Education, Autonomy and Democratic Citizenship

Philosophy in a Changing World

David Bridges

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2002
• Print ISBN: 9780415153348
• eBook ISBN: 9781134741960
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Across the globe educators are being required to respond to a changing political environment. New nations emerge out of the collapse of old empires; new democracies struggle out of old structures of oppression. Driven on by the fierce competitiveness of the 'tiger economies' of the east, old social welfare[1]based democracies are transformed into new market led enterprise societies. The essays in this international collection are a response from twenty-two educators to these changes and to the reassessment that they provoke of some of the fundamental principles which shape educational thought and practice. They focus in particular on four key clusters of issues to do with the role of education in cultivating: • national identity Authors from political settings as culturally distant as Lithuania and Taiwan consider what role, if any, nationalistic education might play in the context of a democratic liberal education. • market principles Contributors offer different perspectives on the internationally pervasive application of the principles of the market economy to education and the consequent 'commodification' of learning. • personal autonomy Different dimensions of the contested notion of autonomy are examined along with the related discourses of 'edification' and 'empowerment'. • democratic citizenship From post-Soviet Russia to the new South Africa, in schools and in the context of professional training, educators examine what education for democratic citizenship might mean in practice and tease out some of the conflicts of principle which are raised in its implementation. The contributors are distinguished scholars drawn from every continent. They write consciously for an international readership and there is constant cross reference to developments in different parts of the world. All are practitioners in education sharing an interest in the philosophical issues underlying social change. The philosophical discussion is clearly rooted in and referred back to the world of educational practice and its political context.

1
INTRODUCTION

David Bridges

The contributors of this book all write in consciousness of and against a background of political change in their own countries and across the world. For some, these changes—for example, the collapse of apartheid in South Africa or of Soviet imperialism in Lithuania and Russia and the progress towards democratic institutions in Taiwan (Republic of China) and Malaysia—have been welcome and much celebrated though, when the immediate celebration has quietened, the political aftermath demands a more sober and complex response. For others, the ‘new medievalism’ in religious zealotry and the internationalisation of the market ideology, for example, are disturbing to in the one case their liberal, in the other their communitarian instincts. For all, however, their philosophical thinking is prompted by political and related educational developments in the world and is intended to inform the future course of those developments.

The chapters represent in this sense essays in applied philosophy, and I make no apology for including elements of history, narrative, politics and sociology among the more strictly philosophical ingredients. Indeed a number of the contributors (Whitty, Terry Phillips, John Phillips, Heathcote and Fogelman, for example) would certainly not identify themselves primarily as philosophers or philosophers of education, even if, as surely any serious academic should, they get drawn, as they do here, into philosophical ideas and reflection. I am pleased to represent in a New International Library of Philosophy of Education a collection of papers that move thus freely across boundaries which are routinely crossed in the intellectual life of continental Europe and many other communities but which are frequently over-nervously or over-zealously defended in the Anglo- American tradition.

Though the volume draws substantially from English contributors and exclusively from those fluent in the English language, it has some real basis for the international perspective which is a feature of the series in which it is published. Its contributors are drawn from every continent, though it makes no claims to reflect the full cultural or political diversity of the international community. Significant among the contributors are writers from the newly emerging democracies in South Africa, the Asian Pacific and the formerSoviet Union, in all of which issues to do with nationhood and national identity tangle with the drive for market economics and democratic politics.

But whatever the home location of the author, nearly every chapter cross references discussion to developments across the world. It is not just big business, but also educational policy and practice which have become internationalised, as they struggle to address economic, political, social and cultural issues which feature globally in the preoccupations of politicians and educators. These include notably: the role of the school in contributing to the development of national identity and nationhood, democratic citizenship and economic prosperity; and the balance between the claims of individualism, family, community, nation and state.

The origins of this book reflect directly part of this story of political change. It had its roots in a visit I made to Taiwan in the spring of 1994. Here I encountered, to my delight, a considerable enthusiasm for philosophy and philosophy of education (statues of philosophers feature prominently in public places!), a recent determination to extend democratic institutions, and the beginnings of moves to reform educational practice in the interests of developing a citizenry better equipped to play an active part in a democratic society. Out of discussions held during this visit emerged a proposal from the National Taiwan Normal University (NTNU), supported by the Taiwanese Ministry of Education, for an International Conference on Educational Reform. The conference in 1995 was chaired by Professor Oscar Jiaw Ouyang, Head of the Department of Education at NTNU, jointly convened by his colleague Dr Sophia Wen and myself, supported by Professor Juang-hsiung Huang, now Director of the Institute of Education at National Chung Cheng University. It brought together philosophers (primarily) from the Republic of China and from across the world. A core of the papers in this collection— those by Tsai and Bridges, Cowen, Whitty, Hyland, Wringe, Smith, Kaminsky, Terry Phillips and John Phillips, Heathcote, Fielding, Indabawa and Aspin— had their origin in the English language contributions to this conference, though most have been substantially revised for the purposes of this publication. In this sense, ingredients of the book have been themselves part of the history of change on which its authors reflect.

The authors probably share a broad allegiance to liberal and democratic values but none of them suppose these values to be unproblematic, uncontestable or unique in their demands. A recurring preoccupation in the book is consideration of ways in which these can or cannot be reconciled with other values and allegiances which the authors also recognise.

The unifying theme is of course that of educational policy and practice, with which all contributors are engaged at a very practical level, and the social and political principles and priorities which ought to underpin that policy and practice. More specifically, the central and recurring references are to four broad collections of principles: nationalism, the market, autonomy and democracy, around which the four main sections are organised, and a fifthcluster of values to do with collectivism and communitarianism, whose compatibility with some of those first four is a frequent focus for discussion. The interconnections between these five principles are however so extensive as to make any structural division somewhat arbitrary.

PART I: NATIONALISM, DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION

The first part of the volume focuses on the role which nationalistic education might play in the context of a democratic liberal education and the compatibility or otherwise of these principles. The chapters make specific reference to the way in which these educational aims are being articulated in Taiwan, in Lithuania and elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe. This last context also raises issues to do with tensions between individualist and collectivist principles which are further explored in Part III below.

John White opens the section with a defence of the place of national myths in a liberal and rational democratic education. Preparation for democratic citizenship, he notes, is a key liberal aim of education but it has often been held to be at odds with the cultivation of national sentiment. This is not surprising, given the bitter history of nationalism during the twentieth century, though David Miller, Yael Tamir and others have recently been arguing that liberal and national ideas are not necessarily incompatible.However, in a recent article Penny Enslin (who contributes later in this volume) rejects the view that nation-building should be an aim of education. She writes with South African affairs particularly in mind, urging that the prime educational task facing that new country is civic rather than national education. The present chapter offers a critique of Enslin’s position, concentrating especially on her claim that the mythical element found in appeals to national sentiment is logically at odds with the demand for rationality embedded in the core democratic value of personal autonomy. The chapter argues that historical myths about a nation’s past are not necessarily irrational, but that school history classes need to treat them with caution, ensuring at the very least that they are presented as contestable interpretations.

The chapter by Terence McLaughlin and Palmira Juceviciene begins by asking, similarly, to what extent education in a liberal democratic context should seek to form a national identity, but they approach the question rather differently. The first part of their discussion considers the question at the level of general principle. They argue that though education and schooling may seek to transcend particularities, they cannot take place in a cultural or political vacuum. Language, literature and custom are significant ingredients of personal as well as local identity and such identities of nationhood need not be opposed to autonomy and freedom. The second part of the discussion considers more specifically some of the issues about national identity and its reassertion which are the focus of debate in contemporary Lithuania andexamines some of the educational policies which are expected to serve the purpose of re-establishing national identity.

From Eastern Europe to East Asia—Ching-tien Tsai and David Bridges consider the way in which changing political values in Taiwan are reflected in developments in, in particular, the social studies curriculum. The chapter shows how traditional moral piety, ‘national spirit education’, and more recent demands for an education which will provide the foundations of democratic citizenship have been reflected in curriculum change and it considers to what extent traditional values and the political imperatives to retain an identity which is at once Chinese and Taiwanese can be reflected in a curriculum aimed also at the education of a democratic citizenry.

Felisa Tibbitts’ chapter offers curriculum developers’ teachers’ and students’ views about individualism/collectivism as they emerge in the reformation process of political education in the new nation-states of Central and Eastern Europe, with particular reference to Romania and Albania. It points to a number of concrete problems which arise in this context, such as designing content and instructional methods that incorporate the new individualism, as well as issues related to the perceived individualistic/collectivist dichotomy and the relationship between reformed philosophical outlooks and social realities in the emerging democracies.

PART II: EDUCATION, DEMOCRACY AND THE MARKET

The promotion of the principles of the market economy both within the more strictly economic field of the management of production, labour and prices and, by extension, as a way of arranging public service institutions in the fields of education and health, has been an almost universal feature of world politics in the last decade. This has been one of the most obvious consequences of the collapse of the Soviet empire and the discrediting of centralised planning and socialist aspirations which were assumed and declared (perhaps over readily) to be necessary implications of this collapse. For some these dramatic developments offered a new certainty and confidence in the capitalist ethic— the triumph of capitalism and of liberal democracy seemed to be one; for others they reinforced an acute sense of the end of all certainties, indeed of modernity itself. The chapters in this part reflect different perspectives on the policies and practices which have been associated with these changes.

Robert Cowen initially identifies the ways in which the Third World Modernity’ project was construed in economic terms by the development literatures of western social science. It notes the late insertion into this literature of themes of identity and social cohesion. In contrast he points out that the themes of national identity, individual autonomy and social cohesion were, in practice, central to the educational modernisation of many countries struggling for economic development in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The cases of Japan and the USSR are sketched.

These models are then contrasted with the late modernity education crisis, and its emerging solutions in a number of countries where market driven educational systems have emerged. Cowen suggests in this contrast that problems of the construction of social identity and social cohesion have been undervalued in these late modernity projects.

The final argument rejects both the highly differentiated economic and moral message systems of the ‘industrial’ education systems of the ‘western countries’ in the 1950s and 1960s, and the messianic visions of social cohesion on offer in contemporary Asian systems of education. Neither set of models seems to Cowen to offer a way to rescue future oriented conceptions of multiple citizenship and social cohesion which permit a place for ‘otherness’.

James Tooley observes that it is commonly argued that markets in education are opposed to ‘democratic education’, and that those who support markets in education must be in favour of an ‘individualist’ rational autonomy, an amoral democracy, and a capitalist-oriented education. By contrast, those who ‘struggle’ against markets uphold a ‘deliberative’ conception of autonomy which places individuals within the context of the ‘public sphere’, enjoying a rich education in the ‘learning society’. Carr and Hartnett (1996) explicitly argue this; others rally around similar claims.

Tooley, however, argues in this chapter that this mis-characterises the potential of markets in education. Markets in education are not incompatible with democratic education within a deliberative democracy at all. For markets can be regulated—hence educational opportunities delivered can be within democratic safeguards—and supplemented with a funding and regulatory safety-net for the sake of equity.

More strongly, however, Tooley argues that within the democratic deliberations about the role of the state in education, a three-pronged argument can be made which could lead to an endorsement of markets in education, in preference to state schooling, and he outlines the ways in which this can be developed.

Geoff Whitty too focuses on the ways in which market principles are applied to educational practice, as increasing numbers of quasi-autonomous schools with devolved budgets compete for individual clients in the marketplace, and education is treated as a private good rather than a public responsibility, though his stance is less enthusiastic. Whitty’s chapter considers the reasons for these changes and suggests that they involve a repositioning of education in relation to the state and civil society. He explores the implications of such changes for social justice and concludes that the reforms are tending to exacerbate social divisions between schools and between the pupils who attend different schools. He argues that there is an urgent need to strike a better balance between the rights of parents to choose schools for their children and the duties of public authorities to promote the education of all children. However, in calling for a reassertion of citizen rights alongside consumerrights in education, he also suggests that changes in the nature of contemporary societies require the development of new conceptions of citizenship and new forms of representation through which citizen rights can be expressed.

One dimension of the imposition of a market ideology on educational practice (though other ideologies could readily have produced the same effect) has been the increasing commodification of the curriculum, the notion of knowledge, education and training as something to be bought and sold on the market. With this has come too an increasing emphasis on the part that education and training play in economic success and a higher prioritisation of the vocational function of education at all levels and new kinds of accountability for that education and training.

This is the territory which Terry Hyland observes in his chapter. Hyland notes that the marginalisation and neglect of values and personal development objectives at school level in the UK as a result of a centrally imposed National Curriculum has been paralleled in post-school education through the vocationalisation of programmes by means of the competence-based education and training (CBET) strategy which underpins the increasingly influential work of the National Council for Vocational Qualifications (NCVQ). Such an approach to vocational education and training (VET), he argues, allows little scope for the development of personal, social and moral values and results in an excessively technical-instrumental approach, which runs counter to the ideal of fostering autonomy in education. As an alternative to this approach he outlines an ‘education for work’ programme—based on a Deweyan conception of vocationalism—and draws attention to the values and personal development aspects of work and employment. He recommends that such a core component should form part of the 14–19 curriculum for all students.

PART III: AUTONOMY RECONSIDERED

The notion of personal autonomy features centrally in the discourse of liberal education, of democratic values and indeed of market principles. Bridges recalls in his chapter Dworkin’s observation that the concept is, however, made to do a lot of work:

It is used sometimes as an equivalent of liberty…sometimes as equivalent to self-rule or sovereignty, sometimes identical with the freedom of the will. It is equated with dignity, integrity, individuality, independence, responsibility and self knowledge. It is identified with qualities of self-assertion, with critical reflection, with freedom from obligation, with absence of external causation, with knowledge of one’s own interests…. It relates to actions, to beliefs, to reasons for action, to rules, to the will of other persons, to thoughts and to principles. About the only features held constant from one author to another are that autonomy is a feature of persons and that it is a desirable quality to have.

(Dworkin 1988:6)

The chapters in this section explore different dimensions of the notion of autonomy itself and related discourses of edification (see Kaminsky) and empowerment (see Fielding), as well as some of the communitarian principles which stand in tension with the more individualistic notions of personal autonomy (see Smith, Wringe and Kaminsky). Though most of the contributions in this section are from the UK, Indabawa’s chapter serves as a useful reminder of the need to interpret and reinterpret this principle, as any others, in terms of the values and traditions of the society in which it is being applied.

Colin Wringe begins by observing that a commonly accepted account of rational autonomy as an educational goal can be set out in terms of the capacity to choose and sustain the most desirable way of life for oneself, subject to the requirement to respect the right of others to do likewise.

Communitarian and postmodernist views, however, seem to challenge the appropriateness and possibility of an individual’s exercising freedom of choice in the selection ...

Table of contents

• COVER PAGE
• TITLE PAGE
• COPYRIGHT PAGE
• NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• 1 INTRODUCTION
• PART I: NATIONALISM, DEMOCRACY AND EDUCATION
• PART II: EDUCATION, DEMOCRACY AND THE MARKET
• PART III: AUTONOMY RECONSIDERED
• PART IV: EDUCATION FOR AUTONOMY AND DEMOCRATIC CITIZENSHIP