ABSTRACT
The two main areas of literature on education in ‘developing’ countries are the school effectiveness field, which is narrowly driven by economic theory, and the classroom improvement field, which is driven especially by subject specialists and by educational sociologists concerned with classroom interaction and the influence of context. Theoretical influences in both fields lead to proposed solutions to lack of progressive success that range from surface understandings embodied in resource improvements, through societal change, to cultural issues. Contrasting methodological limitations in the two fields give rise to trade-offs among validity, reliability, relevance and generalisability. Numerous pitfalls that project designers and evaluators should avoid are demonstrated in two examples of review and evaluation bias. In particular, self-evaluation of a large aid project in Papua New Guinea embodied cultural imperialism with an axiomatic faith in progressivism as a panacea. The evaluation typified the theoretically superficial, methodologically flawed, and ahistorical research that often sustains misjudged progressive reforms.
