Power and Education
ISSN 1757-7438

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

Life without the ‘X’ Factor: meritocracy past and present

ANSGAR ALLEN School of Education, University of Sheffield, United Kingdom

http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/power.2012.4.1.4

This article argues that ‘meritocracy’ is more than an abstract principle of justice. It is a social technology, the history of which is associated with changing configurations of power and knowledge. In its latest and perhaps most dystopian form, meritocracy has abandoned the principle of working towards perfectly administered distributions of human ability; whether talents are always rewarded or not, no longer matters. The important thing is for us to act as if they are, as we strive to achieve our potential. According to present-day meritocracy, we must learn to live sustainably within systems of hope and disappointment.

Teachers Changing Worlds

JANE QUIN School of Education, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa

http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/power.2012.4.1.20

Even big waves of political revolution are not able to wash away deeply internalised oppression and entrenched injustice – especially far away from the epicentre where only the ripples reach. Deep in South African rural schools, steeped in layers of social and cultural oppression that has shape-shifted through generations of political regimes, are scatterings of teachers taking on the frequently lonely task of teaching for social justice. It is precisely their contextual knowledge of the nuances of the power play of the hegemonic norms that makes possible their ways of working. Through a structured pedagogical journey of critical consciousness-raising, this article reports on the conduct and outcomes of self-reflective action research to facilitate more socially just practices in the writers’ own schools, presenting some of the self-reflective action research reports/stories of these educators produced while they work for social justice.

Telling the Truth: using narrative accounts of sexual violence to trouble feminist and therapeutic theory

ALISON HEALICON Education and Social Research Institute, Manchester Metropolitan University, United Kingdom

http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/power.2012.4.1.33

For women who have experienced sexual violence, to tell another person is both a considered and a compulsive decision. Many women never tell, yet, within our therapeutic culture, it is thought imperative that women recount their stories of abuse in order to heal and become socially responsible. Not only does the act of sexual abuse violently fragment identity, but the process of recovery through speech concerns the purposeful transformation of identity from victim to survivor, albeit always associated with the original act of violence. It is the speech act, the storying of the incident, that is transformative. The moment of telling therefore represents a dynamic and socially situated event which can, within the context of therapeutic discourse, powerfully transform the agentic speaker into a victim or a survivor. This article explores this moment of telling stories of sexual violence, focusing on two women’s accounts which arose as part of a long-term ethnographic study within a feminist voluntary organisation working with women who have experienced sexual violence. The point of recognition in this interpersonal and socially situated transformation into victimhood is explored, to highlight instances of resistance and to trouble the discourse of psychological harm. In so doing the binary of victim/survivor is contested as a useful categorisation of those who have experienced sexual violence. In concentrating on this specific moment of telling, it is suggested that identity is constructed continually and so, although this article is necessarily focused, extrapolations to the wider field of education can be made.

Sacajawea: witnessing, remembrance and ignorance

WANDA S. PILLOW Department of Education, Culture & Society and Gender Studies, University of Utah, USA

http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/power.2012.4.1.45

This article considers the relations between discourse, knowledge, power and representations, and particularly how constructs and ideologies of gender, race and sexuality impact what we think we know, how we come to know it, and where this knowledge goes in theory, policy and practice. The story of Sacajawea, a Lemhi-Shoshone woman who was involved in the 1804‑06 US Corp of Discovery expedition, is used as an examplar of how hegemonic representations, passed on through curriculum content, can distort understandings and perpetuate colonial and othering perspectives.

Imagining a World Where Paris Hilton Loves Mathematics

VANESSA VAKHARIA The Math Guru, Toronto, Canada

http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/power.2012.4.1.57

This article is a conceptual piece which explores what it might be like to incorporate marketing theory and notions of cool into the realm of mathematics education in an attempt to elicit mathematical enthusiasm from a specific subset of the female population who often self-select out of mathematics despite their high mathematical aptitude. Focusing on girls from Toronto, Canada, who generally see themselves as part of the mainstream culture, this article speculates as to how these girls understand their relationship to mathematics. The central purpose of this research is to understand whether these girls choose not to pursue mathematics beyond the compulsory level because they are selecting courses to construct their identity on the basis of cool, using the same evaluation process they would when selecting products. Drawing extensively on literature and participant data, this article presents a novel perspective with which to view female disinterest in mathematics. Grounding the empirical data atop the theoretical brings to life the interconnection of perspectives of scholars like Walkerdine, Mendick, Demetriou and Gladwell, illustrating how femininity, consumerism and mathematics are interwoven into the very fabric of our socially constructed reality. This article argues that treating mathematics as a consumer good and marketing it accordingly might give rise to increased mathematical participation and enthusiasm by this particular segment of girls, who rely on identity marketing for many of their consumption decisions.

Obedience, Sabotage, Autonomy: power games within the educational system

GRZEGORZ MAZURKIEWICZ Department of Management and Social Communication, Institute of Public Affairs, Jagiellonian University, Cracow, Poland
BARTŁOMIEJ WALCZAK Institute of Applied Social Sciences, University of Warsaw, Poland

http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/power.2012.4.1.73

The authors’ aim in this article is to use a critical approach to analyse the modernisation process of the pedagogic supervision system in Poland, looking at change not as critics but (co)authors. Their aim is not to exploit the strengths of critical sociology when applied to the processes of innovation, but to use these strengths reflexively to arrive at a better understanding of change, and of the reactions and the behaviour of all the participants in the process, including their own role in the system and its possible dangers. The authors believe that for a sociologist involved in the change process, the reflexive approach is crucial so as to comply with ethical requirements, and that it enables an active, needs-oriented involvement when making decisions about introducing change.

Widening Participation, Aimhigher and the Coalition Government: narratives of freedom and efficiency

ROWENA PASSY School of Education, University of Plymouth, United Kingdom

http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/power.2012.4.1.83

This article responds to the decision of the United Kingdom’s coalition government to abolish Aimhigher, a programme for widening higher education participation among disadvantaged young people in England. It examines recent research into widening participation and shows how the gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students has narrowed slowly but significantly over the past decade. Aimhigher’s role is explored, and the strengths of its partnership approach considered. Drawing on the notion of assemblage, the article then compares the values that underpin the narrative of Aimhigher with those embedded in the coalition government’s proposals for widening participation. The article concludes that the gains made over the past decade will be reversed and that social class divisions in university study will become further entrenched.

Negotiating the Multiple Meanings of Participation within Multi-agency Working: children’s participation at policies’ crossroads

BETH CROSS School of Applied Sciences, University of Stirling, United Kingdom

http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/power.2012.4.1.96

Over the last decade, the term ‘participation’ has gained prominence within children’s services and policy formation. However, this term is used in variable ways and there remains a lack of consensus within policy circles about its employment. As a consequence, young people encounter a variety of practices to which this term is ascribed. This article explores the understandings of participation as they varied across settings with a cohort of upper-primary pupils who accessed a number of children’s services within their locality. Contested meanings of participation became particularly apparent within a multi-agency project in which the area’s community centre and housing office piloted a project packaged as an antisocial-behaviour prevention strategy. This project brought participatory learning strategies into the school and raised awareness for those participating about community services and opportunities. The article draws on observations of sessions and interviews with teachers, youth workers and young people to explore the negotiations around pedagogy and discourse that the project entailed in order to explore the different ways that participation was glossed within these negotiations. This examination of differing understandings and performances of participation is then used to reflect upon changing the children’s services agenda and terminology.

The Future of the Public Library: reimagining the moral economy of the ‘people’s university’

JOHN BLEWITT Aston Business School, Aston University, Birmingham, United Kingdom

http://dx.doi.org/10.2304/power.2012.4.1.106

New media technologies, the digitisation of information, learning archives and heritage resources are changing the nature of the public library and museums services across the globe, and, in so doing, changing the way present and future users of these services interact with these institutions in real and virtual spaces. New digital technologies are rewriting the nature of participation, learning and engagement with the public library, and fashioning a new paradigm where virtual and physical spaces and educative and temporal environments operate symbiotically. It is with such a creatively disruptive paradigm that the £193 million Library of Birmingham project in the United Kingdom is being developed. New and old media forms and platforms are helping to fashion new public places and spaces that reaffirm the importance of public libraries as conceived in the nineteenth century. As people’s universities, the public library service offers a web of connective learning opportunities and affordances. This article considers the importance of community libraries as sites of intercultural understanding and practical social democracy. Their significance is reaffirmed through the initial findings in the first of a series of community interventions forming part of a long-term project, ‘Connecting Spaces and Places’, funded by the Royal Society of Arts.

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