학술논문

Anatomy of an educational change: The safe learning model, Sierra Leone.
Document Type
Article
Source
Journal of Educational Change; Sep2023, Vol. 24 Issue 3, p631-657, 27p, 1 Black and White Photograph, 2 Charts, 4 Graphs
Subject
Educational change
Learning
Primary schools
Elementary schools
Mixed methods research
Educational quality
Teaching
Sierra Leone
Language
ISSN
13892843
Abstract
This paper undertakes a critical analysis of a planned change, the Safe Learning Model (SLM), devised over time by Concern Worldwide, and implemented in 100 primary or elementary schools in a rural district of Sierra Leone. We situate the documentation pertaining to the SLM (micro) within its wider national (meso) and international (macro) context of influential policy texts. We undertake a mixed methods analysis of these macro, meso and micro documents, interrogated through the prism of various change paradigms (scientific management, progressivism, critical theory, teacher professionalism and social movement) and in doing establish where these various document clusters, their explicit and implicit influences, may be located along the arc of change paradigms, thus surfacing their ideological assumptions, intent and influences. The paper concludes that in seeking to improve the quality of teaching, learning, and living in this instance, scientific management casts long shadows. The power, perspectives and financial influence of international agencies dominate change discourses whereby 'learning crises' require urgent responses in the form of testing and measuring that prevail over more expansive pedagogical capacity building. Consequently, perpetuating a 'weighing the pig' mindset downplays or ignores the ecology of teaching and learning, particularly the centrality of teachers, as professionals and role models, more likely to be compliant than transformative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]