In The interruption. I’m often talking about ideologies of efficiency, mostly due to their prominence in educational thought in our current time.
This episode explores these ideologies as I generally understand them, which I hope will give some more context to my posts (some of which are listed below).
Dangerous efficiency.
The modern man thinks that everything ought to be done for the sake of something else, and never for its own sake - Bertrand Russell
Enjoy listening and go thoughtfully,
Original draft
In this edition I provide a rough outline for the third episode of a regular series I currently present on the Teacher's Education Review (TER) podcast. The series, Ideology in Education, seeks to provide listeners with a brief exploration of the most prominent ideologies impacting on Australian education today. This episode explores Social efficiency ideology, its prevalence in Australian education policy and its impact on the teaching profession.
Introduction
Hello TER listeners and welcome to the third episode of Ideology in Education. A series providing a snapshot of the most prominent ideologies influencing Australian educational policy and discourse today, and how it impacts on your teaching practice.
In this episode, we explore an ideology that has grown in prominence over the past 40 years. An ideology specifically known for its influence in the development of policy reform, accountability practices, standards and the promotion of evidence-based practice as the go to when it comes to decisions regarding education. Valuing pragmatic skills and efficiency above all other potential aims of education, I am talking about the Social efficiency ideology.
So, what is Social efficiency ideology?
As the name suggests, the Social efficiency ideology aims to influence education in such a way that it meets the social needs of a client (such as society or industry) in the most efficient, practical and pragmatic way possible.
The relationship between the school and society in Social efficiency was initially compared to that of a steel mill producing rails for railroads. In the same way that the steel mill is contracted to create rails for railroads, schools are contracted to create suitable adults for society and the workforce. There are a number of implications of this approach to education, such as a focus on standards, quality control and accountability.
In an education systems influenced by Social efficiency, the curriculum is developed externally to the school and focused on the needs of the society or a client (as opposed to that of the learner or educator). It is interesting to note that the very fact that we even have a curriculum (or even the term ‘curriculum’ itself!) with a set of standards that all young people are expected to achieve is a hallmark of this ideology.
With this comes to need for monitoring and supervision, to ensure that the output of the school meets the needs determined by the client or society. Through the use of clearly defined outcomes and expectations, schools and teachers are held accountable to the capabilities each young person should have upon leaving school.
Lastly, when it comes to learning, Social efficiency advocates value action. So it is what the learner does with their knowledge and skills that is important. We can see here the influence of behavioural psychology in the functioning of this particular approach to teaching and learning, as outcomes are developed to assess explicit behaviours that can be measured empirically.
How does this play out in Australian education?
There are a few specific ways that the Social efficiency is evident within Australian education. Remembering that this ideology seeks simply to achieve the educational product for the client in the most efficient way possible, it has been influential in the development of curriculum, teacher standards, standardised measurement of outcomes and the use of accountability measures in relation to teachers and schools.
Firstly, the use of curriculum, specifically the implementation of the National Curriculum is seen to ensure a consistent framework of standards that are deemed necessary for young people to contribute in an Australian life and workforce (the client). Though the curriculum is more nuanced than what we might expect from a hardline Social efficiency approach, the need for observable and measurable skills is certainly prevalent.
Secondly, as a means of ensuring that Australian teachers are equipped to enact the goals of the National Curriculum, the AITSL Teacher Standards have been developed to explicitly indicate the kinds of observable competencies that teachers are expected to evidence in their practice. These standards run full circle in the way they serve the curriculum and as such, the educational client of this curriculum.
Thirdly, to examine student achievement of the nationally prescribed curriculum objectives a number of standardised testing measures have been implemented across Australia.NAPLAN is currently used as a means of measuring outcomes against the National Curriculum, with international tests such as PISA and TIMMS used to compare Australia with test performance of other countries partaking in the same tests. Furthermore, NAPLAN functions as an accountability tool for schools and teachers, as results are made freely available to the public to review on the MySchool website.
What does this mean for me as an educator?
The role of the Social efficiency educator is to as effectively as possible, through the use of scientific methods, develop in students the practical (and measurable) capabilities and behaviours necessitated by the imposed curriculum. The standards imposed by curriculum developers are not up for debate or negotiation. Therefore, a teacher’s work is focused on finding the most effective ways of achieving the prescribed skills in their students. Though the ends of schooling are determined externally to the school, the teacher is given the authority to discern what methods would most appropriately meet these ends. When we consider the Australian context, there seems to be some democratic processes in place regarding the content of the curriculum (for example the way that ACARA has opened up discussion regarding the review of the National Curriculum). However, when it comes to the overarching educational aims and goals of Australian (such as in the Mparntwe document), there seems less opportunity for democratic negotiation, leaning more towards what we might expect from a Social efficacy standpoint.
Educators within Social efficiency models are ultimately held accountable for the educational product that is required of them, which is evident in current educational policy in Australia (Kostogriz, 2019) . The teacher is expected to show they are meeting the standards of the curriculum by utilising standardised measures of assessment. This is where we see such justification for accountability measures to ensure schools are enacting the curriculum appropriately. As indicated earlier there becomes a desire for public accountability, as parents and industries become framed as the clients of the education, leading to such mechanisms as MySchool, that publicly present NAPLAN results for each school in Australia.
educational accountability has impoverished the relational complexity of teachers’ work by rendering it as largely technical and contractual in its nature. P. 62 Kostogriz
So, where to from here?
The Social efficiency ideology has had a positive impact on the functioning of schools, as effective and consistent producers of educational outputs. The values within this ideology have contributed to much of the practical and useful skills that are required by the workforce over time and has helped to move towards equitable (in terms of consistency of what is taught) education in Australia. It has also encouraged teachers to consider empirical evidence as a means of evaluating and refining their practice, as opposed to simply here-say or through intuitive means.
However, over time a focus on standardisation and accountability has overshadowed the deeper considerations of educational aims that serve the society in various policy pushes in educational systems in the US, UK and Australia. The focus on these measures has certainly contributed to the dominance of neoliberal ideology impacting educational policy in these countries. Furthermore, the narrowing of educational practice to that which is evidence-based is considered to have contributed to the decline of educational aims talk, reducing the means of challenging the hegemony of standardised measurement practices.
So when you hear educational discourse calling for reform, higher standards, more accountability, you can thank the Social efficiency ideology, which has had various revivals over the past 100 years in Australia and finding its place of prominence today. The question that needs to be asked however, is “for what?” and “for whom?” Higher standards for what? Efficiency for what? Accountability to whom?
Till next time.
References
Kostogriz, A. Teacher responsibility. In Webster, R. S., & Whelen, J. D. (2019). Rethinking reflection and ethics for teachers. Springer.
