National curriculum policy reform in England and Australia: implications for justice in uncertain times

Author(s):

Christine Winter(presenting / submitting)Lesley Vidovich(presenting)

Conference:

ECER 2016

Network:

23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

23 SES 04 D, Curriculum Policy Reforms and Their Implications

Paper Session

Time:

2016-08-24

09:00-10:30

Room:

NM-J110

Chair:

Christine Winter

Contribution

The aim of this paper is to analyse and compare national curriculum policy reforms in English and Australian schooling, as well as examine the implications for social justice. As background, a brief comparative political history of events surrounding decisions to legislate for a national curriculum in each country is presented. In the account, political discourses operating to promote and challenge curriculum policy decision-making leading up to the introduction of the National Curriculum in England in 1988 and the announcement of the inaugural national curriculum in Australia twenty years later, in 2008, are identified.

Two characteristics of Sahlberg’s (2011) Global Educational Reform Movement (GERM), curriculum prescription and standardised testing, form the focus of curriculum policy analysis. The enquiry responds to Lingard et al’s (2014) argument that social justice is discursively reconstituted as ‘equity’ in the form of measures of performance through the policy technology of ‘datafiction’.

The analysis of curriculum prescription and standardisation through policy in these two national educational systems over recent decades has three goals: to reveal both similarities and vernacular idiosyncrasies; allow critical enquiry and comparison of the implications of policy reform for social justice in practice; and also to serve as a basis for researching a wider range of national contexts in the future.

The research questions guiding the enquiry are:

a) What are the provenance and implications of curriculum policy reforms in English and Australian schooling with respect to curriculum standardisation and high-stakes testing, and how do they compare?

b) What are the implications for social justice of these curriculum and assessment policy reforms for students and teachers at a time of increasing globalisation and cultural diversity?

The findings of the policy analysis are discussed in relation to literature on curriculum standardisation and high-stakes testing (Rizvi & Lingard, 2010); debates around ‘powerful knowledge’ (Zipin, Fataar & Brennan, 2015); ‘datafiction’ (Lingard, 2011); teacher de-professionalisation (Angus, 2012; Ball, 2003); and privatisation (Lipman, 2013). As part of the discussion on social justice (Derrida, 1992), Todd’s (2001) research about how about curriculum and pedagogy provide the ‘raw material’ (p. 446) for forming student subjectivities through the relationship between knowledge and persons, and the responsibilities this confers on policy makers and teachers is examined in the light of increasing cultural diversity in schools, widening social and economic inequalities and the global rise in concerns about national security.

Method

Key policy texts in each national context are selected for initial analysis on the basis of policy discourses related to curriculum standardisation and high-stakes testing. In the first stage of analysis, policy drivers and levers in the two national settings are identified (Maguire and Ball, 1994). This identification is enhanced by Scheurich’s (1994) policy archaeology scepticism around the presumed objectivity and empirically-based form of policy problems presented for resolution by policy makers to the public. At this point, the policy analysis has two subsequent phases. The first draws on the hybrid critical and Foucauldian post structural approach following Vidovich’s (2013) policy trajectory analysis which includes use of Fairclough’s Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (2003, 2006). Fairclough is interested in the relationship between language and the social conditions and practices of its production. The second picks up Winter’s (2014) interpretation of Derridean deconstruction for justice (Derrida, 1992) where the instability of language and constraining use of totalising discourses obstruct the incoming of other ways of thinking and other groups of people. The engagement of two different analytical perspectives in an enquiry of two national policies will make an original contribution to the field by facilitating comparison, not only of policy text interpretations and their social justice implications regarding implementation in two national settings, but also the relative strengths and drawbacks of each analytical approach.

Expected Outcomes

By comparing the findings emerging from analysis of national curriculum and assessment policies in England and Australia, the provenance and implications of these policies can be assessed. While there is no intention of generalising the findings beyond these two national settings, there is a potential for critical ‘policy learning’ in other locales (in contrast to uncritical ‘policy borrowing’), given the broader context of accelerating globalisation. Both English and Australian governments have highlighted that a national curriculum will enhance international economic success, as well as resolve the educational attainment gap between students from advantaged and disadvantaged communities to increase social justice. That is, advancing both ‘quality’ and ‘equity’ has been presented as the rationale for these policies. However, the ‘costs’ of tighter central control through prescribed curriculum and high stakes testing are significant, often undermining the policy intent, especially as in relation to social justice in a globalising world characterised by socio-economic and cultural diversity between and within schools. These ‘costs’ are explicated in the paper. A curriculum and assessment approach linked to Funds of Knowledge (Gonzales et al 2005; Zipin et al, 2012) is presented as a socially just alternative to current policy messages and practices for consideration by policy makers and practitioners.

References

Angus, L. (2012) Teaching within and against the circle of privilege: reforming teachers, reforming schools Journal of Education Policy 27 (2), 231-251. Ball, S.J. (2003) The teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity Journal of Education Policy 18 (2), 215-228. Derrida, J. (1992) Force of Law: The “Mystical Foundation of Authority” In D. Cornell, M. Rosenfeld and D.G. Carlson (Eds.) Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice London: Routledge. Fairclough, N. (2003) Analysing discourse and text: textual analysis for social research London: Routledge. Fairclough, N. (2006) Language and Globalisation London: Routledge. Gonzales, N., Moll, L.C. and Amanti, C. (Eds.) (2005) Funds of Knowledge: theorizing practices in households, communities and classrooms London: Routledge. Lingard, B. (2011) Policy as numbers: accounting for educational research Australian Educational Researcher 38, 355-382. Lingard, B., Sellar, S. and Savage, G.C. (2014) Re-articulating social justice as equity in schooling policy: the effects of testing and data infrastructures British Journal of Sociology of Education 35 (5), 710-1730. Lipman, P. (2013) Economic crisis, accountability and the state’s assault on public education in the USA Journal of Education Policy 28 (5), 557-573. Maguire, M. and Ball, S.J. (1994) Researching politics and the politics of research: recent qualitative studies in the UK. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education 7 (3), 269-285. Rizvi, F. and Lingard, B. (2010) Globalizing education policy London: Routledge. Sahlberg, (2011) Finnish Lessons: what can the world learn from educational change in Finland? New York: Teachers’ College Press. Schureich, J.J. (1994) Policy Archaeology: a new policy studies methodology Journal of Education Policy 9 (4), 297-316. Todd, S. (2001) ‘Bringing more than I contain’: ethics, curriculum and the pedagogical demand for altered egos Journal of Curriculum Studies 33 (4), 431-450. Vidovich, L. (2013) Policy research in Higher Education: theories and methods for globalising times in J. Huisman and M. Tight (Eds.) Theory and Method in Higher Education Research Bingley, UK: Emerald, pp. 21-39. Winter, C. (2014) Curriculum knowledge, justice, relations: The Schools’ White Paper (2010) in England Journal of Philosophy of Education 48 (2), 276-292. Zipin, L., Fataar, A. and Brennan, M. (20015) Can social realism do social justice? Debating the warrants for curriculum knowledge selection Education as Change 19 (2), 9-36. Zipin, L., Sellar, S. and Hattam, R. (2012) Countering and exceeding capital: a ‘funds of knowledge’ approach to re-imagining community Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 33 (2) 179-192.

Author Information

Christine Winter (presenting / submitting)

University of Sheffield

Department of Educational Studies

Sheffield

Lesley Vidovich (presenting)

Graduate School of Education, University of Western Australia

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