Gardiner, M. (1987, March). Liberating language: People’s English for the future. Lengwitch: The Journal for Language Across the Curriculum, pp. 36-60 (original) (raw)
Related papers
International Journal of Education & Literacy Studies
2023
Education, as a practical activity to improve the comprehensive quality of human beings, not only plays a role in the transmission and inheritance of culture but also has intimate ties to the growth of life and development of economy and society. In this book, the authors Montserrat Gomendio and José Ignacio Wert discuss the reasons why education reforms are difficult to implement but easy to reverse, taking into account the valuable evidence they have obtained in designing and implementing education reforms in Spain and their subsequent experience at the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) advising governments worldwide. This dialogue on education is like a breath of fresh air for the reader. By comparing education policies from an international perspective and analyzing the interplay between education reforms, ideology and vested interests, the authors provide insights into the positive and negative factors that influence education reforms. The book consists of seven chapters. Chapter 1 offers a brief overview of the origins, functions, and roles of modern education systems. From the emergence of mass schooling in Europe, the United States and the rest of the world, one key question is thoroughly discussed: how to define the aims of education and the extent to which different views can be aligned. As the transition from "universal access to education" to "quality education" takes place, ideology begins to play a significant role and permeates the main dimensions of the education system. Is the ultimate goal of the education system equity or quality? The authors note that left-wing parties generally support greater levels of investment, smaller class sizes, and higher teacher salaries, which are the main demands of teacher unions, while right-wing parties tend to support competition, accountability, and student and teacher evaluations, which they believe will improve quality and efficiency, contrary to the interests of teacher unions. The authors highlight that a complex combination of ideology and vested interests influence the advancement of education reform. Besides, the authors analyze the general concern regarding how education systems need to adapt to the knowledge society, digitalization and globalization, and megatrends that result in demands from the labor market for higher levels of knowledge and skills. Since education systems need to constantly adapt to rapidly changing environments and sometimes unforeseen circumstances (e.g., the impact of COVID-19), the implementation of education reform requires consideration of many factors. Chapter 2 focuses on clarifying the complex relationship between education policy and ideology. Ideology in this context refers to any form of politically oriented conception of education. Because ideologies may diverge, the goals of education may also diverge as a result, such as whether the goal of education is to promote equity or advance quality. In this chapter, the authors present the definition of education from the perspective of the state as the provider of education since ancient Greece and the views of different thinkers in modern education such as John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Fernando Reimers, John Stuart Mill, John Dewey and others. The shares and the development of public and private provisions in different countries and economies have also been analyzed. The concept of "equity" is also a keyword in the authors' discussion. As an important component in the maintenance of education systems, "equity" is understood differently by the political parties on the left and right. For the left, education means equality, while for the right, education plays an enabling function. It is worth thinking about how to properly balance quality and equity in the education system. Considering the shape of education, the authors analyze the four main dimensions that are most susceptible to ideological influence: architecture, teachers, curricula, and assessments. Among them, regarding teachers, left-wing parties favor hiring as many teachers as possible and oppose performance evaluations or firing them for poor performance, whereas right-wing parties support teacher evaluation and performance-related incentives and are more rigorous and selective in recruitment. These disparities have implications for both the development of the teaching profession and the role that teachers play in education. In the education reform process, since teachers are a fundamental gear in the education engine, their position largely determines the success or failure of reform. With regard to curriculum, its usefulness and relevance to student achievement and the given content all reflect a certain education ideology. Regarding assessment, the authors explain, in the context of its development, how it was initially designed as an objective measure of talent in an effort to break down barriers of wealth, inheritance and political influence. However, due to the limitations of the approach (for instance, not every student receives the same level of quality education), it is increasingly viewed as a tool of discrimination, and the relationship between ideology and assessment varies. In sum, the education policies and ideologies described in this chapter somehow influence the feasibility and durability of education reform in a country or environment. Chapter 3 mainly describes the relationship between the governance model and the reform experience of the education system. Governance arrangements in education systems are concerned with the distribution of power and responsibilities among levels of government, financial incentives, and control of resources, as well as the interests of stakeholders outside of government. The authors begin by describing the role of various governments in education over time in various countries,
This paper is a philosophical study on ideology and its indispensable relationship to education policy making and implementation and its didactical dimension with a special reference to Zimbabwe. The paper points out that successive colonial governments and religious organisations of that era established and worked, planned and implemented their policies within the bounds of liberal-cum-capitalist ideological framework. Hence all their education and training institutions were built and meant to fulfill that cause. Post-independent Africa inherited that framework and found herself giving her citizens education that created useless school leavers. This paper will advance an argument that educating and training in an ideological vacuum stifles critical and creative thinking which is the sources and foundation of potential invention and innovation. It therefore calls for Africa to come up with an ideological framework that defines their contextual social, political, and economic condition(s) resulting in crafting policies that are relevant to their needs than repeating tired ideologies.
A revised version of this paper was published in Crook, D. and McCulloch, G. (eds) The Routledge International Encyclopedia of Education London: Routledge [2008] Issues about the meaning of the term 'education' should be distinguished from issues about what the aims of education should be. The latter are much more interesting than the former. Radical child-centred notions that adults should not impose their own aims on children are deeply problematic: education cannot but be a kind of socialisation. Liberal democratic societies may be expected to have educational aims not shared more universally. These go beyond the traditional notion of inculcating a love of knowledge for its own sake to embrace equipping young people with the understanding and dispositions to lead autonomous lives within a framework of civic virtues and responsibilities. This account still leaves unresolved various philosophical and practical problems. A lot has been written about the nature of education (Peters 1966, chs 1,2,):
2016
This article explores the relationships between education and democracy in developing countries. It discusses the nature of “development ” and in particular the idea of political indicators of development. The paper then discusses modernisation theory in relation to education as providing a necessary, but not sufficient, bureaucratic basis for democratic political development. These ideas are then examined in relation to the realities of schooling in developing countries and the problems of providing learners with both an effective organisational experience and a democratic one. While there are many examples of good practice in relation to democratic education in developing countries, there are also many obstacles and the dominant model of schooling is still authoritarian. The article then focuses on South Africa as a case study of a developing country that has attempted to introduce more democratic forms of schooling but where authoritarianism persists in education despite some dem...
Schooling: The Way People See It
Journal of Education and Research, 2013
In this paper, I discuss how people perceive and give meaning to schooling or education. Based largely on field-data, I organize this discussion on four key themes social status and employment, everyday skills and knowledge, gender and caste, and social relationships. While making these discussions I argue that powerful contradicting forces are operating in educational arena, one, local pressures from below for educational opportunities and improvement and the other, from above, resistance to maintain hierarchy. I show how powerful forces at the local level deny access to schooling to women, low castes and the poor. It is true that the access to schooling to these deprived groups has been improved recently. Nevertheless, the discriminatory forces are still powerful illustrating the tension between the agency of these actors and societal structures. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/jer.v1i0.7949 Journal of Education and Research 2008, Vol. 1, No. 1, pp. 31-40
2016
English is used as a second-language (EL2) medium of instruction In a wide range of developing countries, notably in East and South Asia, the Middle East, and many parts of Africa, often in the face of a vigorous resurgence of indigenous and regional cultures and languages. A discussion of this situation illastrates some of the social, political, and educational factors that make the implementaton of EL2-medium educational policies problematic for develoF.ng countries. The discussion then looks into the case of Hong Kong, with its particular linguistic and socio-political situation, and the implications of an EL2-medium education system for an ostensibly egalitarian education policy. The discussion concludes by examining recent attempts by language planners and educators in Hong Kong, in both secondary and higher education, to make the education system more responsive to the sociolinguistic and educational requirements and realities in the territory while retaining a strong EL2-medi...
Education in Britain (Polity Press 2016) Chapter 5
The second edition of my book 'Education in Britain' will be available shortly. This is an extract from Chapter 5, on New Labour. The text is that of the draft version submitted to Polity - i.e. before copy-editing and before proof corrections.
Introduction. Education and the State – Between Past and Future
Defending the Value of Education as a Public Good: Philosophical Dialogues on Education and the State, edited by Katarzyna Wrońska, Julian Stern, Routledge, 2024
To consider education as a public good is controversial; it poses a challenge for scholars, especially those who adhere to the values of freedom, property, and privacy. In this undertaking, we depart from a perception of care for children and youth, around whom the practice of education is developed. We attempt to reconcile this with the world's own need for constant reconstruction, for which participation of new generations is paramount (Arendt 1961). Although we highly value the principles of democratic society, we remain unconvinced that allowing for education to be entirely provided for by the private sector will guarantee that the care of which children and youth are so deserving will be made universally accessible. It seems therefore that the state remains instrumental in the advocacy of children's interests, as a safe harbour in face of the inequalities prevalent in society (Walzer 1983), a platform through which the opinions of civil society and the public sphere might be voiced. From this follows the central questions around which this monograph revolves: why defend education as a public good? What is to be protected and ensured within it? What ought to be the nature of the state in which education would be able to fulfil its goals? Before allowing the contributing authors to answer the above, we need to outline the definitions to which frequent reference will be made and the conceptual framework within which they will operate. It would also be beneficial, as part of this foreword, to explore the relationship between education and the state, as well as the appropriate roles of teachers within educational practice. We will explore how teachers and educators ought themselves be educated, whose interests do educational researchers represent, and on whose behalf do those scholars, including philosophers of education, act. Despite numerous critiques of modern democracy and its educational institutions, voiced by many among us, we believe that quality education may be appropriately ensured within this political model. However this does not relieve us of the necessity to treat the pedagogical mission with all the seriousness for which it calls, perceiving education as a practice in its own right, with its own internal goods. Further, a practice theoretically grounded in the academic discipline of pedagogy or in relevant (e.g. sociological, psychological,