EDM 6210
Education Policy and Society
Lecture 1
Sociology of Education Policy: Definition of the Field
A. Why Education Policy and Society?
1. Empirical issues
a. Why fining-toning MOI controversy?
b. Why DSS elitism controversy?
c. Why education for nationality controversy?
2. Issues of boundness and embeddedness of education policy
a. The contextual embeddedness in policy making and implementation
i. Embeddness at macro-level: social, economic, political and cultural
contexts
ii. Embeddness at meso-level: Institutional and organizational contexts
b. The boundedness of rationality in policy design
i. Degree of omniscience in education policy
ii. Degree of omnipotence in education policy
iii. Degree of omnipresence in education policy
B. Education Policy and Society of What?
1. Epistemological constituents of the course
a. Policy studies in education
b. Sociology of education
c. Sociology of education policy
2. Ways to Synthesis the Field of the Sociology of Education
a. In terms of theoretical perspectives, e.g. Functionalism, conflict theories,
interpretive perspective, post-modernism, etc.
i. Kababel and Halsey (1977)
ii. Sadovnik (2007)
iii. Apple (2009)
b. In terms of empirical areas, e.g. studies of education institution, school
organization, higher education, classroom interaction, curriculum,
schoolteachers, etc.
i. Apple (1999)
ii. Ball (1997 & 2008)
c. In terms of themes, context, location and time:
a. Roger Dale (2001)
b. Whitty (1997)
c. Halsey et al. (1996)
d. Lauder et al. (2006)
e. Apple et al. (2010)
f. Rizvi and Lingard (2010)
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C. A Framework Synthesizing the Development of the Sociology of Education
1. Dale characterizes the trajectory of the development of the field into three
components or forces. They are (a) dominant project or theme, (b) context,
and (c) location
2. Dominant project or theme: Two prominent themes have endeavored through
the history of the field. Sociologists of different theoretical orientations may
characterize them with different terminologies and put their emphasis on them.
a. Emile Durkhiem’s dual functions of modern education
i. Social necessity of homogeneity: Organic solidarity and integration
ii. Social necessity of diversity: Division of labor
b. Martin Carnoy and Henry Levin’s dual role of schooling in
capitalist-democratic state
i. Preparation for citizens in democratic state
ii. Preparation for workers in capitalist economy
c. Roger Dale dual project of modernity
i. Education as part of the project of enlightenment, i.e. the project of
emancipation of human potentials and reasons
ii. Education as part of the project of redemption and rectification of the
negative side of enlightenment (Dialectic of Enlightenment), e.g.
inequality and injustice in education and/or other human conditions
d. To summarize, the dualism in the educational theme of modern society
i. To nurture social homogeneity and constituting social integration
among future members of society within the imperative of the modern
nation-state, more specifically of the liberal-democratic state. This
imperative is built on the ideal of universal equality of all citizens.
ii. To nurture social diversity and constituting social division of labor
among future members of society within the imperative of capitalist
economy. This capitalistic imperative is operated under the rules of
competition, inequality or even the institution of stratification.
3. Location: The field of sociology has been inhabited predominantly by
academics working in teacher training institutes or researchers in policy
studies agencies. These locations of the practitioners of the filed imprinted
their marks on the development of the field.
a. This location feature of the field has salient effect on its researchers'
orientation. The filed is by nature an applied field and embedded in the
practice of teacher education and the process of education policy
formation.
b. On the one hand, some of its researchers have oriented their research
efforts to pedagogical practices in classrooms and administrative practices
in school organizations.
c. On the other hand, some other practitioners of the filed have concentrated
their research endeavors on policy studies in education.
4. Context: The changes in the empirical contexts, in which the practices of
education, schooling and instruction take place, have also affected the
development of the field significantly. They have not only shaped the research
agendas and themes of the field but also the practical climates of the locations,
in which its practitioners work.
a. Development of the national-compulsory education system as projects of
division of labor and organic solidarity in industrial-modern societies
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b. The optimism of progressive education and equalization project: The
policyscape of post-WWII welfare state had elicited a number of research
projects and policies claiming to equalizing social disparity with equality of
educational opportunities.
i. James Coleman's research on Equality of Educational Opportunity in
the US
ii. A.H. Halsey's project Educational Priority Area Project in the UK
iii. Desegregation school and busing policy in the US in the 1960s.
iv. Comprehensive school movement in the UK in the 1960s.
v. Compensatory and remedial education in developed countries
c. The pessimism and criticism of the radical theorists: In connection with to
the radical student movements in Western countries, the discursive theme
of the field shifted to more critical or even cynical toward the egalitarian
project and progressive education in the 1970s.
i. Reproduction theories proposed by Pierre Bourdieu, Bowles & Gintis,…
ii. The resistance theories advocated by Michael Apple, Paul Willis, Henry
Giroux, …
d. The instrumental-economicism the liberalistic-competition states:
i. A series of transformations of the 1980s, such as
- coming into power of the neo-liberal and neo-conservative
governments in many Western countries in the late 1970s and the
early 1980s;
- the rise of global-informational economy in the late 1970s and the
early 1980s; and
- the advent of global-informational culture in the late 1980s and early
1990s.
ii. In response to these fundamental transformations, the contexts of
education policy in many developed countries have undergone
fundamental changes.
iii. Lauder et al. (2006) have synthesized these transformations into two
trends
- Individualization: It refers to the social-differentiation process in the
late-modern or even post-modern society. It consists “first, the
disembedding of industrial society ways of life and second, the
re-embedding of new ones, in which the individuals must produce,
stage and cobble together their biographies themselves.” (Beck,
1997; quoted in Lauder et al, 2006, p.21)
- Globalization: It refers to the social-integration process in the
late-modern or postmodern society. It “is really about the
transformation of space and time. I would define it as action at
distance, and relate its growth over recent years to the development
of means of instantaneous global communication and mass
transportation.” (Giddens, 1994, p. 22) It refers to the “time-space
compression” processes “that so revolutionize the objective qualities
of space and time that we are force to alter … how we represent the
world to ourselves.” (Harvey, 1989, p. 240)
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D. The Organizing Themes of the Course
1. Education policies as projects of social differentiation of modern economy
a. Conceptions of social differentiation, inequality and stratification
b. Education policies in the context and process of class structuration of
capitalism
c. Education policies in the context of the class formation of capitalism
d. Education policies in the context of the “post-class” society
e. Education polices as project of social equalization
2. Education policies as projects of social integration of modern state
a. Conceptions of the state, nation, and citizenship
b. Education policies in the context of formations of the state and citizenship
c. Education policies in the context of nation-building and national-identity
formation
d. Education policies in the context of the dialectic of citizenship and
nationality
3. Education policies as project of competition state reflexively confronting the
advent of globalization.
a. Education policy in the context of globalizing class position and identity
b. Education policy in the context of globalizing citizenship and nationality
4. Education policies as project of constituting the lifeworld of schoolteachers
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