Structuring Knowledge in an Age of Non-Structure

Sub-brand to go here Head in the Clouds and Feet on the Ground:Structuring Knowledge in an Age of Non-Structure Ronald Barnett, Institute of Education, London SRHE Higher Education Theory Symposium Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, 25-26 June 2012. r.barnett@ioe.ac.uk Centre for Higher Education Studies

Aims • Preliminary reflections on knowledge in the context of higher education • Exposing some problems • Linking knowledge, curriculum and the student experience

A recent episode • St Mary’s Univ College incident • What is a course of study in higher education? • In a marketised age, another principle enters – that of customer appeal • Bernstein – ‘recontextualisation’ (from discipline to curriculum; from K in a field of discovery to K in a field of T; but also now to a field of Lng) • & here, an intervening recontextualisation, from discipline to marketing/ projection/ presentation in the public domain. • So a course of study is an amalgam; not simply K as such; but K put to work through a range of operating principles.

Epistemological assumptions • That the requisite forms of knowledge can be identified in advance and segmented into bona fide packages • That that recontextualisation can undergo straightforwardly a further recontextualisation as the curriculum is appropriated by the student so as to form a coherent educational experience • But now: • Knowledge is less characterized by structure and more characterized by spaces of meaning-making (cf ‘Mode 2 knowledge) – a consequence of a new stage in the knowledge society, in which the means, the nature and the ownership of the production of knowledge are decentred (cf Michael P contrib) • student learning is increasingly situated amid fuzzy ‘ethno-epistemic assemblages’ (knowledge itself liquifies) • [this is not to deny ‘knowledge’ – on the contrary] • And students’ formal learning has its place among students’ total lifewide learning experiences.

Some questions • Can boundaries or anchorings be found for knowledge? • Can boundaries or anchorings be found for curricula construction? • Can anchorings be found for students’ experiences and their learning? • Can some structure be found in situation that is triply complex and fluid?

Bhaskar’s critical realism • Three layers of knowledge • Empirical • Actual • Real This generates a significant difference between ontology and epistemology: we can (and should be) ontological realists while allowing for epistemological difference and creativity.

The significance of the imagination • We should add a fourth level of knowing in/of the world – the imagination • Through the imagination, our knowledge of the real forms • But also, thro the imagination, we may identify ways in which the world falls short of its possibilities, exhibits ‘absences’ • And could be other than it is.

Forms of the imagination • The imagination does not possess a unity but exhibits many forms: • Ideological imagination • Utopian imagination • Fantastic imagination • Self-indulgent imagination

Imagination & ‘(not) living in the real world’ • the imagination faces the charge that it is not living in the real world. • but not the case that the imagination is necessarily separated from the world. • To the contrary: poets live in the real world! They engage very directly with the real world. • But, to some extent, they circumvent knowledge; and they add to knowledge in the process.

The curriculum – a project of the imagination • The forming of a curriculum is necessarily an imaginative project • It reaches out • Its elements are choices • And increasingly across fields of knowing and acting (multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary)

Learning – a further project of the imagination • Higher education – an entry into strangeness • An encounter with/ initiation into symbolic forms/ structures • But that calls for the exercise of the imagination on the student’s part • To see something previously seen as an x now as a y. • (Hence, eg, a construct such as ‘the sociological imagination’)

The problematic exposed Actually, a double problematic: 1 The calls of the world and of the imagination • - are they opposed? • To be a student: to have one’s head in the clouds and one’s feet on the ground? 2 The educator’s dilemma: structure or openness? (Furrowing or nomadism?)

The play of the imagination • To be effective, the imagination is highly structured • Any creative act – even in art, writing, poetry, music – is not only structured but has its place against a (moving) horizon of rightness (which the creative act extends) • Further, the exercise of the imagination – to see an x as a y – is to enter a dialogic community; the x is a collective representation; the y is a relational entreaty (a dialogue between the author and the audience) • Imaginative play takes place against a horizon of boundaries, much as it might (and should) break through those boundaries.

Demands of the imagination • It follows that the exercise of the imagination is highly demanding • It takes place in a real community (part of the real world) • & within a horizon/ lifeworld of discursive assumptions and social facts • The commas matter (and their equivalent in all forms of shared experience, understanding and imagination) • (Is this not why there is hand-ringing over the state of students’ basic linguistic and symbolic competences – their inability to connect with the norms of the relevant community?)

So smoothness and striations • Smoothness and striations • Nomadism among the trees • Multiplicities/ lines of flight - & rules of procedure/ velocity • The student is given space/ freedom even while being held within the furrows of the field in question • (again, these relationships will vary, depending on the field)

Recap • Levels of the argument: • The world (ontology) • Knowledge (epistemology) (these are not to be confused) • Curriculum (ways into knowledge) • Student and her/ his learning & becoming (personal authentic understanding – ‘knowing’) • [NB: These relationships (1) hold for all disciplines; (2) are profoundly different across disciplines (sciences/ humanities/ professional fields/ creative arts]

And what of the student? • The student has being in all of this; • Her/ his being • And unfolding/ becoming • Lines of becoming, of ‘deterritoritalization’ of the student • In higher education, is it to be constrained? • Yes – but infinite possibilities for self-realisation • The formation of the student’s (necessary) dispositions • - but also his/her (variable) qualities

(necessary) dispositions • A will to learn • A will to engage • A preparedness to listen • A preparedness to explore • A willingness to hold oneself open to experiences • A determination to keep going forward

(variable) qualities • Integrity • Carefulness • Courage • Resilience • Self-discipline • Restraint • Respect for others • Openness • Creativity • Independence • Collaborative

Dispositions and qualities compared • Both dispositions and qualities are natural concomitants of a genuine higher education (in which the student is stretched by the demands of a field) • The dispositions are necessary • There is optionality and variability in the qualities • There is here both structure and openness (in the becoming of the student) • A double structure in the presence of the world (even in the humanities and creative arts) and in the presence of the intellectual field • And a double openness in the increasing openness of the intellectual field and in the student’s authentic becoming in the field.

And what of the teacher? • Is there a language for this person? • A manager of voyaging amid turbulence • The teacher is janus faced; actually, in professional fields, is looking three ways at once • Has a care/ concern in each direction • (And these days for his/her institution as well) • Is a guardian of standards (of the field(s)) but also of the student’s infinite possibilities for flourishing/ becoming

Conclusions • A principle of structured becoming emerges • A structuring at multiple levels • But this is always as well an unbecoming • And a new becoming (knowledge, curricula, the student’s formation) • Poets need structure! (Language is both structure and infinite openness.) • The structures allow us glimpses of universality, even while opening infinite options (for the student; for the teacher; for the university. • The commas matter, even while there is an infinite options for expression; for the imagination • Both head in the clouds and feet on the ground. Institute of Education University of London 20 Bedford Way London WC1H 0AL Tel +44 (0)20 7612 6000 Fax +44 (0)20 7612 6126 Email info@ioe.ac.uk Web www.ioe.ac.uk

Bibliography • Bakhurst, D (2011) The Formation of Reason. Chicester: Wiley-Blackwell. • Barnett, R (2007) A Will to Learn. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill/ SRHE. • Barnett, R (2013 – in press) Imagining the University. Abingdon: Routledge. • Bernstein, B • Bhaskar, R • Butler, J, Laclau, E and Zizek, S (2000) Contingency, Hegemony, Universality: Contemporary Dialogues on the Left. London: Verso. • Deleuze, G and Guattari, F ( 2007/ 1987) A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. London: Continuum. • Feyerabend, P (2001) Conquest of Abundance: A Tale of Abstraction versus the Richness of Being. Chicago: University of Chicago. • Hughes, T (1967) Poetry in the Making. London: Faber and Faber. • Irwin, A, and Michael, M (2003) Science, Social Theory and Public Knowledge. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill. • Murphy, P, Peters, M A, Marginson, S (2010) Imagination: Three Models of Imagination in the Knowledge Economy. New York: Peter Lang. • Nielsen, T W, Fitzgerald, R and Fettes, M (2010) Imagination in Educational Theory and Practice: A Many-sided Vision. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars. • Sartre, J-P (2004/1940) The Imaginary. London: Routledge. • Wheelahan, L (2010) Why Knowledge Matters in Curriculum: a social realist argument. Abingdon: Routledge. • Wood, K (2012) Zizek: A Reader’s Guide. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.

Structuring Knowledge in an Age of Non-Structure