The cultural politics of constructivist pedagogies: Teacher education reform in the United Republic of Tanzania Frances Vavrus * Programs in Comparative and International Education and International Educational Development, Teachers College, Columbia University, 525 West 120th Street, Box 55, New York, NY 10027, USA 1. Introduction During the 2006–2007 academic year, I carried out ethnographic research while serving as a visiting professor at a Tanzanian teachers college committed to creating a new kind of teacher for the country’s secondary schools. The college sought to infuse social constructi- vism into its curriculum through the design of a student-centered learning environment and the use of active, inquiry-based methods. Consistent with social constructivist theories of learning (Brodie et al., 2002; Guthrie, 1990; Palincsar, 1998), the college encouraged its student teachers to view themselves as facilitators in the classroom who elicit students’ knowledge and who enable peer learning so as to disrupt the formalistic, teacher-centered environ- ment of the typical Tanzanian school. Moreover, the government’s move toward competency-based rather than content-based curri- cula necessitates student-centered teaching and learning (Woods, 2007), so I designed my English methods course for student teachers in the two-year diploma program along these lines. I strove to elicit students’ prior knowledge of the topics in the syllabus; I facilitated the discovery of new information through group work and problem solving; and I modeled activities for different learning styles that could be used with their future secondary school students. Although my students’ initial reaction was positive, I quickly started to notice how often they began questions directed at me with the phrase ‘‘But Madam. ...’’ Their queries had to do with both the approach I was espousing and the methods I was promoting for Tanzanian schools. ‘‘But Madam, if we start a lesson by asking students what they already know about a topic, they will think we don’t know anything about it ourselves.’’ ‘‘But Madam, how can we have our students doing group work when the noise from their discussions will disturb our fellow teachers?’’ ‘‘But Madam, students don’t actually read the novels in the syllabus because they only have to memorize the main ideas for the national exam. Why should we use class time to act out scenes from these stories when we could be drilling our students on relevant characters, plots, and themes?’’ These student teachers’ persistent questions helped me to narrow the focus of my study of teacher education by examining the multiple understandings of ‘excellent teaching’ from the perspectives of the varied international (including Tanzanian) actors at the college. This year of ethnographic exploration revealed the limitations of a strict interpretation of social constructivism as the best pedagogical approach for Tanzanian teachers as well as the potential for a contingent constructivism attuned to the country’s cultural, economic, and political conditions. In recent years, there has been a surge of interest in secondary and teacher education among international development organi- zations, especially among those working in African countries where teacher-centered pedagogy prevails (Mulkeen et al., 2007). For example, interest in these two sectors is evident in the 2002 Secondary Education in Africa Initiative (SEIA) developed by the Africa Region of the World Bank and launched in partner- ship with UNESCO. A 2007 report about SEIA highlights the recent policy shift: ‘‘After almost two decades of relative neglect International Journal of Educational Development 29 (2009) 303–311 ARTICLE INFO Keywords: International education Development Educational policy Teacher education Tanzania ABSTRACT This article examines recent educational reforms in Tanzania by looking at the cultural politics of pedagogical change in secondary and teacher education. It presents an ethnography of a teachers college founded on the principles of social constructivism in a country where formalistic, teacher-centered pedagogy is the norm. Using data collected through a year of participant observation, it argues that the cultural, economic, and political dimensions of teachers’ practice need to be considered alongside efforts to reform the country’s educational system. It offers contingent constructivism as an alternative to the international consensus on a single model of excellent teaching. ß 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. * Tel.: +1 212 678 3180. E-mail address: fv84@columbia.edu. Contents lists available at ScienceDirect International Journal of Educational Development journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijedudev 0738-0593/$ – see front matter ß 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.ijedudev.2008.05.002