Traditional society and modern teaching

Abstract

Since modernity is a Western project, Western forms of education have been important in promoting successful progress towards modernity and economic success in many societies. Such forms may, however, exist with varying degrees of uneasiness alongside traditional culture, as in the Middle East, so that alternative worldviews are available. Yet the global capitalist market system requires modernized producers and consumers everywhere. What if beneath the consumerist trappings of Westernism a non-Western traditional worldview persists and influences the conduct and outlook of large social groups? Its cultural meanings are significant for many aspects of education – choices, motivations, gender, perceptions of success and failure, commitment, and more. How do receiving cultures experience Western educational patterns, structures, curriculum, forms of evaluation? Some key aspects of traditional culture and education are discussed. It is argued that school systems and teachers need to be more carefully prepared to handle the intimate mesh of traditional and modern in countries such as the Middle Eastern ones, and find their own authentic solutions. © 1998, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.