Quantitative Approaches as a Bridge from the Invisible to the Visible: The Case of Basic Education Policy in a Disadvantaged Nation1

Abstract

According to UNICEF (2008), over 77 percent of the world’s countries are categorized as underdeveloped. Since the World Educational Conference in Jomtien, Thailand, in 1990, “Education for All” has become a worldwide slogan of educational development; the World Education Forum in Dakar, Senegal, in 2000 adopted “The Dakar Framework for Action Education for All”; the United Nations General Assembly in 2000 adopted “Millennium Development Goals,” which counts educational development as one of the central goals. While many educational scholars have contributed to the understanding of international development, these recent frameworks of educational development indicate that educational problems in developing countries have not yet been solved. Rather, the imparity of the educational situation between developed nations and developing nations has increased. This begs the question whether educational research needs new tools of analysis as it seeks to contribute to educational development in the new millennium. In this case marginality is increased not only because the peoples involved are defined as marginalized, but also because theoretical and methodological traditions may have been confined.