The Mission of International Education in Africa : Principles of Human Unity and World-View in School Mission Statements and in the Literature of the Bahá'í Faith
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TextProducer: Bath, U.K. : Bath University 2001Subject(s): Abstract: Over the past thirty years the number, type and spread of private schools serving a largely expatriate international community has increased dramatically in the major cities of Africa. The significant rise of characteristically international schools in Africa has not been matched by a body of knowledge and literature describing the processes which are unique to the genesis and development of their missions and the subsequent articulation of their school mission statements. Also absent in the literature on international schools is any attempt to associate how fundamental ethical and religious principles of human unity and human diversity in a postmodern era may have an application to international schools and to the larger field of international schools and to the larger field of international education. The overarching research question raised by this thesis is: What is the underlying role of world-view and an attendant consciousness of the oneness of mankind within the expressed educational outcomes of the mission statements of international schools in Africa and how do these emergent principles of international education compare to the relevant precepts of world-view and human unity evident in the religious literature of the Baha i Faith? The research activities included a systematic documentary analysis of over seventy percent of the school mission statements of the members of the Association of International Schools in Africa (AISA) and semi-structured interviews with fourteen heads of international schools who had significant experience in Africa. The focus of the interviews was a published essay by the researcher which set out a tentative model of school missions related to a proposed definition of the 'universals of international education'. Follow-up peer interviews were held with the Executive Director of AISA and other executives in the multinational corporate world involved in international education in Africa. The relevant models from the literature, the analysis of mission statements and the interview discourse were then related to the models emerging from a systematic documentary analysis of the Baha'i literature on human unity and human diversity. Since the mission statement of AISA was coincident with the aims of this study, the member schools of the AISA formed the population studied.
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Over the past thirty years the number, type and spread of private schools serving a largely expatriate international community has increased dramatically in the major cities of Africa. The significant rise of characteristically international schools in Africa has not been matched by a body of knowledge and literature describing the processes which are unique to the genesis and development of their missions and the subsequent articulation of their school mission statements. Also absent in the literature on international schools is any attempt to associate how fundamental ethical and religious principles of human unity and human diversity in a postmodern era may have an application to international schools and to the larger field of international schools and to the larger field of international education. The overarching research question raised by this thesis is: What is the underlying role of world-view and an attendant consciousness of the oneness of mankind within the expressed educational outcomes of the mission statements of international schools in Africa and how do these emergent principles of international education compare to the relevant precepts of world-view and human unity evident in the religious literature of the Baha i Faith? The research activities included a systematic documentary analysis of over seventy percent of the school mission statements of the members of the Association of International Schools in Africa (AISA) and semi-structured interviews with fourteen heads of international schools who had significant experience in Africa. The focus of the interviews was a published essay by the researcher which set out a tentative model of school missions related to a proposed definition of the 'universals of international education'. Follow-up peer interviews were held with the Executive Director of AISA and other executives in the multinational corporate world involved in international education in Africa. The relevant models from the literature, the analysis of mission statements and the interview discourse were then related to the models emerging from a systematic documentary analysis of the Baha'i literature on human unity and human diversity. Since the mission statement of AISA was coincident with the aims of this study, the member schools of the AISA formed the population studied.