The Circuit of Culture as a Generative

This paper begins by discussing reasons for the failure of important aspects of Conservative education policy in the United Kingdom and finds them in contemporary Conservatism's "fundamentalist" handling of questions of culture and tradition. The term "fundamentalist" refers to certain religious, cultural, and political ideologies that invoke a narrow and authority-centered account of tradition without attempting to enter into discourse about its value or premises. The paper then discusses the cultural meaning of teachers' opposition to Conservatism, as manifested in the national testing boycott of 1993-94. The paper suggests that aspects of social-movement theory can illuminate the achievements of this opposition. It concludes by considering what space for cultural action is offered by the educational policies of the new Labour Party. A problem with the Labour Party's agenda is that it discounts the intellectual work of teachers as well as the persis...

Educational Theory, 1999

What shouldbe the ultimate purposes of education in a democratic society? This seems like a simple question, yet when posed to educators, numerous, varied, and often contradictory responses are given. These range from gaining knowledge to developing skills, from finding a job to making a life, from social consciousness to social control, and from cultural transmission to critical citizenship. Certainly how we respond to this question influences what we do in the name of education, including how we design public schools and curricula. Surprisingly, however, this is a question not often asked by educators, nor one seriously addressed in schools of education. Asking about ultimate purposes is a metaphysical question, one that requires us to consider the reasons we do somethingthe why, or the end goal. Yet too often in education we neglect metaphysical questions and focus instead on engineering ones.' Such questions are about means, about how we can best do something or how we can more efficiently reach some predetermined goal. Engineering questions are commonplace in education. Should students be able to choose their schools? How can we efficiently implement an educational strategy such as cooperative learning? What is the best way to teach biology? How can we better assess students? Some of these types of questions are more compelling than others, but "what they have in common is that they evade the issue of what schools are for. It is as if we are a nation of technicians, consumed by our expertise of how something should be done, afraid or incapable of thinking about why."2

Human Affairs, 2012

The aim of this article is to problematize the concept of school culture both as a concept and as a subject of investigation. It deals with the historical roots of this concept and the fact that it is shrinkinga consequence of the managerial imperatives of effectiveness and accountability in education. School culture, in relation to the quality of schools and the quality of education, has become the subject of audits, arrived at through a developed network of standardisation in education, testing and evaluation. The methodology of evaluation currently lending particular substance to school culture, however, generates different methodological perspectives on investigating school culture and thus research is becoming an instrument of political power. In the research it is then necessary to either abandon the concept of school culture or to free it from spinning round the cycle of evaluation/self-evaluation-a change in school culture-improving the "quality of the school"-a new evaluation/self-evaluation. One way to do this is to employ ethnographic approaches in research into schools and to understand school culture as a system of texts. Key words: school culture; school quality; managerial accountability; research and evaluation; textuality of school culture; singular and plural interpretations of school culture An umbrella concept-a cover-up manoeuvre The culture of a school, the culture of a company, the culture of living, the culture of eating, the culture of waging conflict, the culture of strawberries? Is it meaningful to rely on such as a hackneyed concept as culture?... Don't we expect dishonourable intentions from those that combine with culture apparently at will? Perhaps so. And that is why we might ask, 'What is the intention behind it? What motivates us to link something with culture?' (Markowitz 1998, 101). A discursive obsession with "culture" has engulfed schools. In schools today the concept of "culture" is experiencing a similar conjuncture (Gogolin 1998) as did the concept of "process" twenty or thirty years ago (Huber 2009). Just as in those days concepts such as debate, communication, consultancy, development or mediation could not exist without being linked to the concept of process-even though these terms already contain within them the notion of process (Huber 2009, 14-15)-neither can today's school avoid its evaluation culture, teaching culture, learning culture, organisational culture, teacher culture, pupil

Paedagogica Historica, 2017

Where a licence is displayed above, please note the terms and conditions of the licence govern your use of this document. When citing, please reference the published version. Take down policy While the University of Birmingham exercises care and attention in making items available there are rare occasions when an item has been uploaded in error or has been deemed to be commercially or otherwise sensitive.

1992

This document examines the contribution of education to cultural development and the relationship between the contemporary cultural scene and educational processes. The first of five sections discusses the existing tensions between the role of the school culture and contemporary culture. The second section describes the demands of tradition and modernity of cultures. The third section presents culture as an element in democratization. The fourth section considers the question of linguistics by educational authorities. The final section suggests the ambiguous roles of multicultural societies and intercultural education. A 22-item bibliography is included.

Pedagogy, Culture & Society, 2008

Transgressions: Cultural Studies and Education. Vol. 17, 2010

Cultural studies provides an analytical toolbox for both making sense of educational practice and extending the insights of educational professionals into their labors. In this context Transgressions: Cultural Studies and Education provides a collection of books in the domain that specify this assertion. Crafted for an audience of teachers, teacher educators, scholars and students of cultural studies and others interested in cultural studies and pedagogy, the series documents both the possibilities of and the controversies surrounding the intersection of cultural studies and education. The editors and the authors of this series do not assume that the interaction of cultural studies and education devalues other types of knowledge and analytical forms. Rather the intersection of these knowledge disciplines offers a rejuvenating, optimistic, and positive perspective on education and educational institutions. Some might describe its contribution as democratic, emancipatory, and transformative. The editors and authors maintain that cultural studies helps free educators from sterile, monolithic analyses that have for too long undermined efforts to think of educational practices by providing other words, new languages, and fresh metaphors. Operating in an interdisciplinary cosmos, Transgressions: Cultural Studies and Education is dedicated to exploring the ways cultural studies enhances the study and practice of education. With this in mind the series focuses in a non-exclusive way on popular culture as well as other dimensions of cultural studies including social theory, social justice and positionality, cultural dimensions of technological innovation, new media and media literacy, new forms of oppression emerging in an electronic hyperreality, and postcolonial global concerns. With these concerns in mind cultural studies scholars often argue that the realm of popular culture is the most powerful educational force in contemporary culture. Indeed, in the twenty-first century this pedagogical dynamic is sweeping through the entire world. Educators, they believe, must understand these emerging realities in order to gain an important voice in the pedagogical conversation.

Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural Studies

Educational Theory, 2015