If the past devours the future,why study? Piketty,social movements,and future directions for education

Abstract

In 2014, Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-first Century rocked the economic and political world, with its argument that inequality is destined to increase; in the field of education, however, this book has been almost entirely ignored. I argue that Piketty’s treatise is relevant to educational theories for three reasons: his rejection of meritocracy contributes to theories of social mobility; his critique of human capital theory provides fodder for debates about educational purpose; and his interdisciplinary analysis supports the political economy tradition in education. However, I also argue that it is necessary to move beyond the economic determinism in Piketty’s arguments, to explore the transformative potential of education as a consciousness-raising process, the agency of communities, the production process, and alternative solutions to inequality. I argue that education scholars should use the renewed interest in inequality generated by Piketty’s book to shift the dominant discourses about education, schools, and social justice.     

Capital,inequality and education in conflict-affected contexts

Abstract

Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-first Century has brought the issue of inequality to the centre of political debate. This article explores contemporary research on the relationship between education and inequality in conflict-affected contexts with a view to seeing how Piketty’s work speaks to these issues as a field of research and practice. The article provides a critique of Piketty’s approach, arguing for a broader, interdisciplinary and holistic approach to exploring and addressing inequality in education in conflict-affected contexts in their multiple economic, cultural and political dimensions. In doing so the article also lays out an analytical framework inspired by cultural political economy for researching education systems in conflict contexts which seeks to go beyond narrow human capital framings of education and address the multiple potential of education to promote sustainable peace and development in and through education.     

A critical feminist and race critique of Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-first Century

Abstract

Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-first Century documents the foreboding nature of rising wealth inequality in the twenty-first century. In an effort to promote a more just and democratic global society and rein in the unfettered accumulation of wealth by the few, Piketty calls for a global progressive annual tax on corporate capital. Employing a critical feminist and race perspective on the political economy, this article examines Piketty’s historical understanding of inequality, and considers how his proposed solution to redistribute corporate profits through a global tax on corporate capital would impact the racialized, gendered, and geographically based inequalities experienced by marginalized girls and women, including access to education, employment, and other basic needs. The article argues that Piketty’s proposed solution would leave corporate strategies for accumulating wealth untouched, and would do little to transform the durable, deeply entrenched inequalities experienced by poor, racialized girls and women.     

Piketty,capital and education: a solution to,or problem in,rising social inequalities?

Abstract

When Piketty’s book Capital in the Twenty-first Century was released in 2014, it became an overnight success. Piketty focused on the concentration of wealth in a tiny social elite, and showed that their wealth had increased following the financial crisis in 2008. Yet the value of Piketty’s book offers something more than this for social scientists concerned with social inequalities. His work on a large data-set of long-run income and wealth statistics illustrates that the assumptions and models which have guided the work of neoclassical economists are flawed, but that societal arrangements matter. Yet despite this insight, Piketty’s solution to the problem of inequality is to argue that ‘… the best way to reduce inequalities with respect to labor … is to invest in education’. In this article I argue that there are major problems with this proposed solution and outline three lacunae that need to be addressed.     

The under-recognition of the significance of social class conceptions of education in Piketty’s Capital

Abstract

Piketty’s Capital has created enormous interest around the world, not least in educational circles. One reason for this may be his readiness to refer, in a book largely focused on economic history, to the ways that education has, and might, contribute to better and more equal social outcomes. This article welcomes this approach, but argues that Piketty’s suggestions remain somewhat limited due to his adherence to a more or less distributional, rather than relational, approach, and then sets out to address this issue by arguing that the assumption that it is the distribution of credentials which accounts for their contribution is mistaken. Instead, the article advances arguments which recognize the separate contributions of the content of credentials, and their valorization. The main focus of this article is thus on the different ways educational credentials are realized, which, it is argued, is a major basis for the maintenance of educational inequality.     

高兹的自由与平等思想评析

高兹早期认为资本主义社会的不平等源于劳动分工并随着技术的发展而加剧,提出工人自治战略;后期将资本主义经济理性归结为各种不平等的根源,提出社会主义用生态理性克服经济理性、实现自由与平等。高兹的自由与平等思想建立在对资本主义总体批判的基础上,把握了当代资本主义的新变化,拓展了马克思主义理论,当然也存在一定的片面性和乌托邦色彩。     

Educational expansion,economic growth and antisocial behaviour: evidence from England

This paper investigates the impact of the increase in post‐compulsory schooling and economic growth on conviction rates for antisocial behaviour in England. I hypothesise that both educational and employment opportunities should lead to greater reductions in antisocial behaviour when they are combined than when they exist in isolation. I test this hypothesis empirically using three unique sources of area‐level data over time in England. Results show that expansion of post‐compulsory education is important for reductions in antisocial behaviour regardless of the additional impact of economic growth. Additionally, economic growth itself is found not to be associated with reductions in antisocial behaviour. Two possible explanations for these results are the diploma disease and the negative consequences of inequality.     

颜元创新教育思想初探

清初,颜元亲身感受到资本主义经济关系的萌芽对教育提出的经世致用的要求,反对封建专制主义教育,提出了创新是人的禀性,要培养学子的灵活变通精神,反对死记硬背,主张正确对待知识与创新的关系等富于创新的教育思想,是中国古代教育思想宝库中的一颗璀灿的明珠。     

我国教育投资与经济增长的关系研究——基于面板数据和空间计量模型的研究

教育投资是人力资本形成的重要途径。运用教育基尼系数量化了我国1997-2012年30个省份的教育投资公平程度。建立合适的Panel Data进行实证研究我国教育投资和经济增长之间的互动因果关系。研究结果表明教育投资规模对经济增长的促进作用非常明显,但是当基础教育提高到一定水平后,对经济增长的促进作用开始逐步递减;各区域的高等学历人才并不多,对经济增长的贡献率非常低;目前东、中部地区的教育投资的公平状况明显好于西部地区,公平的教育资源分配可以较好促进经济的发展。     

中国的收入差距、经济增长与教育不平等的相互影响

结合联立方程模型和分布滞后模型,研究2000—2008年我国的收入差距、经济增长和教育不平等之间的相互影响,结果显示:(1)收入不均对经济增长有明显的抑制作用,而经济增长则又反过来对缩小收入差距有利,因此,控制收入差距有利于经济增长,并反过来有利于缩小收入差距,从而实现平等与增长相协调的目标。(2)收入分配差距导致教育不平等,教育不平等的改进却没能促进收入分配差距的改善,教育平等←→收入平等的良性循环还没有形成。因此,要想使我国的教育、经济增长、收入分配进入到一个内生化的良好发展轨道,还需要一系列的改革、政策和措施加以引导,以逐渐解决劳动力市场结构不合理、城乡教育回报率差异大、教育投入结构不合理等问题。     

Education and the problem of social inequality in Russia

The socioeconomic changes that took place in Russia in the 1990s defined both the ideology and practice of educational reform. The answer to the question: ‘Was the educational system democratized?’, is of key importance in evaluating the social outcomes of the educational reforms. In this paper, I discuss three aspects of the problem of inequality in school education in Russia: (a) social stratification and institutional changes in the school system; (b) regional features and inequality in education; and (c) the school as the site of social differentiation. The first and second aspects are concerned with macro tendencies, and I use official statistical data in discussing these. The third aspect has a socio-psychological orientation, and here I draw on material from research undertaken by the Centre of Sociology of Education in the Russian Academy of Education.     

NGO Art Education

How is art education being put to use today? To explore this provocation, I read between the lines of teaching for civic literacy through visual arts education in the United States as mandated by the Partnership for 21^st Century Skills. I consider an art education of social practice's utility within this mandate. In order to accomplish this, I describe artist Rick Lowe's Trans.lation: Vickery Meadow social sculpture project and then analyse this through a service aesthetics’ lens and neoliberal motives. In the process of overlaying social practice within the Partnership for 21st Century Skills as a model for visual arts and citizenship education toward globally competent graduates, I articulate the possible limitations of such micro‐utopian ventures for art education that amount to NGO‐esque art, making the case that these efforts, while facilitating a feeling of civic engagement, only further intensify the depoliticisation of art education acting as a form of Rancière's better police in reasserting the neoliberal status quo. I sound a cautionary note about such a pragmatic turn risking the exacerbation of our collective interpassivity through aligning art education too closely to our apparent use value for late capitalism.     

Academic capitalism and the informational fraction of the transnational capitalist class

This article is based on the idea that if we are witnessing an on-going shift towards the transnational phase of capitalism, this objective structural change should also be taken into account in higher education studies. In this sense, this article reflects the increased scholarly attention into the relationship between globalisation and higher education since the 1990s. The main purpose of this article is to contribute to these discussions by developing dialogue between global capitalism theories and the theory of academic capitalism. In order to achieve this, William Robinson's concept of the transnational capitalist class (TCC) will be amended to include also the informational fraction. Furthermore, the causal history of TRIPS (Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) will be used as an illustrative example of how transnational corporations have stimulated the emergence of academic capitalism at transnational level. First, I will discuss the theory of academic capitalism. Second, I will introduce and amend the concept of the TCC. Third, I will present my conclusions.     

Asian lifelong learning in the context of a global knowledge economy: A task re-visited

This article revisits and reinterprets my previous paper. It is a snapshot of the lifelong learning system building in selected Asian countries, reflected in the mirror of the Asian Financial Crisis in the 1997s and the aftermath of that event. I reconsidered the arguments (1) the economic recession had delivered a global dimension of lifelong learning to the re-shaping of the local education system beyond local attributes; (2) and that the divergent tradition of adult education in this context was to meet the global market standards. Additionally, (3) I tried to further the discussion about the relationship between global forces and the lifelong learning system in the context of a knowledge economy, but with a number of different approaches. I argued that the lifelong learning system under the global forces of capitalism, as per the Asian experience in the 2000s, can be apart of a knowledge economy itself, not a tool of it, and in this sense, a knowledge economy sets the conditions of a lifelong learning system as an embryo of its attributes.     

Educating for (whose) success? Schooling in an age of neo‐liberalism

In western nations, the social and economic changes of the past 30 years have facilitated a reorientation of the focus of educational institutions. Global capitalism has placed education at the forefront of national competitiveness, and governments have responded with education policies primarily designed to serve the needs of the market. Such neo‐liberal economic imperatives have been supported by a variety of neoconservative social forces calling for schools to become sites of cultural and moral restoration. This paper draws upon current theoretical debates about the consequences of such changes and employs ethnographic data from a small qualitative study of Australian youth to argue the case for a more democratic and student‐centred approach to educational reform. It contends that in the interests of all young people, it is time for schools to resist systemic impulses to make them producers of human capital and claim their role as transformative institutions of human possibility.     

A Race to the Top From the Bottom of the Well? The Paradox of Race and U.S. Education Reform

Abstract

This article explores the paradox of “race” and U.S. education reform in the 21st century. I consider how the invisible ontology of race and its entangled relationship with class divert our attention from economic inequality and undermine policies intended to redress racial inequality in schools. I conclude that the education research community must unpack its use of “race” and focus on the role of racism in the maintenance of racial caste in America's schools.     

A straight tree,a lush growth of the tree

<正>Ancient Greek famous educator and philosopher Platon said:"a person from the education of the childhood where he led,can decide where he wanted to go."Well,I just wanted to be a straight tree,a lush growth of the tree.Every human being has to face the problems of education.In the twenty-first century,China is on the international stage,with rapid development of its political,economic,cultural,military     

MULTICULTURAL EDUCATION – GOOD FOR BUSINESS BUT NOT FOR THE STATE? THE IB CURRICULUM AND GLOBAL CAPITALISM

ABSTRACT:  In the 1970s and the 1980s, multicultural education spread in many countries. However, in the mid-1980s the golden age of multiculturalism came to an end. Neo-conservative political forces attacked multicultural policies and progressively a neo-liberal discourse pervaded economic and social policies, also affecting national education systems. In contrast, multicultural approaches have emerged with tremendous vigour in the field of business management. Juxtaposing cognitive, emotional and socio-communicative multiculturalism found in organisational studies onto multiculturalism in the International Baccalaureate (IB) curriculum indicates whether multiculturalism in international schools aims to respond to the needs of global capitalism. The findings show that emotional, cognitive and socio-communicative multiculturalism are seen as essential traits for good performance in transnational corporations, and they are strongly encouraged in the IB curriculum. The relevance of multicultural skills in global management alongside the decay of multiculturalism in public education systems entails a growing educational disparity between lower class and higher class children. A new educational structure in which two differentiated systems – a national system and an international system – emerges and redefines the terms of inequality of opportunities.     

正确认识马克思的经济学理论与资本主义发展的关系——兼谈马克思的"丧钟论"与"扬弃论"的关系

马克思的经济学理论是关于资本主义发展的理论,一百多年来的资本主义发展,在一些最重要的方面证实了马克思对于资本主义的理论分析.同时,现代资本主义的变化并没有改变资本主义生产方式的内核,马克思在理论上所揭示的各种经济规律仍然会发生作用.马克思关于资本主义发展历史趋势所提出的"丧钟论"与关于股份公司和股份资本性质所提出的"扬弃论"讨论的是两个完全不同的问题,彼此之间并不存在矛盾.     

解析毛泽东对资本主义的认识

毛泽东对资本主义的认识存在下列几个视角:从伦理道德出发;在政治上从资本主义与新民主主义、资本主义与社会主义的政治关系出发;在经济上从发展社会生产力出发等。但统领这一切的是他认识和对待资本主义的政治观。毛泽东对资本主义的正确认识,是马列主义与中国实际相结合的重要成果之一。毛泽东对中国资本主义的认识主要是从战略高度上进行的。他对资本主义认识的重大改变,是一种大的战略调整。策略因素是毛泽东认识资本主义的一个重要方面。战略和策略的双重交错是毛泽东对中国资本主义认识的最重要特征。