Setting the scene: Measurement and learning beyond the mainstream

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International Journal of Educational Development 25 (2005) 99–110

www.elsevier.com/locate/ijedudev

Setting the scene: Measurement and learning beyondthe mainstream

Rosemary Prestona,�, Sheila Aikmanb

aUniversity of Warwick, INCED, School of Health and Social Studies University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, UKbOxfamGB, 274 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 7DZ, UK

Abstract

To contextualise the debates in this issue, the introduction problematises terms and approaches to the measure-

ment of non-mainstream learning, at different levels of analysis and in different parts of the world. Mindful of the

issues to be addressed in the papers to come, it introduces narratives of inclusion, intervention coherence and

management styles, before examining their implications for the achievement of cross-national understandings of

what may be the new mainstream of educational processes and effects. It concludes by outlining the contributions

in this issue.

r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

The trends affecting educational provision formarginalised people include the embedding ofmodern business enterprise in adult basic educa-tion, the plethora of non-formal initiatives or-iented at children and the difficulties encounteredwhen seeking official recognition of what theyachieve. This paper argues that these and othertrends represent mechanisms for the transmissionof a recognisable global culture, found in quitedifferent parts of the world, even among those who

e front matter r 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserve

dudev.2004.11.019

ing author.

esses: [email protected] (R. Preston),

m.org.uk (S. Aikman).

have not yet consciously espoused it. The first partof this paper attempts to develop a workingunderstanding of the term mainstream and byimplication, what we mean by ‘beyond the main-stream’, describing characteristics of more or lessincluded people. It then examines what countstoday as mainstream learning and ways in whichneo-liberal economics shape mainstream measuresof success and failure within it and withinalternative, non-mainstream learning. These issuesare discussed in terms of an increasing blurring ofdivides between mainstream and non-mainstream(e.g. between formal schooling and non-formalprimary schooling) and the way this hides inequal-ities of provision under a proliferation of newfunding, management and learning processes.

d.

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1See Lash (1990) and Edwards (1997) for discussions of

dedifferention.

R. Preston, S. Aikman / International Journal of Educational Development 25 (2005) 99–110100

2. Mainstreams and others

To position a discussion of measurement andlearning beyond the mainstream, we need anunderstanding of terms. Mainstream is normative,necessarily defined in relation to anything other. Itembraces and excludes people, ideas, policy andpractices, taken individually and in combination.Mainstream status is ascribed on the basis ofpositionings on selected attributes at selectedmoments and both attributes and moments aresusceptible to change. Mainstream people are notproblematic, demographically, politically, sociallyor culturally. In advanced capitalist societies, theyare the employed, educated, fit and able, predo-minantly white, male and relatively affluent.Beyond are people scoring low on these attributes.They find themselves on the margins and excluded.They include dependents, women and otherminorities, those without work or means oflivelihood, those who are not able-bodied andthose who have no residence entitlements. Main-stream policies espouse positivist principles oftechnical rationality (Lebeda, 2003). Informed bylike-minded mainstream research (Preston, 1996),they nurture mainstream people and seek to makeothers more like them.

This is simplistic. At all levels, within andbeyond mainstream institutions, there are infinitiesof more and less marginalising diversity. There aremore and less included people associated with anygroup and this is replicated for groups themselves,as well as institutions, communities, regions,states, and at supranational regional and globallevels as well. The distribution of members withcharacteristics perceived to be more and lessadvantaged varies over time, in response to theinteraction of internal group dynamics and ex-ternal forces. Finally, compliance with mainstreamnorms may not be an inevitable or universalresponse and resistance on different scales occurs,more and less frequently, within and betweengroups (Preston, 2000). The indigenous move-ment, a political movement for the recognition ofsocial, cultural and economic rights and self-determination is a powerful example (May andAikman, 2003). There may be a high collinearity ofindividual positioning along the different para-

meters of inclusion/marginality/exclusion, but theextent to which this is a product of labelling on keyindicators (age, gender, ethnicity and class) is amatter of debate. For many, the dedifferentiating1

language of inclusion renders invisible historicallypoliticised analyses of marginality, structured interms of proactive mainstream discriminationagainst those displaying otherness features.

Those in the mainstream are concerned toprotect and enhance their own capacities, well-being and order. This means extending inclusionpolicy to those beyond the margins of the main-streams in order to protect mainstream stability.Welfare for the underemployed, poor, displaced,minorities and disabled is an example. For aminority, the activities inspired by such policies dooffer inclusion and the motivation to achieve it.However, ensuring order among those unwilling orunable to turn such opportunities to advantageand among those without the option of participat-ing means tolerating mechanisms for internalgroup cohesion to develop beyond the margins,in ways that do not threaten mainstream interests(Preston, 2000).

If the above is the essence of the mainstreamsocial science project and related policy, thechallenge is to examine the implications ofdifferent historical and spatial contexts for thearticulation of its thinking, modes and practices.Like us, the authors of the papers in this specialissue of the International Journal of Educationand Development, have all been taught how tocritique and investigate social realities in the late20th century, at internationally acclaimed main-stream institutions of higher learning in advancedcapitalist nations. Their papers and other work,like our own (Aikman, 1999; Preston, 1991a, b,1993), draw on observations relating in the mainto poorly educated people in middle and low-income states, before and after the year 2000. Inthe transition to an increasingly global economy,these researchers and the people they describe havelived through the mainstream rejection of thewelfare economy and the return to laissez faire

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R. Preston, S. Aikman / International Journal of Educational Development 25 (2005) 99–110 101

management according to the rules of the market.With limited tolerance of non-profitable activities,there has been a relentless worldwide restructuringof investment in education and health and aredeployment of human resources deemed ineffi-cient (Watkins, 2000). Everywhere there has beenincreased uncertainty of employment, marginalisa-tion from the labour market, the impoverishmentof communities and nations and, over time, theascription of blame on individual inability torehabilitate and reintegrate (Caragatat, 2003).The international system of technical assistance,with its responsibilities for the management ofpoverty and development in low-income states,was part of the process.

Such is the wider political and economic contextthat informs the contributions below. The humanand educational development initiatives to whichthey refer, particularly in low-income states, havebeen strongly influenced by these changing eco-nomic debates and political realities.

Excluded

Marginal

Included

Formal Education

Other educationHigh levels

Majority populationLow levels

Low levelsMinority population

Fig. 1. A model of differential access to formal and non-formal

education applicable at all levels.

3. Learning

Learning is described in many ways and defini-tions have always been blurred (Rogers, 2004).Whatever the intellectual process (e.g. cognition,reflection, reflexivity, linearity, critical thinking), itis most often portrayed as incidental, informal,non-formal or as an effect of formally pro-grammed activity oriented at the comprehensionof selected knowledge. Multiple instances ofincidental, informal learning accompany every-thing we do, including our participation inprogrammed learning. For others, informal andnon-formal learning is in varying measure plannedand prepared (Mahoney, 2001). Overall, it isformal education and learning that are constructedas the educational mainstream. Formal educationconstitutes incremental programmes from pre-schooling to post-doctoral levels, with charteredrecognition and certificated assessment, increas-ingly carrying international recognition. Most ofthe minority who complete all its hurdles do so byearly adulthood. In most countries, basic educa-tion to completed primary levels is obligatory andthose without such minimum education are likely

to find themselves deprived (at least de facto) ofcitizenship entitlements.

Beyond formal learning systems, there is amyriad of more and less informal and non-formalorganised learning, on the part of people of allages, at all social levels, in all spheres of their lives.In some parts of the world, if not everywhere, thishas long since constituted much more thanorganised provision for children in schools, butworldwide it involves only a small proportion ofadults (Lawson, 1982). Its events may range fromone-day meetings to long courses, with or withoutentry requirements, with or without assessment.As working-life learning, these events compriseaccredited and non-accredited development ofbasic and core skills, initial and continuingvocational and professional development.Although nearly all provision is economicallydriven at some level, those events that are notprimarily economically inspired are oriented atpersonal development and understanding. Othersset out to teach critical thinking and resistance tomainstream values, norms and opportunities(Brookfield, 1996). The incidence, form, duration,content, purpose, quality and effect of suchlifelong and life-wide learning (Tuijnman, 2003)vary with the characteristics and interests ofprovider and client groups. As with formalsystems, they attract mainstream populationgroups disproportionately in both richer andpoorer states [see Rinne and Kivinen (1996) andSargant (1996) for European figures]. The minorityof the world’s population who reach adulthoodwith high levels of formal education are also thosewho take part in the highest levels of othereducation (see Fig. 1). Under neo-liberalism, those

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with low levels of formal education have increas-ingly limited access to other learning opportu-nities. Such as they are, they are often of poorquality.

Building on Carr-Hill et al. (1999), such otherinterventions may be variously described assupplementing, complementing, compensatingand opposing historically mainstream provision.Boundaries are blurred. Mandatory continuousprofessional development (CPD) for medical andlegal practitioners, for example, assumes andsupplements previously advanced levels of main-stream education and professional qualificationsfor affluent groups. This may be through basicadult learning to compensate for hitherto limitedaccess. Beyond the margins, for those withinsecure residency entitlements, no possibility ofpaid work, or those subsisting in rural areasremote from service centres, however small, itmay do little more than further understanding,with no prospect of it contributing to theirachievement of mainstream status (Preston, 1999).

The policy rhetoric of many countries espousesaccess to life-long learning among marginal andexcluded groups, as an economic priority (Preston,2000). The stated aim of this lifelong learning is torestore the economic productivity of groupsperceived to be victims of economic reforms andto bring an end to their dependency. This is at atime when the same economic reforms havereduced resources supporting such communitylearning because they are seen as not economicallyefficient, while those that remain serve to legit-imate blame on those unable to enroll, a symbol oftheir disinterest in self-improvement (Fryer, 1997).

The term non-formal education (NFE) isimportant to this discussion. It was coined in the1960s by the international system of technicalassistance to low-income states. As a positivesignifier of provider commitment to the educationand training of out-of-school youth and adults,NFE sought to increase their economic opportu-nities and well-being (Coombs and Ahmed, 1974).Consciousness-raising for political action to en-hance inclusion, again oriented at adults, wasquickly welcomed under the non-formal educationumbrella (Freire, 1974). Interventions under suchbanners have been swathed in a rhetoric that

encourages local participation in setting thecontent and modes of instruction, to maximisetheir relevance to local development (Kaufman,1997), even though the reality has usually beensomewhat different.

The global familiarity with the range of NFEactivities introduced, quickly left claims of theirlocal design and relevance open to doubt. Thereplication of schemes over long periods of time, incountries with very different cultural histories,confirmed their inspiration far beyond the im-plementation locality and their sponsorship by theinternational mainstream institutions, responsiblefor managing the affairs of the world’s poor.Whatever the early resource allocations, whateverits achievements, NFE quickly came to denotenon-mainstream activities, using measurement-defying pedagogies, with limited assets, targetedat non-mainstream people from minority commu-nities, located in increasingly marginal parts of theworld.

Here we find the attractive inclusive language ofNFE used as a discursive strategy (Dryzek, 1990)to mask the implications of short-term, financiallyrestricted initatives to resolve social problems ofimmense complication. Where activities such asadult literacy, community health and agriculturalextension continue in selected marginal commu-nities, they are frequently part of a process ofcreating more productive individuals and moresustainable livelihoods. Regardless of the specialistexpertise being nurtured, participation in income-generating schemes is becoming a requirement forthose wishing to take advantage of other learningopportunities. These schemes require understand-ing of the basic principles of small businessplanning, management and execution. Cruciallyfor the global project, they encourage individualand collective borrowing through micro-creditloans. As short-term opportunities for non-formallearning themselves, their capacities may in mostcases be limited, as may well be the literacy andprimary health programmes to which they areattached.

Historically, NFE has referred to supplementaryand complementary learning for adults. Govern-ment subscription to the Jomtien agreement onEducation for All (EFA) and the Millenium

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Development Goals (MDGs) (Little et al., 1994;UNESCO, 2003) and Fast-Track schemes toachieve them (Oxfam International, 2002, 2003)have seen an international extension to the NFEremit. It now includes the growing number of theworld’s children without primary schooling in low-income states. This is at a moment when neo-liberal decentralisation withholds fiscal support toprimary schooling, requiring communities toprovide it instead. Local managers of schoolsnow work to attract resources to pay teachers, buymaterials and maintain buildings, as best theymay. Increasingly, this involves entering intopartnerships with non-government private andvoluntary sector organisations, some of whichmay have won primary school project funding,made specifically available in the name of EFA,through a range of local and international resourceallocation systems (Aikman and Haj, forthcom-ing). In this way, EFA has appropriated thetaxonomy of community education in low-incomestates and diverted a significant proportion offunding away from adult NFE. The term NFEtoday invokes for most people images of marginalchildren learning under a variety of arrangements.For Torres (2000) these changes in policy andpractice amount to shrinking the concept of EFAand the expanded 1990s vision of basic education.Today, EFA is firmly oriented at preserving andimproving formal mainstream schooling. Thereare many reasons for this shift away from adultNFE to basic education for all children, but thechief one is related to finance. Whatever thereasons, challenges from beyond the mainstreamto ways of learning and knowing are themselvesmarginalised and excluded (Torres, 2000).

4. Measurement

The measurement of non-mainstream informaland non-formal learning activities has to besubject to the same best practice rules of datacollection, processing, analysis, interpretation anddissemination as those applied in any kind ofsocial enquiry, qualitative, quantitative and multi-method. Measurement as an activity can beconceptualised as a spiralling sequence of events

from the description of a situation and theidentification of ways to address it, through topost hoc evaluation of interventions, and impactassessment, planned and unplanned (Preston, 1996and 2005). The moments of measurement mayseek to answer questions about any aspect of theprocess, from any disciplinary perspective, takingaccount of environmental effects framing theevents being observed. These include the intentionof the provider, the characteristics of the client, thenature of the activity and how each of these isshaped by facets of the wider political, economic,social and cultural context, including those atsupra-national and global levels. At some pointtoo the discursive strategies used to promote theactivity must be examined in the light of thematerial conditions of its execution and effects,and their socially differentiated distribution (Dry-zek, 1990). Similar appraisal will inform the use oflabels and terminology, at all levels of theiranalysis.

If all of this is true of any applied research,additional factors have to be taken on board in thecase of measurement associated with non-main-stream services to marginal people. Interventionsmay be rationalised on the basis of mainstreamcensus and large-scale statistical analyses of enrol-ment, retention and progress based on data collectedfrom within formal systems, but typically theinterventions themselves, even the large ones, aretoo small, fragmented or inconsistent for this to befeasible. In the past exceptions may have includeddata for national literacy campaigns, while today theWorld Bank Literacy for Livelihood Programmemay hope to obtain nationwide outcome figures forborrowing countries (Oxenham et al., 2002). Leavingaside the enormous problems of measuring theeffects of smaller interventions on sustainablelivelihoods (Cracknell, 2002; Maddox, 2005), report-ing on small-scale fragmented interventions inrelation to mainstream measurement is, in mostcases, barely valid at the project level, no matter howsuccessful the intervention itself may be. Even withmanuals to guide the process (Gosling and Edwards,1995), fluctuating attendance and commitment makefor difficulties. Participatory planning, pedagogy andevaluation facilitate exploratory learner understand-ing of reality and experience from multiple perspec-

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tives, but data collected in this way do not lendthemselves to inferential statistics and tests ofprobability of individual motivation, capability andachievement. Such alternative measures of non-mainstream learning may contribute, not only toclaims that investment in non-formal adult learninghas limited economic effects, but also to the deve-lopment of policy to sideline it. Concepts of basiceducation are now equated with primary schooling(formal and non-formal) and esteemed measures oflearning are once again reduced to the performanceof school children on standardised tests.

The narrowing of learning output measuresgives little recognition to the forms of processlearning incurred and gives no estimate of itsimmediate or longer-term value, intrinsic orinstrumental (see Martin and Guzman, 2005).Nor does it seek to account for what the increasedcomplexity of private and quasi-private serviceproviders contributes to basic education servingpoor and marginal areas, regardless of whether itis described as formal or non-formal. Unexpect-edly, it may go some way to resolve the principalmeasurement challenge of aggregating the effectsof infinite, fragmented instances of short-term,non-formal provision across wider units of popu-lation, within and between states. By moving thegoal posts and reducing NFE to basic primaryservices competing for mainstream recognition,the whole is homogeneously committed to pro-gress up the formal education ladder, following thesame curriculum and using the same tests ofperformance. The question of how we measure thefragmented learning of out-of-school youth andadults in non-mainstream communities and itscontribution to the achievement of national,regional and global priorities is once again inabeyance.

5. The changing framework

Today, the effects of neo-liberalism are to befound in increasing marginalisation and exclusionat local, national and regional levels. Symptoms ofthe merging of mainstream and non-mainstreamare apparent in new processes of funding, manage-ment and learning that are increasingly complex

but essentially similar in the two contexts. Theblurring of the divide between forms of main-stream (e.g. government) and non-mainstream(e.g. community and NGO) educational provisionwithin states may be explained as a pervasiveprocess of dedifferentiation and homogenisation.From the neo-classical perspective, these are notthe resources for equal human developmentinvestment across sectors and market forcesshould determine provision that will vary betweencommunities. The varied provenance of contribu-tions to more and less mainstream provision thatwe observe today in all parts of the world, is anaspect of this process, with resources coming frommixed public and private (including non-profit)sources, simultaneously and in varying combina-tions. Without investigation and regulation, theways this trend exacerbates and bridges inequal-ities remains hidden, within and between interven-tions for those more and less in the mainstream.Overall, the increasing complexity of provisionmakes it difficult to perceive.

5.1. Common learning

Globalisation and the rapid dissemination ofknowledge through IT, makes it difficult to trackwhere ideas originate and who uses them to whatends. In spite of its currency in popular educationfrom the late 1960s, participation as a mechanismfor sharing knowledge and developing under-standing has never been unique to beyond-the-mainstream social development and resistancemovements in low-income states (Kelly, 1992).Its universal promotion today, presents it underdifferent guises as a requirement of good manage-ment and pedagogy, at all stages of an activity,across the spectrum of community, commercialand government work (technical and managerial).Its hidden economic rationales include reducedcost inputs and the shift from hierarchical manage-ment to cooperative and interdependent horizontalnetworking.

Yet there remains the question of how weaccount for the effectiveness of participatorymethods. We do not know the conditions underwhich they stimulate new learning and the devel-opment of sustainable initiatives, firmly bedded in

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community realities. Nor do we acknowledge theextent to which, without inspirational externalsupport, participatory methods rehearse the lowestcommon levels of thinking and strategy, reaffirmthe status of the group and its limited capacity forchange. Under the rhetoric of giving voice tomarginal members of marginal groups, how do weinvestigate the silencing of the majority by theminority and its effects, as vociferous membersdominate and further their personal interests, justas in other learning and development environ-ments?

Participatory learning and management, basedon narratives of reflection and experience, involvepeople of all ages. They may have inspired story-sharing approaches to problem solving in verydifferent parts of the world (Denning, 2000), but ineducation, there is a backlash to the informalitiesof participation. Part of its problem is its applica-tion as a dedifferentiating tool of learning,assessment, teaching, research and managementalike, along with its continuing redolence ofempowering marginal groups.

Although the reaction against constructivist,learner-centred curricula sees pressure for a returnto didactic pedagogy with mandatory technicallyrational assessment, participatory methods havespawned important regulatory and incentive me-chanisms, largely across mainstream sectors. In theformal economy, they include self and peerappraisal, often under threat of budgetary reduc-tions and denial of competitive performance-related pay (Edwards, 1997). Individuals andemployers may set their own targets and agreethe system of monitoring their progress towardsthem. Importantly, they enable the remote controlof work, especially when the information is heldon-line, often by-passing immediate managers andeven local leaders of units of production. Theimplication is that participation as attractivediscursive practice has created new work-placetyrannies, which employees quickly experience asself-imposed. Assessing the impact of such prac-tices down the oganisational hierarchy of theglobal corporate sector is complex. Revealinghow they inform the ways in which internationalsystems of technical assistance are workingthrough education to eliminate poverty at the

level of marginal communities is a challenge of adifferent order.

5.2. Managing poverty

The world’s sub-system for the administrationand regulation of poverty elimination is a hier-archy of organisations committed to complemen-tary purposes and processes. It variously dedicatedto funding, designing, regulating, managing, im-plementing, evaluating and consuming the benefitsof a repertoire of pro-poor activities. Commonlystated aims include the alleviation of povertythrough the deepening of the market, the enhance-ment of opportunities for women and support forthe work of the multi-lateral community of theUN, with the global lenders, the IMF and theWorld Bank as key actors. Although any of theorganisations at these different levels may inter-vene independently, their sometime expectation offuture work in partnership with others morepowerful means that they have to sustain theircommitment to the collective overarching goals ofwhat has become the global aid sector. Smallerorganizations in particular have to tailor theirpolicies to the large global players whether theylike it or not (see Rao and Smyth, 2005).

This in turn is a factor in the adoption ofcommon financial and other management systems,which inform planning for the implementation ofactivities and evaluation according to the princi-ples of outcomes-based management (Cracknell,2002; Preston and Arthur, 1997). All partnerscontracted to non-mainstream interventions inmarginal communities have to become conversantwith these procedures, at least to some extent,however far from the delivery end point in theorganisational matrix. They include the multi- andbi-lateral funding organisations, government de-partments and corporations, NGOs and commu-nity user groups (see Preston, 2005). Through thecontract culture that holds it in place, the system isconsonant with global economic reforms and it isthe primary intention of interventions to deepenmarket penetration for the large transnationalcompanies. It is the prioritisation of incomegeneration as a substantive deliverable that en-sures that end user communities acquire this

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knowledge as well. These mechanisms, along withthe changes in the funding regime, dictate whatpartners to any activity can do and why. Theymust be understood before evaluators embark onanalyses of achievements and other beyond-the-mainstream outcomes. Once we understand how,at points of delivery, the modalities of funding andmanagement influence the quality of services, onlythen we can begin to address the sustainability oftheir multiple achievements and how they shouldbe measured and for whom.

6. New understandings in a global regime

The above paragraphs attempt to provide a viewof the changing historical context, in which tosituate contemporary approaches to the measure-ment of learning on the part of people in marginaland excluded groups in different parts of theworld. This allows us to ask how far observationsin the papers in this issue are a response to supra-national and global influences, as much or morethan they are to those in the part of the world inwhich they are located.

The above discussion has gone beyond challen-ging the easy dichotomy, mainstream and not. Ithas revisited the multi-factorial parameters thatdetermine more and less included people, learningand research and suggested that the neo-liberalunderpinnings of the present historical junctureare integrating once differentiated mechanismsthat served more and less included categories, indifferent ways. This integration is being achievedthrough reducing overall non-mainstream provi-sion and practice and by incorporating whatremains into formal structures. What we are leftwith is non-mainstream provision for a narrowrange of marginalised populations and this provi-sion is itself incorporated into included categories,such non-formal basic education, as a means ofbestowing official recognition (See Day below).

6.1. Opening the debate

The papers address a range of themes. ElaineUnterhalter opens pragmatically, asserting thatwhatever the much criticised narrowness of the

MDGs for international development, they haveliberated resources and created significant spacefor debate and reflection on the nature of povertyand ways of eliminating it. With reference toincreasing the participation of women, Unterhalterreminds us that policy frame-works rest on varyingassumptions, in this case about marginality andinclusion, which have to be understood beforeeffective action can be taken. She exemplifies thisby showing how the different approaches of Senand Nussbaum to capabilities, in terms of liveli-hood and rights/entitlements perspectives, respec-tively, suggest very different gender strategies ifwomen are to achieve greater inclusion. ReviewingPogge’s interpretations of what different institu-tional practices imply for the exercise of rights tohigher education, she argues that a similarlypragmatic approach to critical policy analysismight be a means of forcing the achievement ofthe gender MDG. Writing at a pivotal educationalmoment, and given the comments above about themainstream appropriation of adult and commu-nity learning, the body of her paper is informed bythinking underlying the participation of adultwomen in community development, reshaped toprioritise the enrolment of girls into schools.

Like Unterhalter, Bryan Maddox opens withtwo conceptualisations of education and learningwith different implications, this time for basiceducation for women. He then introduces a third,the conceptualisation of method. Preparing thereader for case studies in Bangladesh, he comparesthe embedded ethnography of New LiteracyStudies (NLS) with current development policylocating literacy within narratives of povertyreduction and livelihood improvement. He arguesthat after decades of literacy interventions, there islittle research into the social context and impact ofadult literacy, to the extent that this has renderedits provision vulnerable to the fickleness of policyimperatives.

Maddox examines what the respective episte-molgies of the two approaches, in anthropology/social linguistics and neo-classical economics,imply for the measurement of the impact ofliteracy interventions on women’s lives. His con-cern is that livelihood approaches, measured at thehousehold level, tap into quick appraisals of

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community capacity and need, but show only arather superficial understanding. To reveal theunderlying structures of social relations andpower, he suggests protracted observation, asespoused by NLS, of the development and use ofskills, their effects on social relations, and access toinformation and the management of resources. Hechallenges the development assumption that secu-lar literacy should be the norm, acclaimed for usein public arenas, when often it leaves the neo-literate socially vulnerable. His data reveal caseswhere literate interactions are conducted in pri-vate, away from the public gaze, particularlyamong women fearful of men’s reactions. He citesinstances of secular literacy in Bangladesh, whichencourage livelihood-oriented income generation,being superimposed on established literacy inArabic acquired for the purpose of reading theKoran. His examples suggest that modern literacyallows women learners to hybridise multipleliteracies, within safe social spaces, without chal-lenging the fabric of existing social relationships.For Maddox, introducing literacy to adult womenin remote rural areas of South Asia is not aculturally neutral mission. It is embedded in textsencouraging identification with globally normativeculture and at variance with those informingspiritual and other practices of daily life in suchcommunities.

If the Bangladeshi literacy experience exempli-fies an attempt to include marginal women, LauraDay tells an analogous story in respect of childrenin India. She examines approaches being initiatedby private schools to provide poor children withan education. Her purpose is to draw readerattention to what may be a growing phenomen-on—affluent private schools in low-income statesand communities supporting the education of poorchildren using a range of approaches. She sets outfirst to compare how the ethos and socio-economicbackground of three schools, that have takenreach-out-to-the-poor initiatives, inform decisionsabout the positioning of such children in relationto their regular fee-paying clienteles and thenconsiders what this implies for bridging or main-taining and reinforcing social divides. Two of theschools are urban, the third rural. Using thecriteria of inclusion developed by the Kolkata

Catholic School (flexibility, community, simplicity,linguistic identity), she finds that the VivekenandaSchool, also in Kolkata, and the KrisnamurthiSchool in Andra Pradesh have rather more elitistvalues and believe that outreach children shouldbe treated differently from those in school. Theysaw the two groups as essentially different, withvery different futures ahead. This led them toseparate outreach from mainstream provision andprovide children from poor communities witheducation deemed appropriate to their futureneeds. The Catholic School premise that thereshould be equality of opportunity for each groupof children led to both groups being fully enrolledmembers of the school. This contrasted with thephilosophy of the Vivekenanda and Krishna-murthi schools. The paper discusses the implica-tions of the different school orientations for themainstream inclusion of such children, within theeducation system and afterwards.

Chris Martin and Elsa Guzman address asimilar theme in Mexico and Central America:the contribution of supplementary outreach provi-sion to primary attainment in remote indigenouscommunities. In the face of declining investment,but highly centralised provision in marginal areas,there are imaginative alternative forms of provi-sion offered by non-mainstream providers fortypically non-mainstream learners. Martin andGuzman provide illustrations of five communityinitiatives oriented at enhancing cross-cuttingskills of children in poor rural areas. Theirinvestigation questions the compatibility of suchcross-cutting skill development with what standar-dised tests of ability and achievement seek tomeasure. The paper argues the need for broadercriteria than are customarily used, for measuringpupil achievement, school effectiveness and theirimpact on educational policy in unequal pluralsocieties. With reference to international scholar-ship on assessment, evaluation and impact mea-surement, they argue the case for broadeningimpact measures to recognise and accredit achieve-ment on such enrichment experiences, as well aslessons to be drawn from them.

To bring this about, Martin and Guzmanencourage networking between organisations pro-viding supplementary learning, alliances between

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them and the academy to press for systematisedassessment and evaluation to diagnose areas forpolicy reform in government and to raise aware-ness in the public arena more generally. For them,innovative grass-roots projects are to be valuedand integrated into mainstream provision. Inisolation they are educationally and financiallyunsustainable.

Following Unterhalter’s proposals for practice-informed policy review, the three papers representdifferent phases in illustrating the transition fromadult community learning as the prototype ofNFE (Maddox) to diversified NFE, as the territoryof primary schooling (Day, Martin and Guzman).Day’s array of school outreach facilities exempli-fies an institutional citizenship approach in sup-port of less-affluent groups, incidentally aphilanthropic training for fee-paying youthfulobservers. Martin and Guzman first show howdiversified out-of-system provision fails to achieveformal recognition, as central government limita-tions leave increasing numbers of poor andmarginal children deprived of school. They thenreveal how the narrowness of internationallysanctioned standardised tests, denies recognitionof the skills they do achieve, at a time when thegovernment is explicitly committed to developingformal sector competency in these specific areas.

In the final paper, Rosemary Preston examineshow the changes in the wider social context overthe last 20 years, outlined above, have shaped thepurposes, policies and practices of internationalhuman development assistance for the alleviationof poverty and inclusion and what it achieves.Preston reviews the ways in which changing labourmarket characteristics impinge on the aid systemand the contemporary rhetoric, design and man-agement of human development interventions indifferent parts of the world. She proposes methodsto investigate how these changes influence themultiple messages transmitted in association withaid sector interventions and applies them to casestudies of communication in complex organisa-tional partnerships. Drawing first on experiencefrom the World Bank to client communities inLatin America, Southern Africa and EasternEurope, the paper reexamines the implications oftechnically rational financial and management

systems for the social and economic transforma-tion of marginal groups. Identifying significantcommonalities between different types of interven-tion, at different educational levels, in differentcountries, Preston argues that the narratives ofoutcomes-based management are shaped by thedominant economic discourse of internationalhuman development, oriented at marginal groupsin marginal countries. Making similar observa-tions in respect of projects within a rich worldregion, Preston suggests that such managementnarratives have achieved the status of globalliteracy. The discussion is of the learning theyinspire and its implications for inclusion, controland stability.

7. End note

Additional factors combine to confirm thecomplex global inspiration of the argumentsdeveloped in the papers in this issue as construc-tions of cosmopolitan citizens of the world(Delanty, 2000). Our advantageous mainstreamposition has been acquired through high achieve-ment across dimensions such as education, out-weighing less advantaged positions on dimensionswhich confer minority and subordinate status onthe majority (for example gender and ethnicity).True to social science tradition, the activities towhich we are committed are concerned withmarginal people, unlike and at a distance fromourselves. Just as with those managing the inter-ventions on their behalf that we are observing, it isproblematic as to whose well-being is being mosteffectively promoted.

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Setting the scene: Measurement and learning beyond the mainstream

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