Education for Education’s Sake: The Idea of a Thing-Centred Pedagogy

The article investigates the instrumentalizing and ontological effects of the concept of equality of educational opportunity (EEO). Starting with the Coleman report ( Coleman et al., 1966 ), through the democratization of secondary and tertiary education, and reading it in light of the recent debate on educationalization of social problems ( Smeyers and Depaepe, 2008 ), the text inquires what has become of education under the influence of this powerfull concept. The evolution of this becoming is shaped by the paradox of equal treatment and selection, two fundamental principles on which the EEO ideal is based. ( Dubet, 2008 ). The objectivity of evaluation and comparability of results that this ideal implies sets EEO as one of the most important bases for the development of quantitative evaluation and testing, thus transforming the curriculum and shaping educational practices ( Stańczyk, 2013 ; Terrail, 2002 ). Moreover, the EEO principle brings the educational system to legitimize social inequalities: since it means treating students equally while they have to be ranked and come out segregated, the belief in inequality of intelligence is being reinforced, and inequalities are educationalized instead of being alleviated. Finally, the research shows that EEO policy and the EEO concept is pedagogically empty, mainly serving as an expression, or allegory of our concern with social inequalities ( Labaree, 2008 ; Rancière, 2002 ), with no real educational means serving this concern. The good news here is that such emptiness leaves room for practices of pedagogical equality being invented and introduced into the school.

Section: Conclusion: Eeo – An End Without Meansmentioning

confidence: 99%

The empty form of fairness: Equality of educational opportunity as an instrumentalizing force in education

Blumsztajn

2020

“…In other words, we are speaking of education being a hegemonic construction where, in situations where something is identified as an object of exclusion (educational policies are very productive in construing such objects of exclusion – mediocrity, poverty, teen pregnancies, inadequate qualifications or hate speech in social media) education becomes identified by a particular element that precariously defines what education is about: equal opportunities, employability, critical competence, excellence, new media literacy, intercultural awareness and the like. Interestingly, the non-instrumental turn in education theory is not free of such investments, and – in order to oppose instrumentalism – it identifies education with study (Lewis, 2015), free time, or schole (Masschelein and Simons, 2013), love for the world (Vlieghe and Zamojski, 2019, see also this issue), and so on. Each of these attempts can be read as a hegemonic claim whereby other demands are represented as excluded, ‘embraced’, or merely tolerated by such hegemonic attempts.…”

Section: What Is Education When Society Is Impossible?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Education is society … and there is no society: The ontological turn of education

Carusi

Szkudlarek

2020

Recent work in education research and policy studies has been critical of the view that sees education as a fix for social problems. This perspective invites a reconsideration of the relationship between education and society that breaks from the long held instrumental assumptions informing most education theory and policy, wherein education is a means to a fully reconciled society. Drawing on Ernesto Laclau’s argument for the impossibility of society, this article considers the ontology of education in light of society’s impossibility. Referring to previous work on rhetorics and tropes in education policy and theory, we discuss how ‘ontological rhetorics’ in the discourse of education create the objects on and through which it operates. By focusing on the ontology of education, we are able to theorize education as more than and different from its role as a means to an end. Expanding the way Laclau and Mouffe use Althusser’s notion of overdetermination, we speak of education as beyond and excessive to the demands of the social, making education a tropological register of the social through which we continually encounter the impossibility of society. Rather than being effective means to current forms of political power, education contributes to the production of discursive resources necessary for the construction of any political entity, for configurations of the political understood as the ontological process of creating the frameworks of social life.

“…Here Vlieghe and Zamojski’s reference to Leonard Bernstein as a public pedagogue is important to note. For the authors, Bernstein is an example of masterful teaching refuting the concept of the teacher as someone who has “absolute knowledge” or is in “a position of maximal control” (Vlieghe and Zamojski, 2019: 108) because of the proper training and correct skills, talents, and competencies. Instead, Bernstein is a master because of his manner.…”

Section: Allowingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In fact, I would go further and argue that the three can be viewed as increasingly more comprehensive expressions of inoperativity. Further, I will pair each with a particular educational example such as the passionate teacher (Vlieghe and Zamojski, 2019), the silent teacher (Jasinski, 2015), and the studier (Lewis, 2013, 2017). In all cases, education is released from its purported ends, and therefore redeemed from the risk of instrumentalization.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Education for potentiality (against instrumentality)

Lewis

2020

In this article, the author problematizes two well-known positions on the relationship between means and ends in education. On the one side, there are those who problematize the means of education without necessarily redefining its ends, and on the other hand, there are those who challenge the purported ends of education while maintaining certain means. These two positions can take any number of progressive and conservative forms. While there are virtues to these projects, this article argues that both take for granted an underlying sense of education as a means to an end, and thus lend themselves to some version of instrumentality. Proposing a radically different formulation, this article turns to Giorgio Agamben and his notions of the impotential act, pure means, and use. The author suggests that the current challenge to think education beyond instrumentality ought to conceptualize education not as a means to an end or an end in itself but as a pure means. The article then offers three versions of education as a pure means: allowing, preferring not to, and contemplating. Each of these examples proposes a specific kind of inoperative, non-instrumental form of educational life for teachers and studiers, respectively.