Rethinking Education through Critical Psychology

Cooperative schools, social justice and voice

Gail Davidge

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317384311
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Educational Psychology

Since the very first 'co-operative' school opened its doors in 2008, the complicated relations between 'co-operative' approaches to schooling and democratic subjectivity remain unexplored. This ground breaking book considers the role of 'voice' in co-operative schooling and its place in radical research, offering an original, critical analysis of an alternative model of 'co-operative' schooling set within the context of the contemporary public education sector in England. Drawing on post structural theory and critical ethnographic research, the author explores how this model might offer new ways of thinking about what education is for and who stands to benefit or lose when schools adopt co-operative ways of working together across the structures of governance, pedagogy and curriculum. The book considers how participatory ways of working in education might inform a more critical educational psychology that takes engendering equality and collective well-being as an alternative starting point to measuring individual achievement and cognitive development.

This text will appeal to advanced level undergraduate and postgraduate students, researchers and practitioners, particularly in the field of psychology, education, politics and social research, with an interest in developing a critical appreciation of inequalities in education and in reimagining the possibilities for change.

1
CO-OPERATIVE EDUCATION RE-BORN

This chapter engages with a wide range of literature that weaves between the disciplinary borders of social policy and practice, education, political theory, history, geography, anthropology, cultural studies and gender studies. It begins by considering the construction of education as a vehicle for ‘development’ in a variety of guises (as forms of human, social, political and economic advancement) and pays particular attention to moments where ideas about ‘the individual’, ‘development’ and ‘education’ both come together and fall apart to shape knowledge and ‘truths’ about educational means and ends. In order to gain a sense of the debates and dynamic power relations which are created when the identity work of co-operation and effects of neoliberal pedagogy compete, coexist and collide, the chapter (re)views the historical contingencies and cultural assumptions that have cultivated the current educational landscape that presents itself as the socio-political context of this enquiry. With a keen eye towards a Foucauldian reading of power-knowledge, I wander amid and beyond the linear trajectory of development suggested by pseudo-Darwinian accounts, and instead seek out the tensions and contradictions that complicate and challenge dominant assumptions about the ‘value’ of education and its relation social justice. This direction is pursued in order to reimagine how a ‘co-operative’ model of education, inspired by the historical and social ambitions of the co-operative movement, might offer the possibilities for thinking about ‘development’ otherwise. That is, as a collective, relational project that moves towards envisioning a more ‘just’ education for all.

Confronting the grain

I was comforted and inspired by the words of Nikolas Rose as this critical encounter with the ‘co-operative’ school has developed over time. From the outset, I joined with him in a desire to provoke dissensus and scepticism as an integral constituent of critical thinking in order that one can:

stand against the maxims of one’s time, against the spirit of one’s age, against the current of received wisdom. It is a matter of introducing a kind of awkwardness into the fabric of one’s experience, of interrupting the fluency of the narratives that encode experience and making them stutter.

(Rose, 1999, p. 20)

My position here, as a critical ethnographer, exploring the potential of a seemingly positive direction for public education in the form of ‘co-operative schools’, performs this ‘awkwardness’ that Rose refers to above, both viscerally and textually. For within this volume, and elsewhere, I continually stutter and struggle to navigate the discursive terrain of traditional research praxis in order that I may resist the compulsion to produce a ‘legitimate’ account. Nonetheless, I strive to ‘resist[s] the forces seeking to reduce us to mere purveyors of information and expertise … [and accept the] responsibility to resist closure and hold open the question of meaning’ (Dahlberg & Moss, 2005, p. 32) as a fundamental aim that is inscribed between these layers of ‘texts’ that tangle with diverse understandings of what ‘co-operative’ schools have to offer democratic subjectivity and the pursuit of greater social justice in education.

At this juncture, situated within this ‘no man’s land’ that does not appear to belong to any particular ‘field’, I am reminded of the countless conversations that I have pursued with friends, family, colleagues and strangers about the purpose of this research project over the last few years. I remain haunted by my inability to provide a succinct response. Ordinarily, when asked ‘what is this project about?’, I have been greeted with puzzled looks and further questions such as, ‘what is a co-op school?’ and ‘is it anything to do with the Co-operative supermarket?’ or words to that effect. At this point, I often attempted to explain how this model of schooling is based upon the values and principles of the co-operative movement and briefly attempted to sketch out how a co-operative governance structure might work within the current context of state educational provision. For the sake of brevity, I have simplified and shortened the discussions that typically ensued, but nonetheless it is important to reflect here how these types of conversations usually progressed in order to convey the ‘typical’ response to the subjects that are considered within this volume – a sort of litmus test if you like. In any event, the next question that was typically asked went along the lines of, ‘do they work?’ or ‘are they any good?’ and it was precisely at this point that I struggled to offer a simple, coherent answer. This compelled me to question more deeply, ‘what is going on here?’ and ‘how can I claim to have the capacity to know or assert whether any school is good or translate its value in terms of ‘what works’? For the remainder of this chapter, I interrogate some of these assumptions further and following Foucault (1989) I question how assumptions about what constitutes a good school have been historically constructed and ask, ‘what rules come into play?’ when questions of this genre are asked.

A universal right to what?

From the beginnings of Socratic dialogue, debates regarding the relationship between ‘knowledge’ and the development of ‘reason’ have mediated the cultural and ethical status of education and its construction as a principal public institution in society since antiquity. Throughout history, countless scholars have endeavoured to explain how education impacts upon the way people think, live, work and experience their position as individuals and collective members of society. Questions of rights to, and the role of, education as fundamental structure of society continue to be asked with ‘education’ being cited as advancing varying degrees of individual and collective ‘growth’. Contemporary ideas about education remain subject to a plethora of interests, ideals and claims that seek to explain the ‘value’ of education for individuals and wider society in terms of personal, social, economic and (inter)national ‘development’. And so, the meaning of ‘education’ continues to occupy an important, yet equivocal, position in debates that struggle to agree upon and define its central function. The debate goes on.

On the global stage, in 1948, the right to a free education ‘directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms’ was enshrined in Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Emphasis added, United Nations, 2000). And while this declaration aspires to present ‘education’ as a universal entitlement, it remains a ‘right’ that is observed asymmetrically (if at all) across axes of gender, race, class culture, dis/ability and heteronormativity. The inclusion of ‘education’ in the Universal declaration of Human Rights constructs its essence as an undeniable common ‘good’ that every person has a right to experience. That is to say, the unquestioned acceptance of ‘education’ as a human right (thereby invoking neutrality alongside universality) carries with it the danger that one might fail to recognize its complex relation to social (in)justice or neglect to critically interrogate its multiplicity of forms in the rush to provide universal access to something, almost impossible to define and impossible to imagine a ‘good’ life without. Lant Pritchett (2013, p. 47) encapsulates this dilemma in his critique of the United Nation’s Millennium Development Goals (United Nations, 2000) where he argues that: ‘[I]n the push for schooling, education got pushed aside.’ Following Foucault (1989), if we suspend the assumption that education is always conceived of as a universal ‘good’ and consider how knowledge about education has been (and continues to be) produced, then it becomes possible to reconsider the wide-ranging effects and contested claims made of education as a set of provisional, heterogeneous discourses that can also exclude and cause injurious effects as they shape-shift over time and across continents (see Francis & Mills, 2012). From John Dewey’s argument that education is a ‘necessity of life’ (1937, p. 5) to beliefs that education merely offers the state a mechanism of social control and moral order, through to readings of education directed by economic achievement and productivity that persist amid contemporary educational policy imperatives, it becomes clear that not only have Dewey’s earlier educational aspirations gone awry, but that ‘education’ has a habit of re-inventing itself. And it is towards this possibility of re-imagining what is meant by education, in terms of mapping the conditions of possibility for co-operation and social justice, that I now wish to turn.

What is it that education can provide? If every person on this planet has a right to access ‘education’, what is it that one will experience, be able to do, to feel or think about as a result? Are all forms of ‘education’ the same? Do they necessarily offer the means to ‘progress’ (spiritually, economically, socially, intellectually)? And perhaps more importantly, who wields the power to shape how education is conceptualized and made available? Herein lie some of the enduring conundrums of educational philosophy that continue to inform and shape the contemporary political and ethical orientation of education, not to mention navigating an epistemological basis for critically interpreting the ‘value’ of ‘co-operative’ education.

Prefiguring ‘the good life’?

For many, education offers the opportunity to pre-figure a utopian society modelled on varying forms of human flourishing and peaceful existence. The constitution of the ‘good life’ or a ‘civil society’ remains a highly contested subject that has occupied the minds of Buddhists, Confucianists, Ancient Greek philosophers and contemporary theologians and scholars who all identify a wide range of essential ingredients. Throughout the ages, discourses of morality, justice, freedom and democracy have intersected with wide a variety of ideals and practices that mobilize education as a central motif of human ‘development’ and social ‘progression’. Throughout the last century, education has been conceived simultaneously as a necessary good or evil, attracting both optimism and bitter criticism of its capacity to evoke individual and social change and control. Moreover, in the 1960s and 1970s education was variously defined by some as possessing the radical potential to empower students by gaining access to knowledge as a form of critical pedagogy (Freire, 1970) and as a vehicle of oppression sustaining the interests of élites in maintaining the status-quo (Harber, 2004; Illich, 1971). A decade later, the subjects and objects of education came under further critical scrutiny following the publication of what became a foundational critique of traditional psychology. Changing the subject (Henriques et al., 1984) offered a critical reading of power and subjectivity and the projects of traditional psychology which generated critical questions about the effects of ‘schooling’ and educational/developmental psychology. Thus, ground-breaking work began to emerge which examined power as a productive force and turned attention towards discourses and practices that shaped educational subjectivities. A turn towards a poststructural reading of the school identified it as a socio-historical site for identifying ‘norms’ and ‘deficiencies’ which enabled ‘experts’ and the state to intervene and supplement the moral, psychological and intellectual ‘development’ of pupils, both in the past and looking towards provision for future generations (Billington, 2000; Burman, 2008a; Rose, 1989). More recently, education has been considered in terms of providing the means to transform the economic prospects of nation-states through socially divisive forms of neoliberal pedagogy (Ball, 2012a; Giroux, 2008; Mccafferty, 2010). The extent to which education should support or problematize the status quo distinguishes the crucial moment at which educational ethics and politics collide. And it is here, at this collision point, that there remains most contention about the possibilities and challenges that lie ahead for re-imagining education for ‘the common good’ (Fielding & Moss, 2011) and for meeting the social, economic, environmental and technical challenges that lie ahead for communities of the twenty-first century (Facer, 2011).

Education and the status quo

John Dewey recognized that traditional models of state education served the interests of a ruling élite, its goal ‘to adjust individuals … to fit into the present social arrangements and conditions’ (in Carr & Hartnett, 1996, p. 61, my emphasis). Dewey’s influential text Democracy and Education offered an alternative that reoriented the purpose of education towards the ‘common good’, rather than the reproduction of the existing social order. The key, according to Dewey, was democracy. For Dewey, democracy did not simply offer a form of government, it offered ‘a mode of associated living, a conjoint communicated experience’ (1916, p. 87) as he argued that it was the relation between education and democracy that offered the greatest potential to develop ‘faith in the capacity of human beings for intelligent judgement and action if the proper conditions are furnished’ (Dewey, 1937, p. 2). Indeed, his philosophies inspired a long history of educational reformers such as Paulo Freire, Loris Malaguzzi and A S Neill who shared Dewey’s vision of placing democracy at the heart of educational activity. For Dewey, collective approaches to education offered an environment whereby co-construction rather than reproduction prevailed, and offered a space where individuals could ‘learn to understand themselves as democratic individuals by becoming members of a democratic community in which the problems of communal life are resolved through collective deliberation and a shared concern for the common good’ (in Carr & Hartnett, 1996, p. 63).

Rather than place democracy at the centre of educational practices, Rancière’s (1991) understandings of democracy and education place relations of equality at the core, building upon the premise that all human beings are equally intelligent, and that education and the production of knowledge takes place in relationship with others. Rancière demonstrates this via the unorthodox educational practices of Joseph Jacotot in his account of The Ignorant Schoolmaster [Le Maître ignorant]. Moreover, as Dahlberg and Moss (2005) explain, for Rancière education based on the transfer of objective knowledge divides the world into two: ‘the knowing and the ignorant, the mature and unformed, the capable and the incapable’ (p. 102), which as they point out, leads to an understanding of ‘development’ that plots progress as a journey from ‘dependency to emancipation’; or as Rancière would have it, this creates the ‘miscount’ of some members of society as ‘immature’ and therefore unequal. Therefore, in order to consider ‘co-operative’ education as a vehicle for bringing about greater social justice and equality one needs to be able to clarify the purpose of education (maintenance or resistance of status quo) and articulate how equitable educational ‘access’ and ‘outcomes’ for all might be prefigured through educational policy and practice. This constitutes a deeply complex and difficult problem, which has occupied the thoughts, dilemmas and activities of numerous educational activists and critical theorists the world over. One person who grappled with this dilemma and became renowned for his contribution to a body of critical theory and work, which converges under the umbrella of ‘critical pedagogy’, was the eminent Brazilian educator and philosopher, Paulo Freire (1921–1997).

Education for liberation: critical pedagogy

Despite historical and contextual variances, Freire’s ideas and teachings have resonated profoundly among a variety of scholars from a variety of disciplines (Giroux, 2004; hooks, 2011; Martín-Baró, 1994; Shor, 2001). And, although Paulo Freire wrote Pedagogy of the Oppressed (one of the foundational texts for critical pedagogy) in Latin America more than forty years ago, his legacy of generating liberation through praxis: ‘the action and reflection of men and women upon their world in order to transform it’ (Freire, 1970, p. 64) continues to influence and stimulate educational debate throughout the world today. For Paulo Freire, the primary task of education was to question dominant knowledge or ‘truths’ that support inequality and to realign education towards the practice of freedom by supporting students to become subjects of their own education. Indeed he devoted much of his life’s work to enabling individuals to ‘win back the right to say his or her own word, to name the world’ (Shaull, in Freire, 1970, p. 15, my emphasis) facilitated through a process of ‘conscientização’. The Portuguese term ‘conscientização’ has been characterized in many different ways and constructs the very foundation of Freire’s philosophy. Ana Maria Freire describes it as a:

Methodology for a critical understanding of the world, for a reading of the world that would allow an understanding of the presence of human beings in the world as subjects of history, not as objects of it and of the oppressors. Also, for Paulo, ‘conscientization’ implies an intentional action for change, that is, for transformation.

(cited in Vittoria, 2007, p. 105)

According to Freire, critical pedagogy offers hope for transforming oppressive structures, which subjugate through limiting and shaping knowledge of perceived ‘reality’ through the lens of the most powerful. Freire articulates a sensitive appreciation of the diverse ways in which knowledge of one’s self and capacity to resist asymmetrical power relations are deeply embedded within psychological and social knowledge that becomes internalized as ‘truth’ and ‘reality’. Freire draws attention to the subtle instruments of control that oppress men (and women) at the very core of their consciousness:

But al...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: navigating social (in)justice in education
• 1 Co-operative education re-born
• 2 Conceptualizing a ‘co-operative’ voice
• 3 Making models: from ideas to action
• 4 Navigating co-operation: the promise of ‘voice’, the disappointment of membership …
• 5 Putting the co-operative ‘to work’
• 6 Childhood, education and ‘co-operation’
• 7 The rupture of student voice: a non-event?
• 8 The end of the beginning? A cautious conclusion …
• References
• Index