BOOK REVIEWS – BUCHBESPRECHUNGEN – ANALYSES BIBLIOGRAPHIQUES

BRAY, Mark, and STEWARD, Lucy (eds.). 1998.

Examination Systems in SmallStates: Comparative Perspectives on Policies, Models and Operations. London:Commonwealth Secretariat. 292 pp. ISBN: 085092 529 0.

This highly informative book is another publication in the series “EducationalDevelopment in the Small States of the Commonwealth,” produced by the Common-wealth Secretariat. The Secretariat’s focus, to date, has been on the formal system ofeducation, with little attention given, in this area, to the specific issues affecting, say,adult and nonformal education in small states. Furthermore, the Commonwealth’s sub-stantial contribution in this area has, in a sense, accounted for one of the literature’slimitations in that it focuses mainly on the English-speaking world.

One example of a much cited publication that emerged from a pan-Commonwealthconference on education in small states is Kazim Bacchus and Colin Brock’s path-breaking The Challenge of Scale: Educational Development in Small States of theCommonwealth, which developed out of the 1985 Meeting in Mauritius. The bookunder review developed out of another pan-Commonwealth workshop, this time onthe subject of examination systems in small states. The workshop took place inBarbados in May 1996. The countries included are, once again, all members of theCommonwealth with the exception of Bhutan which, however, has a British influ-enced examination system since it is dependent for this purpose on India.

One of the problems with the literature on small states concerns the manner inwhich scale is conceptualised. In his introductory discussion of some of the pointsraised in the literature concerning small-scale societies, Bray grapples with this issue,indicating how the cut off point, population wise, has always been arbitrary. Therewere times when the cut off point was 1.5 million. This figure has often been changedto justify inclusion of a country whose population is slightly higher. For instance, inthis book, the cut off point is 2 million, as a result of which Namibia, with a popu-lation of 1, 565, 000, can be included. Bray also alludes to the fact, often raised inthe literature, that scale is relative. Perhaps one could here do greater justice to thedebate on the issue by referring to the social constructivist perspective on scale orother alternative conceptualisations of scale and sovereignty.

Other issues dealing with the “ecology of smallness” are raised by Bray and recurthroughout the various contributions regarding examinations. The issue of nationalor regional relevance, closely connected to the larger issue of post-colonialism, isone which several writers dwell upon. And it is to the credit of the editors that theyprovide a mix of papers. Some deal with systems which are entirely national, as isthe case with MATSEC in Malta. Others describe countries that participate in regionalexamination systems. The concentration of several small states within a particularregion, such as the Caribbean, the South Pacific or the Indian Ocean, allows this tohappen, and an entire section (Section III) is devoted to such regional systems. The

International Review of Education – Internationale Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft –Revue Internationale de l’Education 45(2): 237–244, 1999. 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

tensions involved are not overlooked, and we read of countries pulling out of suchregional systems because of ideological differences.

The financial costs involved when participating in regional systems are underlined,for the issue of finance is a highly pertinent one in this context. Reliance on foreignexaminations has often resulted in a substantial flow of money from a country to theformer colonial power, where prestigious examination boards like the University ofCambridge Local Examinations Syndicate (UCLES) are located. As a result, goinglocal or regional can also be interpreted as an attempt to prevent a substantial amountof revenue from moving out of the country. But the setting up of local systems canalso prove costly, for a variety of other reasons, not least of which being the need tostep up security to ensure credibility. Hence one notices large differences in the waycountries set about the task of ensuring the security necessary in communities whereconfidentiality and impersonality have been traditionally difficult to achieve. Here,Lowenthal’s “management of intimacy” factor comes into the reckoning. Countrieslike Mauritius provide the sort of sophisticated machinery, to ensure security andcredibility, which few other countries represented in the book seem to employ.

Then there is the issue of international currency, a very important concern insmall states whose history has been characterised by mass waves of emigration. Somesmall states even favour a pro-active policy in this regard, seeing emigration as a“demographic safety valve,” which also results in foreign revenue being obtainedthrough remittances. Prospective emigrants require portable qualifications and thisexplains why several countries have found it hard to sever their links with interna-tional examination bodies. Some have retained these links while others severed themmany years after obtaining independence. In fact, there are cases when countries wentlocal only after substantial changes occurred in the foreign examination system (forexample the conversion from GCE to GCSE) which entailed conditions that couldnot be met in the former colony.

Another issue, strongly connected with small scale societies, which naturallyimpinges on the entire system of examinations, is that of “multifunctionalism”. Smallscale societies cannot afford all the specialisms they need and it is therefore mostlikely that personnel involved in organising the examination system have to performthe necessary functions alongside others. This affects the nature of service as the per-sonnel rarely have the time to sit back and take stock of the situation.

The foregoing are some of the many themes broached throughout the variouspapers in this compendium. These themes are all too familiar to those who are con-versant with the literature on small states. The book is useful as a source of referencefor people in small states, working in ministries of education, examination bureausor in that section of the University administrative apparatus dealing with qualifica-tion equivalences. The section on regional bodies offers excellent comparative material(there is also a highly pertinent chapter on UCLES) while the section on nationalperspectives is somewhat uneven. Chapters like the ones by Erasmus (Namibia)and Sultana (Malta) are thorough and the authors engage critically with the issues.The latter provides evidence of some empirical work (interviews and perusal ofrelevant files) in the preparation of the chapter. Other chapters are largely descrip-tive, though quite detailed with useful statistics and tables indicating subjectsand examinations offered. Useful details concerning the country in question areprovided at the outset of the chapter. While some chapters focus exclusively on schoolleaving examinations, others also mention junior certificate and teacher trainingexaminations.

Mark Bray does a very good job of introducing the main concepts in the firstsection. The only slight problem is that he anticipates many of the themes whichrecur throughout the chapters that follow, with the danger that this could render someof the material provided in the subsequent chapters repetitive. His concluding chapters

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tighten the volume and serve as an analytic postscript. Themes concerning the politicsof knowledge, relating to the postcolonial condition of most of the countries repre-sented in this volume, could have been teased out better in some of the chapters togive this type of literature that critical edge which it often lacks. Some reference tothe examinations-textbooks nexus would not have been out of place in a volume suchas this.

All told, this remains a useful volume and a valuable contribution to the literatureon education in small states. The material is well organised and the reader is assistedby a welcome list of acronyms at the beginning of the volume. The reader needsto keep referring back to the list since acronyms abound throughout most of thechapters.

University of Malta PETER MAYO

WILDEMERSCH, Danny, FINGER, Matthias, and JANSEN, Theo (eds.). 1998. AdultEducation and Social Responsibility. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 250 pp.

Social responsibility is the leitmotiv of this remarkable publication much more thanadult education, which nonetheless throughout the book is the subject of several newdefinitions and reorientations. Whereas much has been said and published about thecrucial function and role of adult learning, and this book adds some more featuresfor consideration and analysis, the social dimension of educating adults has beensomewhat neglected, despite its acquisition in the last few years of a new meaningand dimension. This new situation entirely justifies the volume of critical research andanalysis submitted in this book. One may congratulate wholeheartedly the authorsfor having chosen this particular angle of research, as it provides a new and oftenrefreshing approach to an otherwise well established discipline. In this respect one isforced to refer to the recent Fifth International Conference on Adult Education(Confintea V) held in Hamburg, Germany, 14–18 July 1997, which repeatedly inves-tigated the social dimension as a central theme of concern. What is attractive aboutthis publication is that it adds the dimension of responsibility to the term social, butdoes the selection of articles meet the expectations?

There are twelve articles to deepen the issue and not a single one can be missed:they are all complementary and succeed in covering the ground very thoroughly. Twocore questions particularly retain the readers attention, one refers to the concept ofcritical thinking (a development of the theories of the Frankfurt school) as pertainingto the future of adult education theory; the other core issue relates to the tensionbetween the individual and social dimensions of learning.

Critical thinking is actually an ill defined concept, even in the context of theFrankfurt school, but it allows the writer, for example Jan Masschelein in his article“In Defense of Education as a Problematisation: Some Preliminary Remarks on aStrategy of Disarmament”, to develop a series of innovative and ground-breakingthoughts. In particular the chapter on “Thinking as critical activity” develops a seriesof reflections, philosophical in nature, pertaining to the real or intended meaning ofthinking as a direct or indirect product of pedagogy. He identifies thinking as a “criticalactivity that realizes itself in a particular coexistence with oneself”. This implies ahigh degree of self-centered thinking as opposed to thinking as a social product. Sucha view is questionable in the eight of other research which has developed conceptsand paradigms according to which supposed egocentric attitudes are seen as a mereillusion of the mind (S. Agacinski, Critique de l’égocentrisme, Ed. Galilée, Paris,

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1996). The recently published book of P. Bourdieu La domination masculine alsostresses the total social nature of thinking. This being said, the philosophy-orientedconsiderations by Masschelein provide constructive elements for a critical under-standing of the individual learning process and thus his thoughts remain, in my mind,at the heart of this collection of articles.

The article by Cees A. Klaassen on “Empowerment and Social Responsibility inthe Learning Society” deals with adult education in its contributions to individual wellbeing and social cohesion. Moral and political socialization are put forward to explainthe complex nature of education in society. This is achieved by developing a seriesof arguments in relation to the so-called hidden curriculum of educational institutions.Somehow adult education seems to disappear in the argument in favour of educationalinstitutions in the traditional sense. The same holds for the concluding chapter on “theMoral Role of Politics and Administration”, where concepts such as civil society,government and education are put into perspective but with little or insufficient con-sideration of the potential role of adult education or education for citizenship. Theauthor seemingly prefers to elaborate on moral socialization by drawing on Piaget oreven Durckheim, but then switches without warning to the term moral education.which is not quite the same. Despite this conceptual confusion he succeeds in stressingthe immense responsibility of the “polity” in the building up and developing of adulteducation as a major social enterprise.

As all articles have a theoretical basis and develop appropriate concepts; the readerremains a little frustrated at finding little or no reference to the concrete and hard factsof daily adult education, but then this book does not pretend to report on daily expe-riences by giving the advantage to conceptual or theory-prone developments. In thisrespect the authors meet the primary objective of the book: to provide an introduc-tion into the theory of adult education. However, the second avowed objective, todevelop ideas on the practice of adult educations is rarely met.

A case in point is the introductory article by Finger, Jansen and Wildemeersch,which serves a paradigm-setting function. The reader learns much about the trainingof adults in corporate business and the importance and forms it has taken in the lastdecades; the authors develop several conceptual approaches to put this important devel-opment into perspective. Labour-oriented adult education is recognized as a major ifnot the only meaningful educational movement for adults, at least in terms of numbers.However, one would have welcomed clear references to hard data to improve thecomprehension of the extent and impact of business/labour-oriented adult education,which in many cases is more related to training than to education as a socially morerelevant activity. In this context another article, written by Meijers and Weijers on“Flexibilization and career identity,’ provides some theoretical approaches to clarifyissues such as the relationship between education, work and life. The authors concedethe fact that in industrialized countries jobs and career patterns are increasingly linkedto further learning and training inside the company. A similar thought is also devel-oped in the articles, already mentioned, by Finger, Jansen and Wildemeersch (pp.18–19). Although none of the quoted articles comes forward with figures, it is a factthat over the last few years the very large majority of adult learning and training hasoccurred inside corporate business and public administration. It is usually seen bymanagers as a contribution to the productivity and competitiveness of the companyor administration, while the adults concerned continue to have mixed feelings aboutit. Some consider it as a threat, while others remain neutral and go along with it. Stillothers – a minority perhaps – completely support the concept and strategy proposed.Clearly there is a totally new world developing in adult education, which receivessome, but not nearly sufficient, attention in the articles mentioned.

The largely theoretical approach used by the authors makes for inspiring andthought provoking reading, and it will certainly incite researchers to further develop

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appropriate concepts and paradigms likely to reflect the real picture of adult learningin the industrialized countries.

UNESCO Education Sector, Paris WOLFGANG VOLLMANN

FIELD, John. 1998. European Dimensions – Education, Training and the EuropeanUnion. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. 215 pp. ISBN: 1-85302-423-5.

This valuable book, which appears in the publisher’s Higher Education Policy Series(general editor, Maurice Kogan), focuses upon the last 40 years of one of the keyinstitutions of globalisation, the European Union. Its main concern is with the “natureand impact of the European Union’s policies on education and training”. Indeed, asField carefully reminds the reader, this area “was not originally regarded as any ofthe Common Market’s business” but gradually came to be of “central and urgentinterest”.

Field’s work, then, is a detailed case study of the relationship between educationalreform and economic integration. The latter process was central to the original Treatyof Rome of 1957, where it was closely tied to the basic aims of creating a commonmarket for goods and services, capital and labour. Moreover, vocational training wasclosely tied to these aims, and to the general idea of labour mobility. By such meansthe Common market would come to challenge other trading blocks. Here, the key com-petitor was deemed to be the USA where, as history has shown, workers could easilymove from rustbelt to sunbelt.

Field is an educationist. He writes as professor of Continuing Education at theUniversity of Ulster, on the western edge of the European Union. As an educationist,he is well versed in the differences between vocational training and education, and,as an historian and comparative educationist who works in Ireland, he is also sensi-tive to the complications that surround political, economic and cultural integration.Besides extensive use of published sources, Field also interviewed participants, admin-istrators and fund-holders. The subtleties and complications revealed by these data aremagisterially described.

In most of Europe, formal education has been a jealously-guarded religious andnational question over the last 300 years. As capitalists have known for almost as long,industrial profits can be moved much faster than work practices. For most of the twen-tieth century, employers and educationists have struggled to find ways of replacingthe apprenticeship system (and thus break the power of trade guilds and unions). Yet,the solutions they developed in the first half of the century (e.g. local or national prac-tices of certification and accreditation) became barriers to liberalisation, rationalisa-tion and harmonisation in the second half of the century. Thus, the initiatives of theEuropean Union can be seen as a series of overlapping and sophisticated attempts tosolve the national question in matters of training and education. In some cases, too,the differences were also regional (e.g. between England and Scotland). Field reports,for instance, that Scottish civil servants were able to attend Brussels meetings on highereducation policy by occupying the seats normally occupied by Luxembourg (whichhas no universities).

If trans-European accreditation criteria for social workers cannot be established,i.e. against the will of their employers, professional associations and even their con-fessional sponsors (e.g. the Lutheran or Catholic hierarchies), is it possible to achieveintegration though a calculus of mutual recognition rather than homogenisation? Ifmutual recognition is not feasible, is it possible to foster integration through mobility

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programmes for school and university students? Likewise, it possible to look beyondcurrent difficulties and develop educational (not training) initiatives steered by thevision of a post-millennium “learning” or “information” society? And, throughout, isit possible to sustain symbols of unification through code-words, like Erasmus andSocrates (i.e. one each for north and south Europe), that evoke images of a Europeanpatrimony.

Such initiatives in education and training were also hampered by difficulties oflanguage as well as practice. Much time in European, national, regional and localoffices was spent interpreting terms, developing scales of comparison, mapping pre-vailing circumstances and creating comparative tables? By the same token, however,insufficient time and resolve was given to the identification of quality or the ascrip-tion of value. The forty-year perseverance and commitment of generations of politi-cians and administrators is remarkable.

To conclude: Field does not pull his punches. Erasmus “appears to have made alimited impact” (p. 92), the EU’s impact upon labour mobility has been “strictlylimited” (p. 129) and, in the larger member states, the impact of the EU has, to date,been “peripheral” (p. 107). But Field is not pessimistic. His book can also be read asan anticipation of the future.

The current problems of the EU relate, among other things, to its reduced legalcompetence to mediate national questions. My feeling is that, insofar as the next fortyyears of international relations will unfold against the background of the Asianeconomic crisis and George Soros’ subsequent view that the capitalist market shouldbe regulated, trans-national agencies like the European Union will be given muchgreater powers to intervene in cross-national economic, social and cultural affairs.Perhaps, therefore, the next programme to build on a common European patrimonyshould be called Machiavelli.

Umeå University, Sweden DAVID HAMILTON

ADICK, Christel (Hrsg.) 1997. Straßenkinder und Kinderarbeit. Frankfurt am Main:IKO-Verlag für Interkulturelle Kommunikation, 303 pp. ISBN 3889392369.

In diesem Buch schreiben mehrere Autoren und Autorinnen über verschiedene Themeninnerhalb der Hauptthematik “Straßenkinder”.

Über jene “Mitbürger” in verschiedenen Ländern wird sachlich und unterBerücksichtigung kultureller Aspekte berichtet.

Der erste Teil des Buches enthält Abhandlungen bezüglich historischer und sozial-isations-theoretischer Kriterien; der zweite Teil bezieht sich auf Fallstudien, die dierealen Gegebenheiten und Umstände von Straßenkindern erfassen und darstellen.

Die Thematik Straßenkinder findet immer häufiger öffentliches Interesse undin Reflektion auf verschiedene Betrachtungsweisen streben die Autorinnen undAutoren eine Zusammenschau aller Faktoren und Bedingungen der Thematik vonStraßenkindern an, immerhin gibt es laut UNICEF ca. 80 Millionen Kinder weltweit,die auf der Straße leben.

So geht Christel Adick in ihren Aufsätzen zunächst auf die Definitionsfrage vonStraßenkindern aus verschiedenen Blickwinkeln ein, bevor sie Ursachen undErklärungskonzepte für “Straßenkindheit” anführt, beispielsweise den medizinisch-psychiatrischen Erklärungsansatz von Stefan Degen oder den Etikettierungsansatz(labeling approach), siehe auch Bezüge auf Jordan und Trauernicht. Dieser Darstellungfolgen Angaben über sozialpolitische Reaktionen und pädagogische Maßnahmen und

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der thematische Bezug von Straßenkindern in einer historisch-vergleichendenSozialisationsforschung. Der Text ist verständlich verfaßt und die Autorin hat sicherfolgreich um Klärungsaspekte innerhalb der Gesamtthematik bemüht.

Der in der chronologischen Reihenfolge anschließende Autor Arno Herzig stelltvor allem Kinderarbeitsschutzgesetze in historischer und aktueller Reflektion heraus,in spezieller Hinsicht auf die Preußischen Gesetze: “Die Wirksamkeit, die diesesGesetz erzielte, beweist jedoch, daß die Wirtschaft immer noch nicht bereit war, dieKinderarbeit einzuschränken oder sogar auf sie zu verzichten. Feldenkirchen stellt zuRecht heraus, daß erst in den 1840er Jahren der Höhepunkt der Kinderarbeit in Preußenerreicht wurde. . . . 1840 31064 Kinder . . . 1849 29.149 und 1852 schließlichnoch 21.945 Kinder in den Fabriken.” Die Daten dienen einem hilfreichenHintergrundwissen über Regularien der Kinderarbeit vor einigen Jahrzehnten.

Den Ausführungen von Arno Herzig schließen sich jene von Christine Mayer an,die die Kinderarbeit und pädagogische Reform an der Wende vom 18. zum 19.Jahrhundert erläutert. In Hinblick auf die Historie der Kinderarbeit ergänzen sich dieletztgenannten Beiträge sehr gut.

Unter dem Stichwort “Straßensozialisation” enthält der Text von Jürgen ZinneckerBasiswissen von Kindheit und Pädagogik. Auch die Zusammenhänge, die schnell ausdem Blickfeld geraten können, wenn es um die “Straße als Lebensweise” geht, werdenmiteinbezogen, z. B. “das Herumstehen, Losziehen und Einen-Drauf-Machen” vonJugendlichen; die Straße als eine Art Sozialisationsinstanz beinhaltet nach Zinneckerviele Betrachter-Gesichtspunkte.

Die Studien im zweiten Teil des Buches beziehen sich auf die aktuelle Situationvon Straßenkindern und arbeitenden Kindern in Afrika, Asien, Europa undLateinamerika.

Die Beiträge enthalten u. a. Aufsätze über die Bedingungen der Arbeit von Kindernin Indien (Hans-Martin Große-Oetringhaus) und Darstellungen von Einrichtungen, wiez. B. Die PEACE-Stiftung = People’s Education for Action and CommunityEmancipation Trust; sie hat eine Schule für arbeitende Kinder eingerichtet. “DerUnterricht beginnt am frühen Abend, wenn die Kinder ihre Arbeit beendet haben”, S.130.

Christian Herrmany betont in seinen Ausführungen, daß es nicht nur wichtig ist,über die Zustände von Straßenkindern informiert zu sein, sondern auch zu agieren,z. B. in Form von Spenden; er erläutert die Bedeutung des Beitrages der Medien, dieüber die Verhältnisse von Straßenkindern im Laufe der letzten Jahre vermehrt berichtethaben, im Sinne einer “entwicklungspolitischen Sozialisation durch Massenmedien”.Im folgenden Text bezieht sich Karin Holm auf die Ursachen (z. B. individuellesVerhalten, Zusammenhänge allgemeiner Strukturen von nationalen und internationalenGesellschaften) und sozialpädagogischen Konzepte von Straßenkindern und arbeit-enden Kindern in Lateinamerika und reflektiert weiter institutionelle und familialeStrukturen, die das Dasein von Straßenkindern bedingen können. Bezüglich dermethodischen Arbeit von Projektansätzen sind auf den Seiten 182 bis 188 wissenswerteInhalte zu lesen.

Peter Jogschies stellt in seinem Beitrag Erkenntnisse im Verlauf einesForschungsprojektes dar, die sich auf die Lebenswelt von Straßenkindern inDeutschland beziehen. Die “Ergebnisse” der Forschung konnten aufgrund vonExpertInneninterviews gewonnen werden.

Carmen Krusch und Johannes Friesen sprechen von den sozial-politischenUmständen als Bedingungen für Straßenkinder in Rußland und über ein sehr speziellesProjekt wird von Stephan Kunz berichtet: “Die Müllkinder von Smokey Mountain inManila: Traditionelle Sozialisation im Wertewandel”. Hier wird u. a. ein Überblicküber bereits erfolgte Projekte oder Projektansätze gegeben. Über eine ganz andereSeite der Straßenkinder kann von Lateinamerika berichtet werden; die Handelnden

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sind hier die Kinder (Alter 10–16) selber, die Programme für Kinderrechte und sozialeBewegungen ins Leben rufen, z. B. die Kinderarbeiterbewegung MANTHOC in Peru.Manfred Liebel stellt dazu auch einige grundsätzliche positive und negativeÄußerungen und Auffassungen der Kinder zusammen.

Der vorletzte Artikel über Straßenkiner stammt von Ulrike Wiegelmann und CraigNaumann unter Mitarbeit von Alassane Faye und trägt den Titel: “ZwischenAusbildung und Ausbeutung: Die talibés mendiants im Senegal”. Hier behandeln dieAutoren eine vom Islam geprägte Region und die traditionellen Koranschulen namensdaaras. Die Kinder dieser Schulen werden zum Gelderwerb durch Betteln auf dieStraße geschickt; auch diese Art Straßenkinder gibt es.

Das letzte, kurz gefaßte Kapitel behandelt eine Darstellung von Straßenkindern inÄthiopien, aufbereitet von Habtamu Wondimu und komplettiert die Gesamtthematikder Weltschau von Straßenkindern.

Dieses Lesewerk vermittelt wichtige Einblicke in die gegebenen Situationen vonStraßenkindern in einigen Regionen der Erde. Es stellt klar die Bedingungen (sowohltheoretische als auch historische), Gemeinsamkeiten (Begrifflichkeiten . . .) undUnterschiede (kulturelle/sozialisationstheoretische) der Betroffenen heraus. Wenn manbedenkt, daß reformpädagogische Institutionen das 20. Jahrhundert als das Jahrhundertdes Kindes ausgerufen haben, so leistet dieses Buch einen wesentlichen Beitrag zudieser Stellungnahme; konsequent reflektierend müßte es noch mehr Literatur diesesThemas geben, da noch weite Felder der hier angesprochenen Aspekte fortführenduntersucht werden können und müssen. Auch verschiedene Studien würden die weitereErschließung dieses Themas ermöglichen.

Universität Kassel, Deutschland LARISSA ROGNER

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