Main Content
Session Information
23 SES 03 A, Learning to Reform
Parallel Paper Session
Contribution
In the 21st century, despite widespread lip service to the idea of lifelong learning, school systems continue to be caught within education’s dual roles: to develop young people’s understanding and competency across the curriculum and to prepare students for competitive entry to take up post school educational opportunities. In many countries in the developed world this dual function emerges most clearly in the senior years of schooling when students face final examinations which result in a ranking system that determines tertiary entry in terms of place and field (Bourdieu, 1984). While school results have long been recognised as operating in favour of students from wealthy backgrounds, typically better off in both cultural and economic capital than those from poorer homes, this paper argues that within the sector of relative privilege there are widespread curriculum processes that further accentuate the differences in which the students are already located (Ball et. al. 2002).
Drawing on a study of senior schooling choice making in the context of two non-government single sex schools the researchers examine the idea of curriculum choices which are initially understood by the middle school girls in terms of personal fulfilment. By the senior years this process has changed to become one wherein choices made by senior students are powerfully constructed in terms of strategic placements in order to maximise the potential grade for the explicit demands of tertiary ranking. In this way we argue that the notion of choice becomes a tool for interpellating the girls as neo-liberal subjects for whom the idea of competition within a highly individuated system becomes the new world order. Within the generally middle class context the study demonstrates the unequal positioning of the girls with regard to parental educational levels and locations as they struggle with the burden of choice. Schooling becomes complicit with the differential refraction of chosen pathways in terms of cultural background (Hodkinson & Sparkes, 2006).
Ultimately the argument is developed concerning the capacity of educational experience to counter the reproductive effects of senior school curriculum by devising different ways of balancing personal fulfilment with a stronger sense of the public good as a schooled product.
This study is located in the Australian context but the argument is applicable to all countries in which schooling is linked to a ranked system governing success in tertiary applications and placements.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Ball, SJ, Davies, J, David, M & Reay, D, 2002, ‘Classification’ and ‘Judgement’: Social class and the ‘cognitive structures’ of choice of Higher Education’, British Journal of Sociology of Education,vol. 23, Issue 1, pp. 51 – 72. Bourdieu, P 1984, Distinction, Routledge and Kegan Paul, London. Hodkinson, P & Sparkes, AC 2006, ‘Careership: a sociological theory of career decision making’, British Journal of Sociology of Education, vol. 18, Issue 1, pp2 9 – 44.
Programm by Network
00. Central Events (Keynotes, EERA-Panel, EERJ Round Table, Invited Sessions)
Network 1. Continuing Professional Development: Learning for Individuals, Leaders, and Organisations
Network 2. Vocational Education and Training (VETNET)
Network 3. Curriculum Innovation
Network 4. Inclusive Education
Network 5. Children and Youth at Risk and Urban Education
Network 6. Open Learning: Media, Environments and Cultures
Network 7. Social Justice and Intercultural Education
Network 8. Research on Health Education
Network 9. Assessment, Evaluation, Testing and Measurement
Network 10. Teacher Education Research
Network 11. Educational Effectiveness and Quality Assurance
Network 12. LISnet - Library and Information Science Network
Network 13. Philosophy of Education
Network 14. Communities, Families and Schooling in Educational Research
Network 15. Research Partnerships in Education
Network 16. ICT in Education and Training
Network 17. Histories of Education
Network 18. Research in Sport Pedagogy
Network 19. Ethnography
Network 20. Research in Innovative Intercultural Learning Environments
Network 22. Research in Higher Education
Network 23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education
Network 24. Mathematics Education Research
Network 25. Research on Children's Rights in Education
Network 26. Educational Leadership
Network 27. Didactics – Learning and Teaching
Network 28. Sociologies of Education
Network 29. Reserach on Arts Education
Network 30. Research on Environmental und Sustainability Education
Network 31. Research on Language and Education (LEd)
Network 32. Organizational Education
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