Tsang Wing- kwong wktsang@cuhk.hk

1. Topic TwoEducation Policy in Search of the Societal Context: Changes in Societal Foundations at the Turn of the 21st Century PEDU 6210 Education Policy and Society(Spring, 2019) Tsang Wing-kwong wktsang@cuhk.edu.hk

2. The Rise of Modern Educational System • Emile Durkheim’s 1905’s lecture on the Evolution of Education Thought in France • The first course of the sociology of education in modern university • The evolution of education as a social institution and its morphogenesis in response to the evolution of the social structure in France

3. (1858-1917)

4. The Rise of Modern Educational System • The Stanford school of educational institution as world system • John Meyer and his students’ thesis of convergence of educational institutions into the world system • John Meyer’s thesis of convergence of world system and world culture in education • Ramirz and Boli’s historical studies of the rise of mass education in Western Europe

5. The Rise of Modern Educational System • The Stanford school … • The Thesis of the Political Construction of Mass Education • The rise of European model of national society • The rise of nation-state and the intensification of inter-state conflict • The Reformation in Christianity and counter-Reformation • The rise of the exchange economy

6. The Rise of Modern Educational System • The Stanford school … • Education as a World Culture Institution • Ontological basis of modern education • primary unit: individual child • organizational unit: school • role unit within organization: principal, teacher and student • institutional unit: nation-state • Structural basis of modern education • free, egalitarian, compulsory and rational • professionalized personnel • standardized and certified product

7. The Rise of Modern Educational System • The Stanford school … • Education as a World Culture Institution • Legitimation basis of modern organization • enhances labor productivity • creates good citizenship • provides opportunities for self-fulfillment • increase national well-being, security, political stability • facilitates democracy, liberty and equality

8. The Rise of Modern Educational System • The statement of the problem: How education institution evolves in response to the changes in societal foundation?

9. Changes in Societal Foundations at the Turn of the New Millennium At the turn of the new millennium, a number of sociologists have characterized the fundamental changes in the societal foundations of human society with various terminologies. For examples, post-industrial society (Bell, 1976), knowledge society (Bell, 1976; Ducker, 1993), informational or digital society (Webster, 1995), network society (Castell, 1996), global society and post-traditional (Giddens, 1994; 2003), risk society (Beck, 1992), liquid modern society (Bauman, 2000, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007), etc.. Each of these scholars has formulated different characterizations in depicting the fundamental changes confronting human societies in the 21st century.

10. Changes in Societal Foundations at the Turn of the New Millennium • Post-industrial and knowledge society (Bell, 1976) • Informational and digital society (Castells, 1996) • Global and post-traditional society (Harvey, 1989; Giddens, 1994; Bauman, 1998; Ritzer, 2011; Castells, 1996) • Network society (Castell, 1996) • Risk society (Beck, 1992, 1999, 2009) • liquid modern society (Bauman, 2000, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007), etc.

18. Changes in Societal Foundations at the Turn of the New Millennium • Post-industrial and knowledge society: • “The concept of ‘post-industrial society’ emphasizes the centrality of theoretical knowledge as the axis around which new technology, economic growth and the stratification of society will be organized.” (Bell, 1976, P. 112)

19. Changes in Societal Foundations at the Turn of the New Millennium • Post-industrial and knowledge society: • Knowledge and post-capitalist society: “In capitalist society the axial institution has been property and in the post-industrial society it is the centrality of theoretical knowledge. …Yet while property remains as an important base, technical skill becomes another, sometimes rival, base with education means of access to the attainment of technical skill.” (Bell, 1976, P. 115)

20. Changes in Societal Foundations at the Turn of the New Millennium • Informational and digital society • The concept of informational society refers to the ideas that information has replaced knowledge, especially theoretical knowledge as Bell indicated, to become the axis and centrality of the late-modern society. It emphasizes that information, which can broadly be construed “as communication of knowledge”, can be disseminated and obtained, i.e. communicated, much more convenient in terms of speed, coverage and volume than knowledge.

21. Changes in Societal Foundations at the Turn of the New Millennium • Informational and digital society… • Accordingly, Manuel Castells the conception of “informational society” indicates the attribute of a specific form of social organization in which informational generation, processing, and transmission become the fundamental sources of productivity and power.”(Castells, 1996, P. 21)

22. Idea, Meaning, Belief, Commitment Information Knowledge, (Justified Belief) Signal Message Wisdom, Master idea Data External Environment Human Being (Life system) Organize, Communicate (Digitalize, Globalize) Sediment Attend Systemize & justify Interpret

23. Changes in Societal Foundations at the Turn of the New Millennium • Informational and digital society… • As the information technology develops into digital in format and transmitted through fiber optics and laser, some theorists have proposed that the informational society has transformed into digital society. Messages in communication have not only been transmitted much faster in speed, but have been transformed from typographic formats to virtual images. As a result, human knowledge and wisdom of depth and thickness have given ways to sensational images and virtual reality

24. Changes in Societal Foundations at the Turn of the New Millennium • Global and post-traditional society • David Harvey (1989) in The Condition of Postmodernity defines globalization as “time-space compression”. It signifies “processes that so revolutionize the objective qualities of space and time that we are force to alter … how we represent the world to ourselves.” (p. 240) • Anthony Giddens (1994) indicates that “globalization is really about the transformation of space and time. I define it as action at distance, and relate its intensifying over recent years to the means of instantaneous global communication and mass transportation.” (1994, p. 4)

25. Changes in Societal Foundations at the Turn of the New Millennium • Global and post-traditional society • Zygmunt Bauman (1998): Bauman defines globalization as “annulment of temporal/spatial distances” (1998, p.18).

29. Changes in Societal Foundations at the Turn of the New Millennium • Global and post-traditional society • Manuel Castells (1996): Castells defines globalization as a process "to overcome limits of time and space." (Castells, 1996, p. 92-93) As a result, it enables human institutions, such as the economy, and organization, such as the firm, "to work as a unit in real time on a planetary scale." (Castells, 1996, p. 92)

31. Changes in Societal Foundations at the Turn of the New Millennium • One of the consequences of globalization, as Anthony Giddens underlines, is the rise of post-traditional society. • Giddens stipulates that “A post-tradition social order…is not one in which tradition disappears — far from it. It is one in which tradition changes its status. Traditions have to explain themselves, to become open to interrogation or discourse. … In a globalizing, culturally cosmopolitan society, traditions become forced into open view: reasons or justifications have to be offered for them.” (Giddens, 1994, p.23)

32. Changes in Societal Foundations at the Turn of the New Millennium • …the rise of post-traditional society…. • As a result, one of the essential indicators of post-traditional society is the proliferation of fundamentalism. As Giddens underlines that "the rise of fundamentalism has to be seen against the backdrop of the emergence of the post-traditional society. … What is fundamentalism? It is, so I shall argue, nothing other than tradition defended in the tradition way - but where that mode of defense has become widely called into question. … In a globally cosmopolitan order … such a defense become dangerous, because essentially it is a refusal of dialogue." (Giddens, 1994, p.23)

33. Changes in Societal Foundations at the Turn of the New Millennium • Network society: As information technology permeate across the global, Maneul Castell argues that it has turned the global and informational society into the “Network Society”. He underlines that “one of key features of informational society is the network logic of its basic structure, which explains the use of the concept of ‘network society’”. (Castell, 1996, P. 21)

34. Changes in Societal Foundations at the Turn of the New Millennium • Logic of network: In contrast with the atom logic of the industrial and modern society, network logic as an axial principle of social and organizational practice indicate that:

35. Changes in Societal Foundations at the Turn of the New Millennium • “The Atom is the past. The symbol of science for the next century is the dynamical Net … Whereas the Atom represents clean simplicity, the Net channels the messy power of complexity. …The only organization capable of nonprejudiced growth, or unguided learning is a network. All other typologies limited what can happen. A network swarm is all edges and therefore open ended any way you come at it. Indeed, the network is the least structured organization that can be said to have any structure at all. …In fact a plurality of truly divergent components can only remain coherent in a network. No other arrangement – chain, pyramid, tree, circle, hub – can contain true diversity work as a whole.” (Kelly, 1995, p.25-27 quoted in Castells, 1996, note71, Pp. 61-62)

36. Changes in Societal Foundations at the Turn of the New Millennium • Logic of network: …The network logic also elicits the following characteristics of social and organizational practice in human society • Flexibility: The fluid structure of the network and its IT basis provide the network with high degree of modifiabity, reversibility, and reconfigurability. In one word, flexibility has become one of the definitive features of IT network.

37. Changes in Societal Foundations at the Turn of the New Millennium • Logic of network: …social and organizational practice in human socoeity… • Convergence: Built on the above-mentioned features of IT network, the network also equips with high degree of compatibility and convertibility, with other systems. • Pervasiveness: With its conversable and flexibility, IT has rendered such penetrating capacities that it has practically invaded into every aspects of human activities. IT has pervaded into every corner of informational society.

38. Changes in Societal Foundations at the Turn of the New Millennium • Logic of network: … • Space of flow: One of prominent consequences of the permeation of the network logic characterized by Castells is that the conception of physical spaces has been replace by space of flow as the fundamental axis of social practice.

39. Changes in Societal Foundations at the Turn of the New Millennium • Logic of network: … • By space of flow, Manuel Castells (1996) refers to the profound change brought about by the global-informational infrastructure, which constitutes the separation of simultaneous social practices from physical contiguity, that is time-sharing social practices are no long embedded in locality of close proximity and/or within finite boundary. As a result, the traditional notion of space of places has been transformed into space of flows. In informational network, such as the internet, "no place exists by itself, since the positions are defined by flows." There is practically no boundary, no concepts of center or periphery, no beginning or end. It is all but flows. (Castell, 1996, Ch. 6)

40. Changes in Societal Foundations at the Turn of the New Millennium • Logic of network: … • Timeless time: Another profound brought about by the spread of global-informational technology is the transformation of the conception of time in human society. Time is no longer comprehended in terms of localities around the globe according to the international time-zones. Human activities around the global can be coordinated "simultaneously" in disregard of conception of local time, such as morning, evening, late at night, etc. Furthermore, with the aid of IT, the conventional linear, sequential, diachronic concepts of time has been disturbed. "Timing becoming synchronic inflate horizon, with no beginning, no end, no sequence." (Castells, 1996, p. 74; see also, Ch.7)

41. Changes in Societal Foundations at the Turn of the New Millennium • Risk society: Ulrich Beck, a German Sociologist, has coined the concept of risk society to stipulate • , which he names reflexive modernization to distinguish from the older modernization relating to industrial revolution, scientific revolution or even Enlightenment. By reflexive, Beck stipulates that it “does not mean reflection, but above all self-confrontation.” (Beck, 1999, P. 73) That is, the self-evident progresses, which scientific and technological developments bring, are put under critical examination.

43. Changes in Societal Foundations at the Turn of the New Millennium • Risk society: • By risk, it refers to the dangers that are generated in the course of industrial and technological developments but are calculable, manageable and even controllable. The concept has been spawned from the Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It assumes that human beings with their reasons and rationality are capable of not only to apprehend the operations of the natural and even social environments but also to master and engineer them for their own interests and utilities. (Beck, 1992; 1999)

44. Changes in Societal Foundations at the Turn of the New Millennium • Risk society: • By risk society, it refers to the social configurations, in which “the calculation of risk as it has been established so far by science and legal institutions collapses.” (Beck, 1992, P. 22) In other words, incalculabilities and threats are the pivotal feature risk society. In Beck’s own words, “under the surface of risk calculation new industrialized, decision-produced incalculabilities and threats are spreading within the globalization of high risk industries, whether for warfare or welfare purposes.” (Beck, 1992, P. 22)

45. Changes in Societal Foundations at the Turn of the New Millennium • Risk society: • …. In short, “in risk society the unknown and unintended consequences (of industrial and technological developments) come to be a dominant force in history and society.” (Beck, 1992, P. 22)

46. Changes in Societal Foundations at the Turn of the New Millennium • Liquid modern society: • Beck in his thesis of risk society also underlines that one of the social effects of late modernity is the process of “individualization” that members of risk society have to undergo. By individualization in late modernity, it refers to “a triple ‘individualization’: disembedding, removal from historically prescribed social forms and commitments in the sense of traditional contexts of dominance and support (the ‘liberating dimension’); the loss of traditional security with respect to practical knowledge, faith and guiding norms (the ‘disenchantment dimension’); and …re-embedding, a new type of social commitment (the ‘control’ or ‘reintegration dimension’). (Beck, 1992, p. 128)

47. Changes in Societal Foundations at the Turn of the New Millennium • Liquid modern society: • Beck further indicates that the process of “‘individualization’, disembedding and re-embedding, …do not occur by chance, nor individually, nor voluntarily, nor through diverse types of historical conditions, but rather all at once and under the general conditions of the welfare in developed industrial labour society, as they have developed since the 1960s in many Western industrial countries.” (Beck, 1994, p.13)

48. Beck’s thesis of Individualization

49. Changes in Societal Foundations at the Turn of the New Millennium • Liquid modern society: • Zygmunt Bauman, Polish-born British sociologists, injects two additional features into the thesis individualization. They are: • “’Individualization’ consists of transforming human ‘identity’ from a ‘given’ into a task and changing the actors with the responsibility for performing that task and for the consequences (also the side-effects) of their performance. ….Human being are no more ‘born into’ their identities. … Needing to become what one is is the feature of modern living - and of this living alone. …Modernity replaces the heteronomic determination of social standing with compulsive and obligatory self-determination.” (Bauman, 2000, p. 31-2)