Challenging Piaget: Western Influence in Kenya’s Early Childhood Reform

Abstract

Western discourses continue to dominate the conceptualization of best practices in early childhood education. This article examines these dynamics through the lens of recent educational reforms in Kenya, called the Competency-Based Curriculum, which launched in 2018. The reform aspires to produce "engaged, empowered, and ethical citizens" who are both "patriotic and global," equipped with the "skills, knowledge, attitudes, and values to thrive." The reform documents write that this will be achieved by using "bespoke, differentiated, innovative learning experiences" (KICD, 2017, p. 10).

However, the reform is grounded in Jean Piaget’s stages of cognitive development, a theory originating from Western psychological and colonial frameworks of developing an ideal child. In Piaget’s case, ideal child was one that he routinely observed: white, middle-class, European males. The idea of the developing child has often been presented as fact but was really produced for particular reasons within very specific historical social and political conditions, producing a classed, sexed, and raced-based idea of what a child should be (Walkerdine, 1993).

While the Kenyan curriculum purports to embrace constructivist and indigenous educational frameworks, its foundational theories remain rooted in developmentalism. Developmentalism, which is rarely critiqued in mainstream education, continues to be propagated as a global standard for early childhood education. As O’Loughlin (2018) notes, early childhood education is then "built upon a foundation of hegemonic discursive assumptions and ideological and epistemological tenets that go unexamined" (p. 73).

A particular contradiction emerges within the Kenyan curriculum, which claims to be learner- and child-centered while adhering to a Western, colonial structure of developmental stages. The curriculum framework explicitly cites Piaget as a theoretical foundation; stating, "… before these [earlier] ages, children are not capable (no matter how bright) of understanding things in certain ways” (KICD, 2017, p. 17). These stages and understandings are used as a basis for structuring the school curriculum.

This article argues that such contradictions in curriculum and policy reveal the tension between presenting constructivist education and maintaining Western developmental frameworks. By employing discourse analysis, this article explores both the policy texts and the historical and social conditions in Kenya that led to the integration of Piaget’s theory into the curriculum. The analysis highlights how notions of quality in Western education are often uncritically transplanted into diverse contexts, including East Africa, leading to potential conflicts and challenges for educators and students alike. I argue this also sidelines possibilities for indigenous and alternative frameworks in the East African context.

This article contributes to the field by using Kenya to examine how dominant early childhood education discourses become enmeshed in curriculum reforms. The article aims to reveal the contradictions within Kenya’s educational reform, which seeks to reconcile indigenous educational goals with Western developmental theories. It challenges the uncritical adoption of Piaget’s framework in non-Western contexts and advocates for a more nuanced approach to early childhood education that genuinely reflects local values and needs.