The post-truth tyrannies of an evidence-based hegemony

Abstract

A trend towards evidence-based practice has developed in policy and practice in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Australia in recent years, evolving to become a powerful hegemonic force. This paper considers this latest impetus to teach according to the mandates of a narrow evidence base as a symptom of the post-truth condition, one that elevates a limited body of evidence to an infallible position. Drawing on interviews with practicing teachers and critical discourse analysis of policy texts, this paper explores the homogenizing effects of a tyrannical evidence-based movement, using Antonio Gramsci’s (1971) writing on the relationship between consent, coercion, and the maintenance of cultural hegemony. This paper argues that the contemporary policy landscape obtains consent from teachers to accept its claims through a coercive paradigm built from a powerful set of hegemonic discourses, such as “what works” and “evidence-based.” These discourses, this paper suggests, need to be considered within the current post-truth context, where the dismissal of research claims is akin to scientific skepticism; a dynamic that places teachers in an impossible bind where the evidence underpinning policy is protected by a paradigm that makes it difficult to question.

Erasure, expert/ise, and educational “choice”: A poststructuralist perspective of Kansas educational bills in 2023

“…Consequently, it is worth employing CDA to examine the socio-political and ideological factors shaping education policy's creation, enactment, and influence and the hegemonies that inspire them (Aydarova, 2021;Gee, 2014). By framing policies from a poststructuralist orientation, policies then exist as agentive text or content and inclusive of particular values, beliefs, and ideologies (Cardno, 2019;Winton, 2013), demonstrating their capacity to create and sustain particular regimes of truth that subsequently transform the educational landscape and the distribution of power within it (Foucault, 1982;Wescott, 2022).…”

“…Gramsci's (1971) notion of hegemony highlights how regimes of "truth" become normalized through pervasive institutional and government entrenchment, amounting to maintaining particular beliefs, ideas, and values as unequivocal, necessary, and common sense (Foucault, 1982). However, truth regimes can conflict with or enhance broad skepticism toward fact and scholarly expertise (Wescott, 2022). While forced consensus-building around educational hegemonies that privilege certainty remains high, irrefutability exists around more restrictive policies and hegemonies that lack facts or evidence (Lather, 1993;Wescott, 2022).…”

“…However, truth regimes can conflict with or enhance broad skepticism toward fact and scholarly expertise (Wescott, 2022). While forced consensus-building around educational hegemonies that privilege certainty remains high, irrefutability exists around more restrictive policies and hegemonies that lack facts or evidence (Lather, 1993;Wescott, 2022). In this way, governing bodies-or the loudest and most influential voices-remain strategically positioned to establish these uncontested truth regimes (Aydarova, 2021).…”

“…Such a process becomes particularly salient through policy, used to conceal more egregious aims and inequities through broad, more seemingly unifying and acceptable discourse. Despite their often-reactive enterprises to social and political phenomena (Nordin, 2014;Wescott, 2022), policies signify combination and compromise, reflecting complex and widespread ideological agendas, influence, and dissemination (McIntyre et al, 2019). Policy-as-text broadly appeals to and cultivates action from various audiences and stakeholders (Winton, 2013); however, policy-as-discourse shapes our thinking, notions of common sense, and limits the conjuring of other alternatives (Ball et al, 2012).…”

La Mediación Vygotskiana Una Estrategia Para Desarrollar El Aprendizaje Sociocrítico en El Aula

“…Con el paso del tiempo las noticias falsas fueron tomando lugar en los medios de comunicación digitales alrededor del planeta, haciendo que la gente se encuentre ante un sinfín de contenidos que se basan en simples rumores o incluso únicamente en opiniones, pero no en acontecimientos concretos (Sobral & Nina de Morais, 2020). Dentro de este contexto, se pueden considerar diversos factores por los cuales la desinformación se propaga entre la ciudadanía, así se tienen la sobrecarga de información (Blair, 2010;Eppler & Mengis, 2004) la cual se ha acentuado con la aparición de internet y que se ha generado debido al interés de cualquier persona por querer publicar lo que considera que es noticia o de interés público, sin previamente verificar si aquello es cierto o no; las falacias lógicas producto de discurso público (Blassnig et al, 2019;Zurloni & Anolli, 2010) que la gente persiste en creer a pesar de que exista evidencia de que no es cierto, esto debido a los perjuicios impregnados en la sociedad, y de lo cual mucha 'gente pública' se aprovecha para transmitir sus ideas o propuestas sin tener una base académica que la fundamente; la era de la posverdad (Gutiérrez-Coba & Rodríguez-Pérez, 2023;Wescott, 2022;Mariscal, 2022) en la que no se conoce el origen de la información ni tampoco si ha sido verificada o no, conllevando a que la gente tiende a creer en la primera información que coincida con sus valores sociales y profundizando el 'principio del mínimo esfuerzo' (Nelson & Tugwell, 2022) en el cual las personas no buscan contrastar la información observada.…”