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Education Studies, Education Studies (Early Childhood).
Education Studies (Modern Liberal Arts).
ES1202: Principles in Education
2011-2 Semester 2, Monday, 3-5 P.M. MB 5
Tutor Team (Module Leader – Simon Boxley)
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Last updated
31.01.12.
Learning Outcomes:
The aims and learning outcomes for students of this module are to:
a) Demonstrate engagement with texts and ideas relevant to Kantian principles and their relationship with moral and ethical questions in education
b) Demonstrate reflection on experiences and the wider context in which they take place
c) Communicate experiences of texts and ideas within and/or beyond education as appropriate
d) Show knowledge and understanding of specialist terminology
e) Demonstrate requisite research skills in gathering, summarizing and presenting evidence including proficiency in referencing and academic conventions
Introduction
This module encourages you to discuss issues in education not just by asserting what you think to be right, but by working with a set of principles which enable you to make a sustained and coherent argument to defend and explain your position. You will have an opportunity to decide whether the form of education you have researched over the assessment period is in the interests of all (the universal interest) or only that of individuals (particular interests). It is often the case that our opinions on things are based on our experiences in life, but this makes discussion of, and judgements on, those experiences problematic since each of us will bring into the discussion different experiences. If there is to be agreement on practices and policies in education, or on anything else, then we need to arrive at a set of principles which can then become the basis for our decisions on these matters. We will use Kant’s notion of a universal principle to help us, although we may well see by the end of the module that even his principles do not help us to make completely coherent (and non-contradictory) judgements.
Assessment.
There are two assignments for this module each counting for 50% of your overall module mark.
Assignment 1: Symposium & 500 word written submission
Are ‘x’ (Faith Schools, Special Needs Schools, Selective Schools, Independent Schools) in the interest of all?
The symposium will be accompanied by a 500 word piece of prose, to be submitted on the day you have been assigned to attend your symposium in weeks 4, 5 or 6. Full guidance on how to prepare for your symposium will be given in weeks 2 and 3.
Hand back: Friday week 7
Advice on your symposium
In weeks 4, 5 or 6, you will be assessed on your understanding of Kant’s conception of a principle in the context of education by testing such principles against the question ‘Are Faith Schools/Special Needs Schools/ Selective Schools/Independent Schools in the interest of all?’ You will need to be prepared to speak for three minutes (no less), and to use Kant’s notion of a principle to argue that your form of education either is or is not in the universal interest. The choice of whether it is or not is up to you. You will find yourself in a group with three others, each of whom will discuss a different form of schooling. After you have all presented your cases, the assessing tutor will ask you a series of questions: some questions will be directed at individuals and some at the group as a whole. It will be your job to explain and defend your position. In preparing for this symposium you should therefore anticipate the kinds of questions which you might be asked and be ready to address them. In total, symposia will last no longer than 45 minutes.
You will be marked on two elements: (1) your initial three minute spoken presentation; (2) your defence and discussion of your principle. You will also be asked to submit a 500 word piece of prose, also answering the question ‘Are ‘x’ (Faith Schools, Special Needs Schools, Selective Schools, Independent Schools) in the interest of all?’ Although this piece of writing will have much the same content as your three minute presentation, we ask you not to read this out. You may use notes in order to give your spoken presentation. We will discuss your preparations for symposia in depth in week 3.
Assignment 2: Essay (2000 words)
The title is:
What are the tensions between the universal and the particular in the topic of your choice selected from the seminar series?
Hand in date: Thursday, Week 12, April 5th, 2012
Hand back: After week 15
Programme of Lectures
The notes for each of the lectures in the second half of the semester will be posted on the web in time for you to print them off and bring the text to the lecture. Each lecture will have a bibliography for further reading and will provide you with photocopies related to either the lecture or the specific theme being developed in the seminar which follows after. Your final essay for the module asks you to consider the tensions between the universal and the particular in a topic of your choice selected from the lecture series, so we are assuming that you will probably attend all of the lectures, even if you don't stay for all of the seminars. Once you have settled on a theme, follow it up by contacting the tutor concerned who may offer individual or small group meetings to take matters further. The readings made available for each seminar will provide the basis for your referencing in the essays, but wider reading and quotation is always expected for good marks.
Week 1: Principles in Action: a ‘Simulation’ (Simon & tutor team)
Week 2: There will be two 45 minute sessions this week, 3:00-3:45 & 4:15-5:00
Session 1: What is an Objective Principle? (Wayne)
Reading for lecture 1: Kant, I. (1956) Critique of Practical Reason, New York: Macmillan, pp.30-31;
Kant, I. (1990) Foundation of the Metaphysic of Morals, New York: MacMillan, 38-39, 44-51, 84-90
Session 2: Working with a principle: Is single sex schooling in the interests of all? (Wayne & Stephanie)
Week 3: Seminar: How to prepare for your symposium (Simon & Marie)
Week 4: Student Symposia
Week 5: Student Symposia
Week 6: Student Symposia
The short series of lectures and seminar combinations which follows will be very much like those offered as part of the Educators programme last semester. The lead lectures will take be from 9-10.15 followed by optional seminars from 10.30-11.30 each week. You will also be given some advice on thinking through your essay in order to help focus your thoughts in relation to each of the topics from weeks 7-10 and general essay advice in week 10. We start by looking at the issue of ‘choice in education’.
Week 7: Choice in Education (Rebekah)
Lecture: What is a Free Market in Education?
Reading for the lecture: Smith, A. (1958) The Wealth of Nations London: Dent Book V, article II, pp. 245-253
Brighouse, H. (2002) ‘A Modest Defence of School Choice’ Journal of Philosophy of Education 36 (4) pp. 653-659
Tooley, J. (2003) ‘Why Harry Brighouse is Nearly Right about the Privatisation of Education’ Journal of Philosophy of Education 37 (3) pp. 440-447
Cox, C.B. & Boyson, R. (eds.) (1977) Black Paper London, Temple Smith, pp.8-9.
Seminar: Critiquing the Free Market in Practice: issues of quality and justice
Suggestions for further reading:
Brown, P. (1990) ‘The third wave’ : education and the ideology of parentocracy’ British Journal of Sociology of Education 11 (1) pp. 65-85
Carnoy, M. (2000) ‘School Choice? Or is it Privatisation? Educational Researcher 29 (7) pp. 15-20
Chitty, C. (1989) Towards a New Education System London: Falmer
Chitty, C. and Simon, B. (1993) Education Answers Back London: Lawrence and Wishart
Cox, C.B. & Boyson, R. (eds.) (1977) Black Papers London: Temple Smith.
Davies, M. and Edwards, G. (2001) ‘Will the Curriculum Caterpillar Ever Learn to Fly?’ in M. Fielding (ed.) Taking Education Really Seriously: Four Years Hard Labour London: Routledge/Falmer, pp. 96-107.
Lawton, D. (1992) Education and Politics in the 1990s: conflict or consensus? London: Falmer Press
Lawton, D. (1994) The Tory Mind on Education London: Falmer Press
Pennell, H. and West, A. (2002) ‘How New is New Labour?: The Quasi-market and English schools 1997-2001’ British Journal of Educational Studies 50 (2) pp. 206-224
Rattansi, A. and Reeder, D. (eds.) (1992) Rethinking Radical Education London: Lawrence and Wishart
Simon, B. (1991) Education and the Social Order London: Lawrence and Wishart
Tomlinson, S. (2001) ‘Education Policy, 1997-2000: the effects on top, bottom and middle England’ International Studies in Sociology of Education11 (3) pp. 261-278
Walford, G. (1997) ‘Creating quasi-markets in education: a review of recent research on parental choice and school autonomy in three countries’ Review of Research in Education 22 pp. 3-47
West, A. (2006) ‘School Choice, Equity and Social Justice: the case for more control’ British Journal of Educational Studies 54 (1) pp. 15-33
Williams, R. (2000) Lost Icons London: Morehouse Publishing.
Week 8: Race, Ethnicity and Education (Simon)
Lecture: ‘Race’: is it real, and does it matter in schooling?
Readings for the lecture: Coard, B. (2005) ‘How the West Indian child is made educationally subnormal in the British School System: the scandal of the Black child in schools in Britain’, in Richardson, B. (Ed.) Tell It Like It Is: How our schools fail Black children, London: Bookmarks Publications/Trentham Books, pp.42-48 (n.b., Coard’s seminal pamphlet from which your extract is taken was originally published in 1971, republished in a volume last year with a series of articles on its relevance today, from which the following was taken)
Seminar: The many lives of ‘race’: contemporary racisms in the classroom and society
Reading for the seminar: DfES (2006) Exclusion of Black Pupils: Priority Review. “Getting it. Getting it right”, London: Department for Education and Skills. Available online at http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/ethnicminorities/resources/PriorityReviewSept06.pdf
Suggestions for further reading:
There are very many hundreds of books on this subject in the library, I would advise you to browse the shelves of catalogue numbers 305.8 and 370.19342 and seek out the more recent publications . You might also wish to investigate journals such as Race and Class and Race, Ethnicity and Education. The list below merely represents some of the texts which will be referred to in the session.
Banton, M. (1998) Racial Theories, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Cameron J., Alvarez, J., Ruble, D., Fuligni, A. (2001) ‘Children’s Lay Theories About Ingroups and Outgroups : Reconceptualising Research on Prejudice’, Personality and Social Psychology Review 5 (2), pp. 118-128
Cole, M. (2004) ‘“Brutal and stinking” and “difficult to handle”: the historical and contemporary manifestations of racialisation, institutional racism, and schooling in Britain’, Race, Ethnicity and Education, 17 (1) pp. 35-56
Griffiths, M. and Troyna, B. (eds) (1995) Antiracism, Culture and Social Justice in Education, Stoke on Trent: Trentham Books
Keita, S., Kittles, R., Royal, C., Bonney, G., Furbert-Harris, P., Dunston, G., Rotimi, C. (2004) ‘Conceptualizing Human Variation’, Nature Genetics Supplement, 36 (11) pp. s17-s20
Miles, R. (1989) Racism, London: Routledge pp.69-97
Montagu, A (1997) Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: the Fallacy of Race - Sixth Edition, London: AltaMira Press
Rex, J (1986) Race and Ethnicity, Milton Keynes: Open University Press
Rex, J. and Mason, D. (eds) (1992) Theories of Race and Ethnic Relations Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Rose, S. Kamin, L. & Lewontin, R. (1984) Not in our Genes: Biology, Ideology and Human Nature Harmondsworth: Penguin, pp. 119 – 127
Sivanandan, A. (2002) The contours of global racism, speech delivered at the conference, ‘Crossing Borders: the legacy of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act 1962’, London Metropolitan University, November 2002. Online at http://www.irr.org.uk/2002/november/ak000007.html , accessed, 12/01/07
Sollers, W. (ed) (1996) Theories of Ethnicity Basingstoke: Macmillan
Troyna, B. (1993) Racism and Education, Buckingham: Open University Press
Week 9: Gender and Education (Stephanie)
Lecture: Slugs and snails or sugar and spice? Defining gender
Reading for the lecture: Alsop, R., Fitzsimons, A. & Lennon, K. (2002) Theorising Gender, Oxford; Polity, pp.130-143;
Acker, S. (1994) Gendered Education, Buckingham: Open University press, pp.43-54
Much of the media speculation over results and achievement in schools is based on an assumption that boys and girls are ‘different’, but how do we arrive at these assumptions?
Seminar: Learning to lose: The co-education debate
Readings for the seminar: Mathews, P. (1998) ‘Co-education, boys, girls and achievement’ in K.Bleach (ed.) Raising Boys’ Achievement in Schools, Stoke on T rent: Trentham pp.173-182;
Payne, I. (1980) ‘Sexist Ideology and Education’, in D.Spender, Learning to Lose: sexism and education, London: The Women’s Press, pp. 32-38 (note the date for this publication)
In the seminar discussion after the break we will examine how different understandings of the meaning of gender underpin theory and practice in education
Suggestions for further reading:
Warning! There is a great deal of material on the web from sources which are not particularly reliable – if you write your essay on this topic, don’t quote unfounded opinions.
Ali, S. (2003) ‘To Be a Girl’: culture and class in schools, Gender and Education (15) 3, pp.269-283
Arnot, M., David, M. & Weiner, G. (1999) Closing the Gender Gap: post-war education and social change, London: Polity
Blair, M., Holland, J. & Sheldon, S. (eds.) (1994) Identity and Diversity: gender and the experience of education, Clevedon: Multi-lingual Matters / Open University Press
Connell, R.W. (2000) The Men and the Boys, Cambridge: Polity Press
Delamont, S. (1980) Sex Roles and the School, London: Methuen (2nd ed 1990)
Francis, B. (2000) Boys, Girls and Achievement. Addressing the Classroom Issues, London: Routledge
Francis, B. (1988) Power Plays: primary school children’s constructions of gender and power, Stoke on Trent Trentham
Jackson, C. (2002) ‘Laddishness’ as a Self-worth Protection Strategy, Gender and Education, 14 (1) pp.37-51
Jackson, S. & Gee, S. (2005) 'Look Janet', 'No you look John': constructions of gender in early school reader illustrations across 50 years, Gender and Education, 17 (2) pp. 115-128
Mac an Ghaill, M. (1994) The Making of Men: sexuality and schooling, Buckingham: Open University Press.
Mac an Ghaill, M. (1996) Understanding Masculinities – social relations and cultural arenas, Milton Keynes: Open University Press
Reay, D. (2001) ‘Spice Girls’, ‘Nice Girls’ ‘Girlies’ and ‘Tomboys’ : gender discourses, girls’ cultures and femininities in the primary classroom
Skelton, C. (2001) Schooling the Boys: masculinities and primary education, Buckingham: Open University Press
Spender, D. (ed.) (1988) Learning to Lose: sexism and education, London: Women’s Press
Vogt, F. (2002) A Caring Teacher: explanations into primary school teachers’ professional identity and the ethic of care, Gender and Education , 14 (3) pp.251-264
Walkerdine, V. (1990) Schoolgirl Fictions, London: Verso
Warrington, M. & Younger, M. (2000) The Other Side of the Gender Gap, Gender and Education, 12 (4) pp. 493-508.
Week 10: Families and early learning (Emile)
Lecture: To be confirmed
Reading for the lecture: To be confirmed
Seminar: To be confirmed
Reading for the seminar: To be confirmed
Week 11: Essay workshop, module evaluations and preparing for
Level 5 (Simon)
Week 12: Essay hand in