Arnove, Robert (1980) “Foundations and the transfer of knowledge” in Arnove, Robert (ed.) Philanthropy and Cultural Imperialism: the Foundations at H

Arnove, Robert (1980) “Foundations and the transfer of knowledge” in Arnove, Robert (ed.) Philanthropy and Cultural Imperialism: the Foundations at Home and Abroad Boston: G.K. Hall & Co. pages 1-23

p. 306: “Rockefeller’s program of university development was initiated in 1961 and has involved expenditures of approximately $5 million per annum on some fifteen universities in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. These institutions include . . . the national universities in Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya. . . .

One example of the influence Rockefeller has wielded in university development is that of East Africa. According to Thompson, “66 percent of all East African faculty have been Rockefeller Foundation scholars or holders of Special Lectureships established with Rockefeller Foundation funding for returning national scholars for whom an established post was not yet available. If the sample is limited to East Africans who are full professors and deans, 80 percent have had assistance.” Not only the east African university leadership, but that of Asian and Latin American universities, according to Thompson, is a testimony to the efficacy of over fifty years of Rockefeller Foundation involvement, and over 10,000 fellowships and scholarships awarded by the foundation.”

p. 307: “Until the 1970s, Ford Foundation institution-building grants, like those of Rockefeller, were aimed at replicating within the Third World setting the organizational patterns, professional activities, and criteria of academic excellence which prevailed within the donor country. As it had done in the United States, the foundation selected key academic institutions as models of what a university should be, and millions of dollars were poured into strengthening them as “centers of excellence”.”

Carnegie spends upwards of $1 million annually in its international programs – late 1970s figure – page 307. large amounts have been spent since 1945 on teacher training in Africa.

Functioning in politically “sensitive” areas - Ford Foundation – per a dissertation by Ashley that Arnove mentions – acts in lieu of the U.S. government where politics would not allow the U.S. government to act as freely as it wished.

Foundations as preparing foreign academics largely by bringing them to Western institutions, training them there, and then sending them home – where bureaucracies and governance is different (at times wholly so), and for which the Western-trained academics are woefully trained. This is a key contributor to brain drain, in Arnove’s view.

Neo-liberal assumptions characterized the technical assistance and social science research sponsored by major foundations in the 1960s and into the 1970s.

Rockefeller Foundation – shifted attention- in the 1970s – to the so-called “development needs” of the countries where they were sponsoring universities, and sought to have teacher training follow this shift. Where this became vocationalizing, so be it – higher education as utilitarianism.

p. 313: “. . . since the 1960s, the foundations themselves, together with national and international technical assistance agencies, have formed networks of decision-makers to determine development priorities in education and other fields for Third World countries. Notable examples include the 1962 meeting at the Rockefeller villa in Bellagio of the Agency for International Development, the Africa Liaison Committee, and the Carnegie, Ford and Rockefeller foundations to discuss the needs of the University of East Africa.

SEE Inderjeet Parmar article in Global Networks (2002) for more information on African liaison Committee – printed out and available

Anglophone West Africa Regional Education Research Consortium – a Ford Foundation sponsored effort, 1976 and after – to develop research competencies and facilitate inter-country collaboration in West Africa. Work-shopping and technical assistance and research scholarships/fellowships were the tools, networking was the game.

p. 314: “Foundation support of research by Third World nationals could conceivably lead to the generation of important insights into how education systems function within poor countries to perpetuate existing stratification systems and social relations of production; and, under certain conditions favoring larger social change, research might provide a basis for decision-making geared toward helping the most neglected groups within the society. However noble the intentions of the Ford Foundation may be, the policies it pursues to strengthen research competencies in the nationals of other countries run counter to professed aims.”

Ford Foundation modalities “. . . to develop research and analytic competence consist of:
(1) “post-graduate training in education and social sciences at a few select universities, usually in the United States;
(2) institutional grants, which also contain budgetary items for overseas study;
(3) visiting consultants and travel grants;
(4) grants to national planning offices for education and human resource development;
(5) pilot projects; and
(6) individual research undertakings – usually research efforts of foundation personnel or North American graduate students and scholars, sometimes in conjunction with host country nationals.”

p. 316: “The foundation traditionally has preferred to send nationals from “less developed countries” to such North American universities [as the aforementioned Stanford; Harvard, and Chicago] because the training they will receive accords with its notions of professionalism and scholarship. At the resource bases in the United States the students learn the respectable ways of viewing and analyzing development problems. While students in these universities might be exposed to divergent interpretations of development and to a number of radical faculty members, these divergent and radicalizing tendencies must be weighted against the entire process of graduate education which works to socialize students into a profession or learned tradition. Students, whether foreign or not, are groomed to be responsible scholars – to be acquainted with the dominant domain assumptions of their disciplines, the standard literature, and the appropriate research methodologies.

One likely outcome of this training is that overseas nationals will tend to view development problems from the same perspectives as their North American and European counterparts – which is to say they will be more pragmatic and less ideological.. . .”

p. 318: “Whether or not the Ford Foundation intentionally attempts to shape the “ego-identities” of fellowship and grant recipients – a term which derives from the sociology of disciplines – the effects of foundation sponsorship are such that individuals become increasingly attached to viewing themselves in certain ways and conducting research which accords with Ford views of appropriate scholarship. The foundation loom large as a principal source of funding for the professional activities mentioned above. The ties of dependency on the foundation are difficult to sever. The returning student often will be employed in an institution or program receiving substantial foundation support. In numerous other cases, the returning students – dissatisfied with their work situation or denied the opportunity to work in the national universities – turn to the foundation to support their research or find them employment.”

p. 323: “Foundations like Ford – and the networks through which they work – are the brokers, the disseminators of innovations. They are the agencies for introducing the sweeping new ideas; they are the sponsors of the panaceas – such as the “green revolution” or “contraceptive technology” – which will enable the “less-developed countries” to overcome the crushing problems of poverty, unemployment, and malnutrition. As soon as one approach to change is seen to accomplish less than expected, the foundation is there, working on the frontiers of knowledge and innovation, to fund the next “comprehensive” or “best” strategy for reform. Through the funds they allocate, the foundations determine where energies will go, what issues will next be studied, and what individuals will be mobilized to examine the emerging issues of our time.”

Questions and ideas for further study – quoted from pages 323-324:
(1) what competencies are developed in whom, and where; and what pattern of continuing relationship is maintained between fellowship recipients and the foundations after they return from study abroad?
(2) The self-definitions, membership and reference groups of those individuals sponsored by foundations. What rewards and incentives do they consider to be critical to their continued commitment to and satisfaction with their professional work?
(3) Who consumes the research: in which language and countries? To what extent are disadvantaged or oppressed groups viewed as intended recipients of information generated by foundation-sponsored inquiry? Through which channels are research findings published? Further research along the lines of Altbach’s studies of book publishing in the Third World is recommended.
(4) Which policymakers, in which countries, are aware of the research and literature produced by foundation-funded organizations and individuals? How is this research used? Packenham, for example, believes that social science research may serve only to legitimate the policies of top decision-makers.
(5) The communication patterns, activities, and internal workings of the networks themselves. Who interacts with whom on what issues, and with what outcomes? The role of the foundation and other technical assistance agencies in funding and shaping these activities.
(6) The interactions between the constituents of the donor networks. The means by which these agencies come together, decide upon, and implement programs in the Third World. The special tasks these networks perform for the donor agencies.
(7) The relations between the investments and engagements of foundations and other technical assistance agencies (pubic, private, national, and international) and those of economic institutions (such as multinational corporations),and ideologically similar blocs of nations.