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EDM 6210Education Policy and Society

Topic 5Education Policy and Knowledge Acquisition:

Education for Knowledge of the Powerful or Powerful Knowledge

i. The Sociology of Curriculum:

Social Constructivism and the Knowledge of the Powerful

A. The Backdrop of the Debate: Debate between Essentialism and Constructivism 1. The strike back of essentialist at the turn of the century

a. At the end of the 1980s, the neo-conservatives in both the UK and the US waged their attacks on the school curriculum and argue that the curriculum theory known as constructivism, which had been adopted since the 1960s, failed to inculcate the essential knowledge needed to be functioning citizens of their countries.

b. In the UK, the National Curriculum in the Education Reform Act 1988 stipulated a list of school subjects to be compulsory to all students. English, Mathematics and Science are required for students from age 5 to 16, while history and geography are also required from age 5 to 14. These subjects are depicted as essentials for all future UK nationals.

c. In the US, E.D. Hirsch Jr., professor of English at the University of Virginia, published a book entitled Cultural Literacy, which became national best-seller. At the end of the book, an appendix was attached, which specified a list of 5,000 names, phrases, dates, and concepts that, in their view, “every American needs to know.”

d. These policy act and discourse, especially the National Curriculum of the UK, have been characterized as the assaults on the liberal curriculum constituted for comprehensive schooling system since the post-WWII. This curriculum approach has also been construed as essentialism, which implies that what is incorporated into the National Curriculum is knowledge that is essential or even absolute for functioning and educated nationals of the country.

2. The rise of constructivism in curriculum studiesa. In the 1970s, a group of sociologists mainly from the Institute of Education,

the University of London published a book entitled Knowledge and Control: New Direction for the Sociology of Education. They argued that the knowledge being defined as educational and incorporated into school curriculum are political constructs forged by the ruling class. Subsequently, in 1975 Michel W. Apple, professor of curriculum and instruction in the University of Wisconsin, Madison, published a book entitled Ideology and Curriculum. It argued that school curriculum is the ideological construct of the ruling class. It served as part of reproductive apparatuses for the existing class relation.

b. The stance of educational and curriculum theories have been characterized as social constructivism and reproduction theory. They

1W.K. TsangEducational Policy & Society

served as the theoretical justifications for the school reform for the disadvantaged, such as the desegregation movement in the US and the comprehensive school movement in the UK in the 1960s.

B. The Rise of Constructivism in Curriculum Studies1. Karl Mannheim’s initiation

a. Mannheim published Ideology and Utopia (1936) in 1929 in German, which has been considered to be the groundbreaking work in establishing the field of the sociology of knowledge.

ii. As a Hungarian-born Jew, he fled the Nazi regime and settled in Britain in 1933. In 1946 he was appointed as the first sociology professor at the Institute of Education, a position he held until his death in London a year later.

ii. He defines the field that “The sociology of knowledge is closely related to, but increasingly distinguishable from, the theory of ideology, which has also emerged and developed in our time. The study of ideology has made it its task to unmask the more or less conscious deceptions and disguises of human interest groups, particularly those of political parties. The sociology of knowledge is concern not so much with distortions due to a deliberate effort to deceive as with varying ways in which objects present themselves to the subject according to the differences in social settings. Thus, mental structures are inevitably differently formed in different social and historical settings. …. The sociology of knowledge…takes as its problem precisely this mental structure in its totality, as it appears in different currents of thought and historical-social groups. The sociology of knowledge does not criticize thought on the level of the assertions themselves…but exercises them on the structural and noological levels, which it views as not necessarily being the same for all men, but rather as allowing the same object to take on different forms and aspects in the course of social development.” (Mannheim, 1970, PP. 110-111)

iii. According, Mannheim distinguishes two distinct lines of inquiry in the field - “In the first place is a purely empirical investigation through

descriptive and structural analysis of the way in which social relationships, in fact, influence thought.” (P. 111)

- “This may pass, in the second place, into an epistemological inquiry concerned with the bearing of this relationships upon the problem of validity.” (P. 111)

b. Publication of Knowledge and Control (1971) i. Michael Young in his contribution of the book writes that

- “Much British sociology in the late fifties and the sociology of education in particular drew its ideological perspective from Fabian socialism. …They broadened the notion of poverty from lack of income to lack of education, which was seen s a significant part of working-class life chance. …They were concerned to show how the distribution of life chances through education can be an aspect of the class structure.” (Young, 1971, Pp. 24-25)


- Accordingly, “the content of education is taken as a ‘given’ and is not subject to sociological enquiry―the ‘educational failures’ become a sort of ‘deviants’.” (P.25).

ii. Basil Bernstein in his contribution writes that- “How a society selects, classifies, distributes, transmits, and

evaluates the educational knowledge it considers to be public reflects both the distribution of power and the principles of social control within that society.” (Bernstein, 1970, p. 47)

- “Formal educational knowledge can be considered to be realized through three message system: curriculum, pedagogy, and evaluation. Curriculum defines what courts as valid knowledge, pedagogy defines what courts as valid transmission of knowledge, and evaluation defines what counts as a valid realization of this knowledge on the part of the taught.” (Bernstein, 1971, p. 47)

c. Michael Apple in his widely quoted book Ideology and Curriculum (1975) asserts that i. “The knowledge that now gets into schools is already a choice from a

much larger universe of possible social knowledge and principles. It is a form of cultural capital that comes from somewhere, that often reflects the perspectives and beliefs of powerful segments of our social collectivities. …Social and economic values, hence, are already embedded in the design of the institutions we work in, in the ‘form corpus of school knowledge’ we preserve in our curricula, in our modes of teaching, and in our principles, standards, and forms of evaluation.” (Pp. 8-9)

ii. Accordingly, Apple formulate the questions to be inquired in the field of sociology of curriculum as that “we need to examine - Why and how particular aspects of the collective culture are

presented in school as objects, factual knowledge?- How, concretely, may official knowledge represent ideological

configurations of the dominant interests in a society? - How do schools legitimate these limited and partial standards of

knowling as unquestioned truths?d. The essentialist philosophers’ challenges to constructivism

i. Following the epistemological tradition of Paul Hirst, philosophers of positivism and absolutism, such as Richard Pring (1972) and John White (1975) reiterate Hirst’s formulation that education is to initiate children to definite and essential “forms of knowledge” that are educational valuable and significant knowledge to them

ii. The selection and classification of educational knowledge in school are not subjected to the arbitrary construction or deconstruction of according to the interest of particular social group and/or class.

iii. Richard Pring criticizes contributors and Young in particular as advocating “Knowledge Out of Control” and their formulations are kind of epistemological relativism, which are educationally irresponsible to the development of the future generations.

e. Michael Young’s rebuttal (1975): Michael Young counter-argues that White and Pring’s idea of education is “fundamentally conservative” (Young, 1975, P. 7). He asserts that his version of education is striving for “human


betterment” . And to this aim, all educators including sociologists of education should examine school curricula critically to see whether there are biases in favor of particular social groups or classes and at the same time biases against others social groups or classes.

C. From Social Constructivism to Social Realism1. Michael Young’s revisions of his theoretical stance in the dispute at the turn of

the century: In 2008, Michael Young published a book entitled Bringing Knowledge Back In: From Social Constructivism to Social Realism in the Sociology of Education. It signified that he has practically revised, if not reverse, his theoretical stand in the sociology of curriculum.a. “The disciplines, subjects, and the field though which we acquire and

produce knowledge have been created historically by men and women acting collectively. …Knowledge structures (and therefore curricula) face both learners and teachers as real constraints and cannot, as some of us once thought, be ‘constructed away’ by political or pedagogical actions. In this sense, philosophers such as Pring and science educators such as Jevons were right, and I and other ‘new sociologists’ were wrong when at the time we set no limits, at least explicitly, on the possibilities of constructing the world differently. These limits …are themselves social in origin, albeit in a very specific ways.” (Young, 2010, Pp. 5-6)

b. “Asserting the sociality of knowledge can easily slip into a form of reductionism. …If knowledge can be reduced to the interests or standpoints of knowers, all kinds of new political possibilities appear to be open. However, this reductionism means that questions about curriculum lose their specificity and become almost synonymous with any phenomenon where the power to make decisions is evenly distributed. A tendency to lose what is specific to the curriculum―how and what knowledge is acquired and how it should be pace, sequenced, and assessed―was the trap that the new sociology of education and critical curriculum studies often fell into.” (Young, 2010, P. 7)

2. In fact, Young’s revision represents a change in the theoretical orientation in the field the of sociology of curriculum at the turn of the century. Numbers of sociologists began to query the epistemological and ontological assumptions of constructivism. These queries and critiques can be summarized as follows: (Young and Muller, 2016, Pp. 11-34; Moore, 2009, Pp. 17-39; Wagenaar, 2011, Pp. 177-194)a. Constructivism as an epistemological approach was invoked by a line of

philosophical thoughts in the first half the 20th century, which consensually focus on criticizing the ontological and epistemological assumptions of the logical-empiricism and positivism in social science research. This line of philosophical thoughts includes social phenomenology, ethnomethodology, symbolic interactionism, critical theory of the Frankfurt School. (Young, 2016, P. 16) Hence, the constructivism starts with the challenge to the ontological assumptions of positivism that the reality under study is given and fixed. It also challenges the epistemological assumption of positivism that knowledge in the forms of nomological (law-


like) statements that can be objectively verified against the corresponding observable experiences under investigations.

b. Constructivists suggest that knowledge is generated from subjective perceptions based on the knowers’ experiences. Furthermore, constructivists assert that knowers are embedded beholders in specific situation, with particular viewpoints or even standpoints.

c. Constructivists further assert that knowledge is by definition human products of particular socio-cultural and historical contexts. In other words, knowledge is relative to the cultural and historical contexts in which it is constructed.

d. It is even argued that the knowledge produced by these situated knowers is laden with their own interest. Radical constructivists would therefore argue that the prevailing and dominant version of knowledge is the representation of the ruling class’s worldviews.

e. Finally, to the extreme constructivist has been characterized as “truth denier, (William, 2002; quoted in Young and Muller, 2016, P. 15) and bringing a kind of nihilism and relativism to the field of epistemology.

3. The emergence of the Critical Realism: The change in the theoretical orientation in the field can in fact be traced back to late 1970s while a group of philosophers of science and social science advocating to bringing the ontological inquiry back into the paradigm discourse in social-science research.a. In the latter half of the 20th century a group of philosophers of natural and

social sciences have attempt to break the dead lock in methodological and epistemological disputes between the essentialism and that constructivism. They start their exploration from the ontological foundation and enquire into the ontological features of natural and social realities and their differences.

b. The initial move of the enquiry is to reverse the century-long “epistemic fallacy” of methodological and epistemological priority.“Since Descartes (1596-1650), it has been customary first to ask how we can know, and only afterwards what it is that we can know. But this Cartesian ordering has been a contributory factor to prevalence of epistemic fallacy: it is easy to let the question how we can know determine our conception of what there is. And if in a certain respect the epistemic question does seem prior, in another it is secondary to the ontological one.” (Collier, 1993, P. 137)

b. They begin with the “belief that there is a world existing independently of our knowledge of it.” (Sayer, 2000, P. 2). They have suggested numbers of definitive features about the ontological and epistemological foundation of natural sciences as well as those of the social sciences. They includei. Objectivity in reality: It assumed that realities in both the natural and

social worlds are objectively exist, in short “independent of human mind”.

ii. Fallibility of human knowledge: Human knowledge about the world are not infallible. They are always under stringent scrutiny and ready to be refuted and amended by further information and new discoveries.

iii. Transphenomenality and counter-phenomenality in phenomena: In contrast to empirical realism, which built their realist stance on sensory


experiences and observable data, critical realists argue that features of realities may not be detectable by sensory experience or even in contradiction to human observations.

iv. Scientific enquiries are concept-driven human endeavor: They argue that scientific discoveries are not simply neutral and disinterested observations of cautious scientists but experiments and investigations conducted by scientists with hard thought-of and trial-and error attempts. Furthermore, the objects under investigations are usually not naturalistically existing activities ready for observation but are manipulations with experimental apparatuses in “closed systems”.

D. Conceptual constituents of Transcendental Realism of Natural SciencesRoy Basher starts his buildup of critical realism first with the analysis of the work and enterprise of natural sciences. One of his initial points of departure is to criticize the validity of empirical realism, which was the dominant approach in scientific research. Instead Bhaskar proposes to replace empirical realism with what he called transcendental realism. It means that the reality of the natural world is not confine its appearances or to what we could have experienced. He claims that there are deeper layers of mechanism and system at work than the mere appearances that we could sensorily experience. (Collier, 1994, Pp. 25-29)1. Concept of Depth Realism: The first conception of Bhaskar’s Critical

Realism is his distinction of reality into three domains:a. Empirical domain: It refers to the aspect of reality which we have

experienced with our senses.b. Actual domain: It refers to events which have occurred without our

noticing, while we can infer from their effects.c. Real domain: It refers to the properties within entities, which are able

to triggers events to take place or to constraint them from occurring.

Domain of Real Domain of Actual Domain of EmpiricalMechanism ✓Events ✓ ✓Experiences ✓ ✓ ✓Source: Bhaskar, 1978, P.13

2. Features of the domain of the Real: Bhaskar has further differentiated the features of the reality into levels:

a. Power and liability: Powers or emergent power, in Bhaskar’s term, refers to the potentials which are able trigger events to take place; while liability are properties which can prevent or constraint events from happening.

b. Mechanism: It refers to a set of powers working inter-connectively to set off the occurrence an event or a chain of events.

c. Structure of the system: It refers to the interconnections among operative mechanisms, which constitute the underlying structure against which events are taking places.

d. Open/closed system: It refers the openness or closure (i.e. boundary) of a given system. According to Critical Realist conception, “no


system in our universe is ever perfectly closed.” (Collier, 1994, P. 33) And accordingly both our natural and social world are by definition open systems.

3. Stratification of causation: Taking together these conceptions of the natural world stipulated by the Critical Realists, theories and models of causal explanations formulated by scientists can be categorized into several strataa. Cause-effect explanationb. Explanatory mechanismc. Explanatory structure

i. Structure of closed system: Nomological/law-like explanations ii. Structure of open system: Theories of tendency or emergency

4. The work of science: Given all these specifications of the operations of the natural world, Critical Realists contend that the work of natural science is in no way close to the conceptions of experimental work stipulated by empiricism (based solely on sensory observation) and positivism (aimed solely at verifying nomological explanations). Instead, Critical Realists specify the features of the work of experimental science as follows: a. Science as work: Science in essence “is work, not contemplation, not

observation, not taking up of some kind of scientific attitude.” “It is an active intervention into nature, made by people with acquired scientific skills, usually using special equipment.” (Collier, 1993, P. 50) And “the ‘product’ is not the new arrangement of matter brought about by the experiment. …It is the deepened knowledge of some mechanism of nature.” (P.52)

b. Dr = Da = De coincide: Deepening of knowledge of nature means to penetrate the empirical world and the actual events and to obtain the mechanism and structure underlying all human experiences. It is through scientific experiment, “we can set up a situation in which three domains (Dr, Da, De) coincide — in which a mechanism is actualized, i.e. isolated from its usual codeterminants, so that it can operate as a closed system, and to manifested as an event exemplifying the law to which it corresponds.” (Collier, 1994, P. 45)

c. Experiment as closure: “What the experiment does …is to isolate one mechanism of nature from the effect of others, to see what that mechanism does on its own.” (Collier, 1994, P. 33) It is “an attempt to trigger or unleash a single kind of mechanism or process in relative isolation, free from the interfering flux of the open world, so as to observe its details workings or record its characteristic mode of effect and/or to test some hypothesis about them.” (Bhashar, 1986, P. 35; quoted in Collier, 1994, P. 33)

d. Theory-led endeavor: “The classical sequence of experimental science is…: first we construct a theory, then we design an experiment to test it, then we receive nature’s answer to our question.” (Collier, 1994, P. 40) This indicates that experimental practice cannot replace theoretical thinking in the work of science. Power of abstraction and theoretical synthesizing is not only the initial


point of departure for formulation of problems but also the guiding signposts throughout the path of scientific enquiry.

5. Intransitive and transitive dimensions of science:a. Intransitive dimension of science: According to the basic tenet of

Critical Realism, the natural world exists independently of human minds and knowledge. Hence, this object of science studies — the natural world and with all its substances, mechanisms and structures — constitute the intransitive dimension of the work of science.

b. Transitive dimension of science: Scientists, with their concepts and theories, their skills and practices, as well as their communities, associations and rival schools of thought, they constitute the transitive dimension of science. What scientists do is to strive to deepen the existing scientific knowledge of the nature world.

c. Accordingly, “the ‘results’ of scientific inquiry at any time are a set of theories about the nature of the world, which are presumably our best approximation to truth about the world….However much science deepens its knowledge of its intransitive object, its product remains a transitive object.” (Collier, 1994, P. 51)

d. In light of these distinctions between intransitive and transitive dimensions in science, we can see that Critical Realists take on different stances for their ontological and epistemological foundations. i. Ontologically, Critical Realists assume that the objects of their

enquiry are intransitive and real. And the products of their enquiry could therefore be truth.

ii. However, epistemologically, Critical Realists admit that their scientific findings and results at a given moment in time could most probably be taken as transitive, i.e. waiting for further verification or falsification.

iii. As a result, scientists remain constantly critical among themselves into to make their transitive knowledge closer to the intransitive reality.

E. Distinction between the Natural and the Social Sciences: Conceptual Constituents of Critical Realism in Social Sciences1. The debate between the natural and the social sciences has been raging

on since the nineteenth century around the issue of the unity of scientific method. Recently Roy Bhaskar reformulates the issue at the beginning of his book The Possibility of Naturalism as follows. “To what extent can society be studied in the way as nature?” (Bhaskar, 1998, P. 1) Two conventional answers to this issue area. Naturalism: The positive answer to the issue can be summarized

under the doctrine, which Bhaskar called naturalism. By naturalism, it refers to the doctrine which asserts that there “is (or can be) an essential unity of method between the natural and the social sciences.” (Bhaskar, 1998, P. 2) With this naturalist camp, subdivisions can further be differentiatedi. Reductionism, which claims that “there is an actual identity of

subject matter” between the two sciences.” (Bhaskar, 1998, P. 2)


ii. Scientism, which “denies that there are any significant differences in the methods appropriate to studying social and natural subject.” (Bhaskar, 1998, P. 2) That appropriate method is of course the scientific method.

iii. Positivism, which claims that the products of studies in both the natural and social sciences are the same, that is, to verify causal laws, which can account for the events under study to the full. (Bhaskar, 1998; Collier, 1994, P. 102-102)

b. Hermeneutics and interpretive theory: In opposite to the naturalists affirmative answer to the issue, social scientists in hermeneutic and interpretive tradition insist that it is impossible to study society in the way as nature! They have argued for centuries that human and social sciences are essentially distinct from natural sciences in terms of their methodology and epistemology, but most importantly in their ontological foundation.

2. Critical Realists’ stance on the issue of the possibility of naturalism of social science:a. Critical Realists have distanced themselves from the epistemological

arguments between positivism and hermeneutics and the methodological arguments between quantitative and qualitative research practitioners; they have chosen a different approach to the issue, by looking into the ontological differences between the natural world and the social reality. They have synthesized a series of concepts, which attempt to build a conceptual framework of social ontology of critical realism.

b. Human agents and their agency: Critical Realists assert that one of the major differences between nature and society is that society is made up of human agents, who would not act or behave mechanically to antecedent causes or stimulus. Human beings are “meaning making animals”, who forge ideas, hold believes, adhere identities, plan intentional actions, and carry out projects and agencies. As a result, in accounting for social events, social scientists could not simply look for antecedent causes, in the form of necessary and/or sufficient conditions. They must dig deep into social reality and look for “reasons”. In fact, Critical Realists have argued at length that reasons, which include beliefs, desires, ideas, intentions, should belong to the causal orders in accounting for social events. (Bhaskar, 1998, Pp.80-119; Collier, 1994, Pp. 151-156)

c. Activity-dependent structure and Transformational Model of Social Activity (TMSA): One of the fundamental differences between structures of society and nature is that “social structures are maintained in existence only through the activities of agents (activity-dependence), whereas this is not true of structures of nature.” (Benton & Craib, 2011, P. 135) More specifically, the continuity and consistency of a given social structure depends mainly on the willingness and capacity of its members to participate and carry out the obligations and duties prescribed to their specific positions within the structure. Therefore, the endurance of a social structure rely on


the efficacies of its institutions of production, socialization, social control and reproduction.Bhaskar has named this characteristic of social structure as Transformational Model of Social Activity (TMAS). That is, social structures are more likely to transform than structures of nature and their endurance are only relative in nature.

d. Concept-dependence and the cultural dimension of social structure: Since the reproduction of social structures are subject to human agents’ participations and actions, they are therefore more fundamentally depending on members’ impressions, perceptions, beliefs, and conception about the respective structures. As a result, social structures are not only built on their material grounds same as the structures of nature, but are also based on their cultural resources, such as linguistic, cultural and social capitals.

e. Space-time-dependent and context specific: Unlike the structure of entities found in nature, which are universal across both time and space; social structures constituted by human agents are heavily embedded in the specific contexts, in which particular groups of human agents found themselves. These contexts include historical contexts, socio-cultural contexts, geo-political contexts, natural-ecological contexts, etc.

f. Impossibility of experimental closure: Incomparable to natural scientists, social scientists are practical impossible to isolate any fragments of social reality and to design an experimental closure, in which they can test their hypothesis about specific causal relations found in society. In fact the openness of the social system is so immense that it is basically unable to control and/or randomize all the other co-determinants confounding the specific cause-effect explanatory models that social scientists are supposed to verify.

g. Unsustainability of intransitive-transitive division in knowledge of social science: Unlike knowledge of natural science, in which the distinction between the intransitivity of the natural world and the transitivity of the knowledge produced by particular groups of natural scientists is empirically definitive; the division is practically indistinct. It is because social reality is transitive in nature. They are subject to change with the beliefs and ideas of human agents. Furthermore, they may even transform themselves according to findings and theories produced by social scientists.

3. Critical Realists’ conception of social reality: Given these essential distinctions between natural and social reality, Critical Realists’ conception of social reality may be summarized as follows:a. Relational model of society: Bhaskar suggests that “society does not

consist of individuals (or we might add, groups), but expresses the sum of relations within which individuals (and groups) stand.” (Bhaskar, 1998, P. 26)

b. Studying the persistence and endurance of relations: Bhaskar further indicates that social sciences in general and sociology in particular are “concerned…with the persist relations between individuals (and


groups) and with relations between these relations (and between such relation and nature and the products of such relations).” (Bhaskar, 1998, P. 28-29; my emphasis)

c. Duality of objectivity and subjectivity in social structure: i. Durkheimian objective-factual conception of social structureii. Weberian subjective-meaningful conception of social structureiii. Critical Realist synthesis: TMSA and M/M approach

d. Duality of individualism and collectivism in social structure: i. Atomic reductionism and methodological individualismii. Structuralism and methodological collectivismiii. Critical realist synthesis: SEPM and M/M/ Approach

e. Duality of stability and change in social structurei. Conception of relativity of persistence and Morphostasisii. Conception of Morphogenesis

F. From Critical Realism to Social Realism1. From ontology back to epistemology:

Though critical realists have generated some novel and comprehensive depictions of the ontological features of both the natural and social worlds, however, they have been criticized of being over-confident about their claims of the ontological features of the world, especially those of “transphenomenality”, “depth-realism”, and “causal mechanism”. (Alvesson & Skoldberg, 2009, Pp. 44-46) To provide defensible reply to these criticism, realists must return back to epistemological inquiry and justify their ontological claims are the “Truth”.a. The social realists’ inquires: Bring the knowledge back in

Since the turn of the century, a group of British sociologists attempt to build the epistemological foundation for the ontological claims of the critical realism. They have named their perspective, social realism. These sociologists include i. Michael Young (2008); Michael Young and Johan Muller

(2016)ii. Rob Moore (2009);iii. Karl Maton (2014); Karl Maton and Rob Moore (2010)

b. Truth and truthfulness: Both Moore (2009) and Young and Muller (2016) start their construction of the social realism with the book of the British philosopher Bernard William, which is entitled Truth and Truthfulness.

i. William point out at the beginning of his book that “Two currents of ideas are very prominent in modern thought and culture. On the one hand, there is an intense commitment to truthfulness ─ or, at any rate, a pervasive suspiciousness, a readiness against being fooled, an eagerness to see through appearances to the real structures and motives that lie behind them. …There is an equally pervasive suspicion about truth itself: whether there is such a things; if there is, whether it can be more than relative or subjective or something of that kind;


altogether, whether we should bother about it, in carrying on our activities or in giving an account of them.” (William, 2002, P. 1)

ii. Having posed the tension between truth and truthfulness, William then underlines, “We can see how the demand for truthfulness and the rejection of truth can go together. However, this does not mean that they can happily co-exit or that the situation is stable. If you do not really believe in the existence of truth, what is the passion for truthfulness passion for? Or ─ as we might also put it ─ in pursuing truthfulness what are you supposedly being true to? This is not an abstract difficulty or just a paradox. It has consequences for real politics, and it signals a danger that our intellectual activities, particularly in the humanities, may tear themselves to piece.” (Williams, 2002, P. 2)

iii. Accordingly, Williams pose the question that “Can the notion of truth and truthfulness be intellectually stabilized, in such as way that what we understand about truth and our chance of arriving at it can be made fit with need for truthfulness? (ibid, P. 3)

c. Rob Moore, a sociologist in University of Cambridge, provides the answer to Williams’ question by pointing to the “networks of intellectuals”, which have developed and institutionalized through human history, especially in Europe since the Science Revolution in the 16th century. Such network or what Randall Collins called “coalitions of the mind” (1998) is “the form of sociality through which knowledge is produced is a complex object of this type defined by its distinctive structures and principles by virtue of which it has the capacity to produce knowledge.” (Moore, 2009, P. 122-123) It is through these coalitions of the minds and efforts of generations of intellectuals that “truth” is sought after and possibly attained. And their truth-seeking efforts are most essentially guided and scrutinized by the structures, processes, and principles of “truthfulness”, which have been consensually workout by generations of intellectuals within particular academic or professional fields or discipline.

2. Sources and Resources of Social Realism:a. Rob Moore in his book Towards the Sociology of Truth (2009)

reviews numbers of prominent sociologists in order to trace the “sources and resources” of the perspective, which he and Young and Muller have characterized as “social realism”. They includei. Emile Durkheimii. Randall Collinsiii. Perrie Bourdieu

b. Emile Durkheim: Apart from the perspective of critical realism in philosophy of natural and social sciences, the source and resource of socilla realism can be traced to the work of the one of the founding father of sociology, namely Emile Durkheim.


i. Emile Durkheim, in his work on social anthropology such as The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912/1995) and Primitive Classifications (with Marcel Mauss) (1903/1963), outline his conceptions of “social realism” (see also Lukes, 1973, 57-85), to which both Moore (2009) and Young (2008) refer as the first sociological source of their contemporary version of social realism.

ii. It is well known that Durkheim defined sociology as the science of institutions and a science of social facts. He conceived both as "things" and he further suggested that "a thing is any object of knowledge that is not naturally controlled by the intellect, which cannot be adequately grasped by a simple process of mental activities. It can only be understood by the mind on condition that the mind goes outside itself by means of observation and experiments, which move progressively from the more external and immediately accessible characteristics to the less visible and more deep-lying." (Durkheim, 1956, Pp. 58-59; quoted in Moore, 2009, P. 127)

iii. One of the most famous examples of Durkheim's "deep" description of social fact in his study of The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. To Durkheim, the basis of religious life, i.e. its belief in supernatural beings, gods, miracles and all that are not material facts of nature but only social facts constructed by human minds. However, as this human ideas and believes spread among human minds and sediment through time, they will gain their status of social facts within the respective culture. As a result, religion will assert itself in a way to affect the concrete actions of its believers and produce “objective” social effects. In other words, it establishes itself as a social institution within the respective social collectives. Religion as an institution will therefore manifests itself with the attributes of objectivity, regularity, continuiety and predictability.

iv. Accordingly, Durkhiem has made an important distinction between material facts and social facts. And accordingly sociology and social sciences in general are studies of social facts, while natural sciences are studies of material facts.

c. Randall Collins, professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, published the book The Sociology of Philosophies : a Global Theory of Intellectual Change in 1998, in which his trace the development of “networks of intellectuals” or “coalitions of the mind” in different civilizations throughout human history. Collins’ networks of intellectuals are not only “historical coalitions of the mind” but are also “coalitions in the mind” i. By coalitions of the mind, it refers to the socially shared

structures, procedures, organizations and principles of intellectual works from which knowledge of a particular aspect of the world are generated, produced, examined, criticized, refuted, and rebutted.


ii. By coalition in the mind, it refers to the habits of mind (or in Bourdieu’s term “habitus”) of individual intellectuals, in which each intellectual is conscious of the “existing and prospective coalitions in the intellectual network.” (Collin, 2000, Pp. 51-2; quoted in Moore, 2009, P. 131) This consciousness will not only extend through time, especially related to the prominent predecessors of the field; but will also relate to intellectuals beyond their immediate locality and address to a wider “cosmopolitan” audiences.

d. Pierre Bourdieu in his book Science of Science and Reflexivity (2004) also applies his famous conceptions of the “field” and “habitus” into the intellectual world in similar fashion as Collins. As a result, they also constitute part of the sources and resources of the social realism. (Moore, 2009, Pp. 123-136) For examples,i. Bourdieu has coined term scientific habitus as a practical

mastery of several centuries of research and gains from research ─ in the form, for example, of a sense of important, interesting problems, or an arsenal of theoretical and experimental schemes that can be applied, by transfer to a new domains.” (Bourdieu, 2004, P. 51; quoted in Moore, 2009, P. 149)

ii. It also “means not only mastery of existing knowledge, of the resources accumulated in the field, but also the fact of having incorporated all the theoretical-experimental resources resulting from previous research, transforming them into practical sense of the game, converting into reflexes.” (ibid)

3. In summary, social realist’s approach knowledge is based on in three propositions (Moore, 2009, P. 136)a. “Knowledge is socially produced.”b. “Knowledge is objectively real in the sense that it is ‘about’

something other than itself and that this other (the real, both natural and social) provides the possibility of an independent test of knowledge claims.”

c. “This ‘testing’ takes place within the work of intellectual communities in the form of endless debate and contestation, innovation and creativity that is structured in a particular mode of sociality that extensive in time and space.”

This approach essentially consists two basic features:a. Intrinsic dualism between truth and truthfulness: In order to maintain the

integrity of the scientific enquiries of field and the creditability of the knowledge it produced, an intrinsic dualism has been developed and institutionalized in the century-long history of scientific progress. On the one hand, on the concern of truth and in competitions for discovery of truth, scientists “might be driven by self-interest,…biased and lacking reflexivity.” (Moore, 2009, P. 158) On the other hand, the concern of truthfulness has driven the intellectual community as a whole to institutionalize norms and regulations of the field to monitor individual scientific work and to pass on the verdict. As Bourdieu underlines, at individual level, scientists are divided to work autonomously and self-


interestedly in their pursuit for truth. However, at societal level, they are united under a disinterested community of their fellow scientists and are obliged by the concern of truthfulness. It is under this intrinsic dualism the a kind of what Bourdieu called “critical reflexive realism” is maintained. (Bourdieu, 2000, P. 111; quoted in Moore, 2009, P. 140)

b. Procedural objectivity: Another essential feature of the social realist’s approach to knowledge is that it focus “upon the activity of knowledge production” rather than upon the contents so produced. Accordingly, the social realists redefine objectivity in of scientific enquiries not to be focused on the outcome, i.e. the scientific finding can be replicated and scrutinized by disinterested third party. Instead, objectivity is construed “as a property of the process of inquiry itself” (Moore, 2009, P. 141). In other word, it is the procedural objectivity that counts.

c. They further argue that social reality is essentially different from natural reality. They have highlighted that following distinct features of social reality:i. Human agents and their agency: Critical Realists assert that one of the

major differences between nature and society is that society is made up of human agents, who would not act or behave mechanically to antecedent causes or stimulus. Human beings are “meaning making animals”, who forge ideas, hold believes, adhere identities, plan intentional actions, and carry out projects and agencies. As a result, in accounting for social events, social scientists could not simply look for antecedent causes, in the form of necessary and/or sufficient conditions. They must dig deep into social reality and look for “reasons”. In fact, Critical Realists have argued at length that reasons, which include beliefs, desires, ideas, intentions, should belong to the causal orders in accounting for social events. (Bhaskar, 1998, Pp.80-119; Collier, 1994, Pp. 151-156)

ii. Activity-dependent structure and Transformational Model of Social Activity (TMSA): One of the fundamental differences between structures of society and nature is that “social structures are maintained in existence only through the activities of agents (activity-dependence), whereas this is not true of structures of nature.” (Benton & Craib, 2011, P. 135) More specifically, the continuity and consistency of a given social structure depends mainly on the willingness and capacity of its members to participate and carry out the obligations and duties prescribed to their specific positions within the structure. Therefore, the endurance of a social structure rely on the efficacies of its institutions of production, socialization, social control and reproduction.

iii. Concept-dependence and the cultural dimension of social structure: Since the reproduction of social structures are subject to human agents’ participations and actions, they are therefore more fundamentally depending on members’ impressions, perceptions, beliefs, and conception about the respective structures. As a result, social structures are not only built on their material grounds same as the structures of nature, but are also based on their cultural resources, such as linguistic, cultural and social capitals.


iv. Space-time-dependent and context specific: Unlike the structure of entities found in nature, which are universal across both time and space; social structures constituted by human agents are heavily embedded in the specific contexts, in which particular groups of human agents found themselves. These contexts include historical contexts, socio-cultural contexts, geo-political contexts, natural-ecological contexts, etc.

v. Impossibility of experimental closure: Incomparable to natural scientists, social scientists are practical impossible to isolate any fragments of social reality and to design an experimental closure, in which they can test their hypothesis about specific causal relations found in society. In fact the openness of the social system is so immense that it is basically unable to control and/or randomize all the other co-determinants confounding the specific cause-effect explanatory models that social scientists are supposed to verify.

vii. Unsustainability of intransitive-transitive division in knowledge of social science: Unlike knowledge of natural science, in which the distinction between the intransitivity of the natural world and the transitivity of the knowledge produced by particular groups of natural scientists is empirically definitive; the division is practically indistinct. It is because social reality is transitive in nature. They are subject to change with the beliefs and ideas of human agents. Furthermore, they may even transform themselves according to findings and theories produced by social scientists.

viii. Morphogenetic/Morphostatic approach to structure-agent connection: Margaret Archer, one of the prominent sociologists in the school of critical realism put forth a framework to analyze the structure and agent connection in historical and sociological perspective. (However, the framework is too complex to be explicated in details here, please refer to Archer, 1995)

3. From Critical Realism to Social RealismThough critical realists have generated some novel and comprehensive depictions of the ontological features of both the natural and social worlds, however, they have been criticized of being over-confident about their claims of the ontological features of the world, especially those of “transphenomenality”, “depth-realism”, and “causal mechanism”. (Alvesson & Skoldberg, 2009, Pp. 44-46) To provide defensible reply to these criticism, realists must return back to epistemological inquiry and justify their ontological claims are the “Truth”.a. The social realists’ inquires: Bring the knowledge back in

Since the turn of the century, a group of British sociologists attempt to build the epistemological foundation for the ontological claims of the critical realism. They have named their perspective, social realism. These sociologists include i. Michael Young (2008); Michael Young and Johan Muller (2016)ii. Rob Moore (2009);iii. Karl Maton (2014); Karl Maton and Rob Moore (2010)


b. Truth and truthfulness: Both Moore (2009) and Young and Muller (2016) start their construction of the social realism with the book of the British philosopher Bernard William, which is entitled Truth and Truthfulness. i. William point out at the beginning of his book that “Two currents of

ideas are very prominent in modern thought and culture. On the one hand, there is an intense commitment to truthfulness ─ or, at any rate, a pervasive suspiciousness, a readiness against being fooled, an eagerness to see through appearances to the real structures and motives that lie behind them. …There is an equally pervasive suspicion about truth itself: whether there is such a things; if there is, whether it can be more than relative or subjective or something of that kind; altogether, whether we should bother about it, in carrying on our activities or in giving an account of them.” (William, 2002, P. 1)

ii. Having posed the tension between truth and truthfulness, William then underlines, “We can see how the demand for truthfulness and the rejection of truth can go together. However, this does not mean that they can happily co-exit or that the situation is stable. If you do not really believe in the existence of truth, what is the passion for truthfulness passion for? Or ─ as we might also put it ─ in pursuing truthfulness what are you supposedly being true to? This is not an abstract difficulty or just a paradox. It has consequences for real politics, and it signals a danger that our intellectual activities, particularly in the humanities, may tear themselves to piece.” (Williams, 2002, P. 2)

iii. Accordingly, Williams pose the question that “Can the notion of truth and truthfulness be intellectually stabilized, in such as way that what we understand about truth and our chance of arriving at it can be made fit with need for truthfulness? (ibid, P. 3)

c. Rob Moore, a sociologist in University of Cambridge, provides the answer to Williams’ question by pointing to the “networks of intellectuals”, which have developed and institutionalized through human history, especially in Europe since the Science Revolution in the 16th century. Such network or what Randall Collins called “coalitions of the mind” (1998) is “the form of sociality through which knowledge is produced is a complex object of this type defined by its distinctive structures and principles by virtue of which it has the capacity to produce knowledge.” (Moore, 2009, P. 122-123) It is through these coalitions of the minds and efforts of generations of intellectuals that “truth” is sought after and possibly attained. And their truth-seeking efforts are most essentially guided and scrutinized by the structures, processes, and principles of “truthfulness”, which have been consensually workout by generations of intellectuals within particular academic or professional fields or discipline.

d. Rob Moore in his book Towards the Sociology of Truth (2009) reviews numbers of prominent sociologists in order to trace the “sources and resources” of the perspective, which he and Young and Muller have characterized as “social realism”. They includei. Emile Durkheimii. Randall Collinsiii. Perrie Bourdieu


e. Emile Durkheim: Apart from the perspective of critical realism in philosophy of natural and social sciences, the source and resource of socilla realism can be traced to the work of the one of the founding father of sociology, namely Emile Durkheim.i. Emile Durkheim, in his work on social anthropology such as

The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (1912/1995) and Primitive Classifications (with Marcel Mauss) (1903/1963), outline his conceptions of “social realism” (see also Lukes, 1973, 57-85), to which both Moore (2009) and Young (2008) refer as the first sociological source of their contemporary version of social realism.

ii. It is well known that Durkheim defined sociology as the science of institutions and a science of social facts. He conceived both as "things" and he further suggested that "a thing is any object of knowledge that is not naturally controlled by the intellect, which cannot be adequately grasped by a simple process of mental activities. It can only be understood by the mind on condition that the mind goes outside itself by means of observation and experiments, which move progressively from the more external and immediately accessible characteristics to the less visible and more deep-lying." (Durkheim, 1956, Pp. 58-59; quoted in Moore, 2009, P. 127)

iii. One of the most famous examples of Durkheim's "deep" description of social fact in his study of The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. To Durkheim, the basis of religious life, i.e. its belief in supernatural beings, gods, miracles and all that are not material facts of nature but only social facts constructed by human minds. However, as this human ideas and believes spread among human minds and sediment through time, they will gain their status of social facts within the respective culture. As a result, religion will assert itself in a way to affect the concrete actions of its believers and produce “objective” social effects. In other words, it establishes itself as a social institution within the respective social collectives. Religion as an institution will therefore manifests itself with the attributes of objectivity, regularity, continuiety and predictability.

iv. Accordingly, Durkhiem has made an important distinction between material facts and social facts. And accordingly sociology and social sciences in general are studies of social facts, while natural sciences are studies of material facts.

f. Randall Collins, professor of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, published the book The Sociology of Philosophies : a Global Theory of Intellectual Change in 1998, in which his trace the development of “networks of intellectuals” or “coalitions of the mind” in different civilizations throughout human history. Collins’ networks of intellectuals are not only “historical coalitions of the mind” but are also “coalitions in the mind” i. By coalitions of the mind, it refers to the socially shared

structures, procedures, organizations and principles of


intellectual works from which knowledge of a particular aspect of the world are generated, produced, examined, criticized, refuted, and rebutted.

ii. By coalition in the mind, it refers to the habits of mind (or in Bourdieu’s term “habitus”) of individual intellectuals, in which each intellectual is conscious of the “existing and prospective coalitions in the intellectual network.” (Collin, 2000, Pp. 51-2; quoted in Moore, 2009, P. 131) This consciousness will not only extend through time, especially related to the prominent predecessors of the field; but will also relate to intellectuals beyond their immediate locality and address to a wider “cosmopolitan” audiences.

g. Pierre Bourdieu in his book Science of Science and Reflexivity (2004) also applies his famous conceptions of the “field” and “habitus” into the intellectual world in similar fashion as Collins. As a result, they also constitute part of the sources and resources of the social realism. (Moore, 2009, Pp. 123-136) For examples,i. Bourdieu has coined term scientific habitus as a practical

mastery of several centuries of research and gains from research ─ in the form, for example, of a sense of important, interesting problems, or an arsenal of theoretical and experimental schemes that can be applied, by transfer to a new domains.” (Bourdieu, 2004, P. 51; quoted in Moore, 2009, P. 149)

ii. It also “means not only mastery of existing knowledge, of the resources accumulated in the field, but also the fact of having incorporated all the theoretical-experimental resources resulting from previous research, transforming them into practical sense of the game, converting into reflexes.” (ibid)

h. In summary, social realist’s approach knowledge is based on in three propositions (Moore, 2009, P. 136)i. “Knowledge is socially produced.”ii. “Knowledge is objectively real in the sense that it is ‘about’

something other than itself and that this other (the real, both natural and social) provides the possibility of an independent test of knowledge claims.”

iii. “This ‘testing’ takes place within the work of intellectual communities in the form of endless debate and contestation, innovation and creativity that is structured in a particular mode of sociality that extensive in time and space.”

This approach essentially consists two basic features:i. Intrinsic dualism between truth and truthfulness: In order to

maintain the integrity of the scientific enquiries of field and the creditability of the knowledge it produced, an intrinsic dualism has been developed and institutionalized in the century-long history of scientific progress. On the one hand, on the concern of truth and in competitions for discovery of truth, scientists “might be driven by self-interest,…biased and lacking reflexivity.” (Moore, 2009, P. 158) On the other hand, the


concern of truthfulness has driven the intellectual community as a whole to institutionalize norms and regulations of the field to monitor individual scientific work and to pass on the verdict. As Bourdieu underlines, at individual level, scientists are divided to work autonomously and self-interestedly in their pursuit for truth. However, at societal level, they are united under a disinterested community of their fellow scientists and are obliged by the concern of truthfulness. It is under this intrinsic dualism the a kind of what Bourdieu called “critical reflexive realism” is maintained. (Bourdieu, 2000, P. 111; quoted in Moore, 2009, P. 140)

ii. Procedural objectivity: Another essential feature of the social realist’s approach to knowledge is that it focus “upon the activity of knowledge production” rather than upon the contents so produced. Accordingly, the social realists redefine objectivity in of scientific enquiries not to be focused on the outcome, i.e. the scientific finding can be replicated and scrutinized by disinterested third party. Instead, objectivity is construed “as a property of the process of inquiry itself” (Moore, 2009, P. 141). In other word, it is the procedural objectivity that counts.

ii.The Sociology of Curriculum:

Social Realism and the Powerful Knowledge

A. Curriculum Reform in Social Realist PerspectiveWith reference to conceptions of knowledge and truth developed by social realists, social realists, Michael Young with his collaborators have published a series of books to apply the social realist approach to knowledge to curriculum. They include: The Curriculum of the Future: From the ‘New Sociology of Education’ to the Critical Theory of Learning (1998), Bring the Knowledge Back In: From Social Constructivism to Social Realism in the Sociology of Education (2008), Knowledge and the Future School: Curriculum and Social Justice (2014) (with David Lambert and others), and Curriculum and the Specialization of Knowledge (2016) In these work they have pointed out number directions for curriculum reform for te 21st century.1. The conception of the powerful knowledge:

a. The conception of “the powerful knowledge” is advocated by Michael Young in contrast with the concept of “the knowledge of the powerful”. The latter is basically a representation of the social constructivists’ version of knowledge, in which knowledge is construed as knowledge can be constructed arbitrary according to knowers’ cultures and interests, specially, the interest of the ruling class.

b. The theoretical foundation of powerful knowledge: The conception of the powerful knowledge can trace its source back to the epistemological and ontological perspectives of critical realism and social realism. It stipulates numbers of essential features of knowledge (Young, 2016, Pp. 122-125)


i. Knowledge is real: It indicated that knowledge is independent of the mind of the knowers. It can independently be traced back to its ontological bases in the material and social world. Accordingly, “powerful knowledge presupposes that the natural world (as well as the social world) is real and that current knowledge is the nearest we get to what that reality is.” (Yong and Muller, 2016, P. 116)

ii. Knowledge is “fallible”: In contrast to empirical realist’s assumption of reality, critical realists stipulate that reality may not be available to sensory observations. It emerges from material as well as historical and socio-cultural contexts. This is especially true for social reality, which is activity-dependent. Hence, knowledge is fallible in relation to the transformations of the world. Furthermore, the fallibility may simply invoked by the emerging potentiality of the reality, i.e. the TMSA (Transformational Model of Social Activity).

iii. Knowledge is systematical revisable: Confronted by the fallibility of knowledge and the emergent features of the reality, the intellectual community in each discipline and field must develop and institutionalize a set of value and norms, as well as structures and procedures to guarantee the truthfulness and integrity of the communal practices among intellectuals in order to be able revise their state-of-the-art version of knowledge to meet with the ever emerging transformations of the world.

iv. The institution of knowledge: Given the formulation of the social realism, knowledge, i.e. “justified true belief”, is accumulated efforts of generations of network of intellectual, which strive to seek truth under the attitude and vocation of truthfulness. Furthermore, these accumulated efforts have in time institutionalized into shared values and principles, structures and procedures, and organizations and communities, i.e. institutionalized into a “discipline”.

c. What is powerful knowledge? Based on the above assumptions, Michael Young has characterized powerful knowledge as: i. Powerful knowledge as differentiated knowledge: According to Emile

Durkheim, each society, i.e. social being, will classified their world according to the current “epistemic descents”. For example, according to Durkheim’s study of Primitive Classification, according to the epistemic descent of primitive society, the world is generally differentiated into profane and sacred world. Accordingly, knowledge is differentiated into profane and sacred knowledge. In modern society, knowledge is then differentiated into varieties of versions, such as theoretical and practical, academic and vocational, and most notably natural and social science, or physics, chemistry, economics, sociology, etc.

ii. Powerful knowledge as specialized knowledge: In modern scientific enterprise, each differentiated knowledge has evolved in time into specialization with its definitive object of study, specific questions of enquiry, particular epistemological and methodological tradition. In short, it has constituted as a specialization or discipline.

iii. Powerful knowledge is institutional knowledge: Finally, this differentiated and specialized knowledge will be supported by a set of


institutions, such as department in university, research institutes in public and/or private enterprises, scholarly journals, academic associations, etc. These institutions can practically be construed as “coalition of mind” for particular knowledge. In return, these institutions will lend their institutional power to the knowledge itself and make it powerful.

2. Curriculum of the futureOne of the significant theses advanced by Young and others is the “Curriculum of the Future” and/or “curriculum for the future”, in which he categorizes the curriculum reforms in the UK in the recent decades into three models:a. Future 1 curriculum: Future 1 curriculum refers to the “typical curriculum of

grammar and public schools (in the UK)”. It also “formed the basis of the first National Curriculum launched in 1988”. (Young, 2014, P. 58) In this curriculum model “knowledge is treated as largely given, and established by tradition and by the route it offers high achievers to our leading university. It tends, although there are difference in practice, to be associated with one-way transmission pedagogy and a view of learning that expects compliance from pupils. For a Future 1 curriculum, the future, despite incremental changes in knowledge, is seen as an extended version of the past.”(ibid, P. 59). This curriculum model basically reflects the essentialist perspective in the theory of knowledge, which accepts the ideas of knowledge passed on from the liberal education tradition are fundamental and should not be challenged. (Hirst and Peters, 1970; quoted in Young and Muller, 2016, P. 14)

b. Future 2 curriculum: It refers to the curriculum model generally introduced in comprehensive schools in the UK during 1960s. It also signified the curriculum model adopted by the Blair and Brown New Labour Government at the trun of the century. It was then construed as the progressive curriculum model in reaction to the elitist model tradition of grammar and public schools. And more recently, it has been taken as the curriculum-reform model for preparing flexible workers in the informational-globalized world. (Young, 2014; 2016) This curriculum model advocates “the policy of inclusion and widening participation and were designed to respond to (or to cape with) the expanding groups of students staying on at school but reluctant to engage with academic subjects.” (ibid) In this model, curriculum boundaries between subjects were weakened, as new forms of interdisciplinary studies were introduced and insulation of school from everyday knowledge become weakened as the curriculum became open to leisure, sport and other community interest… The curriculum was progressively vocationalized for those slow learners who stay on at school; inevitably, albeit not intentionally, these were pupils from poor and disadvantaged backgrounds.”(ibid).This curriculum model represents that “knowledge was no longer treated as given and not open to challenge but seen as ‘constructed’ in response to particular needs and interests.” (ibid, Pp. 59-60) The model basically reflects the perspective social constructivism in the theory of knowledge. It “provide teachers and students of education with superficially attractive but ultimately contradictory set of intellectual tools. On the one hand, it offered


the possibility of intellectual emancipation and freedom through education ─ we, as teachers, students or workers have the espistemological right to develop theories and to criticize and challenge scientists, philosophers, and other so-called experts and specialists. Furthermore, in some unspecified way, this so-called freedom was seen as contributing to changing the world. This emancipation from all authoritative form of knowledge was links by many to the possibility to achieving a more equal or just world. …On the other hand, by undermining any claims to objective knowledge or truth about anything, social constructivism…denies the possibility of any understanding, let alone of any better world.”(Young and Muller, 2016, P. 18).

c. Future 3 curriculum: It refers to the curriculum model generated from the formulation and development of the perspectives in theory of knowledge (epistemology) known as critical and social realism. It rejects the conceptions that knowledge is given and fixed and hierarchically differentiated into high and low (Future 1). It also rejects the conception that knowledge can be constructed arbitrarily according to knowers’ experiences and interests. In the contrary knowledge is differentiated into different areas of specialties, each of which are developed and monitored by a community of specialists who work complementarily and at the same time competitively so as to maintain the integrity and truthfulness of the field. A Future 3 curriculum, as specialized-knowledge curriculum, is therefore to a designed learning path to help learners to acquire the best knowledge currently available in a special area of the world. In other words, to inculcate the “coalition of the mind” of a particular discipline into learners and make it the “habitus” and “coalition in the mind” of their own. Accordingly, school curriculum as a whole is to assist students to acquire different types of specialized knowledge available. Young argues that Future 3 curriculum will prepare students to master a set of best specialized knowledge currently available for the future. Young stipulates it as the powerful knowledge. Future 3 curriculum can further be characterized with the conceptions of curriculum theory advocated by Basil Bernstein. (2000)i. Strong classification: It refers to the extern relation of a particular

curriculum with other curricula. By strong classification, it indicates that the “boundary” of a curriculum is definitive and fixed. And boundary crossing is difficult and rare.

ii. Strong frame: It refers to the internal relation between learners and teachers. Furthermore, the conceptual components and pedagogical paces within a curriculum are also well defined and definite.

iii. Strong identity: It refers to the roles definition of both learners and teachers are also well defined. As a result, it is easy to nurture the identity of learners to become specialists.

3. The critiques on competence-based and outcome-based curriculumFrom the perspective of Future 3 curriculum or more generally disciplinary-knowledge-based curriculum, Young wages a criticism on a series of curriculum reforms, which aim at acquiring a specific list of generic skills


and/or competences, at attaining a set of learning outcome, and more specifically at obtaining specific level of qualifications. a. Michael Young has specifically highlighted the National Qualification

Frameworks proposed by the British government and the Key Competences passed by the European Parliament in 2006. For example, 8 competences are specified in the legislation of the European Parliament. They are: i. communicating in a mother tongueii. communicating in foreign languagesiii. mathematical competence and basic comeptences in science and

technologyiv. digital competencev. learning to learnvi. social and civic competencesvii. sense of initiative and entrepreneurship viii. cultural awareness and expression

b. Young underlines that there are numbers of “flaws” underlying this competence-based curriculum approach. i. First and foremost, it has resulted in “evacuation of knowledge” form

the curriculum. More specifically it has annulled the learning contents from the learning process. (Young, 2012, P. 142)

ii. Young further queries that “there is no evidence that such generic capacities can be acquired, taught or assessed separately from specific domains with their specific contents and contexts. It is far from clear what educational purposes are achieved, beyond providing a general accounting mechanism.” (Young and Muller, 2016, P. 53)

iii. Young also underline that the competence-based approach to curriculum has practically “de-differentiated” the classifications, frames and identities evolved and institutionalized within each specialties and disciples through generations of practices. As a result, the institutional sites of education and research of particular disciplines are also “de-differentiated”.

iv. Young finally stipulates that these competence and qualification-based curriculum could at best construed as serving an instrumental purpose for the informational-globalized economy. It provides standardized market signals to employers about the degrees of employability of school leavers and job seekers. As a result, it has “colonized” the intrinsic codes and grammars of various disciplinary traditions, which have developed and institutionalize through generations of practices.

4. “Know-that” and “know-how” knowledge in the powerful curriculumAgainst the skill- and competence-based curriculum, Young makes reference to Gilbert Ryle’s famous distinction between know-how and know-that knowledge. And argue that apart from the mastery of the know-how knowledge in a particular discipline, students are also to learn the know-that knowledge of the respective discipline. a. On the know-that knowledge, it refers to

i. knowledge of the constituent concepts of the discipline, andii. knowledge of the relations between concepts and the propositions

generated from these relations. (Young & Muller, 2014, Pp. 167-171)


b.. On the part of know-how knowledge, Young make further reference to Christopher Winch’s distinction that i. knowledge of the inferential relations between the propositions, and ii. knowledge of the procedure in assessing, testing and acquiring new

knowledge. 5. Distinction between divisive and connective specialization in curriculum

structure: Within the conception of specialized curriculum, Michael Young underlines that there are two distinct types of relations between subjects, which he classifies as divisive specialization and connective specialization. a. Curriculum of divisive specialization:

It refers to curriculum in post- compulsory education which corresponds with the mode of production of Fordism, which bears the following features: i. Rigid insulation between manual and non-manual laborii. Rigid sectional form of divisive specialization among

occupational and professional groups iii. Complex division of labor into mechanical, repetitive and

observable motions iv. Separation between conception and execution of workv. Strict Hierarchical structure of delegation of authority and line of

commands In connection to the mode of production of Fordism, the curriculum of in post-compulsory and A-level education is organized in the form of what Young called "divisive specialization"i. Sharpe separation between academic study and vocational

trainingii. Sharpe division among curricular streams, such as science,

humanities and social studyiii. Selective and exclusive rather than participating and inclusive

education systemiv. Inflexible in movement and transferring between divisions and

streamsv. Exaggerate differences between high low prestigious institutions

and programsb. Curriculum in connective specialization

It refers to curriculum, which Young advocates would be advantageous to the labor formation of the economy of the 21st century, which bears the following structural attributes i. Flexible specialization of production and greatly decrease the

division between manual and non-manual labor both in scale and scope

ii. Sectional specialization was replaced by corporate specialization, which encouraging vertical integration among different occupational and professional groups within corporations.

iii. New information-based technology replacing mechanical and repetitive motions of human labor

iv. Human-centred organization and flatter management structure


v. Interactively integration between conception and execution of work in models such as quality circles, quality terms, learning community

In relation to the mode of production of post-Fordism, Young suggests that school curriculum for the 21st century should be in the form of “connective specialization” i. Connective specialization “as a curriculum concept it points to

the interdependence of the concept, processes, and organization of curriculum. As definition of educational purposes it seeks to transcend the traditional dichotomy of ‘the educated person’ (academic and non-manual) and ‘the competent employee’ (vocational and manual) which define the purposes of the two tracks of a divided curriculum.” (Young, 1998, p. 78)

ii. It therefore "provides the basis a very different curriculum for the future" which he terms "connective specialization". "Such a curriculum …would need to build on and give specificity to the principles of: - breadth and flexibility- connections between both core and specialist studies and

general (academic) and applied (vocational) studies- opportunities for progression and credit transfer- a clear sense of the purpose of the curriculum as a whole."

(Young, 1998, p. 79)

B. Restructuring Schooling for the Future:1. What are schools for?

With refers to the conceptions of the powerful knowledge and Future 3 curriculum, Young underlines that the main purpose of schooling are as follow“It is to enable all students to acquire knowledge that take them beyond their experience. It is knowledge which many will not have access to at home, among their friends, or in communities in which they live. As such, access to this knowledge is the ‘right’ of all pupils as future citizens.” (Young. 2014, P. 10)Accordingly, Young proclaims that the primary objective of curriculum reform for the 21st century is to “Bring Knowledge Back In”. The knowledge at point is of course the powerful knowledge, i.e. “the knowledge can do”, “really useful knowledge” and “specialized knowledge”. (Young and Muller, 2016, P. 110)

2. According, he advocates that 10 key points for restructuring “knowledge-driven school” (Young and Muller, 2016, P. 150)a. Knowledge is worthwhile in itself. Tell children this: never apologize that

they need to learn things.b. Schools transmit shared and powerful knowledge on behalf of society. We

teach what they need to make sense of and improve the world.c. Shared and powerful knowledge is verifiedthrough learned communities.

We need to keep in touch with universities, research and subject associations.

d. Children need powerful knowledge to understand and interpret the world. Without it they remain dependent upon those who have it.


e. Powerful knowledge is cognitively superior to that needed for daily life. It transcend and liberates children from their daily experience.

f. Shared and powerful knowledge enable children to grow into useful citizens. As adults they can understand, cooperate and shape the world together.

g. Shared and powerful is a foundation for a just and sustainable democracy. Citizens educated together share an understanding of the common good.

h. it is fair and just that all children should have access to this knowledge. Powerful knowledge open doors: it must be available to all children.

i. Accepted adult authority is required for shared knowledge transmission. The teacher’s authority to transmit knowledge is given and valued by society.

j. Pedagogy links adult authority, powerful knowledge and its transmission. We need quality professionals to achieve all this for all our children.


wktsang/edm6210/handout/2017... · web viewin other word, it is the procedural objectivity that...

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