Management,skills and creativity: the purpose and value of instrumental reasoning in education discourse

Reason is a heterogeneous word with many meanings and functions. Instrumental reasoning is the ‘useful but blind’ variant that, for Horkheimer, presupposes ‘the adequacy of procedures for purposes more or less taken for granted and supposedly self-explanatory’. The paper argues that the root of instrumental reasoning is to be found in Hume and Weber and suggests that the problems associated with portraying reason as ‘inert’ or ‘formal’ underpin many areas of education policy today. A scrutiny of discourses on managerialism, skills and creativity suggests that they are not only bound by instrumental reasoning but tied to unacknowledged purposes associated with what Marcuse called ‘capitalist rationality’. The paper concludes by reflecting upon Habermas’ notion of substantive reasoning that offers education a way forward.     

From ‘priceless’ to ‘priced’: the value of knowledge in higher education

This paper examines a shift in the value awarded to the disciplinary knowledge developed in universities. The instrumentalised function of this type of knowledge as it is ‘priced’ and sold in the global higher education marketplace is given a value greater than that given to its symbolic or ‘priceless’ function in contributing to society’s social meanings. This shift in value is the result of the intensive commodification of knowledge in the higher education sector itself as a consequence of fundamental changes to the global economy. Knowledge now plays a central role as a valuable productive force in the global economy and higher education is the main site for its production and sale. The weakened insularity between disciplinary knowledge’s symbolic and economic functions gives greater value to its ‘price’ rather than to its ‘priceless’ function as a creative force in creating the social meaning of the symbolic sphere of human life. We describe the way this shift in the value of disciplinary knowledge has affected its functions in the ‘knowledge economy’ era with reference to an empirical study of the internationalisation of Indonesian higher education.     

Of Slumdogs and Schoolmasters: Jacotot,Rancière and Mitra on self-organized learning

Abstract

This article argues that the concept and practice of ‘self-organized learning’, as pioneered by Sugata Mitra (and his team) in the ‘Hole-in-the-Wall’ experiments (1999–2005) that inspired the novel Q & A (2006) and the resulting movie, Slumdog millionaire (2008) bear direct, but not uncritical comparison with Jacques Rancière’s account of ‘universal teaching’ discovered by maverick nineteenth century French pedagogue Joseph Jacotot. In both cases, it is argued, there is a deliberate dissociation of two functions of ‘teaching’ that are often conflated: knowledge and mastery. Mitra’s development of computer-mediated learning among the supposedly ‘ignorant’ of India’s slums, and Rancière’s insistence on equality as a presupposition rather than a goal, both emphasize the agency of the student at the centre of learning, but in ways that displace both established pedagogical methods of ‘explication’ and the neoliberal ideology of ‘schooling’ as the harmonizing of individual and social functions of education.     

Decoding ClassDojo: psycho-policy,social-emotional learning and persuasive educational technologies

ClassDojo is one of the world’s most successful educational technologies, currently used by over 3 million teachers and 35 million children globally. It reinforces and enacts emerging governmental ‘psycho-policies’ around the measurement and modification of children’s social and emotional learning in schools. This article focuses specifically on the ways ClassDojo facilitates psychological surveillance through gamification techniques, its links to new psychological concepts of ‘character development,’ ‘growth mindsets’ and ‘personal qualities,’ and its connections to the psychological techniques of Silicon Valley designers. Methodologically, the research mobilizes network analysis to trace the organizational, technical, governmental and scientific relations that are translated together and encoded in the ClassDojo app. Through its alignment with emerging education psycho-policy agendas around the measurement of non-cognitive learning, ClassDojo is a key technology of ‘fast policy’ that functions as a ‘persuasive technology’ of ‘psycho-compulsion’ to reinforce and reward student behaviours that are aligned with governmental strategies around social-emotional learning.     

Method Boundness Among Zoo and Park Educators

A national survey of 131 park and zoo educators' teaching beliefs was conducted in 14 parks and zoos in the US in 1996 by The Ohio State University Extension. The survey included two primary instruments. The Van Tilburg/Heimlich Teaching Beliefs Scale and a self‐report time on task and importance of task related to teaching methods and techniques. A third series of questions explored teaching purposes. The Van Tilburg/Heimlich Teaching Beliefs Scale is a psychometric instrument containing two parallel Thurston equal‐appearing interval scales. Outcomes are graphed into a two by two matrix using the concepts of ‘sensitivity’ and ‘inclusion’. Developed with a theoretical base of adult education, these scales apply well to nonformal environmental educators. An operational hypothesis for the study, which was corroborated by the data, was that a preponderance of respondents would self‐identify their beliefs to be those of ‘Enabler’ – low control, high inclusion. The application of beliefs to practice, however, might suggest otherwise.     

A social structural reinterpretation of ‘the burden of acting White’: a hermeneutical analysis

This essay explores how social psychologically the social structure of capitalist inequality has given rise to the Black–White achievement gap. This critical understanding is a reinterpretation of the ‘burden of acting White’ hypothesis, and suggests that research on the achievement gap should focus on how the Black–White achievement gap is more a result of two interrelated epiphenomena, ‘mismatch of linguistic structure’ and ‘mismatch of linguistic social functions’, which result from the class structure in Black America as opposed to a ‘burden of acting White’, the idea that Black students intentionally underachieve because of racialized peer pressure which, culturally, associates academic achievement and success with White Americans.     

Catastrophe,commemoration and education: On the concept of memory pedagogy

Abstract

Dealing with memories of catastrophes is undoubtedly important for education. Yet, how is such an education possible? On which theoretical basis can we describe it? In this article, I build a bridge between ‘Memory Studies’ and educational studies with regard to the topic of ‘catastrophe’ and thus present a provisional general theory of education, such as ‘Memory Pedagogy’ in analogy to ‘Memory Studies’. After describing the category ‘catastrophe’, I outline the basic differentiation between ‘communicative memory’ and ‘cultural memory’ in the field of Memory Studies. I will demonstrate how this basic differentiation can be connected to education through the concept of ‘Bildung’ in German philosophy. On the basis of these preliminary remarks, I highlight the potential of Memory Pedagogy by interpreting a case of catastrophe education, the project ‘Picture of Atomic Bomb’ (PAB). Based on the analysis of the PAB project, I insist that functions as a generator of communicative memory concerning catastrophes through education. Additionally, I point out that the transition from communicative memory (kommunikatives Gedächtnis) to cultural memory (kulturelles Gedächtnis) in the meaning of Jan and Aleida Asmann can also be observed in the PAB project.     

Projecting images of the ‘good’ and the ‘bad school’: top scorers in educational large-scale assessments as reference societies

Researchers interested in the global flow of educational ideas and programmes have long been interested in the role of so-called ‘reference societies’. The article investigates how top scorers in large-scale assessments are framed as positive or negative reference societies in the education policy-making debate in German mass media and which functions they fulfil. Top scores in large-scale assessments do not automatically promote a country to the status of a positive reference society. Whether top scorers are perceived as positive or as negative reference societies depends largely on stereotyped prior perceptions that determine how success in these assessments is framed. Among the functions positive and negative reference societies fulfil are making educational reform agendas more plausible and serving as projection screens for conceptions of the ‘good’ and the ‘bad’ school.     

China’s making and governing of educational subjects as ‘talent’: A dialogue with Michel Foucault

Abstract

As an imprint of Confucian culture, China’s education intersects state governance in making and governing educational subjects as ‘talent’, an official translation of the Chinese term ‘rencai’ (literally, human-talent). Whereas the English word ‘talent’ itself denotes ‘[people with] natural aptitude or skill’, ‘talent’ is currently mobilized in China not only as a globalized discourse that speaks to the most aspired educational subjects for the 21st century but also as a re-invoked cultural notion that relates to Confucian wisdom. Drawing upon Foucault’s biopower hypothesis and Confucian thought, this paper leverages upon China’s unique manipulation of ‘talent’ as certain skills and human subjects, both cultivable through education, to problematize China’s talent making and governing in two dimensions. First, it unpacks the various technologies of power entangled in China’s talent making and governing within its ‘state governance’ paradigm. Second, it unpacks Confucian thought as an archaeological prototype for China’s present talent appeal, meanwhile explicating their divergences in defining ‘human’, ‘talent’, and the human-talent interpellation. In so doing, this paper makes two arguments. First, the linguistic notion of ‘talent’ functions as a Foucauldian apparatus of biopower, making (up) new kinds of people and normalizing a certain population as the objective/object of China’s state governance. Second, CPC’s re-invocation of Confucian talent discourses is more of a rhetorical strategy than an authentic cultural renaissance gesture.     

A systematic form of Japanization in Okinawa: Japanese identity construction through a Japanization discourse in textbooks and a textbook guide

This research examines some modes of Japanization through education in Okinawa where Japanese influences on education have permeated after Japan’s annexation. I investigate how a book excerpt entitled Mizu no Tōzai, included in high school textbooks in Okinawa, constructs Japanese identity. Mizu no Tōzai functions as nihonjinron discourse, which is characterized by ‘Japanese culture,’ ‘Japanese uniqueness,’ and ‘Japaneseness.’ The ‘East-West’ dichotomy, depicted in this nihonjinron discourse, induces students to choose ‘Japan’/‘Japanese culture’ and become ‘Japanese.’ Practice sections of Mizu no Tōzai in textbooks as well as a textbook guide operate to be complicit in this Japanese identity construction. Through a critical analysis of discourse, I reveal that the nihonjinron discourse operating as official knowledge, in collusion with the other discursive texts, produces a position subjected to the discourse of Japanization within which Okinawans become ‘Japanese.’ I problematize these discursive texts as a systematic form of Japanizing Okinawans’ minds through education.     

The problematic context of mentoring: evidence from an English language teaching department at a Turkish university

‘Mentoring’ has become the central issue of the ‘restructuring programme’ in education faculties in Turkey since 1998. This study aims to explore the participants’ perceptions and experiences about the concepts of ‘mentor’ and ‘mentoring’. A mentor and six English Language Teaching Department (ELT) students, who were in the final year of their training programme, participated in the study. A qualitative case study methodology was employed and data were collected through semi‐structured interviews with faculty students and mentors, semi‐structured journals kept only by the faculty students and debriefing notes kept only by the researcher. The findings demonstrate important issues about the nature, functions, benefits, and problems of the mentoring experienced by the faculty students at the particular department such as the need for developing selection criteria and training programmes for mentors and organising regular meetings and seminars about the partnership programme for mutual understanding and sharing opinions. Drawing on the data, recommendations and implications are suggested.     

The UK National Student Survey: An amalgam of discipline and neo-liberal governmentality

The UK National Student Survey (NSS) has high status on the agenda of UK universities. Its rise in status is linked to its influence on national rankings and associated funding streams referenced to the Teaching Excellence Framework (TEF). Consequently, many universities have implemented further assessments of student satisfaction, thereby putting additional internal performative pressures on courses and individual lecturers. The research contribution of this article comprises an analysis of the NSS through Foucault's notion of ‘governmentality’, with a particular focus on his work on ‘discipline’ and ‘neo-liberal governmentality’. More specifically, by utilising qualitative data from interviews, research diaries and observations, it will be demonstrated how the NSS functions as a ‘disciplinary’ technology of government which subjects lecturers, departments and universities to intersecting panoptic gazes and perpetual ratings. In addition, the NSS can also be considered ‘neo-liberal’ in that it governs the academic population through narrow conceptions of ‘freedom’ and omnipresent competition. The article proposes that it is through the amalgamated forces of intersecting panoptic gazes, on the one hand, and neo-liberal free-market principles, on the other, that student feedback develops its power to govern.     

Greening agricultural education at the tertiary level: a case study

Abstract

College curricula are broadening to take into account environmental imperatives, the relatively slow rate of economic and policy change, along with the welter of technical detail which has been generated by agricultural development, militate against successful systematic environmental teaching. This is particularly true within a private institution which must be seen to be serving the immediate needs of the agricultural business community. It is useful in this context to consider the ‘natural environment’ as comprising: the ‘immediate’ countryside, where ‘nature’ functions under differing degrees of managerial constraint; the global environment, where non-sustainable resource use takes its toll; and the environment of the organisation, where ‘environmental soundness’ of practice and products can be assessed. A teaching strategy is suggested where these three ‘environments’ are addressed at the levels of the functional, natural science-based: the societal, embracing legislative and structural responses to pressures; and the level of individual managerial responsibility. The relative emphasis on each element can be adjusted to reflect individual course aims, with modular core teaching networked into allied subject syllabi in a rolling process of adaptation and compromise. The latter should extend to the college’s own activities in land and business management to legitimise the teaching strategy.     

Occupational transitions as a relational project

Looking at ‘biographical learning’ as part of a work transition, the aim of this paper is to investigate how social relations enable and constrain such a learning process in outplacement clients. To examine the process, its character and social conditions, the study draws on interviews with workers who had been made redundant and were enrolled at an outplacement agency. The interviews were analysed using a comparative cross-case analysis. A distinction was made between ‘strong’ (long-term and intimate), ‘weak’ (short-term and non-intimate) and ‘formal’ (e.g., professional counsellors) relations. Findings showed that strong and formal relations were rather influential on people's engagement in biographical learning while weak relations were important to the straightforward career. Since transitions in late modern society has become not only a passage but also a learning option, the different sources and functions of social relations should be considered a vital part of outplacement counselling. Future research should examine more closely both parties in strong relationships and the (joint) process of career decision-making inherent in occupational transitions.     

Gender ‘matters’ in the primary classroom: Pupils' and teachers' perspectives

A recent project involving Year 3 (seven–eight year‐old) pupils and their teachers revealed that ‘gender matters’ differently to boys and girls, and teachers. The study sought to elicit whether pupils and their teachers felt the gender of a teacher mattered to their experiences of schooling. Pupils were concerned about how effective teachers were in carrying out their professional functions and a teacher's gender was subsumed within this. For these pupils, ‘gender mattered’ in terms of the construction of their own gender identities. In contrast, teachers were aware of and attentive to the gender of pupils in managing and organising classroom interactions. The variety of differing views expressed and positions adopted towards the place of gender in teacher–pupil interactions demonstrates the complexity of developing ‘one size fits all’ approaches to tackling gender equity in the classroom.     

Questioning ‘integrated’ disaster risk reduction and ‘all of society’ engagement: can ‘preparedness pedagogy’ help?

Abstract

AbstractThis paper contributes to the conceptual and empirical development of ‘preparedness pedagogy’. Preparedness involves learning, thus disaster risk reduction (DRR) should be discussed more in the field of education, particularly its sub-discipline of public pedagogy. Disaster risk reduction education should have an element of a pedagogy in the interest of publicness, which is an experimental pedagogy in which citizens act in togetherness to develop their own preparedness. The paper pays attention to the two phrases utilised in the recent DRR discourse – ‘integrated’ DRR and ‘participation by all’ – and examines the case of Japan, applying whole-system thinking. It is suggested that ‘the mesosystem’ of the DRR system yields relationships and learning, and thus enables collaboration, change and ‘participation by all’. Preparedness pedagogy has a role to play in this. The mesosystem functions as the confluence between state-led and community-based DRR to truly integrate the system.     

The School in Question: a comment

Abstract

In Germany the tradition of university autonomy goes back to Humboldt's reform rather than the privileged corporations of the middle ages. Humboldt's concept of the university is still fertile as a model and a method for today's universities. The social significance of science in the modern world, increased expenditure on higher education, and the academisation of a growing number of professions seem to undermine the traditional legitimation of university autonomy. On the other hand good new reasons for autonomy can be derived precisely from scepticism with regard to a naive belief in the progress of science and to an all‐too‐narrow professionalisation of university education. The ever closer interconnection between ‘academic’ and ‘public’ functions of the universities has led to the replacement of the traditional ‘dualistic administrative structure’ by a ‘unified'one under a rector/president. The dualism of functions has, however, reappeared in the distinction between ‘legal’ and ‘more extended’ supervision by ministers. For the future a more precise distinction between global regulations legitimately claimed by the state and self‐government within the framework thus set should be aimed at.     

Inspection and School Improvement

This paper questions a central assumption of OFSTED, that inspection is an effective and, moreover, a cost‐effective method for improving schools. In particular, doubts are expressed about the capacity of OFSTED inspections to identify the ‘worst’ schools and provide them with a sure mechanism for improvement. It is argued that applying OFSTED inspections to all schools discourages diversity and encourages conformity to the OFSTED school model. This would appear to be in contradiction to the Government's avowed policy of diversity and choice. A case is made for ‘reforming’ OFSTED so as to carry out a modified form of the original HMI functions of monitoring, identifying good practice and offering advice and assistance. Some further specific suggestions are given as to how the new OFSTED would operate     

Sex differences in mental strategies for single-digit addition in the first years of school

Abstract

Strategy use in single-digit addition is an indicator of young children’s numeracy comprehension. We investigated Danish primary students’ use of strategies in single-digit addition with interview-based assessment of how they solved 36 specific single-digit addition problems, categorised as either ‘error’, ‘counting’, ‘direct retrieval’ or ‘derived facts’. The proportional use of each strategy was analysed as multi-level functions of school age and sex. In a first study (260 interviews, 147 students) we found decreasing use of counting and increasing use of direct retrieval and derived facts through years 1–4, girls using counting substantially more and the other two strategies substantially less than boys, equal to more than 2 years’ development. Similar results appeared in a subsequent study (155 interviews, 83 students), suggesting that the pattern is pervasive in Danish primary schools. Finally, we ask whether sex differences in strategy use is generally under-reported since many studies do not explicitly address them.     

Toward a Postmodern Notion of Human Rights

Abstract

A central element of Richard Peters’ philosophy of education has been his analysis of ‘education as initiation’. Understanding initiation is internally related to concepts of community and what it may mean to be a member. The concept of initiation assumes a mutually interdependent, dynamic relationship between the individual and community that claims to be justified on cognitive, moral and practical grounds. Although Peters’ analysis is embedded in a different discourse, his insights are relevant to current discourse on the individual in community. A fruitful conversation can be developed between Peters’ account of the learner’s ‘initiation’ into ‘bodies of knowledge and awareness’ and Alasdair MacIntyre’s concept of ‘practices’; and how both assume a notion of ‘tradition’ within partly overlapping accounts of ‘community’. Secondly, I will consider how ‘initiation’ touches the concept of ‘social justice as membership’ developed by current philosophers, Michael Sandel and Michael Walzer, and what import Peters’ analysis has for different degrees of active and passive membership and participation. Thirdly, I will consider Charles Taylor’s ‘social imaginary’ as a contextual framework for processes surrounding ‘education as initiation’. This article does not argue that Peters’ concept of initiation cannot be contested at some points but rather that it can inform, and be informed by, the conversation with those who contend that community is itself a good essential for human flourishing.