Development education
DEA’s approach to education is historically rooted in ideas of what is sometimes called “development education”. Development education arose from the work of development agencies and development education centres from the 1970s seeking to improve people’s understanding of global poverty and the world we live in. They agreed a definition of development education as follows:
Development education:
- explores the links between people living in the "developed" countries of the North with those of the "developing" South, enabling people to understand the links between their own lives and those of people throughout the world
- increases understanding of the economic, social, political and environmental forces which shape our lives
- develops the skills, attitudes and values which enable people to work together to take action to bring about change and take control of their own lives
- works towards achieving a more just and a more sustainable world in which power and resources are more equitably shared.
Whilst the definition of development education is problematic in some ways (for example in its distinction between "developing" and "developed" countries) it provided an important basis for the work of DEA and many of its members.
In her PhD thesis Research on discourses and practices related to the 'global dimension' in England, Vanessa Andreotti analyses the background and history of development education. You can read that section of her thesis here (download PDF) or read her full thesis on the OSDE Methodology website.
For more perspectives on development education, have a read through the following pages.