The Constitution Of Literacy In The Global Education Policy Field
Author(s):
Jenni Carter (presenting / submitting)
Conference:
ECER 2015
Network:
23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education
Format:
Paper

Session Information

23 SES 02 C, Policies & Politics of Exclusion and Inclusion (Part 2)

Paper Session continues from 23 SES 01 C

Time:
2015-09-08
15:15-16:45
Room:
425.Oktatóterem [C]
Chair:
Nafsika Alexiadou

Contribution

Over the past few decades within the global policy field there has been significant attention given to the importance of literacy. This paper will consider the ways in which literacy is named and mobilised within two international organisations.  The first is by the OECD, where literacy is determined as a function of economic policy and the testing or measurement of literacy performance provides a means to make decisions about the worth or education institutions and systems.  Such testing measurement regimes have been ordered around axioms that posit ‘Good’ literacy as guaranteeing human capital formation and economic productivity. The second is the perspective of literacy as portrayed by UNICEF. Here literacy is positioned as a life skill and a human right, having transformational power in providing a wide ranging view of life opportunities.   While the OECD view of literacy has gained significant purchase within the practices of institutionalised education through its testing regimes the values and ideals of the UNICEF position continue to be held and played out in literacy research and global and national education practices.

In this paper I examine the ways literacy is constituted and ontologised within these two international organisations and how these are institutionalised within layers of practice.  In particular I consider the connections between social justice and literacy by focusing on the ethical demand of the constitution of different literacy ontologies.  This analysis contributes to understandings of the ways in which literacy is constituted through education reform at global level, and points to both continuities and dissonances within global education conversations. 

Method

his research draws on a deconstructive analysis of the constitution of literacy in key position papers and policies and documents. Policy is understood as a form of law and is informed by Derrida’s understanding of the law as an ‘authorised force’ (Derrida 1992). Within this context, education policy is considered as an ensemble of axioms that set out the conditions of the Good or the ‘law of the law’, and allow the affirmation to claim a perspective is ethically and politically ‘better’. I follow Derrida’s call to question both the processes and logic of ‘canonization’ that establish major authorising discourses that marginalise other discourses, by giving attention to what those discourses ‘say and what they do’ (Derrida 1997 p.229). In this paper, the emphasis is on identifying how establishing particular definitions of literacy legitimate and mobilise these to have force in naming and mobilising literacy in arenas of education practice.

Expected Outcomes

This paper points to the importance of considering the forces which constitute the meanings of literacy in different ways in different settings. In particular, to examine how these meanings mobilise particular educational ideals, strategies and practices and designate responsibilities to educators work. Further, how the ways in which the different demands made on literacy to achieve economic, social and cultural outcomes within different policy regimes presents an ethical demand that has far reaching implications for educational practice. Importantly, this paper raises questions about the ways in which literacy is constituted in different global settings can be considered within understandings of democracy and justice.

References

Boothroyd, D 'Levinas, Derrida and the Secret of Responsibility', Theory, Culture & Society, vol. 28, no. 7-8, pp. 41-59. Cross, R 2009, 'Literacy for all: quality langauge education for a few', Language and Education, vol. 23, no. 6, pp. 509-522. Derrida, J 1992, 'Force of Law: The "Mystical Foundation of Authority"', in Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice, eds. D Cornell, M Rosenfeld & DG Carlson, Routledge, New York and London. Derrida, J 1997, Politics of Friendship, Verso, London New York. Dombey, H 2014, 'Flying Blind: Government Policy on the Teaching of Reading in England and Research on Effective Literacy Education', in Goodman, KS, Calfee, RC & Goodman, YM (eds), Whose Knowledge Counts in Government Literacy Policies?, Routledge, New York and London. Meyer, HD & Benavot, A (eds), 2013 PISA, Power and Policy, Symposium Books, Oxford, UK. Rizvi, F & Lingard, B 2010, Globalizing Education Policy, Routledge, Abingdon, Oxon and New York. Sellar, S & Lingard, B 2013, 'Looking East: Shanghai, PISA 2009 and the reconstitution of reference societies in the global education policy field', Comparative Education, vol. 49, no. 4, pp. 464-485.

Author Information

Jenni Carter (presenting / submitting)
University of South Australia
Education
Adelaide

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