English

Abstract

This article consists of an examination of programmes at the University of the West Indies (UWI) for cultural relevance. In examining the cultural content and relevance of teaching, a deeper look at the teaching and learning process within the contemporary period will be done. The multicultural nature of postmodern society results in the intersecting dialectics of what is taught being equally important to how it is taught and to whom it is being taught. The works of Jean-Francois Lyotard and Anthony Giddens are used to show how knowledge is perceived in this contemporary period of new capitalism. The cultural studies discourses of these and other writers are used to identify the lacuna - termed the “missing dialectics” - within the teaching and learning process facing educators at the UWI and elsewhere in the contemporary Caribbean. Culture should be at the center of the pedagogic/andragogic process. Teaching and learning are essential to the transmission of culture, while culture will influence what is taught and how, depending on the cultural, ethnographic and demographic make-up of the target audience. The paper concludes that if Caribbean development is to be enhanced in the twenty first century, then the teaching contents and methods of UWI faculty members and other educators in the region must be culturally relevant.   Key words: Capitalism, dialectics, curriculum, culture, postmodern, postmodernism, teaching.