Action research case studies of participatory materials development in two community contexts in Zambia

This research reports on two action research case studies of participatory materials development in two rural community contexts in Zambia, namely Chiawa and Nalusanga. It aims to explore and articulate the relationships between community-based environmental education and participatory materials development in the WWF Zambia Education Project context; clarify participatory materials development processes by identifying the roles of different ‘actors’ in these processes and identify and analyse the contextual and other factors that may influence development and use of environmental education materials in rural communities. These aims were explored by means of a number of action research cycles of inquiry in the two communities. The study also articulates the significance of considering ambivalent globalising influences such as international conferences, debates, overseas development aid, national policies and how these shape and influence materials development work in a local context. In order to gain more insight into the local contexts, I developed contextual profiles on the two communities. These capture the contextual factors that influenced the participatory materials development processes. They include issues such as language, ethnicity, literacy, power relations and the local social economy, amongst others. Although this study has been predominately guided by the socially critical orientation to research and education, I have drawn on aspects of other research orientations. I have also explored some of the emerging critiques of the socially critical orientation. The findings of this study reveal the different roles participants can play in participatory materials development; participatory materials development processes as a learning process; the dynamics of participation in an African context; the role of language and literacy in materials development; the need for open-ended process models of learning amongst adult learners and the importance of merging expert and local knowledge in participatory materials development. This study opens up possibilities for further exploration of participatory materials development processes within the WWF ZEP context and beyond

Making a SPLASH for WASH in schools in Zambia

Zambia has a burgeoning primary school population, but its schools do not provide safe drinking water or adequate sanitation facilities that address the special needs of disabled children and girls entering puberty. USAID/Zambia has a long commitment to Zambia’s education sector. In 2011, it invested in a five-year program called SPLASH (Schools Promoting Learning Achievement through Sanitation and Hygiene) to address the critical WASH needs in schools in four districts of Eastern Province. The comprehensive approach includes construction or rehabilitation of water points and toilets; hygiene education for pupils and training for teachers; sustainability through Ministry of Education (MOE) systems strengthening including EMIS and budget line items; and steady advocacy for institutionalizing WASH within the MOE. In spite of challenges related to geography and bureaucracy, SPLASH has advanced the visibility of school WASH through installations, advocacy, and partnering events that enlist everyone’s contribution to making WASH in schools a reality

Methodological Decisions in Context: The dilemmas and challenges of novice African scholars

This paper emerges out of a panel discussion during a PhD week and subsequent 8th International Environmental Education Invitation Seminar held at Rhodes University in 2004 and 2005 respectively. It illuminates some insights into our struggles (as novice African researchers) in trying to respond to contextual realities as we research education and social change in African contexts, seeking insight into what counts as legitimate research in this context. The paper considers our struggles at conceptual, methodological, analytical and data generation levels, and in a politics of research. This is done by means of examples drawn from five current doctoral research projects being undertaken in east and southern African regions, using a review framework that represents fairly common dimensions of PhD research. We conclude that research, when defined rigidly within research disciplines/paradigms (as have been defined in some – primarily Western – research trajectories) may fail to take into account African social and contextual realities when applied uncritically. We argue that there is need for researchers in Africa to consider a multiplicity of approaches if research is to be meaningful in, and responsive to, social and contextual realities. In particular, we argue for taking account of socio historical and socio-cultural contexts in creating African epistemology in and through research

Translation processes in the design of an education for sustainable development innovations course for universities in Africa

This paper traces the translation processes associated with the mobilization of resources and human agency in the development of a United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) Innovations Course for universities in Africa. University teachers are often neglected in teacher education initiatives. There are few formal professional development opportunities available for university teachers given the traditionally established hierarchy in the higher education sector as university teachers are normally the ones offering professional development to others. The paper explores how a participatory, deliberative translation process has served to provide professional development and professional exchange opportunities for university teachers which are non‐traditional and responsive to diversity, history, context and risk. The emergence of the modern African university is essentially a post‐independence (post‐1960s) phenomenon, with a few earlier African universities being colonially structured, controlled and inspired. Through a short historical overview, we introduce the African university landscape and some of its contemporary contextual and educational challenges. We then describe the process of deliberation that took place amongst university teachers from 23 African countries to initiate and establish the ESD Innovations Course. The paper concludes by arguing for open and participatory approaches in ESD teacher education course design, if we are to support university teachers (including teacher educators) to engage in mainstreaming environment and sustainability questions in higher education. The paper draws on the translation model provided by Latour in his actor network theory to describe and explain the deliberative translation process in the UNEP ESD Innovations Course. In doing this, it illuminates the possibilities of such a deliberative translation process for university teacher education. It also points to limitations encountered in applying this framework to this analysis, opening new vantage points for research of this nature in teacher education

Networking: enabling professional development and institutionalisation of environmental education courses in Southern Africa

This study was aimed at understanding how networking can enable or constrain professional development and institutionalisation of environmental education courses in southern Africa in the context of the Course Development Network (CDN), a project of the Southern Africa Development Community Regional Environmental Education Programme (SADC REEP). The study involved 12 institutions (each institution was represented in the CDN by a staff member) in eight SADC member states. It was contextualized through a review of social, political, environmental and educational developments in southern Africa, with specific reference to regionalization processes, as the SADC REEF is constituted under this post-colonial political framework. Relational philosophy informed the research process and methodology. The philosophy underpinned three distinct, yet related theoretical perspectives namely: critical realism, which provided the ontological perspectives of the study; Actor Network Theory; and Community of Practice, which provided the epistemological perspectives. Data was generated during a 33-month period in southern Africa and 12 months in the United Kingdom (and on a one week visit to Italy). During a 12 month Split Site Commonwealth Scholarship award, tenable at Manchester Metropolitan University in the United Kingdom, I studied the Environment and School Initiative (ENSI) and the Sustainability Education for European Primary Schools (SEEPS), to examine whether the same mechanisms that made them successful would apply to the CDN in the context of southern Africa. While these two case studies provided useful insight into the relationship between networking, professional development and institutionalization of environmental education programmes, they were not the main focus of the research. Data analysis was mainly through inductive, abductive and retroductive modes of inference. Inductive data analysis was done by means of Nvivo – a computer software package used for qualitative data analysis. The software aided in revealing features and relationships in the data in more depth as it allowed flexibility in working with data. Abduction is the interpretation of a phenomenon by means of a conceptual framework. In this study, I used Actor Network Theory (ANT) (Latour & Woolgar, 1979; Callon, 1986) and Community of Practice (COP) (Lave, 1988; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Fullan, 2003) as analytical conceptual frameworks to probe networking and professional development respectively. Data on institutionalisation of environmental education courses was analysed by means of retroductive mode of inference, which is a thought operation that enables the understanding of social reality beyond what is empirically observable or experienced. This study reveals that there were a number of necessary (internal) and contingent (external) factors that enabled or constrained networking, professional development and institutionalisation of environmental education courses in the context of the CDN. The key factors included existing cultural capital, donor political economy, power relations, poverty related factors and social transformation trends. The study found that relational approaches and the use of three relational theoretical lenses provided a broader lens which enabled this study to identify different dynamics, greater ontological depth and understanding of the relational dynamics and relations at play in the CDN beyond the participants' experience and observable events. The study also contends that networking can provide a support structure for social transformation and change in environmental education