Doctor of Education

Doctor of Education Module 1 Education Policy and Social Justice: An Overview Introducing Social Theory: A very brief overview of some key terms and theoretical approaches

Modernism Postmodernism Critical Race Theory Postpositivism Feminist theory Marxism Structuralism Functionalism Poststructuralism Positivism

Structuralism • Focuses on underlying structures, patterns, rules – e.g. of language, the psyche. • In sociology: focuses on the structures, institutions, rules and values of society and how these influence/determine individual behaviour.

Structural Functionalism • Focuses on how the different systems and institutions of society, which have different functions, work together for social order/social cohesion. (e.g. Parsons 1959) Marxism • Focuses on economic structures and relations – specifically on the ownership and control of the means of production – and the re/production of socio-economic inequalities.

Bowles and Gintis (1976) • Argued there is a ‘correspondence’ between the social relations of capitalist economy and the social relations of schooling, and schools produce the workers needed by capitalism. Willis (1977): • Learning to Labour- an in-depth study of a group of working class boys – showing how they are active in the production of a counter culture, but one that still produces them as manual workers.

Poststructuralism • A critique of structuralist premises but not a unified/unitary theoretical position. • Critiques the ‘grand theories’ or meta-narratives e.g. Marxism, and concepts such as ‘patriarchy’. • Rejects claims of absolute truth and questions our ability to know ‘the real’ – i.e. ‘objectivity’. • Emphasises complexity, multiplicity, difference • Challenges the liberal humanist construction of the individual as a rational, coherent, unified subject to see identity/subjectivity as complex, multiple, in flux, etc.

Modernity/Modernism/Postmodernity/Postmodernism • Modernity – post Enlightenment period of emphasis on science and reason (in contrast to belief, superstition etc) and industrial society, capitalism, fordism, belief in progress. • Post-modernity – post-Fordism, flexible, differentiated markets, consumerism, new technological developments, post-industrial or knowledge economy.

Positivism – the only basis for knowledge is what we can observe and measure – and that way we can get to the truth. Sees the researcher as objective. • Post-positivism - recognises the role of theory, that we can’t be ‘objective’ – we are all products of our social location, experiences, etc.

Feminist theory • Marxist, structuralist, poststructuralist etc….. • Critical analysis of gender and gendered power relations. • Making gender explicit, putting women into the picture • Challenges gender essentialism (boys will be boys, girls are naturally....whatever..). • Concept of patriarchy – as a macro/structuralist explanation of gender inequality • But also micro/interpersonal ‘the personal is political’ and challenge to mind/body dichotomy.

‘Race’/ethnicity studies • Foregrounded issues of race and ethnicity • Problematised racism, economic and cultural imperialism, ethnocentrism and whiteness • Highlighted on racism in schools, the curriculum, pedagogic practices, etc. • E.g. Critical race theory highlights the ‘normality’ of racism in society – embedded so taken for granted. Emphasis on deconstructing whiteness. E.g. Gloria Ladson-Billings’ USA based work (Ladson-Billings 1988) and Gillborn’s analysis of UK education policy (Gillborn 2005)

Intersectionality ‘the black subject cannot be represented without reference to the dimensions of class, gender, sexuality and ethnicity’ (Hall, 1992; p.255) ‘gender as a category of analysis cannot be understood decontextualised from race and class’ (Brewer, 1993; p.17).

Michel Foucault • Challenged claims about unveiling the truth or true knowledge. He was interested in the ways in which truth claims are constructed and come to have power. • Concerned with the relationship between knowledge and power, and the ways in which subjectivity is constructed through these knowledges. • Conceptualised power not as power from above, but as everywhere: Bentham’s panopticon - disciplinary power and surveillance.

‘In thinking of the mechanisms of power, I am thinking rather of its capillary form of existence, the point where power reaches into the very grain of individuals, touches their bodies and inserts itself into their action and attitudes, their discourses, learning processes and everyday lives.’ (Foucault 1980, p. 39) – ‘a synaptic regime of power, a regime of its exercise within the social body, rather than from above it’ (ibid.).

‘Power is not to be taken as a phenomenon of one individual’s consolidated and homogenous domination over others, or that of one group of class over others’ (ibid. p. 98) Instead power ‘circulates’: ‘It is never localised here or there, never in anybody’s hands, never appropriated as a commodity or piece of wealth ... [individuals] are always in the position of simultaneously undergoing and exercising this power’ (ibid.p. 98).

‘Each society has its regime of truth, its “general politics” of truth: that is, the types of discourse which it accepts and makes function as true; the mechanisms and instances which enable one to distinguish true and false statements, the means by which each is sanctioned; the techniques and procedures accorded value in the acquisition of truth; the status of those who are charged with saying what counts as true.’ (ibid p. 131)

‘Discourse is a central concept in Foucault’s analytical framework. Discourses are about what can be said and thought, but also about who can speak, when, and with what authority. Discourses embody meaning and social relationships, they constitute both subjectivity and power relations’ (Ball 1990, p. 2)

‘Both female teachers and small girls are not unitary subjects uniquely positioned, but are produced as a nexus of subjectivities, in relations of power which are constantly shifting, rendering them at one moment powerful and at another powerless.’ (Walkerdine, 1990, p. 3)

(Ibid. p. 4)

‘The boys’ resistance to her can be understood in terms of both their assertion of their difference from her and their seizing of power through constituting her as the powerless object of sexist discourse. […] Their power is gained by refusing to be constituted as the powerless objects in her discourse and recasting her as the powerless object of theirs. In their discourse she is constituted as ‘woman as sex object’ […]. Of course, she has not in a sense ceased to be a teacher, but what is important is that she has ceased to signify as one: she has been made to signify as the powerless object of male sexual discourse’. (Walkerdine, 1990, p. 5)

Pierre Bourdieu • Social inequalities are seen as resulting from the relationship/interplay between embodied and institutional practices and processes. • Dominant classes maintain their power through their endowment with various forms of capital (economic, cultural and social) – and they use the education system to maintain this. • Class privilege is sustained not through coercion, but through the dominance/transmission of particular cultural values.

‘The ideology of giftedness' 'Apart from enabling the elite to justify being what it is, the ideology of giftedness, the cornerstone of the whole educational and social system, helps to enclose the underprivileged classes in the roles which society has given them by making them see as natural inability things which are only a result of inferior social status, and by persuading them that they owe their social fate (which is increasingly tied to their educational fate as society becomes more rationalized) to their individual nature and their lack of gifts. The exceptional success of those few individuals who escape the collective fate of their class apparently justify educational selection and give credence to the myth of the school as a liberating force among those who have been eliminated, by giving the impression that success is exclusively a matter of gifts and work.' (Bourdieu, 1974, p 42).

Key Concepts • Field ‘a structured social space, a field of forces, a force field. It contains people who dominate and people who are dominated’ (Bourdieu 1998, p. 40) • Capital Assets that have value within a particular field Economic, social, cultural, symbolic • Habitus Dispositions - to be/act in particular ways)

Bourdieu describes habitus as: ‘a socialised body. A structured body, a body which has incorporated the immanent structures of a world or of a particular sector of that world – a field – and which structures the perception of that world as well as action in that world’ (Bourdieu 1998, cited by Reay, David et al. 2005, p. 23).

References Atkinson, E. (2006). Sexualities and Resistance: Queering Identity and Discourse in Education. Education, Globalisation & Social Change. H. Lauder, P. Brown, J.-A. Dillabough and A. H. Halsey. Oxford, Oxford University Press: 596-601. Ball, S. J. (1990). Foucault and Education. London, Routledge. Bourdieu, P. (1974). The School as a Conservative Force: Scholastic and Cultural Inequalities. Contemporary Research in the Sociology of Education. J. Eggleston. London, Methuen: 32-46. Bourdieu, P. (1998). Practical Reason: On the Theory of Action. Stanford, Stanford University Press. Bowles, S. and H. Gintis (1976). Schooling in Capitalist America. New York, Basic Books. Brewer, R. M. (1993). Theorising Race, Class and Gender: The new scholarship of Black feminist intellectuals and Black women's labour. Theorising Black Feminisms. S. M. James and A. P. A. Busia. London, Routledge: 13-30. Foucault, M. (1980). Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972-1977, C. Gordon (Ed.). New York and London, Harvester Wheatsheaf.

Gillborn, D. (2005). "Education policy as an act of white supremacy: whiteness, critical race theory and education reform." Journal of Education Policy20(4): 485-505. Hall, S. (1992). New Ethnicities. ‘Race’, Culture and Difference J. Donald and A. Rattansi. London, Sage: 252-259. Ladson-Billings, G. (1988). "Just what is Critical Race Theory and What’s it Doing in a Nice Field Like Education." International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education11(1): 7-24. Parsons, T. (1959). "The school class as a social system: Some of its functions in American society." Harvard Education Review29: 297-318. Reay, D., M. David, E, et al. (2005). Degrees of Choice: Social class, race and gender in higher education. Stoke on Trent, Trentham Books. Walkerdine, V. (1990). Schoolgirl Fictions. London, New York, Verso. Willis, P. (1977). Learning to Labour: How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs. Farnborough, Saxon House.

Doctor of Education