Meaningful Learning in the Senegalese Education System: Problems of Language, Culture and Colonization

Abstract

Institutionalized education in Senegal is largely inherited from the French system established during the colonial period. The provision of education exclusively in a foreign language and based on foreign cultural standards causes a barrier to meaningful learning for Senegalese students. Meaningful learning involves the integration of new knowledge into existing schemata, and a lack of meaningful learning can impact students' intellectual identity development and have negative consequences regarding students' motivation and success in academia. Top-down control of educational policy by a powerful centralized government slows proposed reforms, and many other factors including the influence of French funding restrict the implementation of policy reform. This thesis sought to answer the question of how, or if, teachers in Senegal use teaching practices that increase students' opportunities for meaningful learning on a classroom level across the linguistic and content barriers posed by the French education system. Classroom observations and interviews were used as the basis for a qualitative analysis of whether or not these bottom-up strategies were present or effective enough to combat the difficulties students, and teachers, face.