ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors explore a range of epistemological problems as they examine the transformation of consciousness through the agency of Western-style schooling in Bali, Indonesia. The contradictions generated and promoted by Western imperialism are mirrored in and at least in part reproduced through the schooling system. Studies of academic achievement in the West have stressed the importance of discussion and conversation at home for success. Schooling in the West is an historically and culturally specific part of Western capitalist society, its “rationality” no more culture free than any other rationality. The authors also explore the relationships between epistemological transformations and the transformation of inequalities based in gender, in the distinction between “male” and “female,” in a Balinese market town. Their approach to the problem of understanding the processes of schooling in Bali is post-structuralist, proceeding via theories which focus on the decoding, the deconstruction of “language”, of cultural “texts”.
