Beyond mystification: Reconnecting world-system theory for comparative education

Comparative Education Review

Volumn 42, Issue 4, 1998, Pages 479-494

  Clayton, Thomas ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 22444452190     PISSN: 00104086     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/447524     Document Type: Review

References (125)

1. Fernand Braudel, Capitalism and Material Life, 1400-1800 (New York: Harper & Row, 1973),
2. Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Century (New York: Harper & Row, 1981),
3. Afterthoughts on Material Civilization and Capitalism (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984);
4. Immanuel Wallerstein, The Modern World-System (New York: Academic Press, 1974),
5. The Modern World-System II (New York: Academic Press, 1980),
6. The Capitalist World-Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984),
7. The Politics of the World-Economy: The States, the Movements, and the Civilizations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984),
8. The Modern World-System III (San Diego: Academic Press, 1989).
9. Wallerstein, The Politics of the World-Economy, p. 15.
10. For an excellent discussion of world-system theory in relation to other theoretical traditions, including Marxism, see Thomas R. Shannon, An Introduction to the World-System Perspective (Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1989).
11. As it is similar to orthodox Marxism, world-system theory also has much in common with dependency theory. For examples of this approach, see Andre G. Frank, Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1969)
12. and Sociology of Development and Underdevelopment of Sociology (London: Pluto, 1971). However, unlike dependency theory, world-system theory portrays international power relations as constantly changing. For instance, Wallerstein in The Politics of the World-Economy argues that the United States, currently a dominant core nation, has already entered a period of decline such as that experienced by previous core powers. As a result, world-system theorists do not assume, as do dependency theorists, that contemporary periphery nations are permanently locked in dependency relationships with contemporary core states.
13. Wallerstein, The Politics of the World-Economy, p. 14. In addition to core and periphery states, there exist "semiperiphery" states that act as core in relation to some nations and periphery in relation to others. Today, Japan, Australia, and most North American and Western European nations have core status, while periphery status is assigned to most nations of Africa and Asia. Semiperiphery states include the majority of Latin American nations, as well as the oil-producing states of Asia and Africa.
14. Terence Hopkins and Immanuel Wallerstein, World-Systems Analysis: Theory and Methodology (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1979), p. 58.
15. Christopher Chase-Dunn, "Socialist States in the Capitalist World-Economy," Social Problems 27 (June 1980): 506.
16. Wallerstein, The Politics of the World-Economy, p. 29.
17. See, e.g., Theda Skocpol, "Wallerstein's World Capitalist System: A Theoretical and Historical Critique," American Journal of Sociology 82 (March 1977): 1075-90;
18. Aristide Zolberg, "'World' and 'System': A Misalliance," in Contending Approaches to World-System Analysis, ed. Wlliam R. Thompson (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1983).
19. Nicholas Abercrombie, Stephen Hill, and Bryan S. Turner, The Dominant Ideology Thesis (London: Allen & Unwin, 1980);
20. Joseph Femia, "Hegemony and Consciousness in the Thought of Antonio Gramsci," Political Studies 23 (March 1975): 29-48.
21. Femia; Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey N. Smith, "Preface," in Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, ed. and Irans. Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey N. Smith (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1971). As a result, Hoare and Smith caution against "unequivocal assertions about the aim and status of Gramsci's theoretical project" (p. xi), and James C. Scott (e-mail communication, January 1997) describes Gramsci's writings as "a Rorschach test" and "legitimately subject to different interpretations." Also see n. 14 below.
22. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology (London: Lawrence & Wshart, 1965), p. 61.
23. See Abercrombie et al.
24. Gwyn Williams, "Egemonia in the Thought of Antonio Gramsci: Some Notes on Interpretation," Journal of the History of Ideas 21 (October-December 1960): 587.
25. Gramsci, p. 333. There is a genuine difference of opinion among scholars as to what Gramsci intended by "hegemony." Some scholars, like Abercrombie et al., argue on the basis of certain passages in Selections from the Prison Notebooks that hegemony refers to control achieved through a combination of ideology and coercion. On the basis of other passages in Prison Notebooks, other scholars like Femia distinguish hegemony (as consent engineered through ideology) from coercion (consent achieved by force). In this essay, I adopt Femia's analysis and treat hegemony as ideological domination, separate from and a complement to coercion.
26. Kevin M. Carragee, "A Critical Evaluation of Debates Examining the Media Hegemony Thesis," Western Joumal of Communication 57 (Summer 1993): 330;
27. John Gaventa, Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1980), p. 13;
28. Carol A. Stabile, "Resistance, Recuperation, and Reflexivity: The Limits of Paradigm," Critical Studies in Mass Communication 12 (December 1995): 404.
29. Gramsci, p. 12.
30. See Hoare and Smith's and Scott's caveat in n. 10 above.
31. Femia, p. 35.
32. James C. Scott, Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985), p. 317.
33. Gramsci, p. 56.
34. Louis Althusser, "Ideology and the Ideological State Apparatuses," in Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays (London: New Left Books, 1971);
35. Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America (New York: Basic, 1976);
36. Pierre Bourdieu and Jean-Claude Passeron, Reproduction in Education, Society, and Culture (Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage, 1977);
37. Basil Bernstein, Class, Codes and Control (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977).
38. The distinction between "social" and "cultural" reproduction is suggested by Henry Giroux, Theory and Resistance in Education: A Pedagogy for the Opposition (South Hadley, Mass.: Bergin & Garvey, 1983).
39. Althusser, pp. 149, 147, respectively.
40. Ibid., p. 147.
41. Bourdieu and Passeron, p. 11.
42. Paul Willis, Learning to Labour (Westmead: Saxon House, 1977), p. 1.
43. Althusser, p. 164.
44. Giroux, p. 38.
45. Robert F. Arnove, "Comparative Education and World Systems Anaysis," Comparative Education Review 24, no. 1 (February 1980): 48-62,
46. Philanthropy and Cultural Imperialism: The Foundations at Home and Abroad (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1980);
47. Martin Carnoy, "International Educational Reform: The Ideology of Efficiency," in The Limits of Educational Reform, ed. Martin Carnoy and Henry Levin (New York: Longman, 1976);
48. Mark B. Ginsburg, Susan F. Cooper, Rajeshwari Raghu, and Hugo Zegarra, "Educational Reform: Social Struggle, the State, and the World Economic System," in Understanding Educational Reform in Global Context: Economy, Ideology, and the Stale, ed. Mark B. Ginsburg (New York: Garland, 1991);
49. Mark B. Ginsburg, Gwen Wallace, and Henry Miller, "Teachers, Economy and the State: An English Example," Teaching and Teacher Education 4 (1988): 317-37;
50. Francisco Ramirez and John Boli-Bennett, "Global Patterns of Educational Institutionalization," in Comparative Education, ed. Philip G. Altbach, Robert F. Arnove, and Gail P. Kelly (New York: Macmillan, 1982).
51. Wallerstein (The Politics of the World-Economy [n. 1 above], p. 17) allows a role for ideology in structuring world-system relations while steadfastly defending the primacy of the world economy. "Core states," he argues, "may seek to reinforce the advantages of their producers and to legitimize their role in the interstate system by imposing their cultural dominance on the world. [This] occurs in the form of seeking to impose modes of thought and analysis, including the particular paradigms that inform philosophy and the sciences/social sciences."
52. Joel Samoff, "The Reconstruction of Schooling in Africa," Comparative Education Review 37, no 2 (May 1993): 186-222.
53. Joel Samoff, Comparative Education Review Ibid., p. 186.
54. Sherry Keith, "An Historical Overview of the State and Educational Policy in Jamaica," Latin American Perspectives 5 (Spring 1978): 48.
55. Steven J. Klees and Stuart J. Wells, "Economic Evaluation of Education: A Critical Analysis in the Context of Applications to Educational Reform in El Salvador," Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis 5 (Fall 1983): 329.
56. Ginsburg, Cooper, Raghu, and Zegarra, p. 19.
57. Edward H. Berman, The Influence of the Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller Foundations on American Foreign Policy: The Ideology of Philanthropy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1983), p. 14.
58. Edward H. Berman, The Influence of the Carnegie, Ford, and Rockefeller Foundations on American Foreign Policy: The Ideology of Philanthropy Ibid. (1983), p. 14.
59. However, see, e.g., Thomas Clayton, "Politics and the Modern English Language," Cross Currents 17 (Spring 1990): 37-48;
60. Seth Spaulding, "Educational Development and Reform on the Soviet Periphery: Mongolian People's Republic and Lao People's Democratic Republic," Journal of Asian and African Affairs 2 (July 1990): 109-24.
61. Berman, p. 133. Also see Christopher Lasch, "The Cultural Cold War: A Short History of the Congress for Cultural Freedom," in Towards a New Past: Dissenting Essays in American History, ed. Barton J. Bernstein (New York: Pantheon, 1968);
62. Frank A. Ninkovich, The Diplomacy of Ideas: U.S. Foreign Policy and Cultural Relations, 1938-1950 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981). Of course, the promotion of political and economic ideologies through educational assistance did not cease with the end of the Cold War.
63. As Thomas Clayton points out ("The Educational Assistance-Foreign Policy Nexus: How It Works and How Individuals Maneuver Within It" [paper presented at the Comparative and International Education Society conference, Williamsburg, Va., March 1996], p. 1), a contemporary U.S. Agency for International Development Internet publication lists "promoting democracy" among the goals of international assistance.
64. Ali A. Mazrui, "The African University as a Multinational Corporation: Problems of Penetration and Dependency," in Education and Colonialism, ed. Philip G. Altbach and Gail P. Kelly (New York: Longman, 1978), pp. 287, 307, 295, respectively.
65. Ali A. Mazrui, Education and Colonialism, Ibid., pp. 294, 13, respectively.
66. Brian Weinstein, "Language Planning in Francophone Africa," Language Problems and Language Planning 4 (Spring 1980): 72.
67. Berman, p. 14.
68. Weinstein, p. 72.
69. Mazrui, p. 292.
70. Arnove, "Comparative Education" (n. 28 above), p. 62.
71. Mazrui, p. 13.
72. Howard R. Woodhouse, "Knowledge, Power and the University in a Developing Country: Nigeria and Cultural Dependency," Compare 17 (October 1987): 121.
73. Berman (n. 34 above), p. 14.
74. Samoff (n. 29 above), p. 186.
75. Giroux (n. 21 above), p. 72.
76. See, respectively, Scott (n. 19 above); Eugene D. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New York: Vintage, 1976);
77. Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, trans. Charles L. Markmann (New York: Grove Press, 1967).
78. See, respectively, Stabile (n. 15 above); Huw Beynon, Working for Ford (London: Allen Lane, 1973);
79. John Fiske, Television Culture (London: Methuen, 1987).
80. For example, Robert B. Everhart, Reading, Writing and Resistance: Adolescence and Labor in a Junior High School (Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1983);
81. Gail P. Kelly, "Colonial Schools in Vietnam: Policy and Practice," in Altbach and Kelly, eds. (n. 38 above);
82. Clayton G. MacKenzie, "Demythologising the Missionaries: A Reassessment of the Functions and Relationships of Christian Missionary Education under Colonialism," Comparative Education 29, no. 1 (1993): 45-66; Willis (n. 25 above). Through their examinations of the reactions of students and educators to hegemony in schools in contemporary classed societies (Everhart and Willis) and historical colonial societies (Kelly and MacKenzie), these scholars in particular suggest ways of understanding the responses of periphery actors to hegemonic educational assistance.
83. For instance, see Chinua Achebe, Things Fall Apart (Greenwich, Conn.: Fawcett, 1959);
84. Ayi K. Armah, The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (London: Heinemann, 1968);
85. Ngügï Wa Thiong'o, The River Between (London: Heinemann, 1965);
86. and Decolonising the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature (London: J. Currey, 1986).
87. Scott, p. 304.
88. Willis, pp. 126, 3, respectively.
89. Genovese, p. 598.
90. Ibid., p. 597.
91. Achebe; Ngügï, The River.
92. Kelly.
93. Achebe.
94. Scott (n. 19 above), p. xvi.
95. Ibid.
96. Genovese (n. 50 above), p. 598.
97. Giroux (n. 21 above), p. 246.
98. Willis (n. 25 above); Everhart (n. 52 above); Douglas E. Foley, "Rethinking School Ethnographies of Colonial Settings: A Performance Perspective of Reproduction and Resistance," Comparative Education Review 35, no. 3 (August 1991): 532-51.
99. Fiske (n. 51 above); Robert Hodge and David Tripp, Children and Television: A Semiotic Approach (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1986).
100. Alan O'Shea ("Television as Culture: More than Just Texts and Readers," Media, Culture and Society 11 [July 1989]: 377), e.g., argues that "many of Fiske's examples of 'subversion,' far from connecting to a challenge to the social order, can be seen as ways of living out subordination more happily."
101. See Foley, p. 545; Everhart, p. 165, respectively.
102. Carragee (n. 15 above), p. 337.
103. Willis, p. 126.
104. Genovese, p. 609.
105. Giroux, p. 246.
106. Ibid., pp. 247-48.
107. Scott (n. 19 above), p. 338.
108. Ngügï, The River (n. 53 above), p. 20.
109. Ngügï, The River Ibid., p. 87.
110. MacKenzie (n. 52 above), p. 51.
111. Scott, p. 281.
112. Foley (n. 65 above), p. 537.
113. Ibid.
114. Ngügï, The River, p. 29.
115. Achebe (n. 53 above), p. 137.
116. MacKenzie, p. 45.
117. Scott, p. 247.
118. Abercrombie et al. (n. 9 above), p. 166; Ernest K. Dumor, "Colonial Development and African Responses: An Interpretive Analysis," Western Journal of Black Studies 5 (Winter 1981): 296;
119. Michael Mann, "The Social Cohesion of Liberal Democracy," American Sociological Review 35 (June 1970): 425;
120. Scott, p. 324. Several scholars draw a parallel between pragmatic acceptance of the dominant ideology and the "dull compulsion of economic relations" suggested by Karl Marx (in Capital [Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1970], 1:737). In both cases, acquiescence to dominant structures (ideological or economic) is informed by the constraints under which subordinate actors operate.
121. Scott (n. 19 above), p. 247.
122. Gaventa (n. 15 above), p. 229.
123. Scott, p. 247.
124. Ibid., p. 246.
125. Ibid.