Abstract
In our increasingly instrumentalist culture, debates over the privatization of schooling may be beside the point. Whether we hatch some new plan for chartering or funding schools, or retain the traditional model of government-run schools, the ongoing instrumentalization of education threatens the very possibility of public education. Indeed, in the culture of performativity, not only the public school but public life itself is hollowed out and debased. Qualities are recast as quantities, judgments replaced by rubrics, teaching and learning turned into exchange values. Schools should be central to public life: key locations for the regeneration of values, the cultivation of judgment, and the creation of the conditions for positive freedom. In this article Chris Higgins, drawing on Hannah Arendt and Alasdair MacIntyre, goes beyond typical treatments of the schools as equalizer of individual opportunity to explore three aspects of educational publicity: the school as an object of communal concern, schooling as preparation for public life, and the classroom as public space.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 451-466 |
| Number of pages | 16 |
| Journal | Educational Theory |
| Volume | 61 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Aug 1 2011 |
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ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Education
Cite this
The possibility of public education in an instrumentalist age. / Higgins, Christopher Roy.
In: Educational Theory, Vol. 61, No. 4, 01.08.2011, p. 451-466.Research output: Contribution to journal › Article
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TY - JOUR
T1 - The possibility of public education in an instrumentalist age
AU - Higgins, Christopher Roy
PY - 2011/8/1
Y1 - 2011/8/1
N2 - In our increasingly instrumentalist culture, debates over the privatization of schooling may be beside the point. Whether we hatch some new plan for chartering or funding schools, or retain the traditional model of government-run schools, the ongoing instrumentalization of education threatens the very possibility of public education. Indeed, in the culture of performativity, not only the public school but public life itself is hollowed out and debased. Qualities are recast as quantities, judgments replaced by rubrics, teaching and learning turned into exchange values. Schools should be central to public life: key locations for the regeneration of values, the cultivation of judgment, and the creation of the conditions for positive freedom. In this article Chris Higgins, drawing on Hannah Arendt and Alasdair MacIntyre, goes beyond typical treatments of the schools as equalizer of individual opportunity to explore three aspects of educational publicity: the school as an object of communal concern, schooling as preparation for public life, and the classroom as public space.
AB - In our increasingly instrumentalist culture, debates over the privatization of schooling may be beside the point. Whether we hatch some new plan for chartering or funding schools, or retain the traditional model of government-run schools, the ongoing instrumentalization of education threatens the very possibility of public education. Indeed, in the culture of performativity, not only the public school but public life itself is hollowed out and debased. Qualities are recast as quantities, judgments replaced by rubrics, teaching and learning turned into exchange values. Schools should be central to public life: key locations for the regeneration of values, the cultivation of judgment, and the creation of the conditions for positive freedom. In this article Chris Higgins, drawing on Hannah Arendt and Alasdair MacIntyre, goes beyond typical treatments of the schools as equalizer of individual opportunity to explore three aspects of educational publicity: the school as an object of communal concern, schooling as preparation for public life, and the classroom as public space.
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U2 - 10.1111/j.1741-5446.2011.00414.x
DO - 10.1111/j.1741-5446.2011.00414.x
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:79961163231
VL - 61
SP - 451
EP - 466
JO - Educational Theory
JF - Educational Theory
SN - 0013-2004
IS - 4
ER -