EDUCATION SEEN THROUGH ANGLOPHONE EYES 1

by Rosa-María Torres
www.fronesis.org

The English language dominates not only the world of finance and tourism but also the world of
education. The most cited international publications in this field, particularly those on basic
education, are in English and their reference bibliographies often ignore publications in any other
language.

So-called ‘developing countries’ occupy an important place on the international education agenda.
The last few years have seen a proliferation of publications that analyze and suggest proposals for
basic education in such countries. However, specialists (and their studies) in developing countries
have little or no room in these analyses and proposals. Those who write about education in
developing nations, and are later consulted and quoted by policymakers of those nations, are mostly
authors from the developed world and mostly Anglophone. Being an English-speaker and an English-
writer is, in itself, the best qualification to be considered a specialist and to have one's publications --
whatever their quality -- considered for inclusion in compilations, anthologies, comparative studies,
and state of the art publications on education worldwide.

Let us take a few recent examples of publications from international agencies:

THE 165 PAGE REFERENCE DOCUMENT PREPARED FOR THE WORLD CONFERENCE ON EDUCATION FOR ALL
(JOMTIEN, THAILAND, MARCH 1990) AND PUBLISHED BY THE FOUR AGENCIES THAT ORGANIZED THAT CONFERENCE
(MEETING BASIC LEARNING NEEDS: A VISION FOR THE 1990S , NEW YORK, 1990).

The ‘Selected Bibliography’ at the end, and on which the report is based, includes 49 references: of
those, 44 are titles in English, 28 published in the US and 16 in Europe. 29 references - more than a
half -- were generated by international agencies (12 from UNESCO, 11 from the World Bank, 2 from
UNICEF, 2 from UNDP, 1 from UNFPA, and 1 from the Asian Development Bank). Only 5 titles are
in Spanish, and they are UNESCO documents translated into this language. The only study that
refers to Latin America (a study on Chile), in English, is published in the US. As for Asia, one single
study (on the Philippines) comes from that region, also in English; another study, on India, is
published in the US. There is not one single reference in Portuguese. In other words: despite the fact
that most of the titles selected refer to ‘developing countries’, and many of them make concrete
recommendations to these countries, Latin Americans, Africans and Asians are not present with their
own studies and recommendations.

THE 256 PAGE ANTHOLOGY DEVELOPED AND PUBLISHED BY UNICEF ON THE OCCASION OF THE WORLD SUMMIT
FOR CHILDREN (NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 1990): CHILDREN AND DEVELOPMENT IN THE 1990S: A UNICEF
SOURCEBOOK ON THE OCCASION OF THE WORLD SUMMIT FOR CHILDREN, NEW YORK, 1990.

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Originally published in: CIES Newsletter, N° 111. Washington: Comparative and International Education Society,
1996.

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All recommended readings in each of the eight chapters of the book (Health, Nutrition, Water and
Sanitation, Basic Education, Children in Specially Difficult Circumstances, Transversal Issues, and
the Economy) are titles in English written by Anglophone authors in North American or European
publications. There is not one single reference to studies in French, Spanish or Portuguese; can it be
that there is not one study by specialists in those languages that merits being consulted and
recommended as future reading?.

THE BOOK THAT SERVES AS THE BASIS FOR POLICIES AND STRATEGIES RECOMMENDED BY THE WORLD BANK TO
DEVELOPING COUNTRIES IN THE FIELD OF PRIMARY EDUCATION, ONE OF THE MOST WIDELY DISTRIBUTED AND QUOTED
(M. LOCKHEED AND A. VERSPOOR, IMPROVING PRIMARY EDUCATION IN
BOOKS TODAY IN THIS FIELD WORLDWIDE
DEVELOPING COUNTRIES, A WORLD BANK PUBLICATION, WASHINGTON D.C., 1991).

Of the 446 titles included in the final bibliography, 441 are in English. The remaining 5 are divided as
follows: 2 in French, 2 in Spanish (both from Colombia and related to a World Bank-financed
programme) and 1 in Portuguese (a study published back in 1980). The abundant and rich intellectual
production that exists and continues to be produced in these three languages is virtually absent.

THE LAST SECTOR REVIEW OF THE WORLD BANK (PRIORITIES AND STRATEGIES FOR EDUCATION: A WORLD BANK
SECTOR REVIEW, WASHINGTON, D.C., MAY 1995), A 140 PAGE DOCUMENT WHICH "DISCUSSES POLICY OPTIONS
FOR LOW- AND MIDDLE-INCOME COUNTRIES TO MEET EDUCATIONAL CHALLENGES AS THEY MOVE TOWARD THE
TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY" (P.IX).

Its conclusions and recommendations are based on 261 studies, of which 243 are written in English.
The 17 titles in Spanish are translations of English-original documents by the World Bank (13),
UNESCO (2), UNICEF (1) and ILO (1). Most of the studies that refer to Latin America are
authored by North Americans. There is not one single reference to French or Portuguese publications
(the three studies on Brazil that are included belong to Anglophone authors). Absent from this
bibliography are, indeed, renowned specialists and authors that have shaped and are part of the Latin
American thinking on education.

The Latin American perspective

Viewed from the Latin American perspective, this situation is not only worrisome but also
unacceptable.

Spanish is not a minority language: a whole region of the world speaks this language, the third most
widely spoken in terms of native speakers - after Chinese and Hindi. In fact, more people speak
Spanish (335 million) as their mother tongue than English (325 million), although English is the most
extended second language. Portuguese is spoken in three regions and seven countries, Brazil one of
them, one of the nine most populous countries in the world and the largest in Latin America.

The abundant and important intellectual documentation, research and discussion on education that
exists and continues to grow in this region, available mainly in Spanish and Portuguese, and which
constitutes the main common framework for the Latin American education reform movement, is
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ignored by Anglophone authors and international organizations, by the very authors and
organizations that elaborate and propose the macrovisions and macropolicies for education in today's
globalized world. The theoretical and interpretative frameworks applied to the realities of education
in developing countries are often insensitive to the specific and diverse histories, cultures, ideologies,
and experiences of these countries.

The very concept of generalizing observations and recommendations for the highly heterogeneous
and complex set of realities conventionally labeled ‘Third World’, ‘developing countries’, ‘low- and
middle-income countries’ and so on, is debatable. The least that should be expected from any attempt
to address these countries with recommendations on what to do, in education or in any field, is that
such attempt departs from, and concedes central importance to, the information and knowledge
produced within that ‘developing world’, by its own social actors, researchers and intellectuals.
Multilingual skills and/or multilingual teams are obviously essential for those attempting to work at
the international level, in order to be able to access and analyze relevant information and knowledge
not available in English - which is abundant in every region of the world.

On the other hand, ‘developing countries’, and Latin America in particular, need to do much more in
order to access the international literature produced in other languages as well as to disseminate the
knowledge produced within the region, including, where necessary, an important and consistent
translation effort.

The issue of the relevance and quality of research cannot be avoided. In the case of Latin America,
the need to increase and improve regional educational research has been highlighted and reiterated
over the past years. Together with the linguistic barrier, the lack of relevant and reliable research
studies produced in developing countries is an argument routinely cited by international authors.
Even if it is not true that ‘good’ research is generated in the North and ‘bad’ research in the South -
since it is educational research in general that is characterized today by serious problems of rigor and
quality - it is a fact that developing nations face a tremendous and far harder challenge given the
scarce resources devoted to research and the highly disadvantageous living and working conditions
of professionals engaged with educational research and action vis a vis those prevailing in the North.

In any case, and even if the research produced were of excellent quality, as long as Latin America
continues to isolate itself, speaking and writing in Spanish and Portuguese for Latin American
internal consumption, without understanding the importance and the urgency of better systematizing
and disseminating its theoretical production and its practical experience, and ignoring the centers
where world education policies are being discussed, this region will continue to be marginalized,
denied, misunderstood and distorted in its own realities and thinking, ignoring or passively assuming
the diagnoses, interpretations and recommendations that are developed and proposed from outside.