Progressive contextualization: source and early descriptions

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To establish the starting point of the research it is essential to describe the source and the previous descriptions of progressive contextualization. The first mention of progressive contextualization in the context of CEC’s educational practice can be traced back to 1991.44 Duhaylungsod used progressive contextualization to describe CEC’s early experience in developing its grassroots environmental education curriculum, during an Asia-Pacific regional environmental education consultation in Quezon City, Philippines. However, it was not until 1995, when the phrase was published in the Preface of the RENEW Manual that it became part of the language of CEC.

Since then, it was assumed that there was a shared understanding of this phrase within the CEC staff. A focus group discussion45 with the CEC staff in October 1999, conducted as part of the preliminary fieldwork revealed a different picture. There was some agreement on the understanding that contextualization meant the adjustment of the education module to the wider socio-economic, political and cultural context at the local level. However, the focus group discussion indicated that there were two different views on the meaning of progressive. The first is a description of an on-going process, and the second is a description of a critical and left-leaning political and ideological stance. This difference is significant. It is an example of the educational tensions that surface in the examination of CEC’s educational practice.

Duhaylungsod recalls that he first heard the term progressive contextualization in September 1982 at a seminar delivered by Andrew Vayda.46

44

“Notes from the Asia-Pacific regional environmental education consultation” (Quezon City, September 1991) [author’s written notes].

The seminar was hosted by the then Program for Environmental Science and Management (now the School of Environmental Science and Management) at the University of the Philippines at Los

45

“Notes from CEC focus-group discussion” (Quezon City, October 1999) [author’s notes]. 46

Andrew Vayda is currently Professor of Anthropology and Ecology with the Department of Human Ecology, Cook College, Rutgers University, New Jersey.

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Banos (UPLB). In a paper published after this seminar, Vayda47 described progressive contextualization as a methodology in human ecology research that

… involves focusing on significant human activities or people-environment interactions and then explaining these interactions by placing them within progressively wider or denser contexts.48

It is based on a “holistic premise that adequate understanding of problems can be gained only if they are seen as part of a complex of interacting causes and effects.”49 As a research process, Vayda and his team used progressive contextualization in their attempt to understand the forces contributing to the deforestation of East Kalimantan in the island of Borneo in Indonesia as part of the Man and the Biosphere program of UNESCO.50 In describing their work Vayda mentioned how they began by focusing on activities performed by specific people in specific places at specific times, like timber cutting. They then tried to establish the cause and effects of these activities beyond the specific people, place and time.

Vayda emphasized that he was making no claims to the novelty of this process. But he was advocating progressive contextualization more as

… a plea to return from more strict academic (and academically fashionable) methods, including some I myself have used, to commonsense, practical ways of seeing what is happening in the world.”51

47

Andrew Vayda, “Progressive contextualization: methods for research in human ecology”, Human Ecology: An Interdisciplinary Journal, vol.11, no.3 (1983), pp. 265-281.

48

Vayda, p. 265. 49

Vayda, p. 266.

50

The Man and the Biosphere (MAB) is an intergovernmental and global program of UNESCO. It develops the basis, within the natural and the social sciences, for the sustainable use and conservation of biological diversity, and for the improvement of the relationship between people and their environment globally. The MAB Programme encourages interdisciplinary research, demonstration and training in natural resource management. From “The Man and the Biosphere (MAB)”,

51

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Vayda’s 1983 article continues to be widely used as a basic text for undergraduate and graduate courses in anthropological research.52 Progressive contextualization was also identified by Robert Cramb53 in a chapter on Agricultural Land

Degradation in the Philippines Uplands: An Overview. Cramb cited the work of

Piers Blaikie54, and Piers Blaikie and Harold Brookfield55 who in turn cited Vayda’s 1983 article in the context of “local-level manifestations of land degradation within a wider political economy context.” 56

It is important to note that Duhaylungsod was the first to link CEC’s educational practice to progressive contextualization. He used the phrase during the 1991 regional consultation mentioned earlier to describe CEC’s educational practice. He later identified it in the Preface of the RENEW Manual as a one of the lesson learned by CEC in developing its grassroots environmental education curriculum. Moreover, Duhaylungsod, as the thesis illustrates, continues to play a major role in CEC’s intellectual development. His role as CEC’s first Executive Director placed him in a key position to influence the organizational policies and the environmental practice and theory of the CEC. He initiated the practice of action research, as exhibited by the regular reflection and evaluation processes conducted by the CEC staff. He encouraged each staff member to document, write and publish the results of the reflection and evaluation processes, which he himself did (see Bibliography of works attributed to Duhaylungsod.) His influence on CEC’s organizational and educational practice is further acknowledged in the thesis.

52

Internet search was conducted on 24 February 2000. 53

Robert Cramb, “Agricultural degradation in the Philippines uplands: An overview” in R. Cramb (ed), Soil conservation technologies for small farming systems in the Philippine upland: a socioeconomic evaluation (Canberra: ACIAR, 2000), pp. 23-37.

54

Piers Blaikie, The political economy of soil conservation in developing countries (New York: Longman, 1985) and Piers Blaikie, “Understanding environmental issues” in Stephen Morse and Michael Stocking (eds), People and environment (London: UCL Press, 1995), pp. 1-30.

55

Piers Blaikie and Harold Brookfield, Land degradation and society (London: Metheum, 1987). 56

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Previous attempts by the researcher to describe progressive contextualization, from CEC's experience, are presented as a starting point of this study. Two descriptions can be found in draft documents written in 1996 and 1997. A chapter submitted for publication in 1996 described progressive contextualization as

… the on-going process of adjusting learning objectives and training modules, revising frameworks and approaches, and reflecting on practice and experience in response to the particular context of the learners.57

Later it was again described in a 1997 draft CEC publication.

Progressive connotes an action that is on-going or dynamic and that becomes better after each action. Together, progressive contextualization indicates a positive dynamism of the education module in terms of changing with the times or the broader context. 58

Note that both descriptions identify the on-going nature of the process of adjusting the education module, although the earlier statement includes revising frameworks and the process of reflecting on practice. Another difference is that the 1996 description focuses more on the context of the learner, while the 1997 description considers the broader context.

The 1997 draft publication further identifies features of this practice, specifically the contexts that were considered and the aspects of the education module that were influenced by this practice.

Progressive contextualization is about a dynamic movement for the better, in terms of, designing educational activities that are influenced by time, space,

57

Jose Roberto Guevara, "Facilitating community environmental adult education in the Philippines: Transformation in Action" (1996), p.4 [unpublished manuscript].

58

Noel Duhaylungsod and J. Roberto Guevara, “Purposive Education: An Examination of Context, Content and Process of Grassroots Environmental Education Experience in the Philippines” (Quezon City: CEC, December 1997), Chapter 3, p.6 [unpublished manuscript].

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our organizational identity and by our learners. This can be translated into actually influencing the educational content through a local problem as entry point, the depth of analysis to be conducted and the nature of the action proposed.59

By citing these previous descriptions, prior thinking and the elements that have been identified in terms of progressive contextualization are acknowledged and documented. This helps to highlight the outcomes of the current research on progressive contextualization, which initially is the expansion of the study from a focus on the education module to more include local educational practice in a globalizing world.