Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz

The NGOisation of education

In my doctoral project completed in 2011 at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, I use the term NGOisation of education to describe the normative influence of international, non-governmental actors in the central public sector of education, based on four empirical case studies from the West African country of Benin. I understand the NGOisation of education as both a consequence and a means of the processes of globalisation of public services that have been intensifying in time and space since the 1980s.

Based on ten months of field research in several locations in Benin, I analyse the local micro-politics of »NGOised« education projects in the areas of pedagogical reforms and teacher training, school management, the embeddedness of schools in community structures, parental work and the running of school canteens.

I view the analysed projects as spaces in which statehood is constantly renegotiated and (re)produced by local, international, governmental and non-governmental actors. This perspective was largely inspired by my involvement in the research project »States at Work. Public Services and Civil Servants in West Africa: Education and Justice in Benin, Ghana, Mali and Niger«.

Categories: / Education; Organisations & Bureaucracies
Employer / Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
Funded by / Volkswagen Foundation
Time / 2006–2011
Place / Benin
Fotos / Sarah Fichtner

Publications

/ Sarah Fichtner (2012): The NGOisation of Education. Case Studies from Benin. Köppe: Köln.

/ Review by Kathryn Anderson-Levitt (2015) in: Anthropology & Education Quartely 46 (2), pp. 201–203.