Ideology, rationality and reproduction in education: a critical discourse analysis

Abstract

In undertaking a critical discourse analysis of the professed aims and objectives of one of the most influential curricula in the teaching of thinking, this article foregrounds issues of power and ideology latent in curricular discourses of rationality. Specifically, it documents the subtle but powerful ways in which political and class commitments are (re-)produced in the forms of thinking that are valued in schools and societies. Through a nuanced analysis of the language features of the text and the social and political ideologies that underpin it, the article argues that such curricula engage in shaping our common-sense understandings of what thinking and rationality is and should be in instrumental forms that both connect to neoliberal prerogatives and that facilitate the social reproduction of a particular fraction of the middle class.

Keywords:

• thinking skills
• critical discourse analysis
• politics of education
• sociology of the curriculum
• neoliberalism
• ideology

Acknowledgement

Thanks are due to Michael Apple for his very helpful comments on an earlier draft.

Notes

1. For a sample of the literature, see Bailin and Siegel (2002), Fisher (2004), McPeck (1990), Paul and Elder (2005) and Siegel (1997).

2. The University of Cambridge International Examinations, as the world's largest provider of international qualifications for 14–19-year olds, has its subjects offered by more than 8000 institutions in the world. Its reputation as a global leader in curriculum development reflects not only its ability to anticipate and respond to the diverse needs of education systems around the world, but also its capacity to influence the curricula of many other countries (http://www.cie.org.uk/aboutcie, accessed 26 April 2012).

3. For details of these gender-based criticisms and the debates involved, see the very helpful published symposium on ‘Is Critical Thinking Biased?’, Educational Theory, 45(2), Spring (1995), 191–233. Contributors include Bailin (1995) ‘Is critical thinking biased? Clarifications and implications’; Norris (1995) ‘Sustaining and responding to charges of bias in critical thinking’; Wheary & Ennis (1995) ‘Gender bias in critical thinking: Continuing the dialogue’; Alston (1995) ‘Begging the question: Is critical thinking biased?’.

4. See, for example, Brighouse and Swift (2009), Gutman (1987) and Jencks (1988) for a discussion of the problems associated with meritocracy as a theory of educational justice. It could be argued that as a document outlining the aims and purposes of a given curriculum, the text is not required to reference the various debates that surround its curriculum – hence we should not be surprised at such absences. According to this argument, such information would be of tangential value to its largely practitioner audience who are often more interested in the implementation of the curriculum than in understanding the controversies that may surround it. Yet, it is precisely for this reason that such documents, as recontextualised texts (Bernstein, 1977, 1990), function crucially as forms of ideological control and constitute the sites of on-going struggles over the curriculum (Apple, 2000). As a product of what Bernstein (1990) calls the pedagogic recontextualising field (PRF) that includes agents and practices drawn from universities, colleges of education, schools, foundations, journal and publishing houses, and, like CIE, external examination boards, etc., such synoptic documents mediate between the dominant (official) discourse and the actual practices in classrooms. A critical discourse analysis of what is included (as well as excluded) there is thus crucial for showing up the power relations in society – Who has power over the curriculum? Which actors are dominant in the PRF? What tensions, if any, are there within? It also help in understanding the social origins of the knowledge which becomes institutionalised.

5. We have already recounted feminist criticisms. Among philosophers, there is also evidence of a recognition that more inclusive and versatile forms of reasoning are needed to make sense of the diversity and heterogeneity that have become commonplace in society. Toulmin (2001), for example, beckons us towards a more congenial form of rationality that emphasises contextuality, ambiguity, creativity, and a toleration of heterogeneity over logical certitude, validity, universal principles and polarisations typified by binary ‘us–them’ thinking.

6. See, for example, Apple (2006, p. 36).

7. In saying this, it should also be pointed out that the interests of capital may be diverse and at times contradictory. See, for example, Dale (1989) and Offe (1973).

8. The distinction between functional explanations (explanations that tell us the relevant role an action has in a larger system) and intentional explanations (explanations that tell us what made an action attractive to the agent, what he or she hoped to achieve by doing it, etc.) here seems beside the point when we consider that for Bourdieu (1984), habitus works to naturalise so-called functional action explanations by internalising them as sui generis and intentional. After all, much of Bourdieu's ideas on habitus and field developed as he worked to synthesise the structural and phenomenological traditions of social theory.

9. This article has concentrated on excavating and detailing the ideological presuppositions of an actual thinking skills curriculum. As such, space and attention here do not permit a substantive exposition of what an alternative conceptualisation of rationality involves, or what its instantiation in the curriculum might look like. For a further discussion of these very important issues, see Lim (2011).