Politics

OF EDUCATION

EDS100

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 What do we study when
we study politics?
Power

POWER

Power is the ability of individuals or groups to

realize their will, or at least obtain much of
EDS100 what they desire, even if others resist them.”
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(Smith & Gallagher 2008)
 alter behaviour

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“A has power over B to the extent that he can get B to do

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something that B would not otherwise do.”
Robert Dahl 1957
 Three dimensions Bullying
Lukes’ dimensions of power

“false consciousness”

Compel behaviour Set the agenda Impart desire

Compel behaviour and influence Control what people think and Shape how people make
alter the decisions they make. decisions and what they want.
make decisions about
EDS100

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 Political by nature
Bellamy Salute

For a very long time, the

process of schooling and
the research on that
process were thought of as
above or beyond politics.

Should this be banned?

EDS100 “By its very nature cannot forego either

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o authority or tradition.”
Hannah Arendt
 Section 21 (a): Compulsory attendance
Yikes!
Every person who attains the age of six years on or before the first school day in September in
any year shall attend an elementary or secondary school on every school day from the first
school day in September in that year until the person attains the age of 18 years
Education Act

Section 30 (5) Habitually absent from school

A person who is required by law to attend school and who refuses to attend or who is
habitually absent from school is, unless the person is 16 years old or older, guilty of an offence
and on conviction is liable to the penalties

Section 30(1) Parents

A parent or guardian of a person required to attend school under section 21 who neglects or
refuses to cause that person to attend school is, unless the person is 16 years old or older,
guilty of an offence and on conviction is liable to a fine of not more than $200.

Section 30 (3) Employment during school hours

Anyone who employs during school hours a person required to attend school under section 21
is, unless the person is 16 years old or older, guilty of an offence and on conviction is liable to
a fine of not more than $200.

Section 43 (3) Use of Force

EDS100 Every schoolteacher, parent or person standing in the place of a parent is justified in using

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force by way of correction toward a pupil or child, as the case may be, who is under his care, if
the force does not exceed what is reasonable under the circumstances.
o
8 Which is not in the education act?
 How should students be punished?
Section 43 of the Canadian Criminal Code
Punishment

“Every schoolteacher, parent or person standing in the

place of a parent is justified in using force by way of
correction toward a pupil or child, as the case may be,
who is under his care, if the force does not exceed
what is reasonable under the circumstances.”

h i s i n t h e
Wh y i s t
a l c o d e ?
EDS100

Cri m i n
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 Control

Foucault (1978) argues that the major problem facing 18th century
prisons, factories, hospitals, and schools “was how to manage
EDS100 multitudes of people in relatively limited spaces so that productivity

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was maximized and threats to the organizers’ control was minimized.”
(Leftsten 2002)
 “The perfect disciplinary apparatus
would make it possible for a single gaze
Structural Power
to see everything constantly” Foucault
“The major effect of the Panopticon: Surveillance is hierarchical, enabling
to induce in the inmate a state of teachers constantly to observe
conscious and permanent visibility student activity and administrators
that assures the automatic to observe teachers.
functioning of power.” Leftsten 2002
Foucault Panopticon

EDS100

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 Structural Power

“Students are separated … partitioned into Activity is meticulously mapped out …

from the outside world manageable groups. Time is meticulously broken down,
by a wall or fence.” …Maximise surveillance no student is allowed to be idle.

EDS100

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“… situated to minimize
communication between
teachers and student…”
“allows the teacher to dictate the
pace and order of student activity.”
Leftsten (2002)
 "In fact, there is a whole system of rules in the school
that predetermine the child’s conduct. He must come
to class regularly, he must arrive at a specified time
and with an appropriate bearing and attitude.
Discipline

He must not disrupt things in class. He must have

learned his lessons, done his homework, and have
done so reasonably well, etc. There are, therefore, a
host of obligations that the child is required to
shoulder.

Together they constitute the discipline of the school.

It is through the practice of school discipline that we
EDS100 can inculcate the spirit of discipline in the child".

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Emile Durkheim (1961)
Durkheim E. (1961). Moral Education. New York: Free Press
 What is the concept of
Right Answering

‘right answering’?

Students often try to guess what the teacher wants

them to say, in a process of right answering.
(Postman & Weingartner)

Implicit in Right Answering is

1. The passive acceptance of ideas.

2. Prioritizing recall as the main education activity.

EDS100 3. Acceptance of authority over independent judgment

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4. Belief in an absolute and unambiguous answers
(Konieczka 2013)

 Agenda setting What is wrong with right answers?

EDS100

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 Banking system

Find the two mistakes

In The Banking System, The Teacher
1.Teaches and the students are taught
2.Knows everything & the students know nothing
3.Thinks & the students are thought about
4.Inspires & the students create
5.Talks & the students listen—meekly
6.Disciplines & the students resist are disciplined
6.Disciplines & the students resist
7.Chooses and enforces so students comply
EDS100 8.Acts & the students have the illusion of acting

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9.Chooses the content, & the students adapt to it



(condensed from Paolo Friere, Pedagogy of the Oppressed
 Homogenization
Students from diverse backgrounds
become homogenized by a:
to
1.Standardized curriculum
Hidden
2.Shared culture
Dominant
inequality

3.Societal goals
Elite

Sorting of students by
merit or potential into
Class
different streams.
inequality
Placement

Schools are “socialization agencies that teach

EDS100

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children how to get along with others and
serve
Life Skills prepare them for adult economic roles”
o (Durkheim 1898)

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 “School is the adver8sing agency
which makes you believe that you
need the society as it is.”
Conflict Theory
Ivan Illich

Conflict theory claims that schooling

perpetuates inequality in society,
favouring the dominant group. Its key
success is in creating acceptance of
exiting power structures.

EDS100
Whose interests does
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 “The establishment has always been deeply
suspicious of teachers who may be seen as
potential revolutionaries and in a position
Subversion

to influence the vulnerable young.”

Bartel and Burton

EDS100

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 “ The educator's task is to
empowerment

encourage human agency, not mold

it in the manner of Pygmalion”
Paulo Freire

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“Problem-posing education does not and
cannot serve the interests of the
oppressor.”
o Freire
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 Revolutionary

Citizens cannot maintain “Education is the key to unlock

the golden door of freedom.”
both ignorance & freedom
Horace Mann those w ith h ig h e r le v e ls o f George Washington Carver

m o r e li k e ly to v o te .
education are n Qua lity C ou nc il of Ontar io , 20 13 ),
(Higher Educatio

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Education as a revolutionary force that enlightens and
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o critically examined structures of social inequality.
 The child is more
important than the subject
My Pedagogic Creed
by John Dewey (1900)
Constructivism

In traditional schooling, “the center of

gravity is outside the child. It is in the
teacher, the test-book anywhere and
everywhere you please except in the
immediate instincts and activities of
the child himself.”

The child is thrown into a passive,

receptive, or absorbing attitude”

EDS100 I believe that the only true education

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comes through the stimulation of the
o child's powers …”
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 Pedagogy
Power

Pedagogy
Progressivism

Power

Are power and pedagogy mutually

exclusive or mutually beneficial ?

Ped
agogy
EDS100

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o power
 SCHOOL
POWER
Battleground

Family

State

EDS100 The school is a battleground because it, more than any other social institution,
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is the manufacturer of the society of the future, and virtually every social group
or faction therefore aspires to control the school for its own ends.
Lipman, M. (2003). The Reflective Model of Educational Practice. In Thinking in Education (pp. 9-27). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9780511840272.003
 Demands include
• Integrate the experience of Black Canadians into curriculum
• Teacher training on teacher bias & racism
Battleground

• Collect race-based data on student achievement

Who should set
curriculum?
Recommendations include
# 63 Developing and implementing curriculum and learning resources on Aboriginal
peoples in Canadian history, and the history and legacy of residential schools.

# 6. We call upon the Government of Canada to repeal Section 43 of the Criminal

Code of Canada.

What should be in the curriculum?

Grade 1: Students learn to correctly name private parts & inappropriate touching.
EDS100 Grade 3: Students learn about same sex relationships.

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Grade 5: Students learn about how pregnancy occurs.
Grade 6: Students may discuss masterbation (non mandatory) and gender identity.
o Grade 8 Students learn about contraception & preventing pregnancy.
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 Who should set
curriculum?
Fight for schools

We are now so used to government

education policy dictating the nature
of schooling and education that we
tend to take it for granted.”
(Ward 2013)

“It was not yet a foregone conclusion that the

school would become the chief socializing
EDS100 mechanism intermediate between the family

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and the world of work.”
(Deacon 2006)
 Content Control

Medical Student Malone Mukwende noticed a

lack of teaching about darker skin tones, and
how certain symptoms appear differently in
those who aren’t white.

b ro w n
c k a n d
o u t b l a o c a re
i o n a b c t o r s t
d u c a t in g d o y
c k o f e y t r a in u n f a i r l
The la q u a t e l n d ( b )
) i n a d e o u p s a n t s
s k i n ( a i en t g r s t u d e
a l l p a t s o m e
fo r n t a g e s
d v a
EDS100 disa

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 “Research is inherently biased,
Political Research
education is intrinsically political,
and both have been and will be
used for political purposes.”
(Cooper, and Hite 1999: 1-2)

For each $1.00 spent on

public education, Ontario’s
GDP will increase by $1.30.

EDS100 McArthur-Gupta, A. (2019). Spending for the Future: Impacts of

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Investments in Ontario’s Public Education, p. 20

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 Oct. 5, 1957
Political interest

National Defense Education Act

increased funding for education at all levels, including low-interest
student loans to college students, with the focus on scientific and
technical education.

EDS100
The blame was placed on
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o the education system.
 Education as a right “Of all the civil rights for which the world has struggled and fought for
5,000 years, the right to learn is undoubtedly the most fundamental,
whatever we may think of the curtailment of other civil rights, we
should fight to the last ditch to keep open the right to learn . . . "

—W. E. B. DuBois, The Freedom to Learn, 1949

“Education is both a human right in itself and an indispensable means of realizing other human rights.”
Article 13 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

“States Parties recognize the right of the child to education,”

Article 28 Convention on the Rights of the Child

'everyone has the right to education

Article 26 Universal Declaration on Human Rights,
EDS100

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How do education laws and
education rights compare?
 Transformative power
“Power over others can be productive,
SCHOOL transformative, authoritative and
compatible with dignity”
(Lukes 2005)

Who do you yield State

power over?
Who has power over you?

EDS100
Is it good power?

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 What did we explore?
to d ay?
ex p lo re
d id we
n c epts
at c o
Wh e r
s o f p o w
m e n s io n
u k e s ’ d i
• L
o p t ic o n
• Pa n t e
a t i o n A c in a l C o d
• E du c t h e C r im
n 4 3 o f
• Se c t io g
n s w e r in
ig h t A
• R c t iv is m
C o n s t r u
• s y s t e m n
B a n k i n g ubve r s io
• h e o r y n t a nd s
o n f l ic t t w e r m e
• C s e m p o
c a t io n a ig h t s
• E d u s a n d r
EDS100
t io n la w
c a
P • Ed u
o
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