Policy Futures in Education
ISSN 1478-2103

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

A Manifesto for Education

GERT BIESTA Stirling Institute of Education, University of Stirling, United Kingdom
CARL ANDERS SÄFSTRÖM School of Education Culture and Communication, Mälardalen University, Sweden

http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/pfie.2011.9.5.540

In November 2010 the authors finished the writing of a manifesto for education. The manifesto was an attempt to respond to a number of issues concerning education, both in the field of educational research and in the wider socio-political environment. This is the text of that manifesto followed by two commentaries in which the authors try to highlight some of the reasons that have led to the writing of the manifesto, and in which an attempt is made to situate the manifesto in a number of discussions and debates.

Living in the Age of Imposed Amnesia: the eclipse of democratic formative culture

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

http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/pfie.2011.9.5.548

This article argues that under neoliberal casino capitalism there has been a wholesale attack not only on the social state but also on those public spheres that enable the formative cultures necessary to produce critical agents, engaged subjects, and the literacies necessary to make power and authority accountable. In this instance, the struggle to develop counter-narratives to challenge the normalization of neoliberal ideology and values must be accompanied by the development of public spheres that enable such narratives to develop. This suggests that the struggle against the moral coma induced by neoliberalism is as much a pedagogical struggle as it is a struggle over power, politics, and sovereignty.

Business Culture and the Death of Public Education: Mayor Bloomberg, David Steiner, and the politics of corporate ‘leadership’

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

http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/pfie.2011.9.5.553

This article provides a case study of how a business culture imposes modes of educational leadership on a public school system in New York City that has little if any concerns for empowering children, teachers, and the communities. The article provides a counter-narrative that serves to dispel the notion that the culture of educational empowerment is synonymous with a corporate model of leadership and education and that the latter is the best ideological and political template for understanding and governing public schools. In fact, the article attempts to make clear that the culture of business largely functions both to disempower students and teachers and to undercut the ability of schools to connect learning to social change, the power of the imagination, civic courage, and intellectual growth.

Repoliticizing Higher Education Assessment within Neoliberal Globalization

DAVID HURSH & ANDREW F. WALL University of Rochester, USA

http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/pfie.2011.9.5.560

This article shows how universities, like education and social services in general, are increasingly pressured to adopt neoliberal principles that encourage privatization, entrepreneurship, standardization, assessment, and accountability. The authors examine recent efforts in the United States to develop measurement and accountability systems that commodify higher education, and show how they reflect a neoliberal rationale that undermines the historical purposes of higher education, reduces faculty autonomy, and harms the common good. However, they propose ways in which assessment and accountability might be implemented in higher education so as to promote teaching and learning responsive to the interests of students, faculty, the university, and wider communities.

A Path Analysis Study of School Culture and Teachers’ Organisational Commitment

ENGIN KARADAĞ College of Education, Eskişehir Osmangazi University, Eskişehir, Turkey
NURI BALOĞLU College of Education, Ahi Evran University, Kırşehir, Turkey
ABDULLAH ÇAKIR TEV Türkan Sedefoglu Primary School, İstanbul, Turkey

http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/pfie.2011.9.5.573

In this study, the direct and indirect relations between school culture and the organisational commitment of primary school teachers were analyzed. The subjects of the research consisted of primary school teachers who worked at a district in Istanbul in the academic year 2007‑2008. The sampling group was defined by the cluster sampling method. In total 200 teachers participated. Two scales were used to collect data, the organisational commitment scale (OCS) and the school culture scale (SCS). Linear regression and path analysis were used to explain the influence of school culture on organisational commitment, and LİSREL 7 was used as a structural equation model. The findings indicated that although there was a positive correlation between school culture and organisational commitment, the direct effect of school culture on organisational commitment was not meaningful.

Education and the Labour Market in Brazil

ALBERTO DE OLIVEIRA Institute of Urban and Regional Planning and Research, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro (IPPUR/UFRJ), Brazil
GILBERTO ABRANTES FILHO Department of Business, Federal Rural University of Rio de Janeiro (UFRRJ), Brazil

http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/pfie.2011.9.5.585

The aim of this article is to compare the schooling levels of individuals with the demands of the Brazilian labour market. The results demonstrate the high probability of compatibility between occupation and schooling levels. But high propensities for under-education were identified associated with the skin colour and position in the family. The results are consistent with the Brazilian social inequality. In conclusion, although there is a dearth of qualified labour in specific segments, the widespread existence of compatibility between workers’ occupations and their schooling levels suggests that companies have adapted themselves to the educational deficiencies of their workers.

Field/Work, Site, and Other Matters: exploring design practice across disciplines

ANNE PIRRIE University of the West of Scotland, Ayr Campus, United Kingdom
JAMES BENEDICT BROWN Queen’s University Belfast, United Kingdom

http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/pfie.2011.9.5.598

This article explores educational research and theory in the area of the built environment by reflecting on the challenges of interdisciplinary enquiry and the prerequisites for successful interdisciplinary practice. The genesis of a particular example of interdisciplinary collaboration is explored, and the authors come to the deceptively simple conclusion that taking time is the sine qua non for engaged and reflective collaborative practice. The article draws upon a variety of disciplines, including anthropology, sociology, cultural studies and architecture, to elaborate a set of distinctions that are then explored in relation to two specific examples from architectural education. The distinctions are between wayfaring and travelling and their epistemological analogues, namely inhabitant and occupant knowledge. To return to territory more familiar to those engaged in education in the built environment, we also explore the differences between sketches and plans. The authors reconsider Polyark (an educational initiative in which students from the Architectural Association in London took to the road in a decommissioned London bus) and its successor, Polyark II, in terms suggested by these distinctions. These examples illustrate the difficulty designers, educators and researchers face when they attempt to move away from normative design practice. However, they also open up new prospects for an elaboration of wayfaring practice across disciplines.

Awakening to White Privilege and Power in Canada

KHALIDA TANVIR SYED St Paul’s College, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada
ANNE HILL St Stephen’s College, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Canada

http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/pfie.2011.9.5.608

In this article two narratives are used to illustrate how self-awareness of ‘White’ as skin colour reveals associated subtle aspects of power and privilege and with that, an ethic of personal and professional responsibility. The narratives connect experience and action with the conceptual framework of a third, liminal space, demonstrating an opportunity for the respectful expression of multiple interpretations of experiences and thus, positive personal and institutional change. John Dewey’s classic work and recent research and writing by scholars such as Melanie Bush, Paul Carr and Darren Lund, Benedicta Egbo, and Maxine Greene offer additional insight and directions for exploration. The conclusion of the article suggests that beyond the initial experience of awareness and reflection, an ethical response demands a presence and collaborative action. It is hoped that this research will provoke invitations for dialogue across and within boundaries that have been less visible.

European Policy of Career Guidance: the interrelationship between career self-management and production of human capital in the knowledge economy

ANKI BENGTSSON Department of Education, University of Stockholm, Sweden

http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/pfie.2011.9.5.616

‘Everyone has a career to be managed’ is the simple message in new policy strategies for career guidance in Europe. In this article, the promotion of career management for ‘all’ will be unsettled by analysis of career self-management put in relation to rationalities of government and self-government. We are governed to self-manage our career and at the same time govern ourselves to do that. European policy documents on career guidance and career development produced from 2000 to 2008 are analysed from the Foucauldian governmentality perspective. From the starting point that re-shaping of career guidance is part of human capital strategies in the knowledge economy of Europe, the author argues that policy of career guidance aims to shape not only a competitive workforce, but in addition entrepreneurial and responsible citizens. In political strategies of career guidance, the competences of career management skills work as a technology to govern the individual to participate in inventing human capital by capitalising oneself to manage the career in working life as well as in social life. The author discusses what desirable subjectivities government of career self-management constructs in relation to re-regulated responsibility of the individual and the state.

Non-formal Education and Civil Society in Post-Soviet Russia: what is the relationship?

W. JOHN MORGAN School of Education, University of Nottingham, United Kingdom
GRIGORI A. KLIUCHAREV Department of Socio-Economic Studies, Institute of Sociology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/pfie.2011.9.5.628

The article describes collaborative research into the relationship between non-formal education and civil society in post-Soviet Russia. It shows how through social survey data and case studies of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and other civil society organisations (CSOs), using a combination of social science perspectives, much can be learned about the current condition and democratic potential of Russian civil society.

The Rhetoric of a Reform: the construction of ‘public’, ‘management’ and the ‘new’ in Norwegian education reforms of the 1990s

TOM ARE TRIPPESTAD Center of Educational Research, Bergen University College, Norway

http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/pfie.2011.9.5.631

This article presents a critical rhetorical analysis of the governing and reform ideology of the Norwegian school system of the 1990s. It uses Karl Popper’s The Open Society and its Enemies as a critical resource in the reading of the reforms, and discusses some of the consequences of the regime’s models of leadership and public management for important pedagogical qualities of the school system.

Improving the Professional Knowledge Base for Education: using knowledge management and Web 2.0 tools

MARILYN LEASK Faculty of Education, Sport and Tourism, University of Bedfordshire, United Kingdom

http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/pfie.2011.9.5.644

Improving education systems is an elusive goal. Despite considerable investment, international studies such as the Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) project of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the McKinsey Report, How The World’s Best Performing Schools Come Out On Top, indicate that improving teacher quality is more important than increased financial investment. Both reports challenge governments, academics and practitioners to adopt new ways of sharing and building knowledge. This article makes the case for national education systems to adopt tried and tested knowledge management and Web 2.0 tools used by other sectors, and highlights the neglected potential of teacher educators as agents for improvement.

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