Showing papers by "Thomas S. Popkewitz published in 2004"

The Alchemy of the Mathematics Curriculum: Inscriptions and the Fabrication of the Child

Abstract: School subjects are analogous to medieval alchemy. There is a magical change as mathematics, science, and social sciences move from their disciplinary spaces into the classroom. The educational and social psychologies have little or nothing to do with understanding disciplinary practices. They are intellectual inventions for normalizing and governing the child’s conduct, relationships, and communications. The author examines this alchemy in standards-based mathematics educational policy and research for K–12 schools. He argues that (a) the emphasis on “problem solving,” collaboration, and “communities of learning” sanctify science and scientists as possessing authoritative knowledge over increasing realms of human phenomena, thus narrowing the boundaries of possible action and critical thought; and (b) while reforms stress the need for educational equity for “all children,” with “no child left behind,” the pedagogical models divide, demarcate, and exclude particular children from participation.

Educational restructuring : international perspectives on traveling policies

Abstract: Introduction: Educational Restructuring: (Re)thinking The Problematics Of Reform, Sverker Lindblad and Tom Popkewitz. Part I: Internationalization And Globalization Of Education. Changing Patterns Of Power: Rethinking Decentralization In The Educational Reform In Taiwan, Yang-tien Chen. Educational Restructuring And The Reshaping Of School Governance In Argentina, Ines Dussel. Education Restructuring: Governance In The Narratives Of Progress And Denials, Sverker Lindblad and Tom Popkewitz. Theorizing The Global Convergence Of Educational Restructuring, Fazal Rizvi. Part II: Education Restructuring In Different Contexts. Governance By Spin: The Case Of New Labour And Education Action Zones In England, Sharon Gewirtz, Marny Dickson and Sally Power. The Modern Teacher: A Textual Analysis Of Educational Restructuration, Meg Maguire. Responsiveness And Innovation In Higher Education Restructuring: The South African Case, Johan Muller. Education Restructuring In France: Middle-class Parents And Educational Policy In Metropolitan Contexts, Agnes Van Zanten. Creating A Discourse For Restructuring In Detroit: Achievement, Race, And The Northern High School Walkout, Barry M. Franklin.

Is the National Research Council Committee’s Report on Scientific Research in Education Scientific? On Trusting the Manifesto

Abstract: The National Research Council Committee’s report, in part a response to congressional legislation, pursues an outline for the foundations of an education science necessary for policy making. This article focuses on these foundations and argues that they have little to do with science and its relation to policy may not be as fruitful as the committee believes. The so-called bedrocks of science are based on, at best, weak premises and an unrigorous understanding of the sociology, history, and philosophy of science. There is a nostalgia for a simple and ordered universe of science that never was. The resulting models of science embody a technological sublime that weaves together the procedures of administration and engineering with utopian visions and discourses of progress ordered by the expansion of its expertise. Finally, although the resulting framework was to relieve educational research of its “awful” reputation, the report may reinstitute and reinstantiate those very practices.

Historicizing the Future: Educational Reform, Systems of Reason, and the Making of Children Who are the Future Citizens

Abstract: Educational reform and reformist research are not merely about school improvement. They embody a field of cultural practices that constitutes the objects of schooling – the teacher who administers the reforms to the child and the distinctions and differentiations about who the child is and should be. Our interest is in the rules and standards of reason assembled through the cultural practices of school reform. Reason is a cultural practice functioning to enact a change in the conditions of people but also invests people with particular capacities and capabilities. This investiture of capacities and capabilities produces particular human kinds or categories of the determinant qualities of the individuals schools administer. Using studies of educational governance and social inclusion/exclusion in Europe and on US educational reform, the discussion focuses on the overlapping practices of system management and curriculum reforms that map different human kinds. One human kind is the child as a lifelong learner, an individual whose qualities entail actively and flexibly participating in communities through problem-solving strategies. The characteristics and qualities of the lifelong learner are differentiated from those who do not embody the norms of participation –the child left behind. The study of the systems of reason that govern the objects of reflection and rectification in school reforms is a strategy to consider the politics of reform, change, and social inclusion and exclusion.

Educational Standards: Mapping Who We Are and Are to Become

Abstract: (2004). Educational Standards: Mapping Who We Are and Are to Become. Journal of the Learning Sciences: Vol. 13, No. 2, pp. 243-256.