Be-ScIooIing Sociel I Bavid HavlIe

Beviev I KalI HaII

BvilisI JouvnaI oJ EducalionaI Sludies, VoI. 46, No. 3 |Sep., 1998), pp. 338-339
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REVIEWS
Re-schooling Society. By
David
Hartley. Pp.
179,
London: Falmer
Press,
1997. ?14.95
(pbk)
ISBN 075070624 4
(pbk).
'Every
word
[of
your
thesis]
should be full of
meaning'
was the advice of
my super-
visor once. I was reminded of this when
reading
(and
rereading)
this book for
every
word is indeed full of
meaning.
It
analyses complex
theoretical issues in a most
scholarly, yet lively, style.
It is a serious and
important study
that
analyses
current
cultural,
economic and intellectual shifts and their
implications
for education. As
the author
explains
in the
introduction,
it is not a 'how to'
book,
nor does it offer
suggestions
for
dealing
with the contradictions and uncertainties which charac-
terise
education
today although
it
explores
these contradictions and
uncertainties,
e.g.
how
strong
central control
(in
the
shape
of the National
Curriculum)
can co-
exist with
approaches
that are local and that
espouse principles
of
personal empow-
erment.
Key
themes of this
sociological study
are: the
efficiency-oriented
discourse
in education
policy
documents is driven
by
an economic
imperative
but the
rhetoric of
ownership,
choice and
personal empowerment
draw on consumerist
culture;
technical considerations
outweigh
moral ones
- in
fact,
educational issues
are re-cast as technical ones and therefore
they
can be solved
technically;
and there
has been no firm break with
modernity
- rather there have been shifts in
capitalism
with
corresponding adjustments
in
education,
the result
being
that schools 'are
put
out to tender in the
marketplace,
so as to make them efficient
producers
of future
and flexible
workers,
empowered
and
eager
to take their
place
in the world of work'
(p.
148).
In this
regard
David
Hartley's argument
is not dissimilar to that of Bowles
and Gintis's 1976
study, Schooling
in
Capitalist
America
and to that of the French soci-
ologist,
Bourdieu - these writers have
argued
that one of the
principal (though
not
overt)
functions of the education
system
is the
reproduction
and
legitimation
of the
social relations of the
capitalist
social order. But it is in the author's demonstration
of the education
system's attempt
to reconcile the dilemmas and
paradoxes
which
postmodernist thought,
on the one
hand,
and economic
globalization,
on the other
hand,
have
created,
that the
strength
and
importance
of this book lies. Moreover,
the author
argues
that it is not
workers,
but
consumers,
that the
economy
now
needs.
It is
noteworthy
that the 'school' in the title includes all levels of
education,
including
HE. The book
begins
with an
analysis
of the medieval and modern world
views and
proceeds
to an
analysis
of the
age
of
postmodernity.
David
Hartley
expresses justifiable
unease with the terms
'postmodernism'
and
'postmodernity'
and tends to use them as
cultural,
rather than
chronological
constructs. He notes
how the
prefix 'post' implies
an 'ante'
period
which has
gone,
thus
implying
a clean
historical break
- he does not hold this view of a clean break with the
past
and
argues throughout
that it is
premature
to 'sound the death knell of
modernity'.
He
offers a detailed
analysis
of the current economic
(post-Fordism),
cultural
(postmod-
ernism)
and intellectual
(post-modernist
theory)
movements and this is followed
by
a
wide-ranging sociological analysis
of
postmodernity,
drawing
on
neo-
Durkheimian
theory,
critical
theory
and Marxist
theory.
The first four
chapters,
therefore,
provide
a theoretical framework for
interpreting
the
consequences
of
these shifts for four
key
dimensions of education: curriculum,
pedagogy,
assessment
and
management
and one
chapter
is devoted to each of the latter,
respectively,
in
the second half of the book.
Curriculum
policy exemplifies
one of the
paradoxes
of education in
post-
modernity. Hartley
observes:
338
?
Blackwell Publishers Ltd. and SCSE 1998
REVIEWS
On the one
hand, there
may
be established an
over-arching, tightly specified,
centrally-controlled
curricular structure, from
pre-school
to
university, which
would be
modularized,
credit-weighted, predictable
and
'performative'.
It
will
bear all the hallmarks of the
bureaucratic,
predictable modernity.
On the
other
hand,
there will be a rhetoric which resonates with the culture of
postmod-
ernism- the
empowered,
self-reliant, self-aware,
self-supervising
and
autonomous
learner,
quietly mopping up
modules,
sometimes
impersonally through
distance
learning,
on-line,
whenever and wherever. It will matter little who
provides
the
'teaching'
as
long
as the state
centrally
accredits the
credentials,
thereby
ensur-
ing quality
and control. In
combination, therefore,
will be the modern
bureau-
cratic curricular structure and the
postmodern progressive pedagogy (p. 71).
The end of education is not
personal development
and
autonomy,
but
personal
development
for a
purpose-
the
worker-to-be,
the worker-in
waiting;
and the
plea-
sure-seeking
consumer
(p.
78).
So it would seem that learner-centred
pedagogy,
the
subjects of
the
self (e.g. personal
and social
education)
are
designed
to contain the
disaffected and to deal with resistances.
While the education
system
does
appear
to
respond
to the economic and
cultural shifts of the
times,
it does so in a
way
that does not threaten the
reproduc-
tion of the
necessary predispositions required
for
production
and
consumption.
There have been
appeals
to
desire, choice,
diversity, ownership
and
democracy
in
line with the cultural realm but it seems the economic realm
-
efficiency,
effective-
ness and
technique
-
is
foregrounded.
This means
policy
makers'
attempts
to
grap-
ple
with the intellectual ideas drawn from
postmodernist theory
are
superficial
and
merely
act to neutralize the
potential
of these ideas for
resistance,
thus the end
result is that state education is a 'monument to
modernity'.
The
concluding chapter challenges
us to consider children and the
pursuit
of
self-interest within the confines of a market
-
'[d]o
we wish our children to
priva-
tize their
passions,
to individualize their success and
failure,
to
personalize
their
identities with
consumables,
to
engage
others at a
'distance',
to
mistrust,
to market
themselves?'
(p.
152-3).
Trust is a
missing ingredient, Hartley argues,
in current
educational reforms in Britain. The conclusion drawn is that
society
is
unlikely
to
be 'de-schooled' in the Illichian sense but is more
likely
to be 're-schooled' within
the
competing
values of
democracy
and
capitalism
and
currently
the
re-schooling
in
process emphasises commodification, marketisation and technical
rationality.
In
other words the trend is for
capitalism
to score at the
expense
of
democracy.
This
is a
pessimistic
outlook.
However,
I take
hope
from the work of McLaren and
Giroux and other critical theorists who
argue
for a critical
pedagogy explicitly
geared
to a more
just
and democratic
society.
At a
minimum,
one must take some
solace,
as
Hartley
does,
from the likelihood that
learner-centred
pedagogy,
while
functional for
post-Fordist
work
regimes,
nevertheless
encourages
a
questioning
and reflective attitude in the learner and one which could lead to the construction
of
counter-discourses.
This book is
important reading
for social
scientists,
especially
educationists. It is
essential
reading
for our
politicians
and senior education
policy
makers as it
teaches
something they frequently
seem to
deny,
that education cannot be
sepa-
rated from the economic and cultural milieu
-
as the author
says,
it is never 'above'
the realms of the
cultural,
but
always
of them.
Leeds
Metropolitan
University KATHY
HALL
339
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Blackwell Publishers Ltd. and SCSE 1998