| Description |
The main goal of this dissertation is to identify major characteristics of French colonial education in Soudan Francais (present day Mali) before discussing ways in which, despite major education reforms, legacies that relate to those characteristics continue to, either consciously or unconsciously, be reproduced, altered, or challenged in two current higher education teacher-training programs in postcolonial Mali. The discussions offer insights with regard to how issues of reproduction, hybridity, and resistance play out in various data sources before examining ways in which they affect the subjectivities of preservice teachers graduating from the two teacher training programs investigated. Data were collected from a wide range of sources, which include colonial and postcolonial legislations and documents, textbooks, retired and preservice teachers' responses to questionnaires, and Skype interviews of a focus group of preservice teachers. Methods of content analysis and narrative analysis were used to make sense of data collected while simultaneously calling in major concepts from postcolonial theory for a broader analysis and discussion. The analysis and discussion of data collected revealed multiple instances of reproduction, resistance, and hybridity within the two departments, thereby positioning graduating preservice teachers to be likely to engage in similar practices potentially resulting in similar instances in their own future classrooms. Whether related to current, retired, or preservice teachers, it appeared that instances of reproduction, resistance, and hybridity sometimes occurred deliberately, though often times not deliberately. The concluding section of this dissertation offers some possible pathways for Malian stakeholders to examine in order to address major educational issues that were revealed throughout this study. |
