Overcoming Poverty

Chapter 2: Literature Review

‘Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice’ Nelson Mandela, 2005

2.1 Introduction

This chapter will examine literature regarding the prevailing perceptions of the South in the education system in Ireland. It will begin by setting the context; examining the prevalence of a charitable narrative in the North, and the implications of this not just for the South, but also for the increasingly diverse classrooms of twenty-first century Ireland. The ‘development as charity’ motif will be examined through the lens of the Freirean concept of ‘assistencialism’ (Freire, 1973). Postcolonial theory and modernisation theory will form the theoretical framework for examining the presence

However, according to O’Brien (2011), many attempts which aim to encourage students to critically engage with issues of inequality and oppression are reluctant to explore discourses surrounding perceptions and terminology which often portray certain disadvantaged groups as authors of their own oppression. Bryan and Bracken (2011) assert that discursive strategies used in educational resources often reduce issues of poverty and underdevelopment to cultural inadequacies rather than economic problems rooted in structural inequality. According to Bryan and Bracken (2011, p.76), framing countries of the South in terms of deficiencies can naturalise global inequality as “a consequence of the human condition rather than an effect of specific historical and contemporary internationally derived political-economic arrangements, interventions, and practices, such as loan conditionality, debt peonage, colonial and neo-colonial forms of exploitation”. Furthermore, Bryan (2012) argues that educational practices which fail to engage with the structures and institutions that sustain global inequality ultimately enable the North to absolve itself of responsibility. Thus, some approaches to development education can often serve as a ‘band-aid’ (Bryan, 2012) pedagogical response to problems associated with global inequality and can

He contends that these ‘educations’ should be inherently linked to historical processes such as imperialism and colonialism, which he argues have played a significant role in the creation of people’s perceptions and attitudes. Similarly, Coulby (2006) argues that intercultural education should facilitate transcultural collaboration and provide opportunities to critically examine Western hegemony of knowledge, Eurocentric education, neo-colonialism and neoliberal agendas. Fiedler (2007) suggests that acknowledging responsibilities and conceptualising injustices are essential components of intercultural education. He contends that the challenge for teachers to integrate a global and social justice perspective in their teaching is not merely about imparting skills and attitudes; he claims that it is also about questioning the underlying presumptions of different contexts and situations. Thus, through a discourse devoid of a political and historical dimension, both development education and intercultural education may risk reproducing the cycle of