Wk: 5 Education

Question 1

Education in Australia: Background.
3 phases of development?

Answer 1

Three phases of development
* Mid 19th century – WWII: A modern system based
upon liberal humanist ideas
* WWII – 1970s: Expansion underpinned by social
democratic beliefs
* 1980s onwards: Marketisation influenced by
neoliberalism

From the 1860s state governments became more involved
in the organisation of education.
* Government schools were an addition to church
schools
* Legislation led to the creation of secularly public
schooling

Question 2

The Modern System: Liberal Humanism
(Mid 19th century – WWII)

Answer 2

• Ruling elites believed that the working
  class needed to be educated or else they
  would not value the social hierarchy.
• One must be cultured in values and
  beliefs!
• Liberal humanism: An educational
  philosophy that emphasises learning
  knowledge for its own sake and its
  civilising effects on learners (for e.g.,
  through one’s outlooks and beliefs)
• The intrinsic value of education implied a
  need for formal education without
  influence from Church, businesspeople or
  politicians.

Question 3

What is liberal humanism?

Answer 3

An educational philosophy that emphasises learning knowledge for its own sake and its
civilising effects on learners (for e.g.,
through one’s outlooks and beliefs)

Question 4

Leaving the Modern System (WWII – 1970s). What is it?

Answer 4

• It was during the 20th century that state
  governments raised the minimum leaving
  age, introduced legislation against truancy,
  and prohibited the employment of children
  under the age of 14 and created more
  secondary school.
• After WWII and between the early 1950s – mid
  1970s there was a sharp growth in
  enrolments as a social democratic view of
  education in society emerged.
• Social democratic thinking is guided by an
  ideology that emphasises universalism,
  equality of opportunity and meritocracy as
  the basis of inclusion and achievement.

Question 5

What is Social democratic thinking?

Answer 5

Social democratic thinking is guided by an
ideology that emphasises universalism,
equality of opportunity and meritocracy as
the basis of inclusion and achievement.

Question 6

What is Post-war Social
Democratic Education
(1980s onwards)?

Answer 6

Although education is usually a state rather than federal responsibility. The post-war period saw the federal governments increased involvement due to the following factors that encouraged expansion of
education:
* Demographics: The baby-boomer generation was
working its way through the education system
thus increasing tertiary enrolments in particular
* Economics: State governments finding it difficult
to fund higher education
* Politics: A growing desire to enable more
potential students to enrol in higher education in
view of social democracy

Question 7

What is social democracy?

Answer 7

Political ideology that emphasises
universalism, equality of opportunity
and meritocracy as the basis of
inclusion and achievement.

Can be broken down into:
Universalism
Equality of opportunity
Meritocracy

Thus the 1950s saw the belief that
if one wants to go university they
should be able to

Question 8

What is Universalism?

Answer 8

Everyone has a right to be included in society

Question 9

What is Equality of opportunity?

Answer 9

Inclusion should be on a fair and
equal basis

Question 10

What is Meritocracy?

Answer 10

The basis should be merit, not inherited privilege

Question 11

What did the Whitlam Labor
Government (1972 – 1975) do?

Answer 11

• Abolished tuition fees for university
  students.
• This government’s Karmel Report
  revealed a lack of resourcing in schools
  and argued for more funding.
• The Karmel Report led to the creation of
  the Commonwealth Schools
  Commission which saw federal spending
  grow from $364 million to $1.1 billion in
  two years.
• The Karmel Report also led to targeted
  attempts to overcome social inequalities
  such as the Disadvantaged Schools
  Program.

Question 12

What is the Gonski review?

Answer 12

• ‘A significant increase in funding is required
  across all schooling sectors, with the largest
  part of this increase flowing to the
  government sector due to the significant
  numbers and greater concentration of
  disadvantaged students attending
  government schools’ – Gonski Review (2011)
• The report proposed that $5 billion per year
  be distributed in ways to alleviate social
  disadvantage
• This need was accepted by Julia Gillard of
  the Labor Government (2012 – 2013)
• The LNP government led by Tony Abbott
  (2013 – 2015) expunged the report from
  government sites.

Question 13

What is New Economism and
Marketisation?

Answer 13

• New Economism: Educational ideology that emphasises the role of markets and economic considerations
• From the 1980s onwards grew the view that education should be understood through its market value
• From the 1980s onwards the investment in private schools has increased substantially
• We must not forget that socially democratic education and new economism are both valuable to the nation.
• The idea that everyone should be educated and a greater emphasis on contributing to national prosperity and training for professions

Question 14

‘competition breeds performance’ What is Economic rationalism?

Answer 14

Economic rationalism: The idea that competition breeds financially defined performance. Economic rationalism focuses on heightening efficiency in education as a service.
* There is a market within education systems and their clientele (you, your employers and your families)
* Competition between schools
* Governance at the local school level
* Training principals in financial management
* Corporate sponsorship
* Where you are educated is a consumer choice.

Marketisation can be seen in placing the financial
responsibility for education on the individual as a customer
* Since the 1970s government spending on education
has decreased while private spending has increased.

Question 15

When taking into account ‘competition breeds performance,’ what the the 3 things that education is?

Answer 15

Education is thus a:
* Private investment (making you an investor)
* A commodity
* Individually focused and breeds competition.

Question 16

Social inequality in education - class:

Answer 16

Higher social class =
* More likely to continue on beyond compulsory education
* Achieve examination passes when at school
* Gain university entrance
* Attendance of more established higher status universities
rather than newer universities.

• Policy has led to the working-class achieving more within the education system but this increase is not relative to those of the upper class.

Question 17

Social inequality in education - gender:

Answer 17

• Until the 1980s boys had superior
  educational attainment
• Differences at school level maintained
  the unequal positions of men and
  women in society.
• Gender revolution: In the late 1990s
  the gap in educational achievements
  between the genders shifted from boys
  outperforming girls to girls outperforming boys.
• There has been some movement to
  address the underperforming of boys
  (e.g., Boys: Getting It Right inquiry)
• Boys still do outperform girls in
  some areas
• There is an underrepresentation
  in higher levels of education and
  the workforce in science,
  technology, engineering and
  maths.
• 3 to 1 in physics.
• 2 to 1 in advanced math.
• In 2023 the engineering
  workforce is 20% female.

Question 18

Social inequality in education - Ethnicity and
Indigeneity:

Answer 18

• The relationship between ethnicity and educational attainment is complicated by gender and class.
• There is no ‘ethnic experience’ of schooling as
  ethnicity widely varies.

Indigenous students:
* Are underrepresented in education (83.2% for
indigenous vs 93% for non indigenous)
* Participation rate of 0.05% in Australian
universities and becomes even lower in higher
degree research courses (e.g., PHD or Masters)
* Success and retention rates in higher education
for indigenous students is much lower than for
non-indigenous students.

Question 19

What are the four kinds of
approaches to education?

Answer 19

• Naturalism
• Externalism
• Internalism
• Culturalism

Question 20

What is naturalism in relation to education?

Answer 20

Non-sociological approaches that look
to biological differences among social
groups in order to explain differences in
educational experiences and outcomes.

A dangerous and limiting view
* Intelligence quotient: A score
derived from tests designed to assess
intelligence. Intelligence quotient (IQ)
tests have been subject to considerable
criticism for their cultural biases. Yet
they are central to naturalistic
explanations
* It was previously argued by
Eysenck (1971) and Jensen (1973)
that about 80 percent of
intelligence is genetic thus
explaining differences in
educational attainment between
groups.

Question 21

What are criticisms of Naturalism?

Answer 21

• IQ scores are not culturally neutral and
  you cannot determine whether they are
  shaped by genetic or environmental
  factors
• IQ scores are biased towards Western,
  middle-class culture/s and do not address
  how thinking is shaped by different social
  structures
• IQ does not explain differences in
  educational attainment as scores also vary
  within groups (e.g., class) even when IQ
  scores are the same
• Patterns of achievement can vary over
  time (as we noted with gender!)

Question 22

What is externalism in relation to education?

Answer 22

• Focuses on the significance of
  relationships between education
  and its social contexts, such as to
  the economy, in shaping what goes
  on within education.
• Different societal needs drive
  educational practice.
• Looks beyond the classroom in
  understanding and explaining
  education

Question 23

What is structural functionalism in regards to externalism?

Answer 23

• Structural functionalism:
  Focuses on the function that
  educations serves in maintaining
  social order.
• The socialisation of children into
  values and roles

Question 24

What are 3 key functions of education as per externalism?

Answer 24

• Human capital development: Training to
  ensure we meet the needs of
  industry
• Allocative function: To
  allocate young people to
  different positions in society
  through training and
  qualifications.
• Common culture: For
  members of society to share
  values and to be cohesive

Question 25

Why are there differences in educational access and attainment? (externalism)

Answer 25

Due to the talents and needs of
individuals.

Inequality is natural as important
positions should be filled by intelligent
qualified people.

Criticisms with this line of thought:
* Little evidence that education does
provide skills required by industry
* Perhaps allocation be based on social
class, gender, ethnicity and other social
variables rather than individual
characteristics.
* Curricula is biased towards class, race
and gender thus alienating students and
their potential.

Question 26

Conflict Theory Applied to
Externalism?

Answer 26

Capitalist reproduction/correspondence
theory
* Education prepares students for their
future working lives.
* Educations reflects the organisation
of production in a capitalist society.

For working class students (not the
privileged), school prepare them to serve
capitalism in being:
* Hardworking
* Obedient
* Docile
* Motivated
* Divided among themselves.

Question 27

What is the hidden curriculum?

Answer 27

• A set of values that students
  learn through the experience of
  attending school, rather than
  the stated educational
  objectives of such institutions.
• Uniformity
• Conformity
• Competition
• Punctuality
• Authority

Question 28

Criticisms of conflict theory as it relates to extrenalism:

Answer 28

Criticisms of reproductive theories.
* An overemphasis on the
economic relations on
education as schools and
teachers do have (some)
autonomy over their pedagogy
and choices.
* Little evidence for schooling
shaping personalities.
* An exaggeration of how
educations shapes us into
compliant workers.

Question 29

Externalism & Patriarchal
Needs

Answer 29

• Education serves the needs of a patriarchal
  society.
• Education provides students with the
  practices and beliefs appropriate to their
  future roles in the gendered division of
  labour.
• The hidden curriculum prepares girls for:
• Their position in the workforce
• Their potential lower income
• Lower status positions
• Lower status careers
• Unpaid and unrecognised domestic
  labour
• A lack of empirical studies of the relationship
  between patriarchy an and education.

Question 30

Ethnicity and externalism

Answer 30

*The creation of national identity among
non-English speakers and those
students of Indigenous backgrounds.
*Indigenous assimilation resulting in the
Stolen Generation due to a
functionalist need for common culture.
*Multicultural courses were introduced
in Australia in 1973, aiming to improve
cultural diversity in society and
respond to language diversity.
*We’ve moved from focusing on a
common Australian culture to a more
interactional emphasis on how migrant
and Indigenous students view
themselves and are viewed by others.

Question 31

Externalism - criticisms?

Answer 31

• The logic of causality where
  education reproduces society and
  that by changing education, we
  change society.
• A lack of supportive empirical study
• Lack of autonomy afforded to
  education makes the possibility of
  change for the better problematic.

Question 32

What is Internalism?

Answer 32

Internalism looks within education to
explain differences in educational
attainment.
* A focus on educational processes and
interaction.
* What is the reality of everyday life in
education?
* Are children interacted with
differently?

Question 33

Private schools:

Answer 33

Private schools were seen as working for
parents with paid teachers that were to
serve the needs of parents. Kinship was
established between parents through
socialising among parents and teachers
facilitated by school organisations (e.g.,
sports organisations)

Question 34

Public schools:

Answer 34

Public schools were seen as working for
the state. Teachers were dismissive of
parent’s knowledge of school and took
an authoritative approach. Teachers
were seen as less responsive to students
needs and seen as poor in teaching,
inconsistent in discipline, showing
favouritism, and lacking respect.

Question 35

Labelling Theory and
Classroom Practices
(linkage to symbolic
interactionism)

Answer 35

• Labelling Theory: Argues
  that social groups create
  deviance by making the
  rules regarding whose
  infraction constitutes
  deviance and by applying
  those rules to particular
  people and labelling them as
  outsiders.
• Labelling leads to self-
  fulfilling prophecies in
  teaching (time and
  attention) among teachers –
  the bright, mediocre and
  less able students are
  taught differently.

Question 36

Why did girls underachieve until the 90s?

Answer 36

• Male domination of the academic subject choice
• Subjects shape future employment prospects where girls are less inclined to gamble on higher status subjects if they feel it is unlikely that they will find success.
• The curriculum and textbooks embodied gender
  identities that portrayed girls and women in
  negatively stereotyped ways and ignored their
  contribution.
• Teachers have gendered expectations that reinforce gender vision.

Question 37

Why did boys begin to underperform in the 90s?

Answer 37

• The feminisation of teaching and lack of role
  models for boys (although this doesn’t find much
  support in studies)
• Masculinity discourages boys from educational
  success
• The trend towards course-based assessment
• Boys have more freedom than girls in how they
  spend their leisure time

Question 38

Internalism - Criticisms

Answer 38

• Students are seen as passive and that
  fails to recognise how they may
  choose to reject or subvert external
  pressures.
• Are teachers as significant to students
  as an internalist account would
  suggest?
• It isn’t clear if internalist notions are
  based on girls in general in the
  classroom or specific girls.
• It is questionable how significant
  identity really is and if it is, in what
  way and which parts of one’s identity?
  Ethnicity? Religious? Sexual?
• Loses sight of wider issues that may
  be structural in nature.

Question 39

What is Culturalism?

Answer 39

A focus on the relationship between culture to education, the student, the school, and future occupations.
* How your family socialises you affects how you engage with your educational context
* For example, counter-school culture : A way of life
opposed to the values espoused by the school
* Willis (1977) saw the education system as indirectly reproducing a class-structured labor force that serves capitalism.
* A recognition that success in a capitalist society is not always merit-based

Question 40

What is Pierre Bourdieu’s Field
Theory?

Answer 40

Education produces social inequalities in two ways
1. It provides an ideological justification for the way
things are in society through the reproduction of the beliefs and ideas of dominant social classes. The culture we value is due to social power not cultural value.

2. We enter education from a social hierarchy.
   Education leads to a hierarchy of educational
   outcomes due to students gaining qualifications.
   These qualifications then mirror the initial social
   hierarchy.

Social inequality becomes cultural inequality
This inequality is masked by how our achievements
represent an objective evaluation of intellectual capacity.

Our experiences as a group shape how we see, feel, be, and act in the world – we see the world through our habitus.
We constantly make choices within a social field (such as education) that has a context and actors. Our habitus inclines us toward some choices more than others.

Why is someone from a middle-class background more likely to attend university than someone from a lower class?
* Numerous things and events shape one’s outlooks, beliefs and practices in ways that impact their educational careers.
* In turn, it is not the system that see’s you out, you
see yourself out. University, simply isn’t perceived as a place for you to be.