This paper presents some initial ideas on how the theoretical concepts of the "insider" and the "outsider" might be re-examined in an era where advances in comparative, qualitative research methodologies seek to be more inclusive, collaborative, participatory, reflexive and nuanced. Earlier essentialist definitions of the…

This paper draws on ethnographic vignettes in an Indian rights-based approach to adult education programmes in order to examine the contestations and negotiations of facilitators in interface situations involving programme capacity building, monitoring and evaluation practice. The paper proposes that making visible the hegemonic nature of…

This paper aims to challenge limited notions of literacy and argues for the recognition of Maasai women's self-determined learning in order to bring about human development in Kenya. It also seeks to construct a complex picture of literacy, drawing on postcolonial feminist theory as a framework to ensure that the woman's voice is heard.…

This study examines how various components of a school-linking programme between Ireland and South Africa either support Development Education's goal of sustainable, equitable partnerships that enable mutual learning between Northern and Southern countries or, instead, promote power imbalances that reify stereotypic images of weak, needy…

This paper suggests the term "paradoxical" to understand how health education (HE) is carried out and experienced as contradictory and inconsistent by student-teachers who learn about health in Kenyan teacher training colleges (TTC). The claim is that students, apart from formal HE lessons, also learn about health in non-curricular HE,…

In this article, I describe the ways in which two British university students negotiated their identity as second language learners during a year abroad in Italy and the extent to which their struggles helped them to "fit in" into the new social and cultural contexts. Building upon the lived experiences of the two participants, I follow…

Untrained teachers are deployed in basic schools in many developing countries as a measure to address enrolment escalation; minimising the financial burden on the government, much of whose education budget is already a recurrent cost. However, there has been little research into untrained teachers. Employing a mixed-methods approach, this article…

Despite the state's unrelenting efforts to enforce compulsory basic education, schooling in rural ethnic China remains an elusive ideal that leads to massive dropout and prepares many only for factory sweatshops. Based on 16 months of ethnographic research, this article examines the disjuncture between the official education policy known as the…

This article aims to report a single case study of how an Islamic boarding school ("pesantren") in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, prepared students for a multicultural Indonesia. Despite negative portrayal by the Western media about increasing Islamic radicalism in some "pesantren", many "pesantren" are in fact transforming into modern Islamic…

In Mexico almost ten million people speak an indigenous language. Recognizing the pluralistic nature of the nation, the Mexican Constitution mandates bilingual-intercultural education; in reality, however, the school system typically imposes the Spanish language and dominant culture on indigenous children. For these children their academic success…

Recent developments mark a "human turn" in sociolinguistics, i.e., a move away from languages as linguistic systems used by people, toward language or languaging as a sociolinguistic system performed by people. This article inscribes itself in that tradition and offers a micro-ethnographic analysis of a literacy event in rural Gambia. The incident…

Reflecting on the contributions in this volume, this paper engages with the development of widespread concepts of literacy, and gradually moves towards a view in which different literacy systems are seen, and have to be seen, as relatively autonomous. The papers in this volume engage with such a relatively autonomous system, that of grassroots…

Although some gender activists and analysts question the efficacy of gender mainstreaming to take forward women's demands, the South African government has pursued the strategy within a number of government departments including the Department of Education. This article explores how the strategy is being implemented in one provincial education…

This paper suggests the need for a critical analysis of the nationalization of mourning and its educational implications, especially in conflict-ridden areas. Our thoughts are grounded in a comparative study on mourning that has been conducted as part of our long-standing ethnographic research in schools in Cyprus and Israel during the last 10…

This study focuses on girl college students in a rural area of South West Bangladesh exploring the meaning and value they give to higher secondary education. By listening to their voices, the ethnography shows that unlike their younger counterparts, who stop studying in order to get married, girls who enrol at college develop more complex and…