Policy Futures in Education

ISSN 1478-2103

Volume 7 Number 1 2009

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

Henry A. Giroux & Susan Searls Giroux. Beyond Bailouts: on the politics of education after neoliberalism, pages 1‑4
Leon Benade. The New Zealand Draft Curriculum 2006: a policy case study with specific reference to its understanding of teaching as an ethical profession, pages 5‑19
Michael A. Peters & Fabian Kessl. Space, Time, History: the reassertion of space in social theory, pages 20‑30
Eduardo Cavieres Fernández. Rethinking the Role of Elite Private Schools in a Neoliberal Era: an example from Chile, pages 31‑43
Lyn Courtney, Colin Lankshear, Neil Anderson & Carolyn Timms. Insider Perspectives vs. Public Perceptions of ICT: toward policy for enhancing female student participation in academic pathways to professional careers in ICT, pages 44‑64
Peter Roberts. Technology, Utopia and Scholarly Life: ideals and realities in the work of Hermann Hesse, pages 65‑74
Catherine Scott. How the Ghosts of the Nineteenth Century Still Haunt Education, pages 75‑87
Daniel Light, Micaela Manso & Teresa Noguera. An Educational Revolution to Support Change in the Classroom: Colombia and the educational challenges of the twenty-first century, pages 88‑101
Sowaribi Tolofari. Teething Problems of Market Entry: the Swedish tuition fees dilemma, pages 102‑111

REVIEW SYMPOSIUM
Marxism and Educational Theory: origins and issues, (Mike Cole) reviewed by Judith Baxter, Samuel Fassbinder and Ravi Kumar, with a reply by Mike Cole, pages 112‑124 doi:10.2304/pfie.2009.7.1.124 VIEW FULL TEXT

OBAMA’S AMERICA
Michael A. Peters. Renewing the American Dream: Obama’s political philosophy, pages 125‑128 doi:10.2304/pfie.2009.7.1.125 VIEW FULL TEXT
Michael A. Peters. Global Recession, Unemployment and the Changing Economics of the Self, pages 129‑133 doi:10.2304/pfie.2009.7.1.129 VIEW FULL TEXT

OCCASIONAL THOUGHTS
Henry A. Giroux. Killing Children with Impunity: from Mississippi to Gaza, pages 134‑137

Beyond Bailouts: on the politics of education after neoliberalism

HENRY A. GIROUX & SUSAN SEARLS GIROUX English and Cultural Studies Department, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada

doi:10.2304/pfie.2009.7.1.1

The Obama presidency has been premised on a commitment to progressive social change in its a repudiation of unfettered free-market capitalism. It also signals the end of an era in which privatization, deregulation, and cut throat competition combined with a massive assault on the social state. While such reforms are welcome, they do not as yet go far enough in articulating economic change with an equally transformative cultural politics. This article seeks to broaden the parameters of the kind of ‘change’ that must be sought in relation to the current financial and credit crisis. We argue for the necessity of not only dismantling neoliberal economic policies and the shocking levels of inequality they have produced, but also for the necessity of transforming the culture of neoliberalism – the ideologies, values, identifications, and modes of consent – that enabled the ascendancy of market sovereignty. We seek to explore the pedagogical implications of such a project.

The New Zealand Draft Curriculum 2006: a policy case study with specific reference to its understanding of teaching as an ethical profession

LEON BENADE University of Auckland, New Zealand

doi:10.2304/pfie.2009.7.1.5

The New Zealand Draft Curriculum was released in mid-2006 and intended for final implementation in September 2007. This draft policy document serves as a useful model for analysis employing a method of policy analysis proposed by Bell & Stevenson. Additionally, this article specifically asks to what extent the Draft Curriculum advances a concept of teaching as an ethical profession. Conceptions of the kind of profession teaching has become in New Zealand in the twenty-first century will be considered, and this article will attempt an account of what it might be to conceptualise teaching as an ‘ethical profession’. Against this conceptual backdrop, the New Zealand Draft Curriculum will be asked to provide its account of the teaching profession.

Space, Time, History: the reassertion of space in social theory

MICHAEL A. PETERS University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
FABIAN KESSL University Duisberg-Essen, Germany

doi:10.2304/pfie.2009.7.1.20

The reassertion of space is discussed as an analytical awareness of the past obsession with temporal logics. Theorists now understand that social sciences discourses were shaped by a preoccupation with the temporal scales and logics of development considered as natural processes. The spatial turn in social theory is often seen to be a process of de-naturalizing space. The article argues that not only space, but ‘spacetime’ has to be de-naturalized. On that background the current debate between a humanist Marxism and poststructuralism is discussed. To overcome the founding distinctions a number of scholars are trying to model a relational idea of spacetime. With regard to David Harvey’s current work and the work of the Swiss geographer Benno Werlen and the German sociologist Martina Löw, the scope of such an approach in humanities is discussed.

Rethinking the Role of Elite Private Schools in a Neoliberal Era: an example from Chile

EDUARDO CAVIERES FERNÁNDEZ University of Wisconsin Madison, USA

doi:10.2304/pfie.2009.7.1.31

Neoliberalism has brought a privatization trend that has deeply affected the structure of the educational system of countries. While public schools lag behind, new forms of private schooling have arisen creating different forms of inequality. Nonetheless, in Chile the major inequality exists between schools attended by low and middle income students and those schools that have traditionally served students coming from the economic elite of the country. In a period when Chilean educational policies do not mention this issue at all, this article presents an example from a traditional private school in Chile that helps both to pay attention to this phenomenon as well as to seek ways to address the consequences brought about by the logic of the privatization wave that affects the educational system.

Insider Perspectives vs. Public Perceptions of ICT: toward policy for enhancing female student participation in academic pathways to professional careers in ICT

LYN COURTNEY, COLIN LANKSHEAR, NEIL ANDERSON & CAROLYN TIMMS James Cook University, Cairns, Queensland, Australia

doi:10.2304/pfie.2009.7.1.44

This article reports findings of a national online survey of Australian women employed in Information and Communication Technology (ICT)-related careers. The Women in ICT Industry Survey was the culminating stage of a larger Australian Research Council Linkage Grant project investigating factors associated with low and declining female participation rates in professional-level ICT pathways. The survey comprised a mix of forced-choice and open-ended short-response items, and was completed by 272 Australian women. Application of K-means cluster analysis to forced-choice item responses revealed three discrete groupings of female ICT professionals. Overall, respondents reported that their ICT career was rewarding, provided opportunities and challenges, and was beneficial to society. Respondents generally disagreed with Queensland high school girls’ perceptions that ICT is boring, sedentary, and not relevant to their future career directions. They also disagreed that the industry fits the prevailing negative stereotype of being populated by ‘geeks’ and ‘nerds’. Divergent opinions centered mainly around participants’ confidence in their own technical ability, whether they would encourage young women to enter the ICT industry, and how they perceived and responded to industrial issues of equality and management approachability. These findings support suggestions for a range of policy and curriculum initiatives designed to enable more positive experiences of computing in school, and to optimize ICT career pathways in tandem with furthering wider educational ends.

Technology, Utopia and Scholarly Life: ideals and realities in the work of Hermann Hesse

PETER ROBERTS College of Education, University of Canterbury, New Zealand

doi:10.2304/pfie.2009.7.1.65

This article considers the relationship between technology, utopia and scholarly life in Hermann Hesse’s novel, The Glass Bead Game. In the first part of Hesse’s book, the Glass Bead Game and the society of which it is a part, Castalia, are portrayed in idealistic terms. The second part of the novel chronicles the educational life of Joseph Knecht, who progresses through Castalia’s elite schooling system, learns to play the Glass Bead Game, and is eventually appointed to the supreme position of Magister Ludi (Master of the Game). Knecht’s words, thoughts, relationships, and deeds pose a challenge to the narrator’s idealistic portrait, with important implications for scholars and educationists. It is argued that The Glass Bead Game combines utopian and dystopian elements. The book shows why it is necessary to hold on to scholarly ideals while also recognising educational and social realities.

How the Ghosts of the Nineteenth Century Still Haunt Education

CATHERINE SCOTT Swinburne University of Technology, Hawthorn, Australia

doi:10.2304/pfie.2009.7.1.75

Research evidence has demonstrated that pedagogical techniques variously known as discovery learning, problem-based learning and constructivism are less effective than explicit instruction, especially when applied to the teaching of novice learners. Nonetheless these ineffective techniques have many devotees and re-enter the educational arena ‘re-badged’ after each empirical revelation of their deficiencies. This article argues that constructivism and its pedagogical relatives are continually ‘rediscovered’ because they accord with deeply held beliefs about the nature of human beings. The origins of these ideas are traced to the writings of Rousseau and the Progressivist thinkers of the nineteenth century and the ways in which the misreading of theorists, such as Piaget, provide ‘scientific support’ for these is explored.

An Educational Revolution to Support Change in the Classroom: Colombia and the educational challenges of the twenty-first century

DANIEL LIGHT Education Development Center, New York, USA
MICAELA MANSO & TERESA NOGUERA Fundación Evolución, Buenos Aires, Argentina

doi:10.2304/pfie.2009.7.1.88

As developing countries strive to strengthen their educational institutions to meet the challenges of the economic and social demands of globalization, tension often arises between providing more access to traditional public education and reforming the quality of the education provided. With its Revolución Educativa, Colombia offers an interesting case study of comprehensive education reforms that are grounded in a shared vision of quality and that make skillful use of information and communication technology to meet their goals. In designing the reforms, the Colombian Ministry of Education identified a series of complementary strategies that attempt to address five critical policy dimensions that keep the drive towards quality in the forefront. This article describes these strategies: Local Capacity Building; Enrollment and Efficiency; New Technologies; Curricular Reform; Improving Teacher Quality; and the Assessment System.

Teething Problems of Market Entry: the Swedish tuition fees dilemma

SOWARIBI TOLOFARI University of Glasgow, United Kingdom

doi:10.2304/pfie.2009.7.1.102

From the autumn of 2008 Sweden is billed to introduce fees for non-EEA (European Economic Area) students. Two commissions set up by the Social Democratic government studied the question and the enabling legislation was issued in March 2006. Now, however, the Conservative coalition government shows no interest in giving the universities the executive directive on fees. More problematic is the confusion at the arena of implementation. Though a majority of universities supported the idea at the consultation stage, none of them is ready to implement the policy. Following up questionnaires and studies of commission reports and reactions by various interest groups, this writer conducted interviews on the issue towards the end of 2007 with Swedish vice-chancellors and members of the Parliamentary Committee on Education. Three revelations of the research are the impact of China’s growing demands for qualified manpower, the pressure of the global education market and diminishing solidarity thinking.

Killing Children with Impunity: from Mississippi to Gaza

HENRY A. GIROUX English and Cultural Studies Department, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada

doi:10.2304/pfie.2009.7.1.134

This article situates the recent killing of children in Gaze by Israeli forces with images of racial violence and neglect that extend from the murder of Emmett Till to the Bush government’s failure to care for the victims of Hurricane Katrina. The article argues that all three events are held together by racialized logic of disappearance and disposability implemented under the logic of the modern racial state. It poses the question of why the images of suffering against innocent children in Gaza have not provoked the same public outcry as did the representations that followed the Till and Katrina events.

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