The document critiques modernization and human capital theory in education, focusing on Papua New Guinea's socio-economic and cultural context. It discusses the limitations of traditional Western schooling as cultural imperialism, the complexities of identity shaped by colonial influences, and the ineffectiveness of education as a sole vehicle for economic growth. Additionally, it explores dependency theory as an alternative framework that critiques modernization narratives and emphasizes the structural factors contributing to underdevelopment and civil unrest.

1. Critique of modernization
and human capital theory in
education.
Focus on Papua New Guinea

2. • Modernization
Social, economic, cultural changes which lead to a
more complex, differentiated and specialized
society.
•

3. In SOCIOLOGY
• “Psycho-cultural approaches”: the modern
man
- Capitalistic spirit (Weber)
- Values and need for achievement
(McClelland)
• “Structural approaches”
• - Spencer, Durkheim, Smelzer, Parsons

4. PARSONS
 Imperatives:
• Adaptation
• Goal attainment
• Integration
• Latency
 Basic dichotomies of
social roles:
• Affective/affective neutral
• Self orientated/collective
behaviour
• Universalism/particularism
• Ascriptive/achievement
• Functionally specific/
functionally diffuse

5. In ECONOMICS
• Rostow: the stages of economic growth
- Traditional stage
- Precondition for the take-off
- Take-off
- Maturity
- Age of mass consumption

6. In Politics: (STRUCTURAL
FUNCTIONALISM)
G. Almond (SSRC)
political communication
• Input
- Political socialisation
- Political recruitment
- Articulation of
interests
- Aggregation of
interests
• Output
- Rule-making
- Rule-implementation
- Rule-adjudication

7. MODERNISATION and EDUCATION
Western schooling is western cultural reproduction =
cultural imperialism.
Behaviouralism - (Skinner): Individual behaviour can
be conditioned.
Humanism - (Dewey): Democratic values.
Colonial Education: Training of Elites.
Hidden curriculum
Carnoy – Cultural imperialism

8. PAPUA and EDUCATION
Demerath‟s writing on Papua New Guinea and
colonisation of the mind (Fanon)
Traditional and modern identity are chosen, not
simply granted or received
Historical beliefs about the „efficacy of knowledge‟
Ambivalence towards Western education
Allegiance with traditional identity
Colonisation of the Mind – Fanon

9. PAPUA and EDUCATION
Australia sends most of its development money to
Papua.
Extractive industry – rich and poor divide
Civil unrest and domestic violence high
Need more data…..

10. HUMAN CAPITAL THEORY
Mincer and Gary Becker of the "Chicago School“
Psacharopoulos: rates of return

11. HUMAN CAPITAL THEORY
Africa:
Brain drain
Dore - Diploma Disease1960‟s
Narrow focus on economic growth but no jobs.
World Bank and human capital investment. Education
is seen as a vehicle for economic growth.
Eg. basic needs education, functional literacy.
Can have high GDP but no social cohesion, or
creates educated pirates / criminals.

12. Gunder Frank Dependency Theory –
Critical historical approach
 Underdevelopment is a function of the
position a country occupies in the
international system
 Structural approach at the global level
 Centre-Periphery dialectic
 Role of elites and Lumpenbourgoisie /
compardor class
 Critique of Ideal Type approach

13. Dependency theory solutions
 Rupture with the capitalist world-economy
 Samir Amin, Delinking: Towards a polycentric
world (1985)
 Self-reliance through socialism (Tanzania)
 Import Substitution or Dependant
Development - Cardoso
 Socialist revolution – Gunder Frank

14. CRITIQUE OF MODERNISATION
DEVELOPMENT THEORY
• Ethnocentric and ahistorical
• Ignores the structural effect of capitalism /
colonialism with analysis on internal aspects
• Dualism of modern and traditional is based
on the modern western „logos‟.
• Evolutionist & utilitarian
• Cultural Imperialism (Michael Carnoy)

15. CRITIQUE OF MODERNISATION
DEVELOPMENT THEORY
Economic rationalism is distorted by non-
economic forces, racial, ethnic, gender bias.
Market liberalist economics ignores structural
effect of the distribution of wealth.
Poverty or underdevelopment is nothing to do
with Western or Enlightenment values, but to
do with colonialism and capitalism.
Explains the dept crisis in Third World and civil
unrest and dictatorships.

16. CRITIQUE OF MODERNISATION
DEVELOPMENT THEORY
Deconstructs modernization using rational
„systemic thinking‟ to reveal the externalities
in the macro picture.
Example: Corruption a big problem in
developing countries. Can be seen as a
market distortion or connected to a system of
domination.
Give the structure to counter
superstructure, reverses the ideal.

17. Colonialism and discourse of blaming the victim in
modernisation: organised hypocrisy.
The model externalises harm with a system, makes pre-
modern society liable for its „faults‟, obscures colonial
domination.
- Looks backwards from a „modern‟ perspective
- isolates harm in society with a focus on the individual or
the institution, not a function of the system. Eg corrupt
officials at fault = disfunctional officials
- harm is norm referenced - maintained as deviation from
an ideal type, not structural or created by domination
- focus on function as sufficient, no political responsibility
for the outcome, closed within societal function

18. Dependency theory can pop that bubble – not just
about growth but how we grow.
It is not just about the individual but the structure that
everyone participates in and the background conditions.
It is not what development can achieve but what it hides
and has not done, or does not change that it important.
It focuses on the pathway that actions take in the structure.
Political responsability is now open, the burden is not just
to follow the prescriptions of this model for economic
growth but to try to bring about an independent outcome
or change.
-
-

19. Dependency as an ideology – Tony
Smith’s criticism
 Tyranny of the whole over the parts
 “The error of this approach is not that it draws
attention to the interconnectedness of
economic and political processes and events
in global manner, but that it refuses to grant
the part any autonomy, any specificity, and
particularity independent of its whole.”
The Underdevelopment of Development Literature: The Case of
Dependency Theory (1979)

20. Post modernism or new
modernization?
Beyond the Search for a Paradigm? Post-Development and
beyond – Escobar
Modernist Discourse and the Crisis of Development Theory
– Kate Manzo
Universalism, Eurocentrism, and ideological bias in
development studies: from modernisation to
neoliberalism – Brohman
Ingelhart - Modernization, Cultural Change, and the
Persistence of Traditional Values
Joel Samoff – Institutionalising International Influence

21. CONCLUSION
Development is an ethnocentric/western based
project.
The process of development is not linear and it
must be linked to the specific society
involved.