Debates in Primary Education

Virginia Bower

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9781000197792
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This powerful text encourages both pre-service and established teachers, as well as teacher educators, to engage with contemporary debates in primary education. Promoting a critical approach, the chapters explore a wide range of key themes including the importance of values in primary education and the imperative for a curriculum which embraces the whole range of available subjects. At the same time, the chapters are underpinned by a belief that children should be at the heart of all the decisions we make and that primary education should inspire a love of learning, for life.

The book aims to support practitioners to make informed judgements and feel confident to argue their point of view with deeper theoretical knowledge and understanding, thus increasing teacher agency and confidence in responding to complex educational and social dilemmas such as literacy levels and rising mental health concerns. Chapters encompass both the macro aspects of primary education and more specialised debates on key topics such as reading, mathematics, languages, early years education and the use of technology.

With annotated further reading and reflective questions, this key text is essential reading for all those wanting to develop a better understanding of the issues that shape their practice including student teachers at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, practising teachers engaged in continuing professional development and teacher educators.

Chapter 1

The purpose of education

The purpose of primary education

Virginia Bower

Introduction

It seemed imperative, in a book debating a range of aspects of primary education, that the starting point debate the purpose of education; and more specifically, the purpose of primary education. Although opinions on this will vary, highlighting these differing viewpoints is essential in order to better understand the arguments put forward throughout the book. What we believe to be the purpose of education will depend on a substantial range of factors including our own experience of education; our philosophies; our political standpoints; and our personal and professional lives.

Only once we have a clear definition in mind can decisions be made regarding curriculum content, pedagogies to be promoted and assessment methods. The problem, of course, is that the definition for a primary school teacher might differ considerably from the definition for a politician, or for a local authority, a head teacher or other colleagues. The ensuing tensions have the potential to affect both how children learn and their experience of school; teacher agency and autonomy; and satisfaction with and retention to the profession. This does not, however, mean that different philosophies, approaches, pedagogies and practices cannot be mutually accommodating. What is important, though, is a thorough understanding of the theory and research which underpin viewpoints, so that informed decisions can be made, built on robust evidence and with the learner as the centre of the debate.

This chapter will begin by exploring three theoretical models which underpin beliefs relating to the purpose of education and, consequently, the approaches taken in terms of curriculum, pedagogy and assessment. These models are the human capital model, the rights-based model and the capabilities model, and were chosen because they encapsulate some of the challenges faced when deciding the purpose of education. It will be argued that our view of the purpose of education will inevitably be influenced – in some way – by all three theoretical models and that there are strengths and challenges with each. However, a stance will then be taken arguing that in primary education a focus on the capabilities model is more likely to offer young learners the holistic, innovative, motivational educational experience they deserve, and which they need to prepare them for an exciting but arguably unforeseeable future. Four themes are discussed, which are felt to reflect the capabilities model and which might be utilised to underpin the purpose of primary education: education for sustainable development; education to prepare learners for an uncertain future; education which promotes a critical, questioning stance; and education for lifelong learning. Before summarising, the chapter finishes with a consideration of the challenges for us all in defining a purpose and remaining true to it.

What lies behind our beliefs? Three theoretical models

Human capital model

Human capital theory is centred on the area of economic growth, whereby workers are seen as commodities. Within this, the purpose of education is seen as instrumental; preparing learners for the world of work, where their knowledge, skills and experience will benefit the economy, and therefore the focus ‘is on a person’s income-generating abilities’ (Robeyns, 2006, p.72), as ‘an educated population is a productive population’ (Olaniyan and Okemakinde, 2008, p.479). An education system built on this model will promote curricula, pedagogies and assessment systems which reflect the perceived needs of society and within which measurement of ability and success takes priority. There are clear benefits to this, in that there is the potential for learners to feel motivated and inspired as they look towards their working future and their earning potential. They can see their education as contributing to both the collective and individual good. Also, if governments believe that education has the potential to raise the economic status of their country, they are likely to be more willing to invest in it.

Of course, this model also imposes severe limitations in terms of the education provided and the philosophy driving the education system, as ‘it does not recognize the intrinsic importance of education, nor the personal and collective instrumental social roles of education’ (Robeyns, 2006, p.74). Within a human capital approach to education, focus tends to rest on standardisation, accountability and measurable assessment. Freire (2001, p.102) warned that this leads to a loss of freedom, creativity and the desire to take risks; and a ‘mass production’ of the conforming individual. Freire talks about the ‘fatalistic philosophy of neoliberal politics’ (ibid., p.93) and how this ensures that whenever market values are threatened, human interests are abandoned.

Klees (2016) argues that it is impossible to measure the impact of education on ‘society as a whole’ (p.647) and that to decide to invest in particular aspects of education or specific age groups based on what is perceived as economic efficiency is to believe in a world where the rate of return is easily measurable. In other words, if this much investment is put into primary education, the result will be this. Klees (ibid., p.651) argues that the rate of return based on what people earn is not useful because it does not provide a ‘complete and accurate picture of social returns and can result in a major misdirection of policy’. He goes on to say that you cannot accurately measure education’s impact on earnings, as there are too many variables including health, amount and quality of schooling, gender, cognition and race. Another perspective on this is from the economist Sen (n.d., p.42), who puts forward the idea that ‘a country can be very rich in conventional economic terms (i.e., in terms of the value of commodities produced per capita) and still be very poor in the achieved quality of human life’. In a later section examining the capabilities model, Sen’s ideas will be further examined.

An education system based on the human capital model also needs to be well-informed in terms of what employers perceive as valuable in their workforce. The current government’s focus is on a knowledge-based curriculum, with the potential to further block ‘creative teaching’ and lead to ‘a greater emphasis on didactic approaches’ (Dadds, 2001, p.44), and yet conversely, ‘industry is crying out for 21st-century skills – CEOs last year put collaboration (50 per cent), honesty (27 per cent) and vision (25 per cent) ahead of knowledge (19 per cent) as essentials for success’ (Heppell, 2016, no page).

You might at this point want to consider in what ways the curriculum, pedagogies and assessment systems with which you are familiar reflect elements of the human capital model.

Rights-based model

Fundamentally, the rights-based model posits that all children are entitled to an education and that ‘education is not seen simply as “a good thing” to be pursued if and when there are some funds available, but rather as the right of every child, implying that any government needs to mobilize the resources needed to offer a quality education’ (Robeyns, 2006, p.75). Notice here that Robeyns refers to ‘quality’ education, linking with Biesta’s (2015, p.81) argument that ‘the duty of education is to ensure that there is good education for everyone everywhere’. The human rights model is more concerned here with accessibility for all and a removal of barriers to learning, which might include finance, travel, geography, political stability and disabilities. It might be imagined that these barriers are not so relevant to countries in the developed world, but Rodriguez (2013, p.87) argues that in a ‘policy context that privileges conformity and standardization over responsiveness and inclusiveness, educators confront hegemonic forces that continue to shape public education for the majority of students living in poverty or who are ethnically, linguistically, and otherwise diverse’. The barriers are therefore likely to be a reality in all settings.

A rights-based approach aims to make education accessible for all, but assessing the quality of that education is more problematic and it is possible that, in making the purpose to ensure education for all, corners might be cut in terms of teacher training and professional development and resources, leading to a prescribed perspective on what a school curriculum might consist of (Ngwaru, 2011) – which often fails to take into account diverse lives, languages and cultures. Platt (2007, p.505) describes English society as both ‘class stratified’ and ‘discriminatory’, which makes certain groups more vulnerable than others. Furthermore, ‘lack of equality of opportunity, can compound the effect of the lack of equal starting positions that vex the whole meritocratic ideal’ (ibid.). It is unlikely that a quality education can emerge from this, and if the education lacks quality, then learners are unlikely to be in the best position to contribute to the economy (see the human capital model), or to become flourishing, fulfilled, lifelong learners (see the capabilities model).

At this point, you might want to consider how accessible the curriculum is to all the learners in your setting. Are there any barriers to them receiving a quality education?

Capabilities model

Amartya Sen is an economist and authority in this area and believes that a capability approach ‘sees human life as a set of “doings and beings” – we may call them “functionings” – and it relates the evaluation of the quality of life to the assessment of the capability to function’ (n.d., p.43). Capability theory is centred on one’s ability and freedom to make choices about what one wants to do and be, and of course this is highly relevant when we think about the purpose of education and what it has the potential to achieve.

The model is focused on social justice, which, it might be argued, associates it directly with the human rights model. However, in the rights-based model there is the potential – in the well-meant aim of education for all – to fail to consider barriers which face individuals or groups or for an education to be provided which is not of good and/or sufficient quality. In the capability approach, however, ‘all sources of inequalities in people’s opportunity sets are taken into account, hence in principle a capability analysis should always strive to account for all significant effects, even if this is a hard task’ (Robeyns, 2006, p.79). In the striving for equality within the human rights model,

Equality of resources falls short because it fails to take account of the fact that individuals need differing levels of resources if they are to come up to the same level of capability to function. They also have differing abilities to convert resources into actual functioning.

(Nussbaum, 2003, p.35)

The capabilities model promotes the idea that people should be given the freedom to do what they want to do and be what they want to be (functionings), but of course they need the capabilities to achieve this. Schools have the power to provide opportunity, motivation, resources, ideas, knowledge, space, support and a nurturing environment; they also have the power to restrict all of these elements, thus reducing learners’ capabilities, as ‘schools and communities continue to reflect pervasive, overt and subtle power balances that related to...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of illustrations
• List of contributors
• Introduction to the series
• Introduction
• 1 The purpose of education: The purpose of primary education
• 2 Intimations of Utopia: Values, sustaining environments and the flourishing of children and teachers
• 3 Reconceptualising teacher identity
• 4 Fundamental British Values: Are they fundamental?
• 5 What is effective pedagogy in the Reception Year?
• 6 Exploring how early years settings might promote high-quality communication and language opportunities through community-based projects
• 7 Teaching early reading: The phonics debate
• 8 The arts as handmaiden
• 9 The place of foreign languages in the primary school
• 10 Promoting a bilingual approach in the primary classroom
• 11 Debates in primary science education
• 12 Religious Education – what is it trying to do?
• 13 Geography and history – a sense of time and place
• 14 Using digital strategies for primary learning
• 15 The teaching and learning of primary mathematics
• 16 Debates in the teaching of primary physical education
• 17 Teachers as readers and writers
• 18 Teaching poetry within an accountability culture
• 19 ‘The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few’: Support for children with SEND in times of austerity
• 20 Leading the way
• Index