| Summary: | <p>Tracing the economic promise that dominates the development discourse, Drori’s (1998) model of “science for development” highlights the putative link between science education at all levels, the expansion of scientific labour force, and subsequently national economic development. Across the global South, this model has been negotiated and internalised through a national focus on science—and recently Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)—education as a means of national development. Using a postcolonial lens and Malaysia as the site, this study aims to explore the idea of development through the prism of rural young people’s aspirations in the periphery, in their encounter with STEM education as the state’s intermediary for national development.</p>
<p>Through a comparative case study design, the aspirations of eight young people (16 year olds) in one secondary school in luar bandar (rural, literally meaning “outside the city”) are contrasted against the national discourse emphasising STEM through the centralised education system. I pay careful attention to the translation of the science for development model into STEM education policy and implementation, as well as young people’s day-to- day experiences in the luar bandar. Perspectives of young people are contextualised with that of nine teachers in their school, six experts and policy makers, as well as development discourses gleaned through relevant documents. Whilst navigating the STEM pathway and their lives in the luar bandar, young people describe aspirations for development characterised by a desire for infrastructure and technology advancement, a balance of global desires and national distinction, commitment to family as well as affinity and mobility in/out of the local environment. Such aspirations are circumscribed by material conditions shaped by national forces. As a form of exposure to novel experiences, participatory informal STEM education attuned to their local development realities points to the embodied and affective sense of rasa (feel, intuition, sense) that augments their “capacity to aspire” (Appadurai, 2004).</p>
<p>In this study’s emphasis on the vertical dimension of the comparative case study—placing development as a dialogue between the state and young people in the luar bandar—I provide new empirical material that expands and nuances perspectives on rural young people’s aspirations and foreground the interplay of scale and context in comparative studies of rural education. Attentive to Bahasa Melayu (Malay language) as a source of conceptualising and analysing, I also offer methodological and conceptual contributions for education and rural studies. The findings of this study suggest the need to honour young people’s aspirations as resources for the epistemic and material project of development, and offers a tangible example of an informal STEM education project rooted in young people’s development concerns in a specific place.</p>
|
|---|