Navigating the neoliberal university: reflecting on teaching practice as a teacher-researcher-trade unionist

Abstract

This article reflects upon the neoliberalisation of higher education and its effects on teaching practice. It is argued that a neoliberal discourse of teaching excellence has the effect of working against, and potentially undermining, the emancipatory potential of higher education. The article reflects upon attempts to navigate disciplinary power in the neoliberal university and considers whether critical, emancipatory praxis is possible or if complicity in, and co-option by, neoliberalism is inevitable. Ultimately, it is concluded that individual teachers have some scope to pursue approaches which counter neoliberal dominance but that this is heavily constrained. A broader, collective, project will therefore be necessary if alternative (critical, emancipatory) visions of teaching and learning in higher education are to successfully challenge neoliberal hegemony and the negative effects of this in the academy.     

On being critical: uniting theory and practice through emancipatory action research

This paper engages with some of the specific issues that challenge critical practice. My argument is related to the Carr and Kemmis debate on ‘staying critical’ and to ideas expressed in my current book, Community Development: A Critical Approach. I refer to critical practice as any practice that has a transformative social justice intention, and which happens in a range of contexts from grassroots community activism to more institutionalised settings, such as hospitals or schools. My own professional base is community development, and this paper is founded on emancipatory action research developed over many years in grassroots practice. It is my view that emancipatory action research, committed to the practice of social justice, with the intention of bringing about social change, is a necessary component of critical practice. In fact, I would go so far as to say that emancipatory action research is the glue that binds critical praxis in a unity of theory and action. However, all too often collective action for change is not followed through to its greatest potential, and practice remains contextualised in the immediate, local and specific without making critical connections with the structural roots of oppression from which inequalities emanate. The result is that we constantly fixate on symptoms, and leave the root causes free to perpetuate oppressions. At the same time, we find ourselves in a globalised world marked by intensifying social divisions. So, it is my intention to raise a few issues which present challenges to get beyond sticking points in critical practice as we face times in which there is an accelerating urgency to ‘become critical’.     

Reflection on teaching and epistemological structure: reflective and critically reflective processes in ‘pure/soft’ and ‘pure/hard’ fields

We empirically explored whether academics from pure/soft and pure/hard fields engage in reflective practice on teaching differently and, if so, whether these differences could be partially explained by the epistemological structure of their discipline. Interview data from academics in pure/hard (N = 30) and pure/soft fields (N = 10) were deductively analyzed according to different types and domains of reflection as well as the nature of learning underlying these reflections. The greatest differences between the two groups were found with respect to reflection on core beliefs as well as within the domain of educational goals and purposes, both being more common in soft fields. Soft and hard fields engaged in instrumental, communicative as well as emancipatory learning about teaching but to different degrees. We propose that teaching expertise requires a disposition to engage in reflection on core beliefs, particularly but not exclusively within the domain of goals and purposes, the latter involving both communicative and emancipatory learning. The theoretical and practical implications of the study are discussed.

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Carolin KreberEmail:

     

Rethinking emancipation with Freire and Rancière: A plea for a thing-centred pedagogy

Abstract

In this article, I critically engage with a vital assumption behind the work of Paulo Freire, and more generally behind any critical pedagogy, viz. the belief that education is fundamentally about emancipation. My main goal is to conceive of a contemporary critical pedagogy which stays true to the original inspiration of Freire’s work, but which at the same time takes it in a new direction. More precisely, I confront Freire with Jacques Rancière. Not only is the latter’s work on education fully predicated on the idea of emancipation. For both Freire and Rancière, literacy initiation practice can be seen as an archetypical model for understanding the emancipatory moment in education. For both, educational practices are never neutral, as they decide to a great extent on the fate of our common world. Reflecting on similarities and differences in both their positions, I will propose to conceive of critical pedagogy in terms of a thing-centred pedagogy. As such, I take a clear position in the discussion between teacher- and student-centred approaches. According to Rancière, it is the full devotion to a ‘thing’, i.e. to a subject matter we study, which makes emancipation possible. Over and against Freire’s defense of emancipatory education, I highlight with Rancière the importance of educational emancipation.     

Business as un-usual through dislocatory moments – change for sustainability and scope for subjectivity in classroom practice

This paper makes a contribution to the debate that has been described as a tension between instrumental and emancipatory educational objectives in environment and sustainability education. The contribution involves a methodological approach (introd-) using the concept ‘dislocatory moments’, to identify and analyse moments in classroom practice that address educational objectives relating to ‘change for sustainability’ and ‘thinking and acting independently’. A case of business education, when ‘sustainable development’ is integrated in a series of lessons, is used to exemplify the approach involving analysis of the emergence and closure of a dislocatory moment and the change of logics that occur. The illustrative case shows how room for subjectivity and change can be intertwined in educational practice. It is suggested that the methodological approach could be used in empirical research of classroom practice to further knowledge about the kind of situations that contribute to ‘business as un-usual’ without compromising emancipatory education ideals.     

Global-local divides and ontological politics: feminist STS perspectives on mobile learning for community health workers in Kenya

ABSTRACT

This theoretical paper argues that Feminist Science and Technology Studies (FSTS) can help advance the emancipatory project in critical Ed Tech research. To support this claim, we deploy Tsing’s concept of ‘scale-making projects’ (2005. Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press) to connect ‘global’ narratives to ‘local’ users in a mobile learning project for Kenyan health workers. Drawing from this exemplar case, we discuss more broadly how FSTS provides useful theory and methods for tracing the trans-national power relations of digital technologies ‘on the ground’. The paper concludes by advocating for new forms of emancipatory Ed Tech research – ones framed not only within oppositional pairings such as ‘global’ versus ‘local’, but which elucidate how binaries themselves are constituted through far-flung trans-national arrays of sociomaterial practice.     

Postmodernism and the repoliticization of education

Postmodernism seriously questions the possibility of the modern project of education, because postmodern relativism seems to undermine the very possibility of justification, bothin and of education. Some educators have therefore concluded that postmodernism is the proclaimed end of education; others hold a more ambivalent stance. Educators in the critical tradition have especially criticized the depoliticizing tendencies of postmodernism.In this paper it is argued that postmodernism should not be understood as radical relativism, but as the articulation of a tension between contingency and commitment. The concern for radical plurality is identified as the typically postmodern commitment. It is argued that this commitment can also be characterized as a typically pedagogical commitment. Educators, therefore, have at least one strong reason to stay within postmodernism.In order to explore in what way postmodernism might contribute to the emancipatory interests of education, an overview is given of the feminist debate on postmodernism. This shows that the emancipatory potential of postmodernism can only be put into use by political means. The question the is, what a postmodern politics might look like. An answer to this question is found in the work of Richard Rorty, albeit that the theoretical hard core of his position — the separation between the public sphere and the private sphere — is criticized for its ideological charcter and its rather unpedagogical repercussions. After a reconstruction of the private-public-dichotomy has been given, three consequences for education are spelled out, all of which center around the conclusion that postmodernism inevitably leads to a repoliticization of education.     

Same Assessment,Different Practice: Professional consciousness as a determinant of teachers' practice in a school-based assessment scheme

The forms that assessment takes are widely recognised as determinants of educational practice. This paper, however, argues that a teacher's professional consciousness is a more fundamental determinant of teaching practice. To explore the issue, this paper examines data from a larger study which set out to examine the relationship between teachers' practice and their beliefs in the context of a mandatory school-based assessment scheme. Using a theoretical framework that advocates an emancipatory approach to educational changes, it was found that some teachers adopted a passive role regarding policy interpretation and implementation while others adopted a more critical stance in interpreting the policy requirements, demonstrating a more proactive approach in its implementation. The emancipatory approach is conceptualised in terms of three key dimensions: professional confidence, professional interpretation and professional consciousness. The findings of the study carry implications for teacher professional development.     

Ethics Education in Democratic Pluralist Contexts

In this article Olof Franck examines some prerequisites for the development of an emancipatory ethics education in pluralist contexts. He first formulates a platform for the examination with regard to Gert Biesta's educational philosophy, particularly with reference to perspectives on education, subjectification, and democracy, and then discusses the concepts of unexpectedness and risk, as these are approached and elaborated by Biesta, with reference to possible challenges when ethics is taught in pluralist contexts. Next, he poses the question: How can such an education contribute to the development of democratic dialogue and democratic relations as well as to students' subjectification — and emancipation? Franck closes with a discussion of an answer to this question that seems to follow from Biesta's approach; in it, he raises certain critical considerations with respect to that approach and also offers some suggestions for how to find ways to meet challenges to the development of democratic, emancipatory ethics education.     

Aversive education: Emersonian variations on ‘Bildung’

Abstract

The paper discusses Ralph Waldo Emerson’s thought in relation to the German Bildung tradition. For many, Bildung still signifies a valuable achievement of modern educational thought as well as a critical, emancipatory ideal which, frequently in a rather nostalgic manner, is appealed to in order to delineate problematic tendencies of current educational trends. Others, in an at times rather cynical manner, claim that Bildung through its successful institutionalization has shaped vital features of our present educational system and has thus served its time and lost its critical potential. When thinking through Emerson’s variations on Bildung I argue against the nostalgic appeals to Bildung that the criticism against it has to be taken seriously. Against the cynical assessment of Bildung having run its course, I will hold that with Emerson we can develop the idea of an ‘aversive education’ as a call for Bildung to be turned upon itself, allowing to revive it as a conceptual tool for transformation, drawing particular attention to its political dimension.     

Re-turning feelings that matter using reflexivity and diffraction to think with and through a moment of rupture in activist work

Over the past three decades, calls for alternative forms of qualitative research that require of the researcher to think deeply, differently, disruptively and diffractively have been gathering momentum. This article adds to a growing bank of possibilities for this type of work by re-turning feelings that emerged while doing insider activist work related to issues of gender in an isolated rural Australian community. The original five-year study drew on emancipatory, poststructural feminist and critical research paradigms; however, this paper takes a paradigmatic leap to fold in posthumanist and new materialist thinking as it re-turns feelings that mattered and were produced as part of the mangle of doing activist research. The paper foregrounds a different way of knowing by embracing a researcher identity that is an assemblage of shifting feelings, thoughts, physical realities, identities, temporalities, speech acts and practices. This postmodern paradox is a superposition of knowings and unknowings; certainties and uncertainties; power and powerlessness; an entanglement of relations and productions that are troubled and troubling, determined and indeterminate, comfortable and uncomfortable.     

The ignorant environmental education teacher: students get empowered and teach philosophy of nature inspired by ancient Greek philosophy

This paper presents an attempt to apply Jacques Rancière’s emancipatory pedagogy of ‘the ignorant schoolmaster’ to environmental education, which emphasises environmental ethics. The paper tells the story of a philosophy of nature project in the framework of an environmental adult education course at a Second Chance School in Greece, where adult students researched ancient Greek philosophy of nature, discovered and adopted environmental values and taught their schoolmates. The paper presents the findings of this pedagogical experiment and evaluates the benefits and the skills that students can acquire through emancipatory pedagogy and through peer teaching and learning. Α cross-disciplinary combination of emancipatory pedagogy, environmental education, philosophy of nature and environmental ethics that can empower students and strengthen their environmental conscience with emphasis in ecocentric and ecojustice values is proposed. Τhe role of the teacher as a student, who continues to investigate and learn, trusting the intelligence and the abilities of his/her students is also examined. Furthermore, it is argued that there is a need to focus on the role of philosophy of nature and environmental ethics in environmental education and, because of its wealth and subtlety, ancient Greek philosophy can contribute to this emancipatory, environmental education paradigm.     

Introducing Forum Theatre to elicit and advocate children’s views

Eliciting and advocating the voice of the child remains at the heart of international political agenda and also remains a central role for educational psychologists (EPs). Previous research indicates that EPs tend to use language-based methods for eliciting and advocating views of children. However, these approaches are often limited. Taking a case study approach this paper aims to explain how the use of Forum Theatre offers EPs a legitimate way of eliciting and advocating the views of children. The study worked with seven Year Six children to create a Forum Theatre Performance which was performed in front of the whole school (spect-actors). Focus groups were held with teachers (n = 3) and children (n = 6) from within the school. This study uses a semantic deductive thematic analysis to explain underlying emancipatory processes within the context of a small rural primary school. The results of this study support previous literature demonstrating that Forum Theatre has a wealth of emancipatory processes which might optimise the approach being used to elicit and advocate for the voice of the child. Practical applications and limitations are discussed with some suggestions for further research.     

A Critical Pedagogy of Ineffability: Identity,education and the secret life of whatever

Abstract

In this article I bring Giorgio Agamben’s notion of ‘whatever singularity’ into critical pedagogy. I take as my starting point the role of identity within critical pedagogy. I call upon Butler to sketch the debates around the mobilization of identity for political purposes and, conceding the contingent necessity of identity, then suggest that whatever singularity can be helpful in moving critical pedagogy from an emancipatory to a liberatory project (a distinction I take from Marx). To articulate whatever singularity I situate the concept within the work in which it appears, and then take a detour into Agamben’s general philosophical project. I propose that, for critical pedagogy to take whatever singularity seriously, it must uphold a respect for the ineffability of being, which entails in part the suspension of dialogue. To help flesh out what I mean by this proposal, I turn to a fragment of Lyotard’s philosophy and his critique of democracy. I conclude by addressing a pressing ontological critique of Agamben, which leads me to argue for a materialist appropriation of the figure of whatever singularity, one that is held in tension with ontological concerns of identity.     

Comparing the gender gap in educational attainment: the impact of emancipatory contexts in 33 cohorts across 33 countries

Nowadays, women outperform men in educational attainment in many countries. Still, large variation between countries remains. Emancipatory contexts in which individuals are raised might explain these differences in male–female educational attainment, both over time and across countries. This study examines individual and contextual factors that affect educational attainment of men and women for cohorts born between 1950 and 1982 across 33 countries. Possible explanations for differentiation over time and across countries relate to women’s labour market participation and an emancipatory normative climate, indicated by degree of religiosity. We employ multilevel models on data (N = 138,498) from 6 waves of the European Social Survey and the US General Social Survey (2002–2012) to test our hypotheses. Results show that a higher level of female labour market participation in early adolescence improves women’s performance in education, whereas high levels of religiosity during that phase negatively affect women’s educational attainment.     

The Promise of Freedom and the Regulation of Gender-feminist pedagogy in the 1970s

This article argues that we need to understand feminist interventions- in education and other social domains- as both emancipatory and disciplining. While it is acknowledged that feminist reforms have made many positive and desirable changes in education, this article addresses the impact of these reforms from another perspective. It analyses the normative ambitions and the utopian hopes of feminist education and suggests that the Foucauldian concepts of 'technologies of the self' and 'governmentality' offer new and fruitful ways for theorising the relation between (feminist) strategies of social, educational and personal reform. These arguments are explored in dialogue with a historical case study of 1970s feminist pedagogical reforms in Australia. The article interprets pedagogical strategies based on sex-role socialisation models as developing techniques for regulating and remaking the self and as productive of feminist truths about gender identity and difference. These pedagogies articulated feminist ambitions to reform the sex role and to produce non-sexist, self-monitoring and androgynous pupils. Such attempts to remake gender illustrate some of the ways in which feminism, while a critical social movement which has achieved genuinely emancipatory outcomes, is also necessarily a governmental and normative practice. Finally, this article underlines the imperative for properly historical and self-reflexive accounts of familiar and favoured narratives about the promise of feminism.     

Becoming connected,being caring

This paper highlights perspectives on action research in education, health and social care and was originally presented as a keynote at the International Practitioner Research Conference and Collaborative Action Research Conference in 2005. The paper links with the other conference keynote given by Stephen Kemmis, co‐author of Becoming Critical. It reflects on the importance of Being Caring in action research in the context of health and social care; particularly in relation to emotionally supporting practitioners to improve their practice in settings which do not always welcome more emancipatory or critical approaches often used in education. The paper begins by exploring the nature of practitioner research and action research in health and social care and its links with quality. It argues that health and social care professionals have often drawn their methodological understanding from the literature written by colleagues in education. This literature tends to support critical and emancipatory forms of action research, which health and social care professionals have tended to adopt in an uncritical manner. Reflecting on some of the contextual constraints in health and social care, it argues that many of these factors are beyond the control of individual practitioners and suggests a need to focus on the neglected area of emotions, in addition to, contextual issues. To illustrate the usefulness of this approach an example of psychodynamically informed action research is given. The paper concludes that in the quest to be critical, practitioner researchers/action researchers in education, health and social care may be ignoring the emotional contexts in which they work. It suggests that being caring may be the key to being critical.     

Potentials for empowerment in critical education research

Within the typology of research orientations commonly represented in the social science literature — empiricist, interpretive and critical — it is the methodologies of the critical orientation that are burgeoning. Significantly, the moral imperative in the critical theorising which drives and shapes these methodologies is empowerment and emancipation. That is to say, critical educational research is potentially empowering because of its emancipatory intent. However, as cogently argued and demonstrated by a number of researchers, “an emancipatory intent is no guarantee of an emancipatory outcome” (Acker et al., 1983: 431). Just being informed by critical theory then, is no guarantee that a critical research approach will be empowering, or be empowering in a way we recognise as significant. This paper has been prepared with two objectives in mind: to clarify three ways empowerment has been conceptualised in the literature, and to use this conceptual scheme as a template to ascertain the empowerment potentials in critical educational research methodologies.     

Can High School Achievement Tests Serve to Select College Students?

Postsecondary schools have traditionally relied on admissions tests such as the SAT and ACT to select students. With high school achievement assessments in place in many states, it is important to ascertain whether scores from those exams can either supplement or supplant conventional admissions tests. In this study we examined whether the Arizona Instrument to Measure Standards (AIMS) high school tests could serve as a useful predictor of college performance. Stepwise regression analyses with a predetermined order of variable entry revealed that AIMS generally did not account for additional performance variation when added to high school grade-point average (HSGPA) and SAT. However, in a cohort of students that took the test for graduation purposes, AIMS did account for about the same proportion of variance as SAT when added to a model that included HSGPA. The predictive value of both SAT and AIMS was generally the same for Caucasian, Hispanic, and Asian American students. The ramifications of universities using high school achievement exams as predictors of college success, in addition to or in lieu of traditional measures, are discussed.