Ideologies of control.

What if things were different?

If a bird has been in a cage for a decade and suddenly finds the door open, it should not be surprising if the bird does not wish to leave. - Elliot W. Eisner

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Listen to the podcast segment of Ideology in Education (at 18:28) based on this blog post for the Teacher’s Education Review below 👇.

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I’ve had a few discussions with people recently surrounding the largely prescribed nature of teaching in Australia (sounds like riveting dinner conversation right?). In particular, considering the standardised, explicit pre-determined outcomes for each year level and each subject through the development of the Australian Curriculum.

On the other side of the educational world (by that I mean policy development), the Australian Minister for Education, Jason Clare has called for a national approach to combat the use of mobile phones within schools.

These two seemingly disjointed topics of discussion within education each express a belief in relation to what schooling ought to look like in Australia.

That is that schooling ought to be under control.

In this post, I wish to explore how much of Australian educational policy, discourse and practice is grounded in ideologies that consider the control of the education system through standardisation as desirable. Perhaps unquestionably so. Then, with reference to Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence and the work of Mark Priestly and Gert Biesta, I will consider what it might mean for teachers if the tides were to change.

Ideologies of control.

In Australia, we have standards for curriculum, teacher quality, teacher code of conduct, “best-practice” teaching, graduating teachers and ITE courses to name a few.

The list continues with recent news of Jason Clare calling for a nation-wide policy on mobile phone usage in schools.

Why the obsession with standardised policies?

I would argue that the use of standards has gained prominence through a number of ideological perspectives, all of which have impacted on the work of teachers through the use of control. Two core visions I see as contributing to the ever-increasing standardisation of the teaching profession are the Scholar Academic and Social Efficiency educational ideologies. Although there are any number of ideological perspectives that could also contribute to the control of educational systems, I have decided to centre on the above-mentioned ideologies as they have been named and give some structural frameworks from which to work with. Understanding the nature of these ideological perspectives can also provide space to challenge underlying values and assumptions in relation to the standardisation of educational policy and practice in Australia.

Let’s talk ideology.

The Scholar Academic ideology views the purpose of education as a means of inculcating individuals into the academic disciplines, the individual fields of knowledge deemed valuable in one’s cultural heritage (i.e. History, Science, etc.). Education grounded within this ideology is focused on the dissemination of knowledge, from academics in the discipline, to teachers (who are considered to be a kind of mini-scholar) and finally to students (Schiro, 2013). This way of thinking about education is evident in the Australian Curriculum, which was developed in support of field experts, standardised and then disseminated to teachers nationwide to implement. Teachers are required to accept the importance of the predetermined curriculum knowledge as given. As teachers are not necessarily academics in their subject fields, there is little room for them to challenge the primacy of such disciplinary knowledge.

The Social Efficiency ideology considers the purpose of education as the shaping of individuals towards the needs of society in the most effective and efficient way possible. This ideology is linked to the rise in measurement culture amongst governments and pushes for “evidence-based” practice by various influential actors in education. It is also responsible for the creation of curriculum standards in relation to what students should know ‘for life-long learning, social development and active and informed citizenship’ (VCAA, 2023, para. 1). In Australia, the dominance of this ideology has seen powerful institutions and individuals define evidence narrowly in terms of learning performance, contributing to standardised, mandated “evidence-based” teaching practices. Teachers are called (forced?) to embrace the “evidence” and frame their work in terms of production of learning outputs in their students. Teachers who challenge the epistemology of efficiency approaches are often negatively labeled as “ideological” (in the pejorative sense) or as failing their students.

Let’s consider these ideological perspectives and their contributions to the educational landscape in Australia for a moment.

Who wields the control here?

There is something I could say for sure. It is certainly not teachers.

As a result of these ideological perspectives, whether consciously or not, teachers have become removed from engaging in the construction of their own profession and the nature of their work in Australia.

Releasing the bird from its cage.

What if things were different?

In 2010, Scotland took a risk in developing their Curriculum for Excellence, a move which advocated for more teacher agency and a unique shift away from more prescriptive perspectives of curriculum.

In contrast to the Australian Curriculum, the Curriculum for Excellence loosely frames outcomes in relation to four capacities (the successful learner, the confident individual, the responsible citizen and the effective contributor) as a means of empowering teachers to engage more deeply in the creation of contextualised and individualsed curriculum materials for their students (Priestly & Biesta, 2016).

What do you think would happen if we did the same in Australia?

On a more personal note, how would you respond to a policy change of this kind?

In their research on teacher agency during the implementation of Scotland’s Curriculum for Excellence, Priestly and Biesta (2016) found mixed responses to the curriculum, including its implementation. The authors found that the structural constraints upon teachers (i.e. policy, resources, etc.) had a meaningful impact in relation to their ability to achieve agency in their work and enact the policy objectives of the Curriculum for Excellence successfully.

Important in this discussion, Priestly and Biesta (2016, p. 126) argue that the impact of ideological (neoliberalism in particular) construction of the teacher ‘undermined professionals’ ability to take responsibility for their work, that is, to act on the basis of informed and negotiated professional judgement’.

The following excerpt provides an important insight into the difficulties facing Scotland’s teachers in light of being given permission to have a vital role in the construction of curriculum:

‘It is difficult to entice teachers out of a cage constructed by years of prescriptive regulation of their work. We witnessed such difficulties in our research - a ‘just tell us what to do’ attitude is fairly common among teachers who are subject to performative demands’ (Priestly & Biesta, 2016, p. 162).

A leap of faith.

So now to consider the Australian context.

The National Teacher Workforce Action Plan lists “elevating the profession” as one of its core priorities in improving teacher shortages. If policy makers were to take this priority seriously by reducing the strictly prescribed standardisation of the curriculum as Scotland has done, how might Australian teachers respond?

Furthermore, to what extent might we expect the ideologies that have dominated educational policy, discourse and practice over the past decade limit how teachers might enact freedom in their work?

I’ll let you ponder that for a moment.

Till next time,

References

Gutek, G. L. (1997). Philosophical and ideological perspectives on education, Allyn and Bacon.

Schiro, M. (2013). Curriculum theory : conflicting visions and enduring concerns (2 edition. ed.), SAGE Publications.

Priestley, M., Biesta, G., & Robinson, S. (2016). Teacher agency : An ecological approach. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.

Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority (VCAA). 2023. The Victorian Curriculum F - 10: Home, retrieved April 25 from https://victoriancurriculum.vcaa.vic.edu.au.

Webster, S. and Ryan, A. (2019). Understanding curriculum: The Australian Context. Cambridge University Press.