EDDi XXVIII
December 2020 - Academic Digest
EDUCATION AS AGENCY:
CHALLENGING EDUCATIONAL ACCOUNTS OF INDIVIDUALIZATION THROUGH ALTERNATIVE ACCOUNTS OF THE AGENTIC
Matthew Bunn and Matt Lumb (University of Newcastle, Australia)
TAKEAWAYS
This is an incisive and insightful summary of an important paper.
As EDDi notes, it is impossible to do justice to the full breadth and nuanced depth of the arguments presented.
Rather than further attempting summarisation in these ‘takeaways’ then, instead a recommendation: find yourself a quiet 15 minutes, grab a drink of tea/coffee/something stronger and take the time to read this digest and to reflect on it.
It is over a quarter of century since British PM candidate, Tony Blair, intoned the phrase ‘Education, Education, Education’, thereby establishing (he hoped) his liberal credentials with an electorate desperate for change after 15 years of Thatcherism. However, by the time the electoral dust had settled curious similarities between Blair and Thatcher were emerging, one of which was an emphasis on the agentic capacity of the individual, with education deemed a key tool for raising a generation of market-orientated entrepreneurs. In this brave new meritocracy, those with the right attitude, skills and determination would rise to the top as surely as cream on a pint of milk.
The idea that life and fate is all down to the quality of the individual is a tempting notion for politicians to promote not least because it places responsibility solely on the individual, not the politicians. No surprise then, that governments from the USA to Australia subsequently took up this refrain of a meritocratic, entrepreneurial society, driven by ‘innate’ neoliberal individualisation and fuelled by education ‘for all’.
However, as philosopher Michael Sandel, argues in his new book ‘The Tyranny of Merit’ meritocracy has proved to be no solution for those already at the bottom of the social ladder, providing no remedy for their continued disadvantage and economic marginalisation.
‘The solution to problems of globalisation and inequality – and we heard this on both sides of the Atlantic – was that those who work hard and play by the rules should be able to rise as far as their effort and talents take them. [this] ‘rhetoric of rising’ became an article of faith, a seemingly uncontroversial trope…[unfortunately]…the fabled “level playing field” remains a chimera….social mobility has been stalled for decades. “Americans born to poor parents tend to stay poor as adults.”
While the authors of this article make no mention of Michael Sandel, in all respects his long-standing and persuasive critique of the liberal rhetoric of autonomy and agency permeates every aspect of their research into conceptualisations of agency in (Australian) education:
“We begin by considering how the construction of the hyper-individual, one that is entirely determined by its own internal capacities, has become the norm within Australian educational policy. We propose that this conceptualization produces undemocratic educational possibilities built on the assumptions that individuals have the capacity to rationally choose pathways which will maximise their own interests, ignoring the contextually bound ways in which this produces, makes durable, and reproduces trajectories of disadvantage and advantage within the educational system.” (p. 7)
The authors go on to note how neoliberal policy has impacted education systems globally, reinforced by ‘surveillance, competition, ranking and classification’ in schools and universities. Indeed, no doubt you, the reader, wherever you are located, might want to reflect to what degree you too have accepted the ‘uncontroversial trope’ that students have only themselves to blame if they ‘don’t make it in society’, given the efforts which educationalists like yourself make to harness their talents to acquire economic and cultural capital.
This is not intended to make you feel guilty, just aware of how the ‘reification of the individual has deeply influenced educational theory and philosophy’ and the practice of democratic education, leading to “an approach that is both instrumentalistic and individualistic.” (p. 8).
In other words, what are we educationalists losing when we uncritically accept the assumptions and strictures of neo-liberal economy in our profession? Seems to EDDi that one important loss is that of communal responsibility.
And the authors make that very point:
“We argue that the shifting basis of the Australian economy with an increased emphasis on employability and entrepreneurship, requires a strong focus on student engagement and aspiration within education systems that represents a hegemonic internalization of the values of the self that correspond with economic value. We contend that democratic education becomes more unlikely when the individual is reified and positioned as being in competition to maximise their own position at the expense of others.” (p. 8)
This article is full of juicy phrases such as the above making it impossible to do justice to the full breadth and nuanced depth of the argument in a summary of this type. Drawing on philosophy, sociology and educational analyses, the authors offer a compelling case for educationalists to reappraise their orientation towards individualisation, the agentic capacity of the student to forge for themselves a stable and economically robust future on the back of education effort and achievement.
Instead, they argue, we should subject the very concept of (educational) agency to a more substantial critique, because in that single word linger so many untested assumptions, most of which have been taken up by neo-liberalists in pursuit of a market-led approach to all aspects of society, not just education.
Agency is not something individuals can simply draw on independent of their identity or character. It is not a tool to be taken from the shelf and deployed without constraint or boundary. It is not a given. It certainly does not exist a priori to the individual.
On the contrary, any agentic capacity of the individual is firmly and irrefutably tied up with the conditions under which that individual exists. Agency is relational, not singular.
“Agency is a matter of intra-acting; it is an enactment, not something that someone or something has…agency is never properly “possessed”…rather than subjectively owned and held, agency is a condition of the varieties of phenomenal constitutions…in a sociological sense, the impacts of geographies, of material wealth and deprivation , and the symbolic are constitutive of agent formations.” (p. 13)
There is no doubt that education is an enabler, but it is not a decider. There is a limit to the agentic capacity of the student just as there is a limit to the empowering capacity of the teacher.
To ignore the conditions of production and circumstance which envelope our students is to deny their reality. At the same time, we cannot wholly change that reality, even though there will be times and instances when we’d dearly love to. Moreover, neither teacher nor student can easily understand never mind unravel the dynamic, contingent and complex forces conspiring to produce the subjectivity of the self. To imagine we educationalists have such power is both an illusion and a danger. Yet this notion of the rational agentic subject has taken root quite firmly in education systems around the globe, not least Australia.
“Australian education policy is worryingly wedded to the conception of education as a series of fully agentic and rational subjects acting to maximise their own self-interests…this is a commitment that reduces the opportunities for meaningful, democratic education and ignores the broader relational struggles that restrict the possible strategies and opportunities available to differently positioned educational actors.” (p. 15)
And then, finally, there is the issue of community. And that issue is encapsulated in this question.
If 21st century global education continues its obsession with neo-liberalist entrepreneurial (self) responsibility, attempting to create a world of agentic, rational, self-regarding individuals able to perceive and overcome the conditions of their life through application and intent, where does that leave the communal? Because this project fails on both counts. It not only fails the individual, it also fails the community. In a fully functioning community all individuals get looked after, supported, while in a neo-liberal educational economy if you’ve gotten left behind its because you deserve to be left behind.
As Michael Sandel puts it with regard to Covid-19:
“Morally, the pandemic reminded us of our vulnerability, of our mutual dependence: “We are all in this together.” Public officials and advertisers reached instinctively for this slogan…but the moral paradox of solidarity through separation highlighted a certain hollowness in the assurance that “We are all in this together.” It did not describe a sense of community embodied in an ongoing practice of mutual obligation and self-sacrifice…This way of thinking about success makes it hard to believe that “we are all in this together.” It invites the winners to consider their success their own doing and the losers to feel that those on top look down on them with disdain.” (Tyranny of Merit, 2020, p.5)
reference
Bunn, M., and Lumb, L., (2019) The International Education Journal: Comparative Perspectives Vol. 18, No 1, 2019, pp. 7-19
link
openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/index.php/IEJ/article/view/13353