them.
Concerning outside information, as expressed in Perspectives on Poverty, “[e]ducation ... is necessary for accessing information and turning it into knowledge. ... [It] also enables people to better voice their concerns and exert influence” (2002: 19). In the case of Bourdieu’s theories though, it will not be their concerns or influences put upon the state, but rather the other way around. As argued by Broady in his interpretation of Bourdieu, “[t]he educational system divides [social] capital, but is also of significant meaning for this capital’s very existence: it shapes peoples habitus into recognizing the values upon which the [social] capital rests” (Broady 1985: 59 own translation)24. This means that through education students are taught how to untangle and interpret information and values.
However, what is being taught will always be interpreted by the recipient though, maybe leading to a different understanding than the intended sense (see Cohen 1993: 17). Through education though, the dominating groups of
24
Broady actually use the notion of ‘cultural capital’ in this section. But as I cannot see a significant difference between the two, and they seem mostly to be used in different
society hope that the ‘damage’ can be diminished. The ‘responsibility’ of the schools is to shape the students minds into interpreting the information given correctly; moulding children into good citizens, to understand the agenda of the state and go along with it (see Bourdieu 1990 & 1999; Broady 1985 & 1996).
Bourdieu claims that the education system is the most influential authority through which the government can control the population. He cites Thomas Bernhad´s Alte Meister where he says:”The school is the school of the state, where young people are transformed into creations of the state, nothing less than followers of the state” (Bourdieu 1999: 83, own translation).
Moreover, one of the state’s most essential powers is to continuously produce and enforce thought-categories. These thought-categories are then spontaneously and willingly applied on the surroundings including the state itself (Bourdieu 1999: passim). Out of this, if successful for the state, grow “good” citizens. Hence most part of the social capital is shaped to work solely in a public-good aspect. These transformations are similar to the changing from subject to citizen of Mamdani (Mamdani 2003: 45), where we are all shaped from merely subjects without real meaning for the nation as a whole, into citizens to serve our society. In accordance with Mamdani and Bourdieu, Cohen expresses that
A common view running through these ... approaches is that of the individuals social lives becoming more and more specialized, not just in their labour, but in all of their social relations. They engage with different people for different and limited purposes. Their lives are thus led on a variety of levels- and, possibly, in different locations as well. ... Behaviour in modernity has therefore to be modelled by the specific end in view; it has to be, ... ‘rational’ ... the individuals interests ... have to be subordinated by the irreducible whole.
(Cohen 1993: 22-23)
of society. The notion stands for an incorporated attitude where a belief of a certain order, and the values existing within this structure, is so deep that they are taken for granted and perceived as true (Bourdieu 1977: 165ff).
Weber had similar thoughts 1947 in The Theory of Social and Economic
Organizations. He speaks of legitimate power; a legal-rational authority. By
this he means an authority that grows out of normative rules and also gains the right to govern through these rules (Weber 1947). Also the notion of mind-figures serves the same purpose. They are ‘silent’ and work on a level to shape our interpretation or the surroundings; they are the path between reality and the spoken rendered experiences (Asplund 1991: 39). Common throughout these theories is that the norms and values that are created will eventually be perceived as basic ideas and traditions. Authorities of the social field and their ideas will successfully have been incorporated in the individual. Through this the individual will be adjusted to the new values instead of influencing them.
As mentioned above, many of the answers I received were very standardized. People are taught what to believe in and what to appreciate. But the school is not the only institution where values and responsibilities are preached. There was a strong support for local politics in Bukene. The meetings I attended were mostly well-attended and people seemed to know what was on the agenda.
But, as I experienced it, at the same time as people questioned and discussed issues as an outcome of being asked questions on opinions concerning education, the answers came out just as normalized as earlier. My visit in Bukene could in this respect not have been timed better. The issue of education was often brought up, discussed, and on everybody’s lips, but yet the attitudes did not differ. It was hard, and actually impossible, to find a divergent attitude. The structural order, the values and the conventional attitude had been successfully incorporated to the extent that it was taken to be true.
those of the teacher. The structure is very hierarchical and teaching is rarely conducted through discussion. The students are not to question facts or statements by the teacher.
I found myself in an uncomfortable situation once during a class of ‘History’. They were taught about colonialism and the colonial days, which from the beginning made me feel guilty, probably because I could feel all the legacy of the colonial forces on my shoulders, as the only European person present. One student finally stood up, asking the question if Sweden had had any colonies to which I gladly answered ‘no’, feeling relieved that I could tell them.25 But then the teacher explained to the students that Sweden itself had been a colony under the British Empire. I was flabbergasted, and had to correct him since it was untrue. For a while he stood his ground saying that he had read it in history books, but gave in after some time following my strong oppositions. Afterwards I thought no more of it. But a few days later I heard through the grapevine that this teacher had lost all credibility with his students, all the children at school had heard what he had said and that he had been wrong. As I was not a student at the school, but a visitor, and more importantly a visitor who attends university, my credibility was higher than the teacher’s, meaning that the same loss of faith would not have occurred had a student opposed him. Hopefully this situation did not only lead to a miscredibility of a teacher, but perhaps made the students look more critically upon ‘facts’. Probably that is an unrealistic expectation, but one never knows.
25
