The Politics of Differentiation in Schools

Martin Mills, Amanda Keddie, Peter Renshaw, Sue Monk

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317632672
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Educational Policy

In many English-speaking countries, teachers are encouraged to differentiate their classrooms, and in some cases, through various policy mechanisms. This encouragement is often accompanied by threats and sanctions for not making the grade. By exploring the ways in which one education system in Australia has mandated differentiation through an audit of teacher practices, this book provides a timely engagement with the relationship between differentiated classrooms and social justice. It covers tensions, for instance, between providing culturally-appropriate classrooms, including constructing engaging and relevant curricula, and lowering expectations for students who have traditionally been marginalised by schooling. The data for this book has been collected from the same group of teachers over a period of three years, and offers detailed insights into how a particular politics of differentiation has played itself out in the context of a 'global reform movement' that has focused on improving student outcomes.

1 The politics of differentiation

On our first visit to Red Point State High School, one of the schools included in our research, we parked near a grassy verge upon which stood two flagpoles. On one an Australian flag blew gently in a tropical breeze. The other was bare. At the time we were not aware of the controversial significance of these two poles. Two years later when we had completed our research, three flagpoles stood in this same location. In many ways the story of the flagpoles represents a number of the concerns we raise throughout the book in relation to the politics of differentiation, inclusion and social justice. We learnt on this first visit that the Indigenous liaison worker at the school had been lobbying for three flagpoles because of the need to recognise both Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples at the school. Each of these Australian Indigenous groups is represented by a different flag. Her argument was that the school was always going to fly the Australian flag, and that it could not, without being exclusionary, fly just one Indigenous flag on the remaining pole. She argued that both flags should be flown.

This had been a bitter issue amongst the staff, with some resisting such a change because they wished the school to maintain its reputation for having high academic standards, a reputation that could be damaged by being seen as too ‘Indigenous friendly’. However, the new principal had expressed a desire for the school to do more for its Indigenous members. This had led, for example, to him making an Acknowledgement of Country¹ at school assemblies, to the dismay of a number on staff. This also led to resentment from some of our student interviewees, who questioned why students from other nationalities could not also have their flags flown at the front of the school. The book is not solely concerned with issues of race, although these are certainly important within its context. However, the flagpole controversy is indicative of the way in which schools wish to be represented to both those working and studying within them and to the external world, and that social justice issues are inevitably tied into such representations. It also foregrounds the tensions that can arise when difference is recognised, where competing claims exist, where messiness is created through different interpretations of who and what should be recognised and how best to remedy matters of misrecognition or marginality. The book engages with these issues as it considers the role of ‘differentiation’ within contemporary schooling.

The Politics of Differentiation in Schools is concerned with the means by which schools can provide a more socially just education than is currently the case. We take up the issue of ‘differentiation’ as a key point of conflict in the contradictory politics of contemporary schooling. We argue that calls for differentiation can act both as a lever for progressing the case that schools can do more for their most vulnerable/marginalised students, and that it can also be deployed as a device to reinforce the politics of reproduction and the stratification of schooling to maintain the privileges of the powerful groups in society. One of the concerns related to schooling and differentiation is the way in which contemporary neo-liberal politics treat human activities and problems, such as teaching and learning, the engagement and disengagement with schooling, and the social injustices of racism, misogyny, homophobia and poverty, as problems able to be solved with technical solutions (Bauman 2004). In Queensland, for instance, where our study was located, the State Department of Education created a Teaching and Learning Audit to examine practices in government school classrooms as one such technical solution to the problem of ‘low achievement’. Within the Audit, ‘differentiation’ was seen as being critical to good classroom practice. In this book we adopt a broader view of differentiation by exploring the ‘politics’ of various forms of differentiation within and between schools, particularly in relation to social justice in schooling.

In taking up the topic of ‘differentiation’ we address the tension between ‘teaching quality’ and ‘contexts of teaching’. Political and policy leaders have been deploying the mantra that teachers and teaching matter (Barber & Mourshed 2007; Masters 2009), but such advocacy can be used to suggest that context does not matter and that differential funding of schools based on a needs analysis is not required. In focussing on the politics of differentiation we want to suggest that differentiation cannot be leached of the political; and that it cannot be considered as a simple technical solution to the problem of low achievement and student disengagement. It cannot be isolated from debates about the distribution of resources, cultural justice and voice. We argue that what is happening in the broader context of society plays a major role in how young people are able to engage with schooling. This broader context relates to matters of injustice, such as poverty and racism, and to matters of education policy.

In the book we recognise that the notion of differentiation can take many forms and relates to many aspects of schooling. We have in recent times been in schools located in both the UK and Australia where there has been an emphasis on differentiation as a means of ensuring all students receive a quality education via excellent classroom practice. However, when we have pushed teachers to discuss differentiation, few are able to clearly define what this means for their practice, and when they do proffer definitions, there is often little consensus amongst these. Two common responses, however, relate to the streaming of classes and differentiated curriculum pathways. Both of these responses have been used to justify providing marginalised students opportunities to succeed. However, at the same time both have been critiqued for entrenching existing inequalities. We have also been witnessing a differentiation of schooling systems where reductive measures of ‘performance’ have been used to rank systems of schooling across the globe. Some have suggested that such rankings have highlighted injustices by, for example, noting that some systems are high performing but have low levels of equity in terms of the performance of marginalised groups. Others have claimed that these rankings work to instil practices that are designed to lift performance without paying attention to the broader sets of inequities that led to the differential performance in the first place. There has also been differentiation within the system as a result of the market entering into the politics of schooling in relation to, for example, Academies and Free Schools in England, Independent Public Schools in Australia and Charter Schools in the United States. Again, this form of differentiation has been critiqued for the ways in which such forms of autonomy can enable schools to exclude those marginalised learners who ‘damage’ their results and reputations. At the same time, there are aspects of school autonomy that can foster greater commitment to equity through allowing the creation of innovative and inclusive practices and programs that support marginalised students.

Differentiation is thus a contested term in relation to its contribution to more socially just practices in education. In some cases it is argued that it contributes to social justice by valorising difference; in others it is accused of hindering social justice by entrenching inequalities. In this book we want to explore different notions of differentiation, identify the arguments for and against these understandings and interrogate the differentiated practices in two Australian high schools to consider who wins and who loses from dominant understandings of differentiation. We would suggest that the lessons here have purchase in locations beyond Australia.

Our interest in differentiation arose from two sources. First, we were involved in an Australian Research Council funded research project, Engaging students: Issues of difference, distribution and recognition in schools, concerned with the ways in which schools approached issues of social justice. While in the process of selecting schools for the fieldwork, two schools, with which we had formed prior relationships through our teacher education program, encouraged us to work with them to improve their means of engaging all students in productive learning. Secondly, as we were setting up the project, the Teaching and Learning Audit of schools was implemented for the first time across the State with differentiation being identified as a key concern. This focus on differentiation is far from unique to Australia (see Everest 2003). As a consequence we became concerned with the social justice opportunities both opened up and closed down by this policy priority on differentiation.

There are several issues we raise in this introduction by way of laying the groundwork for various discussions of differentiation throughout the book. We note the different forms that differentiation can take with regard to schooling; we indicate that in our concern with social justice we have been drawn to the work of Nancy Fraser (1997; 2009), and those who have worked with and built upon her work (see Lynch 2012); and we also outline some of the key contextual factors that shape the moment in which our study was located. This introduction will also provide an overview of the study and the schools from which the data for this book were sourced.

Pursuing social justice in education: Economic, cultural and political considerations

Fraser (2009) identifies three forms of injustice (economic, cultural and political) that concerned us in undertaking this research. In the first instance, economic injustice is represented by maldistribution, exemplified by people’s futures and life opportunities being restricted (or advantaged) by their levels of income, by people having their labour exploited for the benefit of others and by people experiencing high levels of economic deprivation and marginalisation. Addressing this form of injustice, Fraser suggests, will require some form of redistribution of economic resources, including a restructuring of the economic division of labour. Cultural injustice, she argues, is indicated by acts of misrecognition which occur when people experience cultural domination, that is, when they are forced to subjugate their own cultural ways of being and communicating to the (often hostile) norms of the dominant culture, are made invisible or are disrespected as a consequence of being from a particular cultural group. Political injustice occurs when the structures and practices of society, and its institutions, do not accord all of its members a voice. Impacting upon all three dimensions are broader relations and institutions that adjudicate economic, cultural and political justice claims.

These three sets of injustices, related to poverty, various forms of cultural discrimination and lack of political voice, Fraser suggests, all work towards undermining what she calls ‘parity of participation’ (2009, p.16), a state of affairs where all are able to participate in social life as peers. A socially just education system would therefore work to remove barriers to such participation, both within the practices of schooling and beyond. We note here some of the policy attempts to remove such barriers.

There have been attempts in many countries to address issues of economic injustice in education. In Australia, for example, there has been a major debate about school funding after a review of school funding mechanisms suggested that a differentiated funding system would provide more equitable outcomes from schooling. The assumption underpinning this mooted reform was that an equitable schooling system would be one where schools enrolling students principally from marginalised backgrounds would receive extra financial support compared to those serving more privileged students (Gonski et al. 2011; see Kenway 2013 for discussion). The redistributive justice principles in the Gonski reforms are reflected in previous equity policies in Australia that have sought to improve the school participation and achievement of disadvantaged students through the allocation of extra funding and resources, such as the Disadvantaged Schools Program, instituted by the federal government nearly 45 years ago, and the National Partnership Scheme, which allocated funding to schools on the basis of their location within low socio-economic communities (see Keddie 2012a). In England, redistributive measures include the ‘pupil premium’, an extra amount of funding allocated to government schools for every student who is eligible for ‘free school meals’ or is in or has been in care, and is designed ‘to raise the attainment of disadvantaged pupils and close the gap between them and their peers’.² However, such redistributive school-focused measures are necessarily limited unless the broader problems facing marginalised young people are also addressed, for example, homelessness, poverty and unstable home-lives. Other redistributive measures have thus taken a more integrated approach to supporting economically disadvantaged students. In many school sites such support might include, for example, specialised counselling and therapy services, family services, parenting education, transportation assistance, housing assistance, childcare services, financial assistance, literacy support and translation services, and other community/social outreach services (Amin et al. 2006; Carswell et al. 2009; Keddie 2012a; Mills & McGregor 2014).

Redistributive justice principles recognise the links between poverty, poor schooling performance, early school leaving and future economic deprivation and social discontent/dysfunction (see Keddie 2012a). Education determines employment credentialing and students’ future access to the labour market and the material benefits of the social world (Connell 1994; Mills & Gale 2010). A socially just education in terms of redistribution will, then, assist disadvantaged and marginalised students to achieve on the ‘same measuring sticks’ of educational achievement (e.g. standardised tests) as their more privileged counterparts so that they can ‘mix it with anybody’ and eventually access society in the same way that any other student would (Sarra 2003; see also Ladson-Billings 1995). In schools and classrooms, this means not only providing intensive material and human resource support such as that highlighted in the previous paragraphs, but also providing intensive learning support within a context of high expectations to ensure that students from disadvantaged backgrounds achieve on the measures that ‘count’ (e.g. standardised academic tests). Significant for schools and teachers here is challenging and moving beyond the deficit understandings of these students who typically experience ‘watered down’ and non-challenging curriculum that can reinscribe their disadvantage (Keddie 2012a; Ladson-Billings 1995; Sarra 2003).

Remedying cultural injustices has often been the target of programs and policies designed to support, for example, students from diverse cultural backgrounds, students with diverse physical abilities, girls and lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) students and to challenge various forms of discrimination such as racism, misogyny and homophobia. The significance of culturally inclusive learning environments that connect with the funds of knowledge specific to marginalised groups is recognised in equity policy and practice as central to this challenge (Zipin, Sellar & Hattam 2012). In Australia, for example, cultural inclusion is prioritised in the National Goals for Schooling Framework. The Framework’s particular focus is Indigenous marginality and the role of education in valuing the histories and cultures of this group (MCEETYA 2008). Following this, Australia’s current National Curriculum has Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures as one of the three cross-curricula priorities to support the integration of culturally inclusive content across relevant learning areas. At a state policy level in Queensland, cultural inclusivity is promoted through the EATSIPS (Embedding Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Perspectives) (Department of Education and Training 2011) framework, where the emphasis is on learning through, as well as about, Indigenous culture. Cultural injustices also occur on multiple planes, for example, Indigenous women and Indigenous LGBTI young people suffer injustices on multiple, often compounding, dimensions and thus require remedial responses on each of these dimensions.

Cultural injustices are also entwined with other forms of injustice. As indicated in the first few paragraphs of the introduction, the representation of Indigenous peoples is important, as is the integration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories and cultures into all school curricula. However, economic injustices also impact on Indigenous groups in disproportionate ways. In order to address this, some material support has been provided in Australia to individual Indigenous students and their families in the form of financial support known as Abstudy³ to counter some of the economic injustices faced by this ‘cultural group’. However, there are many cultural injustic...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• 1 The politics of differentiation
• 2 A politics of differentiation and pedagogy
• 3 A politics of differentiation and teacher expectations
• 4 A politics of differentiation and care
• 5 A politics of differentiation and curriculum
• 6 A politics of differentiation and culture
• 7 A politics of differentiation towards social justice
• Index