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IMAGES OFEDUCATIONAL CHANGE

EDITED BY HERBERT ALTRICHTER

AND

J OHN ELLIOTT

Open University PressBu ckingha m • Philadelphia



This book is dedica ted to B arry M acDon ald and Peter Posch both ofwhom, over the last three decades, have contributed enormouslyto our understanding of educational change and whose work has

been a source of inspiration to many of the contributors to thisvolume.

Open University PressCeltic Cou rt22 BallmoorBuckingham

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and325 Chestnu t StreetPhiladelphia, PA 19106, USA

First Pu blished 2000

Copyright © The Editors and Con tributors, 2000

All rights reserved. Except for the q uota tion of short passages for th e purpose ofcriticism a nd review, no part of t his publicat ion m ay be reproduced, stored in aretrieval system, or tran smitted, in an y form o r by an y m ean s, electronic, mechan ical,photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of thepublisher or a licence from the Copyright Licensing Agency Limited. Details of suchlicences (for reprograph ic reproduction) ma y be o bta ined from the C opyrightLicensing Agency Ltd o f 90 Tott enh am Cou rt Roa d, Lond on , W1P 9HE.

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ISBN 0 335 20188 1 (pb) 0 335 20189 X (hb)

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publi cation Data

Ima ges of educa tiona l cha nge/edited by Herbert Altrichter a nd Jo hnElliott.

p. cm.Includes bibliographical references (p. ) an d ind ex.ISBN 0-335-20188-1. – ISBN 0-335-20189-X1. Ed uca tio na l ch a n ge. 2. Sch oo l m a na gem en t a n d oga n iza tio n.

3. Education – Social aspects. I . Altrichter, Herbert.II. Elliott, John, Dip. Phil. Ed.LB2805.I415 2000 99-44710

371.2–dc21 CIP

Typeset by Type Study, Sca rborou gh , North Yorksh irePrinted in G reat B ritain by B iddles Ltd, G uildford an d King’s Lyn n



Contents

Notes on contr ibutors vii

Introduction 1HERB ERT ALTRIC HTER

Part 1 Educational change and policy formation 111 Econo mic cha nge, educationa l policy format ion an d th e role of

the sta te 13ERNEST R. HOUSE

2 How education became nobody’s business 20BARRY MACDONALD

3 Developing under developing circumstances: the personaland socia l development o f students and the process o f schooling 37JOHN SCHOSTAK

Part II The relationship between social and educational change 534 Community, school change and stra tegic netw orking 55

PETER POSCH

5 Social chan ge and th e individual: cha nging patterns of comm un ityand the cha llenge for schooling 66MARIE BRENNAN AND SUSAN NOFFKE

6 Socia l change, subject matter – and the teacher 75J . MYRON ATKIN

Part III Conceptualizing school change processes 857 Changing school cultures 87

CHRISTINE FINNAN AND HENRY M. LEVIN



Notes on contributors

HERB ERT ALTRICHTER w as born in 1954 in Vienna , Austria. He received a PhDfrom the Un iversity of Vienna in 1978. Betw een 1980 and 1991 he w as a lec-turer a t th e University of Klagenfu rt. From 1991 to 1996 he w as Professor ofBusiness Educat ion at the Un iversity of Innsbruck, and he is currently Pro fes-sor of Education a nd Educationa l Psychology an d Head of Departmen t at th eJohannes-Kepler University of Linz. He is the author of Teachers Investi gate

Their Classrooms (1994).

J . MYRON ATKIN, Professor of Education at Stanford University and a scienceteacher for seven years at elementary an d secondary schoo l levels in New York,also served on the fa culty of th e University of Illinois at Urbana -Cha mpaign.At both Illinois and Stan ford, he a lso w as Dean of Education – from 1970 to1979 at Illinois and from 1979 to 1986 at Stanford.

MARIE BRENNAN is Associate Professor and Associate Dean (Postgraduate Edu-cation) and coordinates the Ma ster of Schoo l Mana gement for the Faculty ofEducation a t Cen tral Queenslan d Un iversity, Australia. She h as been involvedas researcher and facilitator for action research projects with educators andstuden ts in a variety of settings for almost tw enty years.

JOHN ELLIOTT has directed and coordinated a number of nationally and inter-na tionally recognized research projects aimed a t enga ging t eachers w ith a ndin peda gogical research. Tw o ea rly tren d-setting projects inv olving localteachers in scho ols in the U K w ere the Ford Teach ing Project (Ford Foun -

da tion 1973–5) an d th e Teacher–Pupil Interaction a nd th e Qua lity of Learn -ing Pro ject (funded by th e Schools Coun cil 1980–3). The form er projectresulted in the formation of the Collaborative Action Research Network(CARN), w hich evolved into an internat ional professiona l netw ork to support



the development of practitioner-based action research. Over the years JohnElliott has coordinated a number of ESRC-funded action research projects,including ‘A study of tea chers’ jobs and lives’, ‘The u se of microcomputers tofoster au ton omous learn ing’ and ‘A study o f teachers as researchers in th e con-

text of award bearing courses’. He has played a leading role as a pedagogicalconsultant for the OECD (CERI) Programm e on th e Environm ent a nd SchoolInitia tives (ENSI). His centra l role ha s been to support tea chers in con structinga know ledge base about th eir attempts to change the culture of teaching andlearning in schools to foster action learning in relation to local environmenta lissues. He ha s w ritten a nu mber of infl uen tial books an d papers on tea ching asa research-based practice, including Action Research for Educational Change andThe Curriculum Experiment: Meeting the Challenge of Social Change .

CHRISTINE FINNAN is an assistan t professor at th e College of Charleston in SouthCarolina a nd the director of th e South Carolina Accelerated Schools Projectand the Center of Excellence in Accelerating Learning, both located at theCollege of Cha rleston. She received h er PhD from Sta nford Un iversity in Edu-cation w ith a m inor in a nth ropology in 1980.

SUSAN GROUNDWATER SMITH is a research consultant based in Sydney, havingw orked previously at the Un iversity of Technology, Sydn ey a nd at Sydn eyUniversity. She is currently a research fellow in education at the University ofEast Anglia. Her most recent book, w ith Robyn Cusw orth a nd Rosie Dobbins,

is Teaching: Challenges and Di lemmas . She is also the author, with VivienneWhite, of Improving our Primary Schools: Evaluation and Assessment through Par-

ticipation .

ERNEST R. HOUSE is a professor in the Schoo l of Education a t th e Un iversity ofColorado at Boulder. His interests are evaluation and policy. He has been avisiting scholar at UCLA, Harvard and New Mexico, and in England, Spain,Sw eden, Austria an d Australia. Bo oks include The Poli tics of Educational Inno-

vation, Survival in the Classroom (with S. Lapan), Evaluating wi th Validity , Jesse Jackson and the Poli ti cs of Char isma , Professional Evaluation, Schools for Sale and

Values in Evaluati on and Social Research (w ith K. How e). He is recipient of th eLassw ell Prize for the a rticle con tributing most to the th eory a nd practice ofth e policy sciences in 1989 and of th e Lazarsfeld Aw ard for Eva luat ion Theo ry,presented by the American Eva luat ion Association in 1990.

LAWRENCE INGVARSON is an associate professor in the Faculty of Education atMon ash Un iversity. He formerly ta ught science in Australia an d th e UK a ndlectured at the University of Stirling in Scotlan d. His ma in research interestsare teachers, work, professional development and relationships betweenpolicy and practice. He is currently editing a book on the work of the US

Nat iona l Boa rd for Professiona l Teach ing Stan dards over its fi rst ten yea rs.

HENRY M. LEVIN is th e Dav id Ja cks Professor of Higher Educa tion a nd Econom icsat Stanford University and the Director of the Accelerated Schools Project, a

viii Notes on contr ibutors



mov ement of over 1000 elementary an d secondary schoo ls in 40 states tha t isin its tw elfth yea r. He is a specialist in the econom ics of hum an resources an deduca tiona l policy.

BARRY MACDONALD is an evaluation specialist who, over three decades in thisrole, has studied chan ge in th e social services of the UK an d elsew here, par-ticularly with respect to education and training. He pioneered a case studyapproach to evaluation, and has contributed generally to qualitative enquiryan d th e politics of research.

SUSAN E. NOFFKE w as a tea cher of elementary a nd m iddle school aged childrenin Wisconsin, USA, for ten yea rs. She is curren tly Assistan t Pro fessor of Cu r-riculum and Instruction at the University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign,where she teaches pre-service elementary teachers and works with experi-

enced teachers in graduate programmes. She has worked for over ten yearsw ith va rious aspects of action research. Her publication s include ‘Pro fession al,personal, and political dimensions of action research’ in the Review of Research

in Education an d she is co-editor (w ith Robert Stevenson) of Educational Action Research: Becoming Practi cal ly Criti cal .

CHRISTINE O’HANLON is a senior lecturer at the School of Education, Universityof Birmingha m. Sh e began her career as a teacher, then tran sferred to h ighereducation and has now been a teacher educator for many years. She writesabout inclusive education , a ction research a nd, more recently, h igher degree

supervision a nd research issues in un iversities. She h as alw ay s been interestedin the process of change, w hich forms th e basis of her practice, w hich is ulti-ma tely to improve th e professional practice of teachers an d oth er educationalprofessionals, w ith th e aim of benefi ting children’s an d y oun g people’s learn-ing through schooling. At present she is trying to change the ‘research’ cul-ture in un iversities to enable teachers to feel more in con trol of w ha t th ey doin th eir professional lives. Sh e h as published in a n internat ional context an dha s extensive experience of w orking w ith tea chers in Europe.

ANGEL PÉREZ GÓMEZ is a full professor of curriculum an d tea ching meth od in the

University of M álaga. He has academic degrees in education an d psychology(PhD 1976). He has been Vice Chancellor of the University of Málaga, ViceDean of the Faculty of Education at the University of Málaga and Head ofDepartm ent o f Curriculum an d Teach ing Methods at th e Universities of Sala-manca, Complutense, Madrid and Málaga. He has been a consultant to theMinistry of Education. He w on th e top nationa l aw ard in educationa l researchin 1994. He has been, and still is, a member of the different national andregiona l comm ittees of research an d evalua tion on education, a nd o f the edi-torial committee of a number of educational journals. He has written ten

books and more than a hundred papers on curriculum research and inno-vation, educational evaluation, teacher training and professional develop-men t, schoo l culture a nd political determination. Since 1982 he ha s been oneof the initiators of the grow ing tradition of a ction research in Spain, leading

Notes on contr ibutors ix



many projects of curriculum change and professional development, teachertraining an d schoo l inn ova tion. He ha s been involved in important projects ofeducational evaluation at a national level.

PETER POSCH ha s teaching degrees in English an d geography, an d Ph Ds in edu -cation a nd psychology. He ha s conducted studies and research a ctivities at th eUniversities of Inn sbruck and Con stan ce an d th e Vienna Schoo l of Econ om ics.He has been Professor of Education at the Institute of Education at the Uni-versity of Klagen furt in Austria since 1976, an d w as Visiting Professor a t th eSchool of Education of Stanford University in 1992.

STEFAN SALZGEBER is a lecturer in h um an resource man agemen t at th e Depart-men t of Bu siness Education an d Huma n Resource Mana gement, Un iversity ofInn sbruck. His research is on con stitut iona l theories in the fi eld of organ iz-

ation theory and human resource management. One of his current researchprojects is the coaching of the succession process in fi ve family com pan ies.

JOHN SCHOSTAK is a professor at the Centre for Applied Research in Educationat the University of East Anglia, an d is interested in researching education, theprocesses of ‘knowing’ and the production of ‘knowledge’ in schools, theclinical a reas of th e hea lth professions, the practices of business organ izations,the m edia a nd more broadly in a ny area of everyday life.

BRIDGET SOMEKH worked at CARE from 1987 to 1995, after 14 years as asecondary English teacher. During the same period she was coordinator ofCARN (the Collaborative (formerly Classroom) Action Research Network).She is w ell know n for h er research and evaluation w ork in information an dcommu nication technology in education, w hich she regards as a particularlyinteresting field in which to study change. Her publications include Teachers

Investigate Their Work (co-autho red w ith Herbert Altrichter a nd Peter Posch)and Using IT Effectively in Teachi ng and Learning (co-edited w ith Niki Dav is). In1994–6, w hile Deputy D irector o f the Scott ish Coun cil for Research in Edu-cation, she coordinated the Management for Organisational and HumanDevelopmen t Project, fun ded by the European Union across six research cen-

tres in Austria, Spain, Ita ly an d th e UK. She is currently Dea n o f the School ofEducat ion an d Professiona l Developmen t at The Ma nchester MetropolitanUniversity.

ROB WALKER is at the University of East Anglia and currently has interests ininformation technology and education especially in relation to higher edu-cation . More inform at ion is av ailable at h ttp://w w w 2.deakin.edu .au /e&c/dcec/members/w alker.html

x Notes on contr ibutors



Introduction

HERBERT ALTRICHTER

A man who had not met Mr Keuner for a long time welcomed himw ith the w ords: ‘You h ave n ot chan ged at all.’ – ‘Oh! ’ said Mr Keuneran d grew pale.

(Bertolt Brecht)

Cha nge is ubiqu itous, and so is ta lk abou t ‘chan ges’. ‘Cha nge’ an d its fam ily of‘chan ge-w ords’, such as ‘progress’, ‘improvement ’, ‘evolution’ a nd ‘develop-ment’, are among the key concepts of modernity (see de Mul and Korthals1997: 245). A few theorists believe tha t the not ion of ‘cha nge’ h as lost import-an ce in recent t imes, or th at even h istory w ill come to its end (see the d is-cussion of this argument by Elliott in Chapter 14 of this volume), but mostanalysts would argue that we see an intensification, a speeding up, anincreased complexity of cha nge processes (see, for exa mple, Posch in Chapter4 of this volume).

This is now here more tru e tha n in edu cation. While ma ny European coun-tries experienced a period of stagnation in their education systems in the

1980s – as a ba cklash t o th e period o f educa tiona l reform du ring the late 1960sand the 1970s, in the 1990s and beyond the idea of change has once againbecome central to educational discourse. Everywhere we see ‘innovation’,‘reform’, ‘developmen t’, ‘improvement ’ etc. w ith respect to schoo l governa nce,teacher education, teaching methods, school inspection, school financing,evaluation etc. in many educational systems of the Western world – and wehear even m ore talk about it.

‘Chan ge’ is not un iform, a nd a variety of concepts of ‘educationa l cha nge’compete for the attention of policy makers, practitioners and the wider

public. For exam ple, ‘cha nge’ ma y be used to a rgue for more au tonom y inorder to allow and enhance self-management of schools or for stricter cen-tral surveillance, accreditation and evaluation, or for both; it may be used toargue for m ore room for m arket forces or for more paren t participation in th e



governa nce of scho ols. ‘Ch an ge’ sha pes up differently in different discoursecontexts, an d a ppears to be infi nitely contestable an d inherently u nstable.

The a im of th is book is to explore the ra nge a nd variety o f contemporary‘images of change’ which inform educational discourse, and to evaluate their

potential an d consequen ces for sha ping edu cational th ough t a nd practice. Weha ve asked authors w orking on educationa l chan ge issues in a number of coun -tries an d variety of contexts to explore ‘cha nge’ w ithin their fi eld, to give exam -ples of ‘change’ in order to help readers to understand the origin, possible usesand practical consequences of the ‘change’ concepts implied in the practicalwork and proclaimed in the programmatic ideas which govern this work.

In th e remaining sections of this introduction, I w an t to identify a nu mberof different possible meanings and uses of ‘change’ concepts, and provide anoverview of the cha pters in this volum e by identifying the m ain issues w hich

th ey discuss.

Gazing through the kaleidoscope: dimensions of change

Cha nge is ubiquitous, an d so is the concept of ‘cha nge’. How ever, the m ean -ings of both, o f the con cept and of th e practices referred to, seem to o scillate.Ima ges of chan ge processes vary w idely in the scope an d emph ases of mea n-ings con veyed. It is like gazing th rough a ka leidoscope. The image cha ngesquickly when the instrument is turned around, held at varying angles orpointed to different ba ckgrounds. So let us play arou nd w ith th e kaleidoscopefor a w hile, trying to distingu ish several possible dimension s of the concept of‘change’ (see van Haften 1997).

Most obviously, ‘chan ge’ may refer both to a pr ocess and to a product (of suchprocesses). While th e features of products an d processes of specifi c ‘changes’are usually intricately linked, it is not often possible to deduce one from theoth er. Furthermore, educationa l discourse seems to become mo re an d m oreinterested in processes no t on ly of individua l, but also of group, macro-group,organizationa l and societal developmen t.

Second , the verb ‘cha nge’ ma y be used intransitively (a situa tion cha nges) ortransitively (I change the situation). In the first case, we tend to assume nat-ural, even n ecessary, developmen ts according to imma nent law s, w hile in thesecond case we are inclined to search for ‘agents of change’. Or we look forstructural factors in the w idest sense (such a s demographic trends or na turalcata strophes). A key issue stems from th e qu estion : are cha nge processes con-ceived a s mainly driven by internal or external forces (of an organism, a socialentity etc.)? And w here does the locus of control lie?

Third, w e ma y a ttribute cha nges to intentional processes or w e may see them

as a result of unintentional consequences of oth er processes an d actions (som e ofwhich may have been ‘intentional’, however, with respect to other goals).Similarly, the t erm ‘cha nge’ is used both for processes w hich th e m ain actorsare aware of, and for those of w hich th ey are unaware .

2 Herbert Al tr ichter



This difference ha s gained some importa nce in recent theories of orga niz-ational change. While this field has been dominated for a long time by con-cepts of rationally planned organizational development, these have beencalled into q uestion by observations that real cha nges very often do n ot con-

form to the neat designs of organizational planners, but are contested andresemble political struggles (see, for example, B all 1987). Recent approa chessearch for a new relationship between intentionality and unintended conse-quences, which implies that they are also searching for a new relationshipbetw een a gency a nd structure (see, for exam ple, Altrichter an d Sa lzgeber inChapter 8 of this volume). For instance, Ortmann et al . (1997: 333–5) arguetha t even if reorganization is inten ded, th is does not imply th at its results arenecessarily th ose w hich had been inten ded. Lévy-Strau ss’s (1981) image ofbricolage provides a better concept o f organ izationa l innova tion processes tha n

the rationalist step-by-step inn ova tion m odels to be found in various versionsin different textbooks. Chan ge in this view is productive a ction w ith a limited‘toolbox’ of measures an d resources, rath er tha n a plan to be realized as w rit-ten. Limited rationa lity of action is its typical feature; a type of w ork w hich isonly pa rtially mo ulded by o verarching goals, but the o bjectives of w hich shiftaccording to the opportunities provided by the tools and resources available.How ever, th e meta phor h as its limits: restructuring of an organization is thew ork not of a lonely bricoleur but of a po litical process. Tho se w ho are resist-ing chan ge are using resources an d rules provided by th e existing structure oforganization in order to uphold the routine gam es tha t are the same a s tho sethe inno vators ha ve ava ilable to orchestrate their inn ova tion gam es.

Once we have abandoned the image of a rationally planned and orches-trated reorganization, it seems that social Darwinist concepts of unintendedevolution may save the threatened rationality: if it is not sensible innovatorswho elaborate rational forms of organization fit for survival, then environ-ment, selection and/or adaptation will do the job. However, human beingsma ke their history – an d th eir organ izations – not independently o f all exter-na l cont ingencies, but know ing their history an d th eir organ izations. They arereflexive creatures and they change their history and their organizations in

relationship to their knowledge. Society and organizations cannot be con-ceived as basic evolutiona ry ent ities w hich ma y be delineated un equ ivocallyand independently of the course of history. When we are talking aboutorganizational change we have to expect contingency, necessity and chance.The concept of path dependen ce aims to depict the stran ge mixtu re of cha ncean d necessity: sma ll even ts considered to be ephemeral ma y n everth eless pro-vide the basis for later moves w hich lock in some ‘changes’ in ty pical organ iz-ationa l tracks. The w inner is not alw ay s the protagonist of the un iversalprinciple of effi ciency – as the concept of the survival of the fi ttest w ould ha ve

us expect. Organizational change often sees lucky winners, who came veryclose to losing it all, but who, once having won, have the means to build upand substantiate their win – gradually to extend the efficiency of their pro-gramme – and to rew rite the history a nd the success criteria of the organ ization

Introduction 3



in such a w ay that their w in can be view ed as a new triumph of effi ciency (seeOrtmann et al . 1997: 333–5).

This brings us to a fourth difference: the concept of ‘cha nge’ m ay be used inthe sam e w ay to refer to individuals or to collectives . Fifth, w e may use the w ord

‘chan ge’ for results w hich differ profoundly or only partially from the prior situ-at ion. The produ ct ma y be ‘more of the same’ or qual i tatively different – and it isstill cha nge.

Sixth, the very idea of change situates an instance in a trajectory, since itimplies tha t th ere has been at least one prior situa tion. Som e images of cha ngeimply a n idea of a pattern of stages , w hile elsew here it is ‘just changes’. Further-more, this developmental pattern may be conceived as locally and temporally oras universall y valid (sometimes offering a good ou tlook on the futu re w hich isconceived as the next stage of this pattern of changes). A change pattern may

be seen as fixed or historical ly flexible. It may be seen as reversible or irreversible.And the transitions from one stage to the next may be conceptualized assmooth , more or less gradual, or as abrupt and connected w ith crises .

From this set of distinctions an d differences w e ma y conclude tha t a ‘cha nge’argu men t has at least tw o levels (see van Haften 1997: 23; see also Figure 1):to talk about ‘changes’ implies that some time has passed with respect to theobserved phenomenon and that the entity under discussion has altered itsstructure in some respect. Thu s, a ‘change a rgum ent ’ refers, on a time level, todyn am ic processes w hich are a lw ay s irreversible, w hile on a ‘structural’ level a‘change argument’ reconstructs temporal development as transitions betweendifferent stages and conditions, w hich need n ot necessarily be irreversible.

Finally, ‘images of change’ may be reconstructive , in that they purport todescribe and interpret observed tran sitions. On the other ha nd, th ey ma y beevaluative w hen they aim to identify progress, stagna tion or decay. There ismuch ‘crypto-normativism’ among change theories when some telos , somefixed end or mature stage, underpins the reconstructions of transitions.‘Almost every developmenta l theory ha s therapeutic claims and implications,even a s it proposes a fi xed sequen ce of stages leading to a fi na l stage. Thetheory is w ritten to improve the . . . situation’ (Kortha ls 1997: 165).


t1

s3

s2

s1

t2 t3Time level

S t r u

c t u

r a l l e v e l s

Figure 1 Levels of a chan ge argumen t



‘Development’ ma y be a conceptual amoeba but, on th e other hand, th e

term – just like other concepts from the family of ‘change w ords’, such as

grow th, evolution a nd m aturation – has a specifi c overtone w hich is heard

irrespective of the context of use, as Esteva (1993: 96) argues: ‘In some w ay,

it alw ay s soun ds like w ished -for chan ge, like steps in th e right direction,from th e simple to th e various an d complex, from th e in ferior to th e superior,

from the w orse to the better, as if an improvement is meant, a movement . . .

directed to a desirable aim. ’ Esteva (1993) exemplifi es this claim in his

brillia n t essa y on th e in ven tion o f ‘development policy ’, a nd th ereby gives

a perfect example of Foucault ’s concept of ‘power–know ledge complexes’(dispositives).

Foucault (1986) argued th at know ledge is conn ected not on ly w ith specifi c

interests, but also w ith certa in social practices. Know ledge supports practices

tha t cha nge reality, a nd these practices, in turn , produce know ledge. Thu s,know ledge is no t an independent representa tion or even reproduction of

reality, since reality is produ ced by pow er–know ledge complexes. In particu-

lar, for ‘modernist’ developmen tal theories, Foucau lt has argued th at t here is

‘an inherent conn ection betw een progress, the new idea of segmenting in

stages, and the disciplining of the body ’, and that these concepts, therefore,

‘hav e int rinsic disciplining effects’ (de Mu l and Kort ha ls 1997: 252).

I think these ideas are appropriate w hen o ne is w orking w ith educationa l

chan ge theories. Wha t a re the implicit eva luative claims un derlying a n ‘image

of cha nge’? And w hat ‘power–know ledge complexes’ a re associated w ith the

change theory a na lysed?

To sum up: if someon e ta lks about chan ges th is can mea n a lot – and a lot

of different things. Quite a range of ‘mean ings of cha nge’ may be implicitly

tran sported by virtue of th is ‘kaleidoscopic chara cter’ of the term. As w e know

from processes of educational and organizational change in schools, unde-

fi ned lan guage has potential for approaching n ew issues and for developing

new perspectives, but it can create on going misun derstan ding in situa tions

w here some concerted effort an d synergy is necessary.

Our book do es not a spire to ‘change’ th is situa tion by proposing one concise

and comprehensive defi nition of ‘educational chan ge’. How ever, w e w ant tofuel the discussion abou t educat ional cha nge th eories by bringing to gether a

variety of contemporary ‘images of change’, which should allow readers to

evaluate their explan atory pow er for the fi elds they have been originally

developed for, and also by comparing and contrasting them to explore their

potential and consequ ences for other areas of educational chan ge.

The organization of this book

Part I of th is book concerns the relationship betw een ‘educational cha nge an d

policy formation ’. In Chapter 1, ‘Economic change, educational policy for-

mation a nd the role of the state ’, Ernest House show s how policies are formed

Introduction 5



and how they change again: ‘streams’ of social problems, political concerns,

an d policies evolve somew ha t independent ly of each oth er. Sometimes these

streams interconnect and open up ‘w indow s of opportunity ’ in w hich prob-

lems become connected to policies. Most of the time educational policies do

no t w ork, are even counter-productive, an d House develops an error theory inorder to explain w hy. He also em phasizes the increasing importan ce of the

role of policy entrepreneurs in the process of policy format ion, w ho develop

attractive and marketable ‘policy idea s’.House’s chapter is follow ed by B arry M acDonald’s complementary and

provocative analysis of educational policy making in the UK during the

Tha tcher y ears and bey ond. Iron ically ent itled ‘How education becam e

nobody ’s business’, the chapter depicts a ‘pathology ’ of policy format ion in a

particular na tiona l context in terms of consequ ences w hich render education,

conceived a s preparing a ll studen ts for active citizenship in a dem ocratic soci-ety, literally ‘nobody ’s business’.

In th e third cha pter, entitled ‘Developing under developing circumstances’,J ohn Schostak out lines cont emporary politics w here ‘schooling’ – understood

as ‘processing of children a nd ad ults for social purposes’ – is clean sed from a ll

‘education ’ w hich can only be negatively defi ned as ‘not playing the game’.Policy ma kers and researchers w ork on ‘high reliability schools’, and th e para-

noid curriculum ‘is essentially about control for the purposes of “ rational”purifi cation; th at is, the construction of an order in the n ame of w hich indi-

viduals submit to reason and reject all that is inessential to reason. ’ It is a

scena rio of externa lly engineered cha nges for the w orse w ithin w hich –nevertheless – personal an d social development for the better (i.e. ‘education’)still seems possible to the au thor. It begins w ith th e education of judgement,

w hich is moulded a fter MacDona ld’s ‘democratic evaluation ’ paradigm.

When we ask what the agents of these favourable changes are, ‘no grand

narrative’ is provided. Instead, w e are pointed to t he child, to ‘the ind ividua l,

at w ha tever age, [w ho ] must be included a s a decision-making partn er in th e

[curricular] process’, an d to principles such as ‘diversity, dialogue and a m utu -

ality of relationships’, w hich introd uce a multitude of play ers into the chan ge

processes.Part II brings together three chapters on the theme of ‘the relationship

betw een social and educational chan ge’. In ‘Community, school change and

strategic n etw orking ’, Peter Posch iden tifi es tw o ‘external’ societa l processes –increasing individualization a nd fragm enta tion of w ork conditions – a s posing

ma jor cha llenges for cha nge to schools. New ‘dynamic competencies’ are

needed both for w ork life an d for constructive use of times of unem ploym ent.

Strategic netw orking a nd alliances of schools w ith cultural and econo mic

institutions or – even more radically – the integration of schools into com-

mu nity affairs can help schools to cope w ith th ese challenges. Posch intro-duces an exa mple from an Austrian secondary school in order to discuss tw o

points: in w ha t w ay is the concept of learning altered in dy na mic netw orks of

th is kind ; w ha t can w e learn from th e cha racteristics of dynam ic netw orks (as




opposed to hierarchical structures of commu nication) for the organ ization of

schools?

Despite rapid changes in our political, social, cultural and economic

environm ent, not everyth ing has cha nged. ‘Older as w ell as emergent w ay s of

organ izing social life exist side by side, intera cting w ith and interrupting onean other . . . offering a w ider range of resources for individual and commun ity

identity formation.’ Wha t a ppears to be a site of conservatism ma y also be a

basis for resistance. In ‘Social cha nge an d the individual: cha nging patterns of

community and the challenge for schooling ’, Marie Brennan and Susan

Noffke explore such tensions of schoo l cha nge by exam ining tw o reform pro-

jects centred on a n ima ge of cha nge as a ‘commun ity of enqu irers’. They use

the supposed dichotom y of individual an d commun ity to put forw ard an

argum ent w hich is also central to systemic approaches to cha nge (see, for

example, Luh ma nn 1988). They emph asize th at th e differences, the som e-times painful ten sions tha t cha nge processes point t o, m ay be a resource for

constructive development. B ut it is on ly w hen such difference is not den ied,

but ‘accepted and w orked w ith, that shared and w orthw hile products are

derived from th e effort put int o them. ’ In ‘Social cha nge, subject m atter – and the teacher’, J. Myron Atkin pro-

vides us w ith a specifi c exam ple of the w ay in w hich social cha nge impacts on

the conception an d organ ization o f know ledge in society a nd presents new

curricular tensions and challenges for schools and teachers. He notes that

cha nges in perceptions as to w hat con stitu tes a desirable science education

ha ve refl ected cha nges in the social stat us an d in the uses of science from the

nineteent h centu ry on w ards. Atkin goes on to argue that such images of sub-

ject matter are a core element of teachers’ beliefs and assumptions about

teaching a nd also a bout themselves. Theories of cha nges mu st a ccoun t for

this. Strategies of educational change must ‘recognize just ho w deeply pro-

jected changes in subject matter itself can challenge the images teachers have

of themselves as the custodians and proponents of their disciplines. ’ Part III comprises three chapters that are specifi cally concerned with ‘con-

ceptualizing scho ol cha nge processes’. Christine Finn an an d Henry M. Levin ’s

contribution, ‘Cha nging scho ol cultures’, is organized around the concept ofculture. ‘Culture’ is seen as involving a rtefacts, processes an d ba sic beliefs and

assum ptions. Culture is both conservative (in tha t it gives us old an sw ers to

new qu estions) and ever-chan ging (since it is adapting a ll the time to n ew

infl uences). How ever, most educationa l cha nge is, as the au tho rs argue, at the

somew ha t superfi cial level of a rtefacts and processes: ‘Real, sustained cha nge,

ho w ever, does not occur un less basic beliefs an d assumption s also cha nge. ’Finnan and Levin identify fi ve critical components of the basic beliefs and

assumptions that shape school culture and that must be addressed in order

‘truly to change school culture’: the school’s expectations for children, chil-dren ’s expectation s for their ow n school experience, expectation s for adu lts,

opinions about acceptable educational practices and assumptions about the

desirability of change. Although they argue that school cultures are unique

Introduction 7



and can be changed through ‘local initiatives’, they acknowledge the way in

w hich a societally defi ned culture of scho oling intera cts w ith a nd sha pes,

w ithout determining every aspect of, those cultures.

In tra ditiona l micro-political theories cha nge is end emic to organ izations. It

results from the organization members’ pow er struggles for va rious types ofgratifi cation and for autonomy and infl uence. But why is it that many of us

experience organizations as rather stable? Starting from case material con-

cerning the integration of a new teacher into the staff of a ‘reform school’,‘Some elements of a micro-political theory of school development ’ are dis-

cussed in Ch apter 8, by Stefan Salzgeber and my self. Organizations are un der-

stood a s w ebs w oven from concrete interactions of (self-)int erested a ctors.

They acqu ire some spat ial-tem poral sta bility th rough the actors’ use and

reproduction of ga mes. The ‘game’ is the point in which the analytically

divided elements of ‘agency a nd structure’, of ‘individual and organization ’,meet. The interlocked chara cter of the gam es an d th e large num ber of routine

elements in social practices are major reasons for the relative stability of

organizations.

Starting w ith h er ow n experiences as a tea cher researcher, Bridget Somekh

explores ‘Changing concepts of action research ’ as a model for involving

teachers in edu cational chan ge w ithin scho ols. In her view, mu ch of the early

action research w as individualistic an d, thu s, based on a m odel of chan ge

of limited value: ‘it is only suited to a few “ super-persons” (w orkaho lics);

second, it can only focus upon a small fi eld of study, such as a single class-

room, because tha t is the doma in of the individual concerned. ’ Sh e perceives

a ‘relentless suspicion of ma nagem ent -led, w hole-scho ol action research pro-

jects’, an d a dvocates a group a nd mu lti-level approach t o a ction research, in

w hich as man y organ ization m embers as possible are draw n into th e process

of change man agement.

The con tributions in th e fourth an d fi na l part of th e book focus on ‘prepar-

ing teachers for creative enga gement w ith educationa l chan ge’. In ‘Refl ective

education and school culture: the socialization of student teachers’, Angel

Pérez Gómez discusses the results of case studies of th e practicum experiences

of Spanish student tea chers. His evidence sho w s that the practicum pow erfullysocializes no vices into th e dom inant school culture. Thus, th is type of practi-

cal training of student teachers appears to be ‘more of an obstacle tha n a tool’for educationa l cha nge, since the education of futu re teachers mu st strive, as

the author argues, to encourage refl ective professionals.

In ‘Case study and case records’, Susan Groundwater Smith and Rob

Walker examine a possible w ay of coun teracting the kind of socialization into

conservative practices that Pérez Gómez depicts. The idea o f the ‘Hathaway

Project ’ w as to create a case record of a schoo l tha t could be used in teacher

educa tion progra mm es. The aut ho rs discuss the original inten tions of th ispiece of w ork, the backgroun d of their know ledge, w hich is rooted in shared

w ork experiences w ith Law rence Stenhou se and B arry MacDonald, and w ha t

they h ave learned from the uses studen ts made of th is case ma terial in order




to explore the d evelopment of th eir th inking abou t case studies, case records

and their possible formats and uses.

In th e context of debates about th e cont inuing professional development of

teachers, Christine O’Hanlon asks how ‘Experts of the future’ can be edu-

cated. This w ill not result from mere imm ersion in practice and its tra ditions,but calls for a process of critical reason ing in w hich practical argumen ts are

taken seriously, by listening to them, examining them and deconstructing

them ‘to fi nd the contrad ictions an d disparities w hich inevitably arise’.Deconstruction and change go side-by-side, and a collegial structure is a

necessary precondition for critical reasoning.

Law rence Ingva rson takes up the ‘qua lity th eme’, w hich is to be heard in the

educational debates in so many countries, and gives it a fresh treatment. In

‘Teacher con trol an d the reform o f professional developmen t’, he argues that

current policies for qu ality development, w hich a re focusing on schools, not onthe profession , overestima te the effectiveness of ma na gerial models of change

through the control over teachers’ w ork (a point also ma de by Somekh). He

advocates a strategy th at links educationa l cha nge w ith the reform of the pro-

fessional development system and the developmen t of teaching as a profession .

A central role in th is strategy is aw arded to stan dards formu lated by th e pro-

fession itself. These stan da rds signa l to fellow teachers w hat their profession

expects from its members. And they demonstrate that ‘the profession has the

capacity to lay dow n its ow n directions and goals for the professional develop-

ment of its members.’ In a fi na l overview chapter, Joh n Elliott makes his ow n personal voya ge

throu gh th e various ima ges of educationa l cha nge presented in t his book, in

search of some kind of synthesis, seeking to construct something like a syn-

optic understanding and vision of education change in advanced industrial

societies for the tw enty -fi rst century. An over-ambitious aspiration? Even a

misguided one? He an d I w ill leave th e reader to judge.

References

Ball, S. J. (1987) The Micro-poli ti cs of the School. London : Routledge.

de Mul, J . an d Korth als, M. (1997) Developmenta l philosophy an d postmodernism. In

W. va n Haften , M. Korth als an d T. Wren (eds) Phi losophy of Development. Dordrecht:

Kluw er, pp. 245–60.

Esteva , G . (1993) Ent w icklung. In W. Sachs (ed.) Wie im Westen so auf Erden. Rororo:

Reinbek, pp. 89–121 (English edition under the title The Development Dictionary .

London: Zed Books, 1992).

Foucault, M. (1986) The History of Sexual i ty, Volum e 1. New York: Pan theon .

Foucault, M. (1991) Discipli ne and Punish: the Bir th of the Prison. London : Penguin.

Korth als, M. (1997) Societal Developmen t. In W. va n Ha ften , M. Ko rthals an d T. Wren(eds) Phi losophy of Development. Dordrecht: Kluw er, pp. 163–81.

Lévy -Strauss, C. (1981) Das wilde Denken. Frankfurt am Main: Suh rkamp.

Luhma nn , N. (1988) Soziale Systeme. Frankfurt am Main: Suh rkamp.

Introduction 9



Ortman n, G ., Sydo w, J. an d Windeler, A. (1997) Organ isation als refl exive Struktura-

tion. In G .Ortman n, J . Sydow an d K. Tuerk (eds) Theor ien der Organisation. Opladen:

Westdeu tscher Verlag, pp. 315–54.

va n Ha ften , W. (1997) The concept of developmen t. In W. van Ha ften, M . Korth als and

T. Wren (eds) Phi losophy of Development. Dordrecht: Kluw er, pp. 13–29.va n Haften , W., Korthals, M. an d Wren, T. (1997) (eds) Phi losophy of Development.

Dordrecht: Kluw er.




PART I

Educational change and policy formation



1Economic change, educational policyformation and the role of the state

ERNEST R. HOUSE

We live in a n a ge of econo mic productivity, during a time in w hich the do mi-nant concerns in all our countries are expanding the economy, raising per-sona l income a nd increasing th e standa rd of living. No governm ent in liberaldemocracies can long survive without economic expansion, whether thecountry is run by conservatives, social democrats or socialists (or apparentlycomm un ists either). This con cern for produ ctivity is ma nifested in a drive forgreater effi ciency a nd h as special implicat ions for education . In fact, it is th esource of mo st educational policy at the n ationa l level.

Although productivity is a dominant concern in all industrial countries, itresults in somew ha t d ifferent educationa l policies in each. B ritain, the oldestindustrial economy, is different from the a geing econom y o f the United Sta tes,w hich is different again from the m ature economies of Japan and German y,or the relatively young economy of Spain. One national educational system

expands, w hile a nother contra cts painfully. None th e less, in most coun trieseducational policies appear to be formulated primarily with regard to thenational economy and without sufficient regard for educational practice.

Of course, oth er factors, like culture an d history, infl uen ce educational poli-cies as w ell. For exam ple, racial politics permea tes everyth ing in th e USA andis not duplicated elsew here, tho ugh some countries show signs of catching up.Britain clings to its eterna l class structure, w hich ma nifests itself th rough outBritish society. And Spain n urtu res a v irile traditionalism w hich suffuses itslifesty le. None th e less, despite th ese differences, in a ll these coun tries econ -

omic concerns infl uence educationa l policy more strongly tha n a ny thing elseat the current time (Wirt a nd Harma n 1986).I am not saying that economic policies necessarily influence educational

practices . Educational practices (everyday teaching and learning patterns of



teachers an d students) ha ve ma ny infl uences oth er than governmen t policies;in fact, practices frequen tly run counter t o governm ent policies (MacDonaldan d Walker 1976). Furtherm ore, policies ha ve effects opposite to w ha t isintended. I am not advancing a functionalist explanation of educational

chan ge in w hich education an d w ork mirror each other (a contested topic inth e neo-Marxist litera ture, e.g. Bow les an d G intis 1976; Apple an d Weiss1983; Carn oy an d Levin 1985; Liston 1988). Nor a m I proposing tha t policiesan d practices mirror each o ther faithfu lly. They do n ot.

Rather, my contention is that national leaders formulate educational poli-cies prima rily in response to na tional econom ic concerns – w ithout suffi cientun derstan ding or appreciation o f educationa l institutions. This overdraw nfocus causes educational policies to be mismatched to practices. Policiesintended to increase productivity often decrease it. It is as if suggestions for

improving productivity in the auto industry were made without detailedknow ledge of how cars are assembled. In Sa rason’s w ords, ‘those outside thesystem ha ve n oth ing resembling a holistic conception of th e system they seekto infl uence. In principle . . . ignorance need not be lethal, although it almostalw ay s has been’ (Sarason 1990: 27).

Nor do government leaders do this deliberately with foreknowledge thatth eir policies w ill fail. Instead th ey a re mistaken in their initiatives becau sethey are too far removed from educational work, too wedded to powerfulinterests, too imbu ed w ith mislead ing ideologies an d simply misinform ed.Thus, edu cat iona l policies dissolve into ineffectiveness, to be replaced byother mistaken and ineffective policies. So my analysis is an ‘error theory’ ofpolicy which explains why we have the policies that we do and why thesepolicies fail, to be replaced by oth er policies that also fail.

The influence of economics

There are a t least four w ay s in w hich econo mic concerns infl uence edu-cational policies. First, economic conditions strongly influence educational

policies. For example, government budgets constrain educational spending.The expan sion ist policies of the 1950s an d 1960s can no t be repea ted in th e1990s, even if one wanted to, because budget surpluses do not exist in mostcountries. Furthermore, economic policies have consequences, such asincreasing income inequality or increased immigration, with which theschools must contend.

Second , educationa l policies are frequ ently form ulated to redu ce costs andincrease the productivity o f schools. This pressure is mo re than a budget con-sidera tion. The m arket forces of adva nced capitalism w ork to increase the

efficiency and productivity of all institutions, as they have done already inagriculture and car manufacture. It may be education’s turn for economicrationalization. At other times, considerations such as defence, caring for thedisabled or a ssimilation o f immigrants preva iled a s concerns.

14 Ernest R. House



Third, edu cation a nd econ om ic developmen t are presumed to be closelylinked. It is assum ed th at more or better educat ion leads to improved techno-logical capabilities an d better jobs. This connection is taken for gran ted fo r th emost part, a nd provides the rationa le for much educational policy proposed by

educators and non-educators alike, although this relationship is less straight-forw ard tha n one m ight th ink. There is the d istinct possibility th at education isled by jobs, rather tha n th e other w ay aroun d (Carnoy an d Levin 1985).

Fourth, economic concepts and metaphors permeate educational thinking(McCloskey 1990). For example, the concepts and imagery of markets andproductivity have been applied to schools. Educators are urged to create andrespond to m arkets (Chubb and Moe 1990). Corporate structure is taken a s amodel for school governa nce. And this intellectual infl uence extends deep intothe social sciences, so th at even w hen one an alyses from a political perspective,

one may be using economic concepts that have migrated there (Boyd et al .1994).

Corresponding to these infl uences are four ty pes of errors: m isun derstan d-ing the economic system; misunderstanding the educational system; mis-understanding the fit between the two; and misapplying economic concepts.All four errors are abundant in education, which is not to say that economicconcepts cannot be productively applied. In fact, educational institutionssha re key features w ith econo mic institutions, an d ma ny educationa l reformsw ould be seen a s foolish if similar reform s w ere at tempted in business. Themistake is not on e of a pplying econom ic concepts to education but o f apply-ing them bad ly, w ithout u nderstanding th e effects they are likely to h ave.

One of the a nom alies of educationa l reform is tha t educators and studentsare n ot trea ted like oth er people. Tha t is, economics treat s inv estments in edu-cation a s rationa l responses to a calculus of expected costs an d benefi ts (Becker1993). Yet teachers and students themselves are often no t a ccorded this sam ecalculative rationality that is used to justify educational expenditures in thefi rst place. Assum ptions of altruism, incom petence and obedience are no m orevalid in schools than elsew here.

Although each country is unique in its policy dynamics, there are strong

similarities. Economic rationalism is pervasive in Britain, Australia, New Zealand , th e Netherlands an d m an y adv an ced countries (Pusey 1991; Kelsey1995). In m y v iew, the Un ited States is follow ing a pat tern similar to th at ofBritain (B arberis an d May 1993). The situa tion is no t on e of h istorical cyclesbut of similar forces at work. In both countries the educational systems areun dergoing retrenchm ents an d reforms in governa nce closely related to (rela-tively) declining econom ies. For exam ple, in th e n ext decade U S h igher edu -cation will undergo retrenchment, as has occurred in Britain, even as othercountries, such as Sweden and Finland, expand higher education. Although

education is tied to economic development in most countries, each countrystan ds at a different place.

Economic change, educational poli cy formation and the role of the state 15



Policy formation

I take policy formation in US education to be similar to that in other domesticareas, thou gh w ith its ow n peculiarities (Wirt an d Kirst 1975; Kingdon 1984).

‘Stream s’ of problems, politics and policies evolve somew ha t independently o feach o ther. Ma jor problems appear an d disappear from public atten tion; poli-tics shifts betw een liberal an d conservative; a nd policy solutions are shaped by‘policy comm un ities’. Social problems arise, on ly to remain un solved a nd dis-appear; political concerns shift w ithout solving problems; policies are offeredw ithout political takers or conn ections to the problems.

Sometimes these stream s interconn ect. ‘Window s of opportunity’ appear inw hich problems becom e conn ected to fa cilita tive politics an d policies, oftenthrou gh the services of policy en trepreneurs, w ho persistently adv ocate th eir

favourite policies from politically advantageous positions. An opportunisticmelding of problems, politics and policies sometimes results in governmentaction , w hich may be more or less effective in solving problems. Public at ten-tion is then focused on o th er issues.

Such a policy formation process contrasts to either a fully rational policyprocess, in which problems are defined and appropriate policies invented(Lassw ell 1971), or an incremen ta list process, in w hich policy drifts in sma llsteps over periods of time, w ith policy ma kers ‘mu ddling through ’ (Braybrookeand Lindblom 1970). Although these other models sometimes characterizepolicy action, th e overall pat tern is neither fully rational nor irrationa l. Unfor-tun ately, problems often are n ot solved. In fact, th ere is a m isma tch. The poli-cies ado pted do not do the job.

In this process policy en trepreneurs play key roles (Krugma n 1994). Entre-preneurs present ideas that appeal to politicians even when these ideas willnot w ork, and this misma tch occurs in economic as w ell as educational policy,as the notorious ‘supply-side’ policies of th e Reagan a dm inistra tion illustrat e:

The ideas embraced by the Reagan adm inistration w ere, how ever, an y-th ing but deep. To th e aston ishm ent o f the serious conservatives, thereal winners of 1980 turned out to be the supply-siders – ideologuesw ho se econom ic concepts w ere cartoon like in th eir simplicity, w ho d is-missed conven tional econom ics because they could not be bothered tounderstand it.

(Krugman 1994: 281)

The Laffer curve w ould ha ve been a laugher, except for the na tional debt th atfollowed its application. But if ‘voodoo’ economics has been an albatross ofconservat ives, liberals ha ve also adv an ced ineffective policies. In u nderstand-ing how productivity is improved, for exa mple, some ha ve m iscast th e role of

foreign competition. Som ething similar ha s occurred w ith prescriptions draw nfrom international educational comparisons meant to improve educationalcompetitiveness in the service of the econom y.

‘Marketing’ policy ideas aggressively has taken on new importance in the

16 Ernest R. House



past few decades. Ideas ha ve em erged increasingly from a concentrated policyelite, mostly from think ta nks in Washington or London o r w ha tever capital,fun ded by no n-educat iona l sources (Ricci 1993).

It ha s become barely possible to draw the line betw een th e disinterestedscholar – more accurately, th e scholar w restling h onestly w ith th e biasesand preconceptions that inevitably cloud any research effort – and theintellectual advocate who earnestly marshals evidence to bolster anun shaka ble political position. All research begins to look like advocacy,all experts begin to look like hired guns, an d a ll th ink tan ks seem to usetheir institutional resources to a dva nce a point of view.

(Smith 1991: 231)

No doubt somewhere there is an analysis of idea propagation that takes the

au ction as the m odel. In an y case, the econom ics advan ced by the policy insti-tutes is not the same as that endorsed by academic economists, who tend tobe more equ ivocal, qu alifi ed an d less assertive. Bu t, th en a gain, th eir ideas areunlikely to be seized upon by politicians and transformed into legislation.

Why productivity?

In recent y ears the open w indow of opportun ity in education policy ha s beenproductivity, a central concept of economic thinking. Econo mists play infl u-ent ial roles in dom estic and foreign policy, raising q uestions such a s ‘How doesthis policy increase productivity?’ or ‘Can productivity be improved?’ Econ-om ic produ ctivity – increased production for th e sam e or less cost – is closelytied to the stan dard of living. Heightened concern for productivity is integralto adva nced capitalism. Un less productivity improves, on e group’s stan dard ofliving improves at an oth er’s expense. As a political econ om ist noted ,

Yet an oth er characteristic of a m arket economy is a t enden cy to incor-porate every aspect of society into the nexus of market relations.Through such ‘comm ercialization ’, the ma rket generally brings all facetsof society into th e orbit of th e price mechanism. Lan d, labor, an d oth erso-called factors of production become commodities to be exchanged;they a re subject to th e interplay of ma rket forces . . . Stated m ore crudely,everyth ing ha s its price an d, a s an economist friend is fond of saying, ‘Itsvalue is its price.’ As a consequence, markets have a profound and de-stabilizing impact on society because th ey dissolve t raditiona l structuresan d social relations.

(Gilpin 1987: 20)

One can add education to th e factors of production. Put anoth er w ay, thedeterioration of traditional social institutions – the family, community andchurch – has led to social disarray, thus increasing the urgency of providingthe population w ith even m ore ma terial benefi ts. The legitimacy o f the




govern men t itself rests on improv ing th e ma terial w ell-being of its citizens. Infact, governments cannot survive without doing so. As market relationsdestroy comm un al an d traditiona l bases of support, the governm ent m ust relyon m aterial mea ns of securing com plian ce. This mea ns governm ent becoming

more dependen t on business enterprises, w hich produce the w ealth in capi-ta list societies. A British a nthropologist put th e situat ion blun tly:

Industrial society is th e only society ev er to live by a nd rely on sustainedand perpetual growth, on an expected and continuous improvement.Not surprisingly, it w as the fi rst society to invent the concept an d idea ofprogress, of continuou s improvemen t. Its favo ured m ode o f social con-trol is un iversal Dan egeld, buying off social aggression w ith materialenh an cement; its greatest w eakness is its inability to survive a ny tem-porary reduction of the social bribery fund, and to weather the loss oflegitima cy w hich befalls it if the cornu copia becomes temporarilyjamm ed and the fl ow falters.

(Gellner 1983: 22)

The m odern ca pitalist sta te an d its politician s fi nd them selves cau ght in th evice of the markets, often portrayed as representing natural law, but in anycase apparently th e only w ay to produce w ealth for societies tha t increasinglydepend on material prosperity, even as the markets disrupt other aspects ofsocial life.

[If] w e ask w ha t is the immediate centra l political issue in capitalism – theissue that takes on an often obsessive prominence in every capitalistna tion – there is no q uestion w here to look. It is the relationship betw eenbusiness an d governm ent, o r from our more distant perspective, betw eenthe economy and the state.

(Heilbron er 1993: 68)

As an empirical m att er, governm ent policies are usually (but n ot a lw ay s)counter-productive. Frequently, they do not result in better education or

improved productivity. A series of education al failures litters the reform pa th .None the less, misguided policies continue to be a dva nced and to secure high-level support. Policy should be based on the way educational institutionsactua lly function if there is to be ho pe of better an d m ore productive schoo ls.Yet there is little sign of this happening, though there are many excellentguides to how to improve practice based on how the schools and teachersactu ally fu nction (e.g. Elliott 1991; Altrichter et al . 1993).

References

Altrichter, H., Posch, P. and Somekh, B. (1993) Teachers Investigate Their Work : an I ntro-

ducti on to the Methods of Acti on Research . Lond on /New York: Rou tledge.

18 Ernest R. House



Apple, M. and Weiss, L. (eds) (1983) Ideology and Practice in Schooling . Ph ilad elphia, PA:Temple Un iversity Press.

Barberis, P. and May, T. (1993) Government, Industr y and Poli tical Economy . Buckingha m:Open University Press.

Becker, G. S . (1993) Human Capital , 3rd edn. Chicago: Un iversity of C hicago Press.Bo ston, J ., Ma rtin, J. , Pallot, J. a nd Walsh, P. (1996) Publ ic Management: the New Zealand

Model. Oxford: Ox ford U niversity Press.Bo w les, S. an d G intis, H. (1976) School ing in Capitali st Amer ica. New York: Basic Books.Bo yd, W. L., Crow son, R. L. an d va n Geel, T. (1994) Rationa l choice theory an d th e

politics of education: promise and limitations. Jour nal of Education Poli cy , 9(5/6),127–45.

Bra ybooke, D. a nd Lindblom, C. E. (1970) A Str ategy of Decision . New York: Free Press.Carn oy, M. an d Levin, H. M. (1985) Schooling and Work in the Democrati c State. Stanford,

CA: Stan ford Un iversity Press.Ch ubb, J . E. an d Moe, T. M. (1990)

Politi cs, Markets, and America’s Schools . Washingto n,

DC: Brookings Institution.Clark, D . L. an d Astu to, T. A. (1990) The d isjunction of federa l educa tion policy an d

education al n eeds in th e 1990s. In D. A. Mitchell an d M. E. Goertz (eds), Education Pol iti cs for the New Century . London: Falmer Press, pp. 11–15.

Elliott, J. (1991) Action Research for Educational Change. Buckingham: Open UniversityPress.

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