Marxist state theory and state autonomy theory: the case of ‘race’ education in initial teacher education

Abstract

In recent times, there have been a number of critiques of Marxist and neo‐Marxist analyses of the state and education policy. These have drawn on postmodernist, ‘quasi‐postmodernist’ and state autonomy perspectives. While the postmodernist and ‘quasi‐postmodernist’ approaches have attracted critical response, to date, the state autonomy perspective has, to our knowledge, gone unchallenged. To address this theoretical lacuna, this paper analyses one writer's attempt, via an historical case study, to uphold state autonomy theory by detailing the ongoing relationship between one quasi‐state agency and the practice of ‘race’ education in initial teacher education. We argue that there are serious conceptual weaknesses in this latest attempt to apply state autonomy theory to educational policy analysis. The arguments in the case study under consideration are seriously compromised by a basically flawed hypothesis, a misrepresentation of contemporary (neo‐) Marxist education policy analysis and by a failure to look at ‘the big picture’.     

Mobilising for change in vocational education and training in Sweden – a case study of the ‘Technical College’ scheme

In this article, we analyse a recent industry-driven initiative in Sweden for the organisation and operation of Vocational Education and Training. In the context of a statist and school-based system for VET, this is an initiative which seems to be an example of an anomaly in the present system. The initiative is called the Technical College scheme and is a certification scheme for upper secondary school education in technology. The aim of this article is to describe and explain the establishment of the Technical College scheme in Sweden from a historical institutionalist approach. Based on this approach, the case is analysed as a process of incremental institutional change, with a focus on initiatives and strategies by different stakeholders driving the invention and implementation of the scheme, the importance of the power balances between central interests, and how the process has been shaped by institutional conditions. Our study shows how previously marginalised actors in a VET system can mobilise for change without radically changing the rules of the game. The process that we characterise can be explained by changes in the power balances between key actors, but also by changed institutional conditions that have provided windows of opportunity for new initiatives.     

Management as ideology: the case of ‘new managerialism’ in higher education

The paper explores ideological conceptions of management, especially ‘new managerialism’, with particular reference to their role in the reform of higher education. It is suggested that attempts to reform public services in general are political as well as technical, though there is no single unitary ideology of ‘new managerialism’. Whilst some argue that managers have become a class and have particular interests, this may not be so for all public services. The arguments presented are illustrated by data taken from a recent research project on the management of UK higher education. It is suggested that managers in public service organisations such as universities do not constitute a class. However, as in the case of manager‐academics, managing a contemporary public service such as higher education may involve taking on the ideologies and values of ‘new managerialism’, and for some, embracing these. So management ideologies do seem to serve the interests of manager‐academics and help cement relations of power and dominance, even in contexts like universities which were not traditionally associated with the dominance of management.     

Environmental education technologies in a social void: the case of ‘Greendrive’

This article is based on a case study that follows the trajectory of a technological device aimed at environmental education from the engineering laboratory in which it was designed into the contexts in which it is used. ‘Greendrive’ is a driving simulator that accurately reproduces the performance of a vehicle in terms of fuel consumption and greenhouse gases emissions, in order to instill the principles of safe and environmentally friendly driving. The text is divided into three parts. The first part introduces the issue of transport behavior as one of the causes of climate change and the role of eco-driving in reducing emissions. The second part describes how a team of Portuguese engineering researchers developed the driving simulator and how a local authority and a consulting and training company are using it. Finally, the discussion part aims to show that despite the intentions of its creators and their clients, the driving simulator is unlikely, by itself, to generate changes in behavior. An information-deficit approach to environmental education that fails to consider the social embeddedness of human action and disregards the engagement of citizens has a very limited chance of success.     

‘Weep for Chinese university’: a case study of English hegemony and academic capitalism in higher education in Hong Kong

In the spring of 2005, students and alumni of the Chinese University of Hong Kong staged an adamant protest against University directives which they perceived would result in a significant increase in the number of courses taught in English. They denounced the administration of selling out on the founding mission of the University, for which, as stated in its Ordinance, the principal medium of teaching would be Chinese. The University, on the other hand, defended its policy in the name of ‘internationalization’ and the need to stay ahead in the midst of severe competition at home and abroad. This paper examines this language controversy against the wider context of English hegemony and the rise of academic capitalism, two forces which are inextricably linked for the non‐Western societies in a post‐colonial era. I will try to show that the controversy was ultimately a struggle over the meaning of university education, between what I would call the instrumentalists and the humanists in this age of globalization. I end the paper with a pessimistic note, saying that it is the former who have gained an upper hand, and that the scope and parameters of the language debate are heavily restricted.     

Troubling the concept of the ‘academic profession’ in 21st Century higher education

Concern has been expressed about the vulnerability of the ‘academic profession’ as a consequence of threats from productivism, managerialism and the like (Beck and Young, Br J Sociol Educ 26(2):183–197, 2005). I question the apparent self-understanding of academe as a profession. Referring to thinking from higher education (Barnett, High Educ 40:409–422, 2000a; Educ Phil Theor 32(3):319–326, 2000b; Realizing the University in an age of supercomplexity, 2000c; Stud High Educ 25(3):255–265, 2000d; Lond Rev Educ 2(1):61–73, 2004a; Piper, Are professors professional? The organisation of University examinations, 1994; Taylor 1999), and from the sociology of the professions (in particular Evetts, Int J Sociol Soc Policy 23(4/5):22–35, 2003a; Int Sociol 18(2):395–415 2003b; Curr Sociol 54(1):133–143 2006a; Curr Sociol 54(4):515–531, 2006b), I propose that significant shifts in self-understanding and practice are needed for academe to claim a social role as a ‘profession’.     

Differently Academic? Constructions of ‘academic’ in higher education

This article draws on my research, in which I have interviewed a group of students over the course of their degrees. The women are all taking women's studies combined with a range of other subjects in a ‘new’ university with campuses in inner London and on its outskirts. This article considers the women's perceptions of both women's studies and their second subjects as "academic", as well as how they think both the university and the wider world value the academic nature of their various subjects. It asks whether subjects are only valued as "academic" if they focus on the writings of men, and are considered "objective", abstract and theoretical. Do students need to be seen to be "thinking like a man" in order to value their subjects and have them valued by others, or are there ways to be "differently academic"? It concludes by suggesting some alternative ways for institutions of higher education to consider the meaning of "academic" in higher education.     

Biopolitics and the ‘subject’ of labor in science education

Viewing science education as a site of biopolitical engagement—intervention into forces that seek to define, control, and exploit life (biopower)—requires that science educators ask after how individuals and populations are governed by technologies of power. In this paper, I argue that microanalyses, the analysis of everyday practices and discourses, are integral to biopolitical engagement, are needed to examine practices that constitute subjectivities and maintain oppressive social conditions. As an example of a microanalysis I will discuss how repetitive close-ended lab/assessment tasks, as well as discourses surrounding careers in science, can work to constitute students as depoliticized, self-investing subjects of human capital. I also explore the relationship between science education, (bio)labor and its relation to biopolitics, which remains an underdeveloped area of science education. This paper, part of my doctoral work, began to take shape in 2011, shortly after the 2008 economic crisis achieved a tiny breached in the thick neoliberal stupor of everyday (educational) life.     

Managing curriculum change and ‘ontological uncertainty’ in tertiary education

Curriculum reform at institutional level is a challenging endeavour. Those charged with leading this process will encounter both enthusiasm and multiple obstacles to teacher engagement including the particularly complex issue of confronting existing teacher identities. At Unitec Institute of Technology (Unitec), the ‘Living Curriculum’ initiative focused on whole-of-institution curriculum renewal and, in the process, acknowledged and addressed teacher beliefs and practices that variously supported and contested both the initiative itself and the professional development offerings that accompanied it. The related research project identified factors and processes that unsettle teachers, rendering them ‘insecure’, and strategies that have proven effective in supporting teachers through significant change in conceptions of curriculum, teaching and learning.     

Private education expenditure in a ‘free education’ country: The case of Greece

This paper uses data from the 1988 Family Expenditure Survey to estimate and analyze the private expenditure on education in Greece. Such expenditure amounts to 111,624 million drs per year or 2.1% of total household expenditure. The aggregate expenditure of households is roughly half of what the state is spending on education. The dominant type of expenditure is for foreign languages and private crammer schools (frontisteria). There are sharp differences in private expenditure on education depending on the location of the household (spending in Athens is two-and-a-half times that of small towns and villages), the household's total expenditure, as well as the occupation and educational level of the head of the household. The findings are discussed in the context of the equity and efficiency of current education provision and financing policies.     

Higher education ‘massification’ and challenges to the professoriate: do academics’ conceptions of quality matter?

Ensuring and assuring the quality of higher education have become dominant policy discourses in many jurisdictions across the globe. Yet, the pressures of massification and its attendant problems mean that academics now have increasingly demanding roles to improve student learning, particularly so in systems ravaged by a paucity of resources. The study reported in this article explores the experiences of and the challenges faced by academics in a large public university in Ethiopia during a period of graduate education expansion. The study found that academics hold onto ‘exceptional’ and ‘transformative’ notions of quality as they made judgements about the quality of education, which they saw as declining since the onset of expansion. As well, academics associated the entire expansion effort with burden, alienation, enhanced workload and loss of autonomy for the professor. The study suggests that policies intended to improve the quality of higher education should, inter alia, attend to the concerns of front-line academics.     

The promposal: youth expressions of identity and ‘love’ in the digital age

The ‘promposal’ is a growing, North American high school ritual in which one graduating senior asks another to the prom in a creative, witty, public performance that is recorded and posted online. A YouTube search for ‘promposal’ yields over 49,000 hits, with videos receiving up to 8,000,000 views. What does the promposal reveal about the construction of gender and identity amongst teenagers in the digital era and the nature of the voices channelled, expressed or spoken? In a study of high school students' responses to the promposal as well as a discourse analysis of YouTube videos, this paper argues that: students use promposals to achieve social aims by constructing and presenting desirable identities and voices across multiple platforms; the performances of gender seen in online promposals tend to draw upon, reflect, and reify traditional, hegemonic patterns of behaviour and to amplify the male voice; and promposals are a means of announcing the debut of young people as productive contributors to the neo-liberal economy as they prepare to leave high school.     

Working in the methodological ‘outfield’: the case of Bourdieu and occupational therapy

The article reports on a study of methodological innovation involving occupational therapy (OT) students in higher education (HE). It is based on an original project which examined the experiences and outcomes of non-traditional entrants to pre-registration OT education. A feature of the original project was the application of the epistemological and methodological approach of the French social theorist Pierre Bourdieu, most noticeably in exploring the way that social back ground (habitus) interacted with the educational (field) context in terms of experience and educational outcome. Bourdieu used a ranged of techniques – both qualitative and quantitative – in collecting and analysing data. In particular, he used multiple correspondence analysis (MCA), a type of geometric data analysis recognized as a powerful tool enabling the representation of social space and the situating of individuals within it with respect to a number of variables. The article considers methodological principles in comparing ethnographic, traditional statistics and MCA. We show how the original data were reanalysed according to MCA. The article compares the original analyses and findings with those based on MCA in order to explore its strength over the previous approach and the potential it has to cast light on various issues in HE.     

Comprehensive for who? Neoliberal directives in Australian ‘comprehensive’ sexuality education and the erasure of GLBTIQ identity

At present, Australian sex(uality) education curricula aim to equip students with information which facilitates ‘healthy’ sexual choices as they develop. However, this is not neutral information, but rather socially and culturally regulated discourse which encodes a normative binary of sexuality. The largely US-focused sexuality education literature tends to categorise curricula as belonging to either ‘comprehensive’ or ‘conservative’ factions, consisting of progressive, secular approaches or religious- or abstinence-based programmes, respectively. Neither of these factions, however, appear to be able to cater for the integration of issues relevant to gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex and queer (GLBTIQ) students nor does this binary conceptualisation represent the reality of Australian sexuality education policy and practice. This paper argues that contemporary sexuality education has a fundamentally neoliberal focus, which aims to assimilate GLBTIQ people into existing normative frameworks (economic and social), rather than challenge them. Such an approach does not foster critical student understandings of oppression, power or morality. The development of critical literacy around sexuality is regarded as essential to meaningfully address the complex needs of GLBTIQ students. The paper explores missing queer discourses within Australian teaching resources. The inclusion of these would benefit GLBTIQ students by bringing previously silenced issues to the fore.     

Dynamics of identity in the academic field and implications to science students?? identity formation

Aydeniz and Hodge investigated how college professors negotiate their responsibilities as teachers and as researchers and the rationales behind their pedagogical approaches. Their findings illustrate how difficult it can be to keep the balance between these two responsibilities in a university that does not support professor??s enactment of teaching goals. Thinking identity as a dynamics in self and institutional boundary, Albrecht and Fortney in their forum contribution, expand the analysis of Professor G??s professional identity and conclude that in his case, institutional boundary is impermeable as it values research scientist more than teacher identity. In this forum contribution I emphasize the role of institutional culture in the identitarian process, interpreting the identity and identity formation of a science college teacher within the dynamics of the academic field. I expand the discussion to the other side of the problem, bringing excerpts of an interview with a Physics student from a Brazilian university as an illustration of how the academic habitus can impact the formation of a student??s identity.     

Seeking inclusive education: disrupting boundaries of ‘special’ and ‘regular’ education

The present paper is part of a larger study carried out in North Queensland, Australia, between 1999 and 2001. The original study focused on the perceptions of 15 women who each have (or had) a child who was medically, educationally and socio‐culturally constituted as having a disability. Qualitative methods were used for research design and to gather data. Poststructural and feminist perspectives were added to provide additional methods of data analysis. The primary focus in this paper is the spatiality of inclusive education with/in the discursive site of (special) education. It also considers the binary of regular/special education in relation to the spaces of educational discourse through the perspectives of the mothers, covering a temporal frame of 40 years. The mothers’ perceptions provide a historical lens on the changes that occurred in special education in North Queensland over this time, while at the same time offer an insight into the spaces disability occupies in education discourse.