Economic ‘revelations’ and the metaphors of the meltdown: an educational deconstruction

This article subjects contemporary informed discourse on the Credit Crunch/Great Recession/Long Recession to educational analysis and deconstruction. Such pro‐capitalist but not uncritical discourse is well represented by the UK Financial Times, whose columns between 2008 and 2012 comprise most of our data. We argue that the metaphors of the ‘meltdown’ are significant and performative, allowing variously moralised narratives to emerge as implicit diagnoses and remedies. In particular we identify a ‘domestic’ register of metaphors whose contained and homely tropes of austerity, prudence, book‐balancing and so on stand in dramatic contrast to a more melodramatic register, centring on various disaster scenarios. What is of most interest is that financial journalists and commentators switch between these registers, and allow ‘crossovers’ between them which are powerful in their discursive effects and political persuasiveness. These metaphorical discursive resources are intimately connected to the sorts of educational registers that characterise the ‘knowledge economy’. We conclude that our cultural ability to tell these sorts of stories rests as much on an underlying moral and theological storying as it does on any ‘scientific’ economic account (if such there can be, which we doubt). In this way we seek to educate economic discourses that are, as it were, ‘economical with the truth’.     

Towards a new cartography of curriculum reform: Reflections on educational decentralization in Argentina

Curriculum reforms have led to discursive and organizational changes in Argentina. These reforms have reshaped school knowledge and institutional patterns of school administration. We analyse the process of this 'curriculum reterritorialization', the contradictions and displacements it produces, and the hybrid products that result from it. Reterritorialization is traced through four interrelated movements: the hybridization of discourses; the design of new maps of relations between the centre and the periphery of the educational system; the new 'regime of truth' that emerges out of these changes; and the role of the intellectual in educational reform. Although they are different in scope and magnitude, these movements provide the tools required to analyse the many ways in which curriculum reform is transforming Argentina's educational experiences.     

B Is For Burqa,C Is For Censorship: The Miseducative Effects of Censoring Muslim Girls and Women's Sartorial Discourse

In this article, I add a discursive analysis to the discussion about Muslim girls and women's dress in non-Muslim educational contexts. I argue that a law or policy that prohibits the wearing of khimar, burqa, chador, niqab, hijab, or jilbab in the context of public schools is a form of censorship in educational contexts. This sartorial censorship is miseducative in the sense that it impedes the achievement of important educational goals, especially in public education. I consider the public nature of public education and discuss three sets of miseducative effects: First, the examination of discursive processes, including the production of social norms, is limited. Second, the critical uptake of the banned discourse by female Muslim students themselves is foreclosed, and their agency hindered. Third, a metadiscourse arises that translates individual sartorial discursive acts into generalized terms (such as “veils” and “headscarves”) without noticing what is lost in translation.     

论教育改革的路径

"元路径"是掌控教育改革的最高之"道","具体途径"是教育体制、机制、方式改革中选用的实然套路。教育改革史上出现了三条元路径,即教育事业的自生逻辑、外力控制的强制变迁与教育理论的实践渗透。教育改革的核心变革力来自教育理论的扩散与衍生,它是三种力量,即教育理论的磁力、教育实践的应变力与教育体制的支撑力在相互角力中合成的。在教育改革中,具体路径存在的使命是侧应教育理论向实践转生的需要,理念优选、范例推销、制度配合与体制拆解等都是把教育改革导向成功的具体路径。     

Beyond internationalisation and isomorphism – the construction of a global higher education regime

ABSTRACT

National higher education systems are undergoing profound changes, discussed in many but unrelated studies as outcomes of internationalisation dynamics and institutional isomorphism pressures. We propose to link these studies by emphasising the influence of both internationalisation and isomorphism on the formation of a global educational regime. Through a broad range of indicators, we describe the growth of the discursive, normative, and regulatory dimensions of such a global higher education regime. We find evidence of the following developments: (1) a rapidly growing network of international organisations focused on conferences, initiatives, and programmes supporting a global higher education agenda; (2) a striking increase in the number of international and national accreditation agencies, their mutual cross-national recognition as well as the number of universities that are nationally and internationally accredited; and lastly, (3) parallel increases in regional qualification frameworks and in the implementation of national qualification frameworks. These developments create integration pressures manifest in the mutual recognition of higher education degrees, for which a new generation of regional conventions has emerged worldwide in the past two decades. We discuss these processes and their implications for understanding ‘national’ higher education as well as the threats and limits to the burgeoning higher education regime.     

In living memory: Abortion as cultural amnesia

This essay argues that abortion is more than the termination of a pregnancy: it is a metaphor for cultural amnesia. Early medical anti‐abortion rhetoric in the United States established women's bodies as rhetorical sites of cultural memory. Physicians formed a system of mnemonics: cultural truth about humanity was located in women's reproductive physiology, protocols for accessing that truth were formed via diagnostic practices, and a network of bodies (discursive and corporeal) was established through which truth could circulate. In the face of increasing numbers of abortions, physicians made the act of listening to the female body a culturally genealogical act.     

Early parenting and the reduction of educational inequality in childhood and adolescence

Socioeconomic status (SES) differences in parenting are often implicated in widening the SES-achievement gap. Using nationally representative data (N = 12,887), the author tested for variation across SES in the types and intensity of parenting behaviors utilized and then examined SES differences in the relationship between parenting and student achievement growth from kindergarten to Grade 8. Exploratory factor analysis identifies three dimensions of early parenting: Educational engagement, stimulating parent–child interaction, and discursive discipline. Regression results indicate that all three are used most heavily by high-SES families. However, only educational engagement consistently predicts achievement growth. Surprisingly, it is positively associated with achievement for lower-, but not higher-SES students in Grades 1–8. Further, educational engagement is beneficial for low-SES children because it is particularly beneficial for low-achieving students, consistent with a compensatory hypothesis.     

文化批评视阈下的体裁分析研究图景

伯明翰学派文化批评理论洞察话语实践中权力与意识形态的运作,也体察结构性宰制和主体性协商与逆反之间的张力。从文化批评视角考察体裁分析三大流派:悉尼学派具有语言分析的优势,但需配合文化批评的"理论优势"对生活政治性地介入;专门用途英语学派着重语篇目的、功能的解读,也日益重视引入社会批判的维度;新修辞学派关注业务性语篇的写作,弱化了文化批评的立场。传统语言学强调真理性和规约性的逻辑,文化批评则秉持建构性与主体性的旨向。     

后现代的儿童主体性:福柯之眼

与我国教育语境或现代中心论意义上的主体性概念不同,后现代主义者如福柯认为,主体性是历史地建构起来的,是话语论述、社会实践以及自我创造的产物,具有多样性、流动性和异质性的特点。从福柯之眼透视儿童主体性,我们更容易把握儿童的教育过程以及教育过程中儿童的处境,进而为思考儿童的教育之道以及儿童自身获得实践自由的可能性和现实路径,提供重要的思维工具与行动方向。     

Conduct Earnest Discussion of the Criterion of Truth and Straighten out the Ideological Line in Education Work

Since the smashing of the "Gang of Four," a great change has taken place on the educational front. Beginning in August 1977, the Party Central Committee has strengthened its leadership in education work. First it reformed the system of enrollment for institutions of higher education; then it dismissed the "two estimates" concocted by the gang. After the Third Plenum of the Eleventh CCP Central Committee, the Committee decided to rescind the "Summary of The National Conference on Education," emancipating the thinking of the broad masses of faculty and staff on the educational front. The state of affairs is getting better with each passing day. However, discussion of the criterion of truth has not been carried out in-depth on the educational front, the pernicious influence of the ultraleft line of Lin Biao and the "Gang of Four" has not been thoroughly liquidated, quite a few forbidden zones" remain intact, and ideas of the "two all's" have not been adequately criticized. Now the Party Central Committee has decided to have a make-up lesson to discuss the criterion of truth; this is really a timely rain for the educational front. We must make the most of the favorable situation brought about by this decision and conscientiously conduct discussions on the criterion of truth so as to further eliminate the inhibitions that restrict us and gain another great emancipation of our minds.     

Emerging regions, persisting rhetoric of educational aid: The impact of the Asian Development Bank on educational policy making in Kazakhstan

This study explores the Asian Development Bank's (ADB) discourses and practices in the context of its educational sector support in Kazakhstan. Drawing on the document analysis and interviews with the ADB staff and Kazakhstan's education officials, the article examines ADB's discursive and operational frameworks in this Central Asian country. The findings indicate that the ADB had a significant impact on educational policy formation in Kazakhstan by establishing and maintaining boundaries of educational policy discussions. Findings suggest that, despite the emerging discourse on new aid modalities, the rhetoric of educational aid persists in regions such as post-Soviet Central Asia.     

What can we learn from Plato about intellectual character education?

Abstract

In the Republic, Plato developed an educational program through which he trained young Athenians in desiring truth, without offering them any knowledge-education. This is not because he refused to pass on knowledge but because he considered knowledge of the Good as an ongoing research program. I show this by tracing the steps of the education of the Philosopher-Kings in Plato’s ideal state, to establish that the decades-long educational regime aims at training them in three types of virtue: (i) Moral Virtue; (ii) the Cognitive Virtue of Abstraction; (iii) the Cognitive Virtue of Debate.

Plato’s theory of education has much to teach us about intellectual character education today. The Platonic educational program does not advocate the direct transmission of knowledge from teacher to learner but rather focuses on building the learners’ epistemic dispositions. Building upon the Socratic Method, Plato’s educational program does not ‘spoon-feed’ knowledge to the learners but rather fosters the growth of intellectual virtues through problem-solving.

I explain ways in which fostering intellectual virtues through problem-solving could be applied in classrooms today. I conclude that Plato’s rigorous educational program is of definite merit for contemporary virtue education, especially since Aristotle offers us surprisingly little on how to educate for intellectual virtues.     

班级特性的建构与成形群体观

班级特性往往通过相应的教育活动展现出来,而对班级特性的不同认识又反过来影响着班级教育活动。三种代表性的班级特性观虽然持论不一,但都将班级视为一种固定的、外在的、客观的、可以对象化把握的确定性客体来加以认识和理解。其实,所有对班级基本特性的认识都是一种叙事,这种叙事不仅建构话语本身,还建构了话语能指背后的所指。将班级还原为成形群体,一方面最符合我们对班级直接观察的现象学真实;另一方面也以一种开放的框架包容群体或组织概念在解释班级现实问题时的叠合与冲突。这种不确定的社会建构性,将各种可能性和开放性结合进班级教育管理工作的艺术之中,有助于保证学生社会性与个性的协调发展。     

Narrative authority vs. perjured testimony: Courage,vulnerability and truth

This paper outlines a method for describing and analysing discursive practices in education. Discourse analysis exposes and clarifies the discursive practices by which and through which all aspects of education are carried out. An analysis of representative “classic” texts of radical educational theory was undertaken in order to study the discursive construction of knowledge. The case‐studies reveal a discursive operation of recontextualization,where a paradigm‐shift away from the functionalist discourse of education is effected. This operation involves “translating” the categories of “education” and “schooling” from their familiar discursive contexts to a new context where they enter into new relations with unfamiliar terms and categories. The radical education critique and the knowledge organized around and through it fall into a pattern which echoes the sermon genre of the jeremiad, which facilitates the construction of knowledge in terms of the gap between “full humanity” [Freire] or the Jeffersonian ideal [Bowles and Gintis] and the actual present state of alienation. Radical discourse in effect both constructs that gap and determines the means by which it can be closed.     

Telling Truths: Wounded Truths and the Activity of Truth Telling

It appears that being young and queer seems to be all about woundedness: it means experiencing suffering, including the risk of suicide, increased drug use, homelessness and violence. Yet how are these wounded truths told, and further, why is it that people in education seem to tell them "unproblematically"? This paper considers these questions by analysing wounded truth telling in the recent debate over the Western Australia Lesbian and Gay Law Reform Bill. Using <citeref rid="b7">Foucault's (2001)</citeref> discussion of Greek parrhesia (truth telling), the Western Australian debate is analysed in terms of its problematisation of wounded truth telling. Questions are raised regarding the implications of unproblematised educational practices that engage in the telling of wounded truths.     

Will the Curriculum Caterpillar Ever Learn to Fly?

This paper examines New Labour's curriculum policies since its election to office in May 1997. It begins with an overview of the curriculum legacy inherited by New Labour from the previous Conservative government. New Labour's curriculum polices are then analysed in relation to the continuities and disjunctures with those of its predecessor. It is argued that under New Labour ‘standards’ has replaced ‘curriculum’ as the discursive hub of educational policy making. This discursive shift has led to the government imposing greater control over classroom pedagogy in order to meet prespecified educational targets. Moreover, it has engendered policies that substantially erode the principle of a broad and balanced curriculum entitlement, generally regarded one of the redeeming features of the 1988 Education Reform Act. The paper concludes with some tentative suggestions for a conception of curriculum that will more effectively meet the challenges of the 21st century     

“Listening Silence” and Its Discursive Effects

While researchers have studied how white silence protects white innocence and white ignorance, in this essay Barbara Applebaum explores a form of white silence that she refers to as “listening silence” in which silence protects white innocence but does not necessarily promote resistance to learning. White listening silence can appear to be a constructive pedagogical tool for teaching white students about their implication in the perpetuation of racism. The truth of white students' listening may make it seem as if silence promotes what George Yancy refers to as “tarrying” with a critique of whiteness. Applebaum argues, however, that white listening silence is itself a manifestation of complicity and needs to be disrupted. This examination expands discussions of white silence in the scholarship not by providing a formula for when silence is or is not pedagogically necessary, but rather by demonstrating that listening silence is not a form of “tarrying.” The first section examines the unique features of listening silence and the relationship between silence, ignorance, and innocence. The second section critically examines white listening silence in cross‐cultural dialogues and draws upon the work of Linda Martin Alcoff to argue that listening silence must be understood within the discursive context in which it is practiced. Finally, three implications of this emphasis on the discursive context for the role of silence in tarrying with the critique of whiteness are discussed.     

Race,Reason and Reasonableness: Toward an “Unreasonable” Pedagogy

Starting from the contemporary critical-theoretical notion of an objective violence that organizes social reality in capitalism, including processes of systemic racism, as well as from phenomenological inquiries into processes of race and identity, this article explores the relationship between racism and reasonableness in education and society. The category of the reasonable connects the content of particular propositions with the inner truth of the form of thought. At the same time, the reasonable refers to what can be legitimated not only intellectually but practically and morally. I describe how the force of this category, working through neoliberal modalities of appropriation and penality, is an anchor for persistent processes of racial oppression in educational policy and curriculum. Furthermore, if the reasonable is a central figure for ideology, then a kind of thinking that would break with it will show up in the first instance as unreasonable. Thus, I argue that critical pedagogy in the present needs to start from a different and “unreasonable” reason. In addition, taking its cue from interventions by radical educators and students, critical teaching needs to challenge the dominative decorum that forces dialogue on race and racism into the narrow spaces—both material and discursive—of the given.