Are ideologies bad?
When it comes to education, are ideologies something to avoid?
There’s a close friend of mine that I regularly catch up with to chat life and work who asked me a little about where my research was going at the moment. We got chatting about my focus on ideology and he made a comment that I knew to be true and hadn’t considered reflecting on more deeply on until it stuck with me in the coming days. This comment was in relation to the way that the notion of ideology is often imbued with negative connotation.
Ideological dismissal.
We have seen this at play recently in educational discourse in the way that politicians repeatedly attempt to write off educational academics and thinkers as “ideologues” and teachers as Marxists pushing their own agendas. After all, it is not like we see many politicians, teachers and educators naming their agendas as openly ideological. It would seem that public perception understands (or has been taught an understanding of) ideology as that of unfounded, incorrect and overall bad beliefs.
However, ideologies cannot be so easily avoided.
Defining ideology.
Ideologies are commonly defined in the literature as the systems of values and beliefs that inform the political action of various groups and individuals. From this perspective, not even the politician who espouses to be ideologically “neutral” can avoid drinking from the ideological fountain. Often, the downplaying of others’ actions as ideological serves as a method to conceal one’s own personal ideological orientation. This has commonly been true of conservatives (but not exclusively), who try to obscure their underlying values and beliefs with “facts”, “evidence” and “science”. Educational policy, however formulated, is still founded on values and beliefs of what education ought to look like and hence is an ideologically driven expression of these deeply held systems of thought.
Back to the question.
So, are ideologies “bad”?
I’ve been doing a bit of reading and thinking in response to this. So far from what I have found, it seems that there are at least two potential ways we could look at answering this question. It seems relevant to refer to the wise words of Reverend Lovejoy for this one:
Critical and non-critical accounts of ideology.
The following explorations are based on work by Lucy (2000).
Our first answer to this question relies on a critical account of ideology. A critical account of ideology understands it as something that obfuscates reality. This view sees ideology as propagating a false image of the social world. For example, rather than considering the systemic inequities within an employment system, the poor might be seen as to blame for their own lack of initiative from an ideology that sees material wealth as a result of hard work and effort. This concealing of the “real picture” is what is perceived as having negative consequences for certain groups.
So yes, ideology can be seen as “bad” if you understand the concept from a critical perspective.
In contrast, a non-critical account does not necessarily see ideology as objectionable. This is because ideology is seen as ever-present in political action within education. It is inevitable and inescapable. For example teaching, when acknowledged as a political act, will always be directed by ideology. Therefore, it cannot be ideology itself which is bad as it is ever-present in educational practice.
By this account we could respond by saying that no, ideologies are not bad, but I’m sure you’re aware of a glaring issue in taking this stance.
We’ll get to that in a second…
Moving forward.
So if you were pushed to take a side, where would you most likely sit?
I feel that at this point in my research, I am inclined to lean more towards that of a non-critical account. A critical account makes a claim that there is an objective social reality, removed from the limitations of ideology. I am convinced that we cannot completely divorce ourselves from the power/knowledge constellations that make up ideology in education (Biesta, 2008). I grow increasingly uncomfortable with positions that posture themselves as “what works” and “what we all know” in education because there are always limits to the objectivity of these claims. But taking a stance from this perspective can be troubling too. As I’m sure you were thinking it, a non-critical stance leaves us with another important question:
“If ideology is not objectionable in itself and all political action in education is ideological, how then can we determine what should be done?”
Hence, long answer: “no” with a “but”.
A tentative answer.
I am wondering whether the solution is not to attempt to divorce ourselves from ideology, nor to claim one ideology as supreme over another, but to engage with ideologies critically to make educational and ethical judgments in relation to what needs to be done now.
Not solely based on our limited frames of reference, what has been done before, what works or what is being done elsewhere, but based on an informed professional judgment that brings about the purposes for education we believe to be right for our students that come before us now.
We’ll see I guess.
References
Biesta, G. (2008). Toward a New "Logic" of Emancipation: Foucault and Rancière. Philosophy of Education Yearbook.
Lucy, William. (2000). What is wrong with ideology? Oxford Journal of Legal Studies. 20 (2).