Showing papers by "Thomas S. Popkewitz published in 2019"

Making the Able Body: School Mathematics as a Cultural Practice.

Abstract: In this paper, we examine historically the onto-epistemological framework of mathematics education that generates cultural theses about modes of life. We pursue the idea of able bodies to think about schooling as producing kinds of people as well as their differences and divisions despite efforts for inclusion. Two historical moments in United States mathematics education are examined: pre-post WWII and contemporary reforms. We explore each moment as a set of cultural practices about who the child is and should be, and argue that making the body able embodies normalizing, and pathologizing qualities of being and acting. These practices change over time as we illustrate in these two historical moments. Shifting pedagogical practices reconfigure but never fully stabilize the desire to achieve a mathematically capable society through making up able bodies as inscriptions of the curriculum. Continual depiction of mathematical bodies on a differentially abled continuum in the so-called ‘unity’ of all children makes visible how inclusive curriculum practices in mathematics education simultaneously create unlivable lives that are seen and re-formed.

Transnational as Comparative History: (Un)Thinking Difference in the Self and Others

Abstract: Issues of comparison lurk in the subterranean recesses of transnational studies but are rarely enunciated. Popkewitz explores these recesses. He weaves together historical and theoretical considerations in a history of history, examining two sacraments of context and archive, the heart of contemporary historical analyses. These are examined as inscriptions of a particular ordering of time in cultural practices and as a realism that erases differences in its modes of comparing. Popkewitz considers how cultural principles are generated, assembled, and connected in discontinuous time and spaces for understanding difference. His intent is to outline a mode of analysis for thinking about constructions of difference in transnational historical studies through examining the principles of reason that order and classify what is seen, thought about and acted upon.

The sociology of education as the history of the present: fabrication, difference and abjection

Abstract: The paper explores the fabrications of human kinds in pedagogical research. It examines the social and psychological sciences of education as producing independent spaces for the study of people in order to act on them and as a cultural thesis for people to act for themselves. Further, it explores the principles generated about who the child is and should be. It is argued that the making of human kinds embodies particular historically generated modes of representing the possibilities of life; and these modes function to divide, differentiate and abject particular qualities of people and populations into unlivable spaces. This comparativeness produces inequality as it strives for equality. The analysis engages educational studies in a conversation with history, philosophy, political and cultural studies that draw on particular European studies brought into the US to challenge its philosophical, analytical and social/psychological traditions.

Estudos curriculares, história do currículo e teoria curricular: a razão da razão

Abstract: Palavras como “aprendizagem”, “empoderamento”, “resolucao de problemas”, “autorrealizacao”, “comunidade” etc. tornam-se inteligiveis e “razoaveis” conforme regras e padroes historicamente formados que ordenam, classificam e dividem o que e “visto” e realizado na escolarizacao. Essas regras e padroes de razao sao efeitos de poder e do politico da escolarizacao. A primeira sessao analisa essa nocao do politico e a razao, considerando o curriculo como um duplo gesto. A frase “todas as criancas podem aprender” ilustra esse duplo gesto. A palavra “todas” assume a unidade do todo, que diferencia e divide o cosmopolitismo da crianca (isto e, o aprendiz ao longo da vida) e da crianca “deixada para tras”, que e diferente e pode “nunca estar na media”. Finalmente, examina-se como a nocao de pesquisa, que busca o conhecimento “util” ou “pratico” para modificar a escola, inscreve esse duplo gesto e, ironica e paradoxalmente, assume um consenso que estabelece a hierarquia que separa o pesquisador daqueles que devem ser pastoreados. Explorar o sistema de razao nos estudos do curriculo torna visiveis os limites do presente, e, mediante esse engajamento critico, torna possiveis outros futuros.

Education Governance by Numbers

Abstract: Our interest is on historically how numbers become a preferred mode of telling the truth about schooling, teachers, pupils, and their relation to society. Numbers are here parts of communication systems whose technologies create distances from phenomena by appearing to summarize complex events and transactions. The seemingly technical appearances of the numbers enter into cultural realms that are never merely numbers but codifications and standardization of what are to constitute ‘reality’ and planning which affect several activities taking place within education. The different activities inscribe rules and standards by which experiences are classified, problems located, and procedures given to order what is ‘seen’, thought about, and acted on. We perform this task by especially discussing the role played by international, regional and national assessments in promoting a reasoning based on numbers affecting educational governance.