Abstract
In the Popperian sense, the case of Papua New Guinea provides a refutation of Beeby’s stages model because it demonstrates that the model does not have universal application. But, with a population of some 5 million, Papua New Guinea contains under one-tenth of one per cent of the world’s population. Arguably the refutation could be of little consequence on a world scale because Papua New Guinea could be rejected as a minor example that is largely irrelevant to the rest of the world; but not so China. With at least 1.3 billion people, China’s Confucian tradition remains a strong influence on Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Singapore – altogether containing some one-quarter of the world’s population. China adds another element to the falsifiability of Beeby’s stages by generalising the refutation to a country that appears very different from Papua New Guinea, but which also has long-standing traditions involving revelatory epistemology and formalistic pedagogy.
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Guthrie, G. (2011). Formalistic Traditions In China. In: The Progressive Education Fallacy in Developing Countries. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1851-7_9
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