Towards a Posthuman Theory of Educational Relationality

Cutting Through Water

Simon Ceder

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9780367489151
• eBook ISBN: 9781351044172
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Towards a Posthuman Theory of Educational Relationality critically reads the intersubjective theories on educational relations and uses a posthuman approach to ascribe agency relationally to humans and nonhumans alike. The book introduces the concept of 'educational relationality' and contains examples of nonhuman elements of technology and animals, putting educational relationality and other concepts into context as part of the philosophical investigation. Drawing on educational and posthuman theorists, it answers questions raised in ongoing debates regarding the roles of students and teachers in education, such as the foundations of educational relations and how these can be challenged.

The book explores educational relations within the field of philosophy of education. After critically examining intersubjective approaches to theories of educational relations, anthropocentrism and subject-centrism are localized as two problematic aspects. Post-anthropocentrism and intra-relationality are proposed as a theoretical framework, before the book introduces and develops a posthuman theory of educational relations. The analysis is executed through a diffractive reading of intersubjective theories, resulting in five co-concepts: impermanence, uniqueness-as-relationality, proximity, edu-activity, and intelligibility. The analysis provided through educational examples demonstrates the potential of using the proposed theory in everyday practices.

Towards a Posthuman Theory of Educational Relationality will be of great interest to researchers and postgraduate students in the fields of philosophy of education, early childhood education, research methodology and curriculum studies.

Part I
Beginnings

Introduction

How to begin relationally? It is a beginning that is unstable and inconstant but also opening up to something new. When you try to grasp it, it slips away. It is like trying to grasp a phenomenon through categorizations; the next moment, it has changed, and the description is no longer accurate.

So what does it mean to begin relationally?

This “beginning”, like all beginnings, is always already threaded through with anticipation of where it is going but will never simply reach and of a past that has yet to come.

(Barad, 2010, p. 244)

Relationality implies that no form exists before the constant flux of molecules; it is taking shape and dissolving at the same time. In a similar way, the world is in a constant state of change, and therefore new descriptions are always needed. To describe does not involve revealing the essence of a phenomenon; rather, it means to question such foundations and create more relational alternatives. However, to do research does not mean becoming resigned to the relationality of the world and saying there is no use in trying to grasp the ungraspable. Haraway (2004) argues that this is why we need new stories that have “continuations, interruptions, and reformulations” (p. 128). To begin relationally is a way to continue to interrupt or cut reality and propose reformulations – always bearing in mind the transience of this venture.

Chapter 1
Towards a theory of educational relations

Introducing the field

When I’m at my summerhouse – it goes under the name Lilywood – in the Swedish countryside, I often go for walks with my dog, Abdi. Abdi and I walk along the dry stone walls surrounding the wheat and rapeseed fields. We cross the meadows but make sure to keep our distance from the cows. Abdi and I explore the grove and look for fish in the nearby pond. Occasionally, we meet Jan-Olof and Birgitta, the farmers who own the fields and meadows that surround my summerhouse. They are our closest neighbors, living on the farm across the field, and they have a dog that Abdi likes to play with. Recently retired, they are now devoted to breeding goldfish and other types of fish in their pond, but there is a heron that eats them. So we talk about that and about the weather, the harvest, and our dogs. However, occasionally we talk about education.

They ask about my research, and I tell them I write about education. I share stories from my experience as a teacher and explain why I am interested in studying relations in education. The topic is engaging. Jan-Olof tells me that their grandchildren are now school age. “The kids these days, they just run around in the classroom”, he continues. “No wonder they don’t learn much. Did you know that the teachers don’t even have their own desks in the classroom anymore?” Jan-Olof is slightly taken aback by his own words, as if he has just realized yet another dimension of confused fascination in connection with this insight. “And did you hear about that female teacher who was punched by one of her students? Apparently, before that incident, she had been called naughty words. Should it be like that? No. It has gone too far. Way too far”.

This critique of what is seen to be a too personal and too “soft” approach in the classroom has been a fairly common reaction to the escalating school problems in Sweden. For several years, Sweden has lagged behind in international student assessment evaluations in most subjects. This decline has occurred in the last few decades, and since the student-centered approach is said to have developed simultaneously, it is an easy target for blame. The Swedish liberal party used this position in the 2014 election campaign: “There should be no doubt that it is the teacher who decides in the classroom”.

“It was different back in my day”. Jan-Olof remembers his own school years in the 1950s, and continues, “If we were not silent in the classroom, the teacher would come up and hit you with the ruler”. Birgitta objects, and asks if Jan-Olof was really beaten. He admits that maybe he wasn’t, but others were. “There was a respect for the teacher, and we did what we were told”. Then Jan-Olof tells the story of this kid from the next village that really could not sit still: “He was restless and always had some pranks afoot. So he was beaten. And since he did not learn much, his parents decided to take him out of school. Instead, they asked a nearby haulage contractor if they could use an extra hand. He was a good worker and was eventually promoted to manager. Stayed there until retirement. So he managed anyway”. I will return to this story shortly.

Born in 1981, most of my school years took place in the 1990s, and therefore I cannot quite relate to what it is like to fear a teacher. As far as I know, the teachers I had in my school years – Gunnel, C-G, Lasse, Ann-Marie – never laid a violent hand on any of the students. One of the most dramatic moments in my school years was in 5th grade when my friend Sohejl was talking back to the teacher C-G, arguing that he did not need to clean up his messy school desk (the model that kept books, pencils, and other materials inside a drawer that opened through the top). C-G lifted the desk, brought it into the entrance hall, reversed it so all the content fell out and stated, “Well, now it needs cleaning”. Indeed, my school years were comparably quite harmonious. We usually respected our teachers, but I can’t remember whether it was out of fear of punishment. Since I have no personal experience of authoritarian teachers, I appreciated hearing Jan-Olof’s stories. The years passed by, and I went on to teacher education and became a teacher myself. From my years in teacher training, I clearly recognize the ideas of the “soft” approach to the students rather than the authoritarian approach. I will come back to this later.

Historically, the authoritarian teacher has existed, or exists, in most societies where education is given a leading role in fostering young children. It can be a religious authority, a state authority (as in military governed societies), or an authority of a welfare society such as Sweden. The transmission of knowledge and norms are central; the role of the student is to obey, and to receive the predetermined knowledge from the teachers. Hence, the educational relationship is a strict one, where the focus lies on the teachers’ methods and content. The classroom is seen as an industry, producing the kind of inhabitants that society requires. Flogging is forbidden in Sweden, as in many other countries, which means that the classic authoritarian teacher is something of a rarity. However, in many societies, the authoritarian aspect of education appears in other forms. One shape that will be discussed in the next section is the knowledge-centered approach to education. ¹

Knowledge- and student-centered approaches

In democratic societies, few teachers uphold the model of the educator as an authoritarian violent figure. Instead, they are administrative staff whose purpose is to help students to reach externally fixed goals. The knowledge goals are firmly connected to international student assessments, among which Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) is the most well known. Therefore, the concept behind the knowledge-centered approach to education is becoming increasingly significant. ² Based on the idea of control, discipline, and order, the knowledge-centered approach to education is associated with a new form through the recent emphasis on student performance and control in teaching. What has been called a new authoritarian discourse (Rosén, 2010), a knowledge-efficient school system (Aspelin & Persson, 2011), or a utilitarian performance culture (Juelskjær, Staunes & Ratner, 2013) is a well-analyzed aspect of education. This aspect involves quality reports, national tests, international student assessments, grades in earlier classes, and the administration of the teacher’s role, not to mention the market’s role in education. The aspects mentioned previously are the conditions set out for teachers on a societal and organizational level that steer teachers toward more structured, administrative roles. Therefore, the belief that evidence-based research on teaching is the savior of education is strong in some quarters, for example, among a number of current politicians.

Throughout the history of education, knowledge-centered approaches can be found in different shapes, often in contrast to a student-centered approach. Let me expand on the student-centered approach before returning to a discussion of both approaches. In the student-centered approach, educational relations have been developed through concepts of dialogical methods, mentoring, sociocultural pedagogy, formative evaluation, (self-) reflection, and a strong focus on the relational and interpersonal aspects of teaching and learning. The student-centered approach also has a strong critical voice, one which advocates promoting emancipation and enhancing democracy. Research concerning the personal relations between the teacher and the student is intensely studied. One political influence on the current student-centered approach can be traced to left wing political demands for democracy and student influence developed in the late 1960s and the 1970s in Sweden and many other countries. Since then, Swedish curricula have, for example, included aspects of equality, including gender equality, and have placed the student at the center of the learning and teaching processes. Teaching should be planned with the students’ interests, backgrounds, needs, and goals as the starting point. These political changes had a huge impact on the way in which education evolved towards a more personal student-centered approach (Aspelin & Persson, 2011).

Negative side effects of the student-centered approach include cases where teachers leave their students to work all by themselves on some kind of individual activity pedagogy, which has been shown to have the effect of making students less engaged in their work (Vinterek, 2006). Ecclestone and Hayes (2009) refer to what they call the new therapeutic education, which is based on psychological concepts. Instead of focusing on the student and her/his educational development, the student’s psychological well-being is instead the focus of attention. These criticisms target mainly practical consequences, rather than addressing the philosophical plane this book is utilizing.

It’s time to return to my walk with Abdi, and the conversation on education taking place in the middle of the Swedish countryside. Even if Jan-Olof is somewhat nostalgic when talking about the strict order in the classroom in his day, he also recognizes the problems with it. One example is the story of his schoolmate who dropped out. “Today, maybe he would have gotten extra help, or a diagnosis of some kind”, Jan-Olof reflects, despite the fact that the situation for his schoolmate turned out just fine in the end. Jan-Olof does not wish the old system back but stands empty-handed, unable to offer a reliable alternative. Before, the schools in Sweden were too authoritarian and knowledge-centered, even permitting violence towards students. Today the Swedish school has considerably shifted to a soft student-centered approach, one which is lacking in discipline and knowledge. As Jan-Olof said, “It has gone too far. Way too far”. In voicing this position, he represents the public’s current view on Swedish education. From my experience, I recognize the student-centered approach as a dominant perspective from my teacher education. To some extent, I also recognize this discourse from the upper secondary school where I was teaching. Although it was the view that was embraced at the time, the student-centered ideal always conflicted with other aspects such as curriculum, schedule, and the strengthening of the knowledge-centered discourse in Swedish society.

So far, the description of the knowledge-centered and student-centered approaches to educational relations has been intentionally discussed in a dualistic way. It involves a clear-cut conflict, different ideological goals, and a polemic debate that confuses means with goals. All debates are dependent on the way the agenda is set. If the left wing, socially aware, democratic student-centered approach has until recently had a major impact on education in the past decades, the current neo-liberal, right wing, knowledge-centered approach now has a strong voice, both in contemporary Swedish and international debate. ³ But how can one deal with education, if not from the standpoint of this polemic dualism? Should I develop a middle way to study? Or perhaps the perfect balance? When adopting a dualist model and not wanting to end up at either of the two poles, a middle way is a common means to find a resolution. A comic strip by the artist Warren that went viral in educational contexts portrays a classroom with children in straight rows and a teacher in front telling them: “I expect you all to be independent, innovative, critical thinkers who will do exactly as I say” (as cited in Lasley, 1989, p. 38). The problem with approaching a solution as a middle way is that the dualist starting points are accepted as the valid framework of the debate. I framed the two positions as centric positions – how can an alternative framework be developed in their place?

One solution to this dilemma is to focus on the research field of educational relations. This research is extensive and encompasses a wide range of educational theories. Education is analyzed as a relational question based on relational theories and principles. The perspective of educational relations escapes both knowledge-centrism and student-centrism. This book will be located in the field of educational relations, but how can the relational perspective be approached without promoting the relation as a new centric position? The study of educational relations therefore needs to be approached as a decentering project. The possibility of doing this will be discussed next.

Education – from relation to relationality

This book is located in the research field of educational relations, with an interest in its theoretical and philosophical underpinnings. I will, in the following, introduce central problems in the field educational relations; these will be dealt with more thoroughly in the later section “Research on educational relations”. The purpose is not to install educational relations as a new centric position, but to use the concept of relationality as a decentering concept. Even though education is a processual science, many researchers in this area find their points of departure not in the processes, but in stable entities existing before and after the process. For example, learning is considered a process that appears as a transformation of the learning subject ⁴ in accordance to measurable standardized knowledge goals. Teaching is considered a process that appears when a teacher prepares and delivers knowledge for one or several students to understand. From a variety of educational relations perspectives, students, teachers, and knowledge are seen as preexisting entities that interact in various ways with the goal of transforming the student. What would a theory of educational relations look like if it did not focus on entities but instead on relationality?

In order to explore the idea of relationality, new approaches are needed. My own educational experience prior to enrolling in the PhD program is restricted to educational practices: attending school as a student, attending university as an education student, and working as a teacher in an upper secondary school (high school). Despite this experience, I do not have a good answer to the question of relationality. I believe that, if I performed a classroom study, I would most likely also see entities rather than relationality. There is no available language for studying relationality, and my mind is impregnated with individualistic and entity-based ideas due to its dominance in Western history of ideas. Instead, I need to explore a language and an approach that are less geared toward categorization and are better equipped to take on the difficult task of handling education more fluidly. For this purpose, a philosophical/theoretical approach is used in this book, which therefore places it within the philosophy of education. The main contribution of this book is the development of a new theory in contrast to existing theories of educational relations. I call this theory educational relationality, ⁵ and I refer to the concepts developed to explore the theory as co-concepts. ⁶

Studying education as a relational matter also necessitates a critique of individualism. When discussing the purpose of education and learning, the learning subject – the student – is generally placed at the center. Classrooms are studied as spaces containing...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• PART I Beginnings
• PART II Diffractions
• PART III Examples
• References
• Index