Education, Learning and the Transformation of Development

Whilst education has been widely recognised as a key tool for development, this has tended to be limited to the incremental changes that education can bring about within a given development paradigm, as opposed to its role in challenging dominant conceptions and practices of development and creating alternatives.

Through a collection of insightful and provocative chapters, this book will examine the role of learning in shaping new discourses and practices of development. By drawing on contributions from activists, researchers, education and development practitioners from around the world, this book situates learning within the wider political and cultural economies of development. It critically explores if and how learning can shape processes of societal transformation, and consequently a new language and practice of development. This includes offering critical accounts of popular, informal and non-formal learning processes, as well as the contribution of indigenous knowledges, in providing spaces for the co-production of knowledge, thinking and action on development, and in terms of shaping the ways in which citizens engage with and create new understandings of ‘development’ itself. This book makes an important and original contribution by reframing educational practices and processes in relation to broader global struggles for justice, voice and development in a rapidly changing development landscape.

Amy Skinner is a freelance educator working in the field of global education. She was the Research Coordinator for DEEEP4, a development education project within CONCORD - The European Confederation of Development NGOs.

Matt Baillie Smith is Professor of International Development at Northumbria University, UK.

Eleanor Brown is a Lecturer at the Centre for Research in Education and Social Justice at the University of York, UK, where she is based in the Centre for Research on Education and Social Justice.

Tobias Troll is European director of the EDGE Funders Alliance ("Engaged Donors for Global Equity"), a global network of social change foundations and philanthropists committed to a "just transition". He previously worked for DEEEP, CONCORD.