Sociology of education after globalisation Still commentary rather than critique?

Abstract

This paper starts from the argument that what counts as sociology of education has been predominantly shaped by its «project» – the political understandings and goals of its proponents, which, it is argued, are meliorative, even redemptive – and by its «location», predominantly in institutions devoted to teacher education. This has meant that its contributions have had as their main objective producing commentary on the reasons for success or failure of education policy, rather than a more rigorous problematisation and critique of those policies and practices. The paper develops the argument that the «globalisation» of education made it easier to distinguish between commentary and critique. There are three, linked, aspects to this argument. First, it problematizes the continuing value of each of the terms in the standard «commentary» assumptions of «national, «education», «systems», arguing that in an era of globalisation, the assumptions on which they rest, particularly those relating to the governance of education, are no longer valid. They result in a set of what are referred to as «isms»; that is, rather than being problematized, they become «fixed, abstract and absolute» (Fine, 2003: 465). A further aspect is the need to problematise the «composition» of education systems. Here, it is argued that this arises from the combinations of four key elements; modernity, capitalism, the «grammar” of schooling, and the relationships of education with national societies. The final means of problematisation is a set of «education questions». Here, rather than accepting that we all «know» what education «is», it should be approached by a set of questions that relate to all education systems and thus enable us to discover and explain their differences. These questions are raised in respect of four levels of «Education»: practice, policy, politics, and outcomes.