PEDU 6210 Education Policy and Society (Spring, 2019)

1. PEDU 6210 Education Policy and Society(Spring, 2019) Dept. of Educational Administration & Policy The Chinese University of Hong Kong Tsang Wing-kwong wktsang@cuhk.edu.hk

2. Topic 6Education Policy and Knowledge Transmiision & Acquisition:Education for Knowledge of the Powerful or Powerful Knowledge PEDU 6210 Education Policy and Society(Spring, 2019)

3. ii. • The Sociology of Curriculum: • Social Realism & the Powerful Knowledge

4. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • With reference to conceptions of knowledge and truth developed by social realists, Michael Young with his collaborators have published a series of books to apply the social realist approach to knowledge to curriculum studies. ….

6. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • …. They include: The Curriculum of the Future: From the ‘New Sociology of Education’ to the Critical Theory of Learning (1998), Bring the Knowledge Back In: From Social Constructivism to Social Realism in the Sociology of Education (2008), Knowledge and the Future School: Curriculum and Social Justice (2014) (with David Lambert and others), and Curriculum and the Specialization of Knowledge (2016) In these work they have pointed out number directions for curriculum reform for te 21st century.

7. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • The conception of the powerful knowledge: • The conception of “the powerful knowledge” is advocated by Michael Young in contrast with the concept of “the knowledge of the powerful”. The latter is basically a representation of the social constructivists’ version of knowledge, in which knowledge is construed as knowledge can be constructed arbitrary according to knowers’ cultures and interests, specially, the interest of the ruling class.

8. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • The conception of the powerful knowledge: • The theoretical foundation of powerful knowledge: The conception of the powerful knowledge can trace its source back to the epistemological and ontological perspectives of critical realism and social realism. It stipulates numbers of essential features of knowledge (Young, 2016, Pp. 122-125) • Knowledge is real: It indicated that knowledge is independent of the mind of the knowers. It can independently be traced back to its ontological bases in the material and social world. Accordingly, “powerful knowledge presupposes that the natural world (as well as the social world) is real and that current knowledge is the nearest we get to what that reality is.” (Yong and Muller, 2016, P. 116)

9. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • The conception of the powerful knowledge: • The theoretical foundation of powerful knowledge: • … • Knowledge is “fallible”: In contrast to empirical realist’s assumption of reality, critical realists stipulate that reality may not be available to sensory observations. It emerges from material as well as historical and socio-cultural contexts. This is especially true for social reality, which is activity-dependent. Hence, knowledge is fallible in relation to the transformations of the world. Furthermore, the fallibility may simply invoked by the emerging potentiality of the reality, i.e. the TMSA (Transformational Model of Social Activity).

10. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • The conception of the powerful knowledge: • The theoretical foundation of powerful knowledge: • … • Knowledge is systematical revisable: Confronted by the fallibility of knowledge and the emergent features of the reality, the intellectual community in each discipline and field must develop and institutionalize a set of value and norms, as well as structures and procedures to guarantee the truthfulness and integrity of the communal practices among intellectuals in order to be able revise their state-of-the-art version of knowledge to meet with the ever emerging transformations of the world.

11. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • The conception of the powerful knowledge: • The theoretical foundation of powerful knowledge: • … • The institution of knowledge: Given the formulation of the social realism, knowledge, i.e. “justified true belief”, is accumulated efforts of generations of network of intellectual, which strive to seek truth under the attitude and vocation of truthfulness. Furthermore, these accumulated efforts have in time institutionalized into shared values and principles, structures and procedures, and organizations and communities, i.e. institutionalized into a “discipline”.

12. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • The conception of the powerful knowledge: • What is powerful knowledge? Based on the above assumptions, Michael Young has characterized powerful knowledge as: • Powerful knowledge as differentiated knowledge: According to Emile Durkheim, each society, i.e. social being, will classified their world according to the current “epistemic devices”. For example, according to Durkheim’s study of Primitive Classification, according to the epistemic descent of primitive society, the world is generally differentiated into profane and sacred world. ……

13. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • The conception of the powerful knowledge: • What is powerful knowledge? Based on the above assumptions, Michael Young has characterized powerful knowledge as: • Powerful knowledge as differentiated knowledge: ….. Accordingly, knowledge is differentiated into profane and sacred knowledge. In modern society, knowledge is then differentiated into varieties of versions, such as theoretical and practical, academic and vocational, and most notably natural and social science, or physics, chemistry, economics, sociology, etc.

14. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • The conception of the powerful knowledge: • What is powerful knowledge? Based on the above assumptions, Michael Young has characterized powerful knowledge as: • Powerful knowledge as specialized knowledge: In modern scientific enterprise, each differentiated knowledge has evolved in time into specialized knowledge, with its definitive object of study, specific questions of enquiry, particular epistemological and methodological tradition. In short, it has constituted as a specialization or discipline.

15. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • The conception of the powerful knowledge: • What is powerful knowledge? Based on the above assumptions, Michael Young has characterized powerful knowledge as: • Powerful knowledge is institutional knowledge: Finally, this differentiated and specialized knowledge will be supported by a set of institutions, such as department in university, research institutes in public and/or private enterprises, scholarly journals, academic associations, etc. These institutions can practically be construed as “coalition of mind” for particular knowledge. In return, these institutions will lend their institutional power to the knowledge itself and make it powerful.

16. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • Curriculum of the future One of the significant theses advanced by Young and others is the “Curriculum of the Future” and/or “curriculum for the future”, in which he categorizes the curriculum reforms in the UK in the recent decades into three models: • Future 1 curriculum • Future 2 Curriculum • Future 3 Curriculum

17. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • Curriculum of the future • Future 1 curriculum: Future 1 curriculum refers to the “typical curriculum of grammar and public schools (in the UK)”. It also “formed the basis of the first National Curriculum launched in 1988”. (Young, 2014, P. 58) In this curriculum model “knowledge is treated as largely given, and established by tradition and by the route it offers high achievers to our leading university. It tends, although there are difference in practice, to be associated with one-way transmission pedagogy and a view of learning that expects compliance from pupils. ….

18. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • Curriculum of the future • Future 1 curriculum: ….. For a Future 1 curriculum, the future, despite incremental changes in knowledge, is seen as an extended version of the past.”(ibid, P. 59). This curriculum model basically reflects the essentialist perspective in the theory of knowledge, which accepts the ideas of knowledge passed on from the liberal education tradition are fundamental and should not be challenged. (Hirst and Peters, 1970; quoted in Young and Muller, 2016, P. 14)

19. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • Curriculum of the future • Future 2 curriculum: It refers to the curriculum model generally introduced in comprehensive schools in the UK during 1960s. It also signified the curriculum model adopted by the Blair and Brown New Labour Government at the turn of the century. It was then construed as the progressive curriculum model in reaction to the elitist model tradition of grammar and public schools. And more recently, it has been taken as the curriculum-reform model for preparing flexible workers in the informational-globalized world. (Young, 2014; 2016) …..

20. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • Curriculum of the future • Future 2 curriculum: …. This curriculum model advocates “the policy of inclusion and widening participation and were designed to respond to (or to cape with) the expanding groups of students staying on at school but reluctant to engage with academic subjects.” (ibid) ….

21. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • Curriculum of the future • Future 2 curriculum: …. In this model, curriculum boundaries between subjects were weakened, as new forms of interdisciplinary studies were introduced and insulation of school from everyday knowledge become weakened as the curriculum became open to leisure, sport and other community interest… The curriculum was progressively vocationalized for those slow learners who stay on at school; inevitably, albeit not intentionally, these were pupils from poor and disadvantaged backgrounds.”(ibid). ……

22. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • Curriculum of the future • Future 2 curriculum: …. This curriculum model represents that “knowledge was no longer treated as given and not open to challenge but seen as ‘constructed’ in response to particular needs and interests.” (ibid, Pp. 59-60) The model basically reflects the perspective social constructivism in the theory of knowledge. It “provide teachers and students of education with superficially attractive but ultimately contradictory set of intellectual tools. ….

23. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • Curriculum of the future • Future 2 curriculum: …. …... On the one hand, it offered the possibility of intellectual emancipation and freedom through education─ we, as teachers, students or workers have the epistemological right to develop theories and to criticize and challenge scientists, philosophers, and other so-called experts and specialists. Furthermore, in some unspecified way, this so-called freedom was seen as contributing to changing the world. This emancipation from all authoritative form of knowledge was links by many to the possibility to achieving a more equal or just world.

24. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • Curriculum of the future • Future 2 curriculum: …. …... On the other hand, by undermining any claims to objective knowledge or truth about anything, social constructivism…denies the possibility of any understanding, let alone of any better world.”(Young and Muller, 2016, P. 18).

25. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • Curriculum of the future • Future 3 curriculum: It refers to the curriculum model generated from the formulation and development of the perspectives in theory of knowledge (epistemology) known as critical and social realism. It rejects the conceptions that knowledge is given and fixed and hierarchically differentiated into high and low (Future 1). It also rejects the conception that knowledge can be constructed arbitrarily according to knowers’ experiences and interests (Future 2).

26. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • Curriculum of the future • Future 3 curriculum: …. In the contrary knowledge is differentiated into different areas of specialties, each of which are developed and monitored by a community of specialists who work complementarily and at the same time competitively so as to maintain the integrity and truthfulness of the field.

27. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • Curriculum of the future • Future 3 curriculum: …. ….. A Future 3 curriculum, as specialized-knowledge curriculum, is therefore to a designed learning path to help learners to acquire the best knowledge currently available in a special area of the world. In other words, to inculcate the “coalition of the mind” of a particular discipline into learners and make it the “habitus” and “coalition in the mind” of their own. Accordingly, school curriculum as a whole is to assist students to acquire different types of specialized knowledge available. ….

28. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • Curriculum of the future • Future 3 curriculum: …. ….. Young argues that Future 3 curriculum will prepare students to master a set of best specialized knowledge currently available for the future. Young stipulates it as the powerful knowledge.

29. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • Curriculum of the future • Future 3 curriculum: …. ….. Future 3 curriculum can further be characterized with the conceptions of curriculum theory advocated by Basil Bernstein. (2000) • Strong classification: It refers to the extern relation of a particular curriculum with other curricula. By strong classification, it indicates that the “boundary” of a curriculum is definitive and fixed. And boundary crossing is difficult and rare.

30. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • Curriculum of the future • Future 3 curriculum: …. • … • Strong frame: It refers to the internal relation between learners and teachers. Furthermore, the conceptual components and pedagogical paces within a curriculum are also well defined and definite. • Strong identity: It refers to the roles definition of both learners and teachers are also well defined. As a result, it is easy to nurture the identity of learners to become specialists.

31. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • The critiques on competence-based and outcome-based curriculum From the perspective of Future 3 curriculum or more generally discipline-based curriculum, Young wages a criticism on a series of curriculum reforms, which aim at acquiring a specific list of generic skills and/or competences, at attaining a set of learning outcome, and more specifically at obtaining specific level of qualifications.

32. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • The critiques on competence-based and outcome-based curriculum • Michael Young has specifically highlighted the National Qualification Frameworks proposed by the British government and the Key Competences passed by the European Parliament in 2006. For example, 8 competences are specified in the legislation of the European Parliament. They are:

33. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • The critiques on competence-based and outcome-based curriculum • …the 8 Key Competences …are: • communicating in a mother tongue • communicating in foreign languages • mathematical competence and basic comeptences in science and technology • digital competence • learning to learn • social and civic competences • sense of initiative and entrepreneurship • cultural awareness and expression

34. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • The critiques on competence-based and outcome-based curriculum • Young underlines that there are numbers of “flaws” underlying this competence-based curriculum approach. • First and foremost, it has resulted in “evacuation of knowledge” form the curriculum. More specifically it has annulled the learning contents from the learning process. (Young, 2012, P. 142)

35. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • The critiques on competence-based and outcome-based curriculum • …….“flaws” underlying this competence-based curriculum approach. • …. • Young further queries that “there is no evidence that such generic capacities can be acquired, taught or assessed separately from specific domains with their specific contents and contexts. It is far from clear what educational purposes are achieved, beyond providing a general accounting mechanism.” (Young and Muller, 2016, P. 53)

36. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • The critiques on competence-based and outcome-based curriculum • …….“flaws” underlying this competence-based curriculum approach. • …. • Young also underline that the competence-based approach to curriculum has practically “de-differentiated” the classifications, frames and identities evolved and institutionalized within each specialties and disciples through generations of practices. As a result, the institutional sites of education and research of particular disciplines are also “de-differentiated”.

37. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • The critiques on competence-based and outcome-based curriculum • …….“flaws” underlying this competence-based curriculum approach. • …. • Young finally stipulates that these competence and qualification-based curriculum could at best construed as serving an instrumental purpose for the informational-globalized economy. It provides standardized market signals to employers about the degrees of employability of school leavers and job seekers. As a result, it has “colonized” the intrinsic codes and grammars of various disciplinary traditions, which have developed and institutionalize through generations of practices.

38. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • “Know-that” and “know-how” knowledge in the powerful curriculum Against the skill- and competence-based curriculum, Young makes reference to Gilbert Ryle’s famous distinction between know-how and know-that knowledge. And argue that apart from the mastery of the know-how knowledge in a particular discipline, students are also to learn the know-that knowledge of the respective discipline.

39. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • “Know-that” and “know-how” knowledge in the powerful curriculum • On the know-that knowledge, it refers to • knowledge of the constituent concepts of the discipline, and • knowledge of the relations between concepts and the propositions generated from these relations. (Young & Muller, 2014, Pp. 167-171)

40. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • “Know-that” and “know-how” knowledge in the powerful curriculum • On the part of know-how knowledge, Young make further reference to Christopher Winch’s distinction that • knowledge of the inferential relations between the propositions, and • knowledge of the procedure in assessing, testing and acquiring new knowledge.

41. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • Distinction between divisive and connective specialization in curriculum structure: Within the conception of specialized curriculum, Michael Young underlines that there are two distinct types of relations between subjects, which he classifies as divisive specialization and connective specialization.

42. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • …divisive and connective specialization … • Curriculum of divisive specialization: It refers to curriculum in post- compulsory education which corresponds with the mode of production of Fordism, which bears the following features: • Rigid insulation between manual and non-manual labor • Rigid sectional form of divisive specialization among occupational and professional groups • Complex division of labor into mechanical, repetitive and observable motions • Separation between conception and execution of work • Strict Hierarchical structure of delegation of authority and line of commands

43. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • …divisive and connective specialization … • Curriculum of divisive specialization: …. In connection to the mode of production of Fordism, the curriculum of in post-compulsory and A-level education is organized in the form of what Young called "divisive specialization" • Sharpe separation between academic study and vocational training • Sharpe division among curricular streams, such as science, humanities and social study • Selective and exclusive rather than participating and inclusive education system

44. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • …divisive and connective specialization … • Curriculum of divisive specialization: …. • …. • Inflexible in movement and transferring between divisions and streams • Exaggerate differences between high low prestigious institutions and programs

45. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • …divisive and connective specialization … • Curriculum in connective specialization It refers to curriculum, which Young advocates would be advantageous to the labor formation of the economy of the 21st century, which bears the following structural attributes • Flexible specialization of production and greatly decrease the division between manual and non-manual labor both in scale and scope • Sectional specialization was replaced by corporate specialization, which encouraging vertical integration among different occupational and professional groups within corporations.

46. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • …divisive and connective specialization … • Curriculum in connective specialization • …. • New information-based technology replacing mechanical and repetitive motions of human labor • Human-centred organization and flatter management structure • Interactively integration between conception and execution of work in models such as quality circles, quality terms, learning community

47. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • …divisive and connective specialization … • Curriculum in connective specialization In relation to the mode of production of post-Fordism, Young suggests that school curriculum for the 21st century should be in the form of “connective specialization” • Connective specialization “as a curriculum concept it points to the interdependence of the concept, processes, and organization of curriculum. As definition of educational purposes it seeks to transcend the traditional dichotomy of ‘the educated person’ (academic and non-manual) and ‘the competent employee’ (vocational and manual) which define the purposes of the two tracks of a divided curriculum.” (Young, 1998, p. 78)

48. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist Perspective • …divisive and connective specialization … • Curriculum in connective specialization • … • It therefore "provides the basis a very different curriculum for the future" which he terms "connective specialization". "Such a curriculum …would need to build on and give specificity to the principles of: • breadth and flexibility • connections between both core and specialist studies and general (academic) and applied (vocational) studies • opportunities for progression and credit transfer • a clear sense of the purpose of the curriculum as a whole." (Young, 1998, p. 79)

49. Restructuring Schooling for the Future: • What are schools for? With refers to the conceptions of the powerful knowledge and Future 3 curriculum, Young underlines that the main purpose of schooling for the future are as follow

50. Restructuring Schooling for the Future: • What are schools for? “It is to enable all students to acquire knowledge that take them beyond their experience. It is knowledge which many will not have access to at home, among their friends, or in communities in which they live. As such, access to this knowledge is the ‘right’ of all pupils as future citizens.” (Young. 2014, P. 10)