Policy Futures in Education

ISSN 1478-2103

Volume 6 Number 2 2008

CONTENTS [click on author's name for abstract and full text]

SYMPOSIUM
The Wealth of Networks (Yochai Benkler) discussed by Philippe Aigrain, Leslie Chan, Jean-Claude Guédon, and John Willinsky, with a response by Yochai Benkler, pages 152‑175 doi:10.2304/pfie.2008.6.2.152 VIEW FULL TEXT

Roxana Bobulescu. Popularising the ‘New International Political Economy’: the ATTAC movement, pages 176‑186
Christelle Garrouste. Language Skills and Economic Returns, pages 187‑202
Jon Lauglo & Tormod Øia. Education and Civic Engagement among Norwegian Youth, pages 203‑223
Beatriz Fainholc. Educational Technology in Crisis, pages 224‑234
Keiko Yokoyama. Neo-liberalism and Change in Higher Education Policy: England and Japan, pages 235‑256
Georg Spöttl. Autonomy of (Vocational) Schools as an Answer to Structural Changes, pages 257‑264
Scott Graham. Staging the Performances of the Privileged Social Group (PSG): expanding the philosophical foundation of critical pedagogy, pages 265‑279

Popularising the ‘New International Political Economy’: the ATTAC movement

ROXANA BOBULESCU Burgundy School of Business, Dijon, France

doi:10.2304/pfie.2008.6.2.176

Born in France in 1997, the ATTAC (Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions to Aid Citizens) movement is popularising IPE (international political economy), the interdisciplinary field of study born in the United Kingdom in the 1970s. The affinity between the ideas and main concerns of ATTAC and IPE can be clearly stated. ATTAC is a popular education movement, promoting a critical reading of globalisation. It uses critical pedagogy and is largely supported by ‘resisting intellectuals’, who are the newborn ‘organic intellectuals’ once envisioned by Antonio Gramsci.

Language Skills and Economic Returns

CHRISTELLE GARROUSTE Department of Education, Institute of International Education (IIE), Stockholm University, Sweden

doi:10.2304/pfie.2008.6.2.187

This article focuses on the contributions from the emerging positivist epistemological approach, endorsed by the economics of language and the economics of education, to study the returns to language skills, assuming that language competencies constitute key components of human capital. It presents initial results from a study on economic returns to language skills in eight countries enrolled in the International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) – Chile, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Hungary, Italy, Norway and Italian-speaking Switzerland. The study shows commonalities between countries in terms of language skills valuing, beyond the type of language policy applied at the national level. In each of the eight countries compared, skills in a second language are estimated to be a major factor constraining affecting wage opportunities.

Education and Civic Engagement among Norwegian Youth

JON LAUGLO Faculty of Education, University of Oslo, Norway
TORMOD ØIA Institute of Social Studies, Telemark University College, Norway

doi:10.2304/pfie.2008.6.2.203

What role does formal education play in the political socialization of youth? The article presents findings from a national survey in 2002 of more than 11,000 youths aged 13‑19 in Norway. Indicators of political socialization are: an index of expressed interest in politics and social issues, participation in membership organizations of a political kind, political activism, and unlawful forms of political protest. Except for unlawful forms of protest, interest in politics and social issues, and actual participation, increase with educational achievement and especially with ambition for higher education. But all forms of political participation (but not mere interest in politics) increase with greater than average conflict with teachers and school authority. These findings persist after controls for social class, parental education, and political socialization in the family.

Educational Technology in Crisis

BEATRIZ FAINHOLC Department of Education Sciences, School of Humanities and Education Sciences, Universidad Nacional de La Plata, Argentina and CEDIPROE, Buenos Aires, Argentina

doi:10.2304/pfie.2008.6.2.224

The presentation of the historical epistemological path is needed to understand and reconsider the discipline of Educational Technology in articulation to contributions of rupturistic theorists in order to reach to a critical proposal and a revision of its field. This field is facing a deep crisis within a time of world crisis, specially in the southern hemisphere and in contexts of migration of nomad or poor users. The technology should be ‘appropriate’, socially grounded and culturally adequate in its pedagogical mediations depending on diverse scenarios and actors, who will select and combine traditional elements with virtual ones to be delivered in an electronic formats. Appropriate and Critical Technology is a special technological discipline and a knowledge field where we cultivate open and reflexive special knowledge, towards research and contrast at socio-educational practices, mediated by pedagogical projects and materials articulated with ICT. Its study objects are the educational-technological mediations as historical – cultural – semiologic and didactic environments and tools in diverse formats, which provoke different domains of the socio – cognitive structuring of learners in a situated and distributed way, inscribed within formal and non- formal, face-to-face and distance teaching practices.

Neo-liberalism and Change in Higher Education Policy: England and Japan

KEIKO YOKOYAMA Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA

doi:10.2304/pfie.2008.6.2.235

The study scrutinizes the rationale behind higher education policy change in England and Japan, giving attention to stakeholders’ perspective and legitimacy, policy network, and policy sphere. It argues that change in higher education policy in England and Japan towards being more market-oriented in the 1980s (England) and the 1990s (Japan) can be commonly explained by the government’s application of neo-liberal policy. The details in the political rationale for such policy change differ between the two. In England, change in the Government’s values and perspective caused the policy change, while in Japan, enlargement of the policy sphere by incorporating non-education sub-government in the policy-making structure and the conflict and compromise between neo-liberal and anti-neo-liberal groups resulted in the Government’s policy change. The methods of data collection applied in the study were documentation and semi-structured interviews with selected stakeholders involved in the two higher education systems. The study suggests that not only change in the main stakeholders’ values but also that in the policy network is significant in policy change.

Autonomy of (Vocational) Schools as an Answer to Structural Changes

GEORG SPÖTTL ITB – Institut Technik und Bildung, University of Bremen, Germany

doi:10.2304/pfie.2008.6.2.257

In Europe a very intensive discussion is in full swing as to whether vocational schools should in future be guided and monitored by the state or whether they should be freed from state dependency. Within the framework of a number of pilot projects in German-speaking countries, vocational school centres are currently testing their autonomy. This article sketches out the discussion on a way forward.

Adopting a learner-centred perspective showed that formal education and training provide only a small part of what is learned at work. Most of the learning described by the interviewees was non-formal, neither clearly specified nor planned. It arose naturally out of the demands and challenges of work, solving problems, improving quality and/or productivity, or coping with change – and out of social interactions in the workplace. The outcome of such ‘learning from experience’ was the development of knowledge, skills and understanding, although this was difficult to explain to others. Effective learning was, however, dependent on confidence, motivation and capability – prerequisites for employees’ self-management of much of their learning. (Michael Eraut et al, 1998, p. 10ff)

Staging the Performances of the Privileged Social Group (PSG): expanding the philosophical foundation of critical pedagogy

SCOTT GRAHAM Social Planning and Research Council of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

doi:10.2304/pfie.2008.6.2.265

Contemporary efforts to rethink the philosophical foundation of critical pedagogy are part of the ongoing project to make the field relevant to current struggles against oppression. Inherent to this project is an invitation to account for the plurality of ways and spaces in which privilege is performed in North American society and the troubling relations between privilege and oppression. The author employs Iris Young’s social group concept to frame the construction of the Privileged Social Group (PSG), which, he contends, is a collectivity that has and continues to create relations to Others that systematically result in a range of social benefits for PSG members. The author defines the PSG through an analysis of its social position and the relational performances that it enacts to claim and maintain privilege. Three distinct social contexts in which the PSG is active are also examined, as well as two group control techniques through which PSG members influence one another’s beliefs and behaviour for the purpose of claiming privilege as a group.

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