The great neoliberal hijack of collaboration: a critical history of group-based learning in tertiary education

ABSTRACT

This article examines the teaching of collaboration within tertiary education, critiquing the hegemony of a neoliberal mandate. This review of academic literature first identifies the significance of social capital and an intrinsic motivation to collaborate, to theorize how an important and complex graduate attribute (termed here ‘collaborative dexterity’) might be approached by pedagogy. This leads into a historical analysis of research into higher education, revealing how the instrumentalization of collaboration to enhance the private advantage of learners continues to pervade academia’s understanding of collaboration. As higher education transitioned from learning ‘through’ collaboration to learning ‘to’ collaborate, extrinsic motivations for collaboration were promoted further through assessment procedures, maintaining a narrow economic-exchange approach to collaboration. These educational practices inhibit the development of collaborative dispositions, foster self-interest and ultimately limit graduates’ preparation for the needs of collaborative work environments. Moreover, while educational scholarship has extensively explored why collaboration is important and how it may be assessed, much less consideration has been given to how collaboration might actually be taught within diverse disciplinary areas in tertiary education. This suggests an urgent need for further research into how collaboration is taught within tertiary education, in ways that extend beyond a neoliberal conceptualization of collaboration.     

The mathematics problem: the construction of a market-led education discourse in the Republic of Ireland

Educational change in the neoliberal state is permeated by the effects of forces from outside the field of education itself. The process of governmentality welcomes, indeed demands, the participation of those non-state actors valorised by neoliberalism as well as government agencies dedicated to the advancement of such groups. Inevitably, the concerns of such organisations become central to how the state sees education. This article traces the assembly of national and international agents from industry, business and special interest groups around the concept of ‘knowledge economy’. It treats this assemblage as an apparatus (dispositif), examining how the construction of an economic problem is brought to bear on the demand for educational change, and how this construction of the problem is used to shape public opinion in order to prepare the public for a radical change of direction. Confining itself to the reform of mathematics education introduced in the Republic of Ireland in 2010, this article traces the emergence of a mathematics discourse focused on market-led education. It interrogates the construction of ‘the mathematics problem’ or ‘crisis in maths’ and argues that the discourse of the present construction is economic in nature, centring as it does on human capital production and market-led reform.     

The future of higher education in Ireland: a postcolonial perspective

The transformation that Irish higher education (HE) has undergone since the mid-2000s has been particularly rapid and unidirectional. Following the Global Financial Crisis, the Irish Government sought to take control of tertiary education in an attempt to shield the country from future economic shocks. This paper succinctly discusses the circumstances leading to the current policy position and what these changes have meant for Irish HE. A postulation that neoliberalism will inevitably deepen further within Irish HE will be explored through the lens of Postcolonial theory. In conclusion, I will show that the application of this theoretical stance may succeed in buffering many of the effects of neoliberalism to ensure ample space in HE for all subject areas and disciplines.     

Adult literacy practitioners and employability skills: resisting neo-liberalism?

We draw on theories of policy enactment to explore the ways in which the situated, material and external contexts and professional cultures in adult literacy in the UK have influenced practitioners. Our analysis of the transnational (OECD, EU) and UK external policy contexts found that skills-related education is prioritised, with a focus on economic growth through increased productivity and accountability. This can lead to a narrow conceptualisation of literacy as a set of information processing skills needed for employment that limits the curriculum so that the knowledge of the participants is ignored. However, our findings show that there is not a one-way flow from the transnational to the local. Instead, literacy practitioners translate and enact policy texts based on their situated contexts and professional cultures leading to approaches to teaching and learning that keep learners and their goals at the centre of the curriculum. We conclude that shared understandings of good practice and an underpinning value system, along with creative ways of delivering pre-set outcomes, allow practitioners to resist to some extent the neoliberal discourse whilst meeting the requirements of policy and funding. However, how feasible delivering this alternative curriculum is over the longer term remains to be seen.     

从公费师范生到补习讲师:男性学前教师的职业选择与身份认同——基于新自由主义视角的个案剖析

以福柯新自由主义治理术为理论视角,采取质性研究取向的个案研究方法,本研究通过对一名违约进入补习行业的男性学前教育公费师范生进行半结构式访谈,并借助文件资料分析,探讨公费师范生选择成为补习讲师的原因、过程及其身份认同,结果发现在结构性限制条件下,对于违约的学前教育公费师范生而言,进入补习机构既是次优选择也是更优选择;公费师范生系统的学前教育学习经历使其产生了补习讲师也是教师的身份认同,不存在补习讲师身份和主流学校教师身份之间的对立冲突。政府应加强监管,补习行业应加强自律,并通过与师范院校合作,以订单式培养、在职培训等方式提高补习机构的师资水准,以引导补习机构更好地发挥其吸纳就业的积极社会作用,在为公费师范生提供更多的职业选择机会的同时,助力其对自身教师身份的认同。     

The spread of private tutoring in English in developing societies: exploring students’ perceptions

ABSTRACT

Although research on private tutoring has gained visibility in recent years, private tutoring in English (PT-E) has not received notable attention. This paper examines students’ perceptions of PT-E in Bangladesh in terms of its necessity and helpfulness, peer pressure in PT-E participation and ethicality of PT-E practice and government intervention. Our analysis of survey data (N?=?572) leads to characterising PT-E and explaining the reasons for its popularity. As a popular learning space beyond formal schooling, PT-E is available in various forms and quality catering to the purchasing power of different social groups. We argue that students may resort to PT-E not because of its proven effectiveness but because of their declining faith in school English teaching. The paper contributes to our understanding of the complex interactions between the curricular (school) and non-curricular (PT-E) settings and family socioeconomic resources in the teaching of English as a globally desired language.     

Internationalisation of higher education: A critical analysis of the intercultural dimension of a visiting scholar programme

This article reports the findings of a study on the intercultural dimension of internationalisation at two universities, located in China and Canada, as evidenced through their visiting scholar (VS) programme. Andreotti and her research team identified three articulations of internationalisation in higher education that are located in a modern/colonial imaginary. They propose a fourth articulation, relational trans-localism, that is located outside the modern/colonial imaginary. As participants in the VS programme, we used critical ethnography and critical discourse analysis to investigate the influences of the modern/colonial articulations on the intercultural dimension of the program, and our attempts to develop practices outside the modern/colonial imaginary. Our findings show that although the programme was profoundly affected by neoliberal and liberal discourses, we achieved some success in creating spaces of relational trans-localism. We conclude by identifying the factors that were enabling of these alternative spaces.     

瑞典新近公共教育改革中的“新右”取向及其实效评析

福利国家于20世纪80年代开始进入体制的转型期。同一时期,世界性的公共教育改革流行病就连瑞典这样的原本是远离市场、高度集权、强化集体概念的北欧小国也概莫能外。在新自由主义等新右思想影响之下,瑞典公共教育中渐次出现了市场化、民营化、学校竞争、权力下放、扩大父母选择权以及目标导向的绩效管理等改革举措。然而,瑞典所推行的这些右转性公共教育改革的实效至今仍毁誉参半,教育公平等基本问题更是需要冷静分析。     

Pedagogy of the anxious: rethinking critical pedagogy in the context of neoliberal autonomy and responsibilization

Critical pedagogy, and the work of Paulo Freire in particular, understands the struggle for emancipation as involving the emergence, as historical subjects, of those who have been marginalized. In this regard, this tradition could be said to foreground a politics of the subject as central to its philosophy. However, scholars of critical pedagogy have not adequately attended to the reorganization of subjectivity that neoliberalism itself proposes. In the context of a pervasive anxiety produced by contemporary processes of precarity and fragmentation, neoliberalism asks us to understand ourselves on the basis of principles of individual responsibility, autonomy, and competition. Starting from the Foucauldian notion of governmentality and the Lacanian notions of drive and desire, I describe how this neoliberal recomposition of the subject poses a challenge to key principles in critical pedagogy. Thus, Freire’s account of the paralysis that characterizes the oppressed stands in contrast to the particular autonomy and hypermobility that neoliberalism demands. Likewise, the privileging of the sphere of consciousness in Freire overlooks the structure of libidinal investments within neoliberal circuits of consumption and communication. This interrogation has implications for critical education in the present, which I argue should invite students to betray the compulsions of their anxious autonomy in favor of a collective commitment and enlivened agency.     

Process implementation perspective on neoliberal regulation: a comparative analysis of national curricula and standards-based reforms in the USA and Australia

ABSTRACT

This comparative case study adopts a process implementation perspective on neoliberal regulation to explore developments in national curricula and standard-based reforms in the USA and Australia. Date sources include research reports, books, OECD data, and local survey data. The comparison of the dynamic of two countries reveals that whereas policymakers in the USA adopted a transforming regulatory strategy (targeting the ambiguity and conflict levels in local policy) to implement, Australian policymakers adopted a congruence regulatory strategy (ratifying ambiguity and conflict levels). As a result of this dynamic, the education system in the USA displays a relatively tighter structure, which is related to the tighter professional teaching culture. The analysis suggests that the effect of global ideas and policies adopted locally depends on policymakers’ regulatory strategy, and that local system change drastically only when policymakers adopt the neoliberal default preference for active transformative implementation. Hence, a specific implementation dynamic is a key factor in the global neoliberal agenda, and its presence or absence indicates convergence or divergence between countries adopting similar policies.