Markets, Local Knowledge And Centralized Justice

Markets, Local knowledge and Centralized Justice: Frame Negotiation in Educational Policy Discourse Dominik Luke š University of East Anglia http ://dominiklukes.net LCM 2008

Points of departure
We can learn more about language and communication from studying policy discourses than policy makers can learn from our analyses
My primary point of interest is a theory of the language system that is consistent across the various types of usage – a radical version of radical construction grammar

Assumptions about language
Language is a structured (but not layered) inventory of linguistic units (constructions)
Linguistic units are pairings of meaning and form
The form of a linguistic unit can be a single feature or an extended series of texts
The meaning of a linguistic unit is structured in frames (cognitive models)
Both form and meaning can be very schematic or very rich
The online processing of language (production and perception) is governed by the principles of conceptual integration
Any unit in the inventory can be brought up to conscious scrutiny and its integrative parameters can be negotiated
No two speakers have access to inventories with absolutely identical content and the structuring of the content
Our ability to analyze discourse is grounded in our ability to hypostasize our usage which is a part of the general linguistic competence

Frames as constructions in discourse
Frames need to be viewed as semantic poles of constructions and therefore we always need to ask what is their formal pole
Conversely, building blocks of discourse need to be treated as formal poles of constructions and their semantic poles need to be sought
Ignoring the constructional nature of framing in discourse can lead to unwarranted claims about the conceptual content of texts

Negotiation of the inventory Tom Clancy, Cardinal of the Kremlin

Strategies and constructions of frame negotiation
Explicit negotiation of cross-domain mappings
Story telling
Example setting
Exegetic metaphors and analogies
Performatives
Hypostasis and folk etymologies
Error correction, usage discussion

Frames as constructions (Marketplace Example): Metaphor negotiation construction(s)
Metaphor negotiation
Meaning
folk theory of analogy
folk theory of categorization
folk theory of truth
folk theory of logical inference
Form
exegesis
postulations of domain and investigation of mapping
attribution of truth or adequacy
limits of aptness
Education as a marketplace
Meaning
“ education is like a market-place”
this is either true or not true
things follow from the above
elements of the domain of education have correspondences in the domain of business
any one disanalogy invalidates any correspondence
Form
X claims Y is like Z
y in Y is (not) z in Z ergo X is right/wrong
partial correspondence is enough to go on

Example 1 (Elaboration)
Most examples are too long to present (e.g. Henig 1994 or Handy and Aitken 1986 – entire volumes)
" A college is a complex mechanism that is responsible for transforming a variety of inputs of examples, students' time, teachers' time, consumable materials, equipment, buildings, into knowledge products usually in the forms of qualified people and intellectual property. The latter is the research component of knowledge. These products, in their turn, generate goods and services for society. The transformation is highly value added, although the means of which the mechanism carries out the transformation process is often obscure. The way in which people learn and develop ideas is closely individualistic and not easily understood. It is based largely on human interactions and relationships. The means used for measuring and manipulating aspects of the transformation have proved historically taxing and interference in the teaching traditions has caused resentment . In particular, the measurement of quality is an emotive issue ."
(Ashworth, Allan, and Roger C. Harvey. 1993. Assessing Quality in Further and Higher Education. London; Bristol, Penn.: Jessica Kingsley Publishers. p. 4)

Example 2 – ( Exegesis)
"Veblen (1918) was right when he said that the chief function of grading systems was not educational, but rather to help the Tycoons of Erudition who ran the universities provide the kind of quantified production controls the Captains of Solvency who sat on their governing boards were accustomed to." (Becker, Geer, and Hughes. 1968. Making the Grade: The Academic Side of College Life. New York,: Wiley. )
“ Many people believe they know what makes effective schools because they have attended school. This is akin to saying I am a physician because I’ve been in a hospital.” (Boston Globe editorial)

Example 3 (Negotiation) (Handy and Aitken. 1986. Understanding schools as organizations )
" The children are a dilemma , because it is not clear how they relate to the organization. It is a dilemma that teachers baulk at, perhaps, because they have lived with it so long that it is no longer a problem." " Are children workers, clients or products?" (p. 43)
There is a transition in the British educational system at age 11-12. In the primary school the student is a worker, in the sense that all workers cooperate on the joint effort of working within an organization. In secondary school they become " seen as product in the making, moving from specialist process to specialist process in batches of differing quality, graded and inspected individually .“
After describing the products in industry, commerce and services:
"The product of education has few of those characteristics." (tangible, quantifiable, clear effect)

"Schools are different because of the children. It makes a vast difference whether teachers see themselves as independent professionals with clients, as managers of groups of co-operating workers or as shapers of products in the making. To claim to be one and then inadvertently to act the other turns schools into pretences where reality undermines idealism. Teachers often have a deep moral and personal commitment to their pupils; it would shock many of them to hear these spoken of as 'products' and to be told that, organizationally, the process of their school was akin to an old-fashioned factory. Actions, however, override rhetoric; the way we organize our schools, particularly our secondary schools, dictates the way the child sees the teacher. It is important to understand organizations as it is to understand children or to know your subject."
" Schools are obviously different -- and more complex . A school is not a business , but it is important for a school to work out what kind of business it is in order to make the complexity manageable. "
" A school has to decide what kind of organization it is (a factory, a work community, a market-place?) , who its customers are, what they want and how that is to be delivered and measured." (p. 45)

Central vs. local control folk theories
‘ Central is better’
Parents need to be trained in how to deal with their children
Teachers need to be taught how to recognize and respond to their students’ needs
Only centrality can insure equality
Only centrality can protect against the backwardness of unenlightened locals
‘ Local is better’
Parents know their children best
Teachers know what’s best for their individual students
Only locality can insure democracy and fairness
Only local control can protect the needs of communities over high-handed, theory-laden central intervention

Underlying image schemas and scenarios
Proximity schema : closer makes it possible to understand something better; closer makes it more difficult to see context
Information schema : having information makes it possible to make correct decisions (local or central)
Outsider scenario: stranger (or estranged) comes to present people with local knowledge (wisdom) with (book-learned) inappropriate knowledge
Educator scenario: educated stranger saves local people with his/her knowledge

Negotiating schemas and scenarios
Reconciliation scenario : outsider comes in and proves central knowledge useful while learning about the reality of local life
Change of perspective schema: moving away and closer again to an object makes it possible to see more sides

Frames as constructions (Governance Example): Two frames
Frame negotiation construction (schematic)
Meaning
central governance scenario
local governance scenario
Form
giving of examples
statement of obviousness
myth busting topoi
Who’s right? [construction] (rich)
Meaning
central control is necessary for the protection of individuals’ rights
Form
dramatic narrative
justificatory statement
morale through metaphor

Storytelling as blending
The above schemas are frequently instantiated through stories:
24
No child left behind teacher stories
Robinson Crusoe

Stories in negotiation
“ The average American out there loves the show 24. OK? They love Jack Bauer. They love 24. In my mind that’s close to a national referendum that it’s OK to use tough tactics against high-level Al Qaeda operatives as we’re going to get.” (Laura Ingraham on Bill O’Reilly)
“ Now me, I’m for more Jack Bauers. The Jack Bauer that has to extract information.” (Beck on CNN Headline News in response to an email that asked about the “ill treatment of our prisoners in Guantanamo”)

Additional schemas and scenarios
Central government exerts control through control of resources
Resources should be controlled by those who use them and produce them
Actions have unexpected consequences
Thoughts have consequences
What is in the mind determines people’s actions

The metaphor of student as consumer at first glance seemed to offer a lot of promise for transforming higher education because of how it focused our attention on the needs and desires of students, the accountability of colleges and universities, the control of costs involved, and a curriculum which develops practical skills in addition to intellectual ones. However, there are clearly disadvantages to this graft of a metaphor from a particular brand of marketing to the world of education. Specifically, the metaphor has a distancing effect on students, reducing their status to non-participants in the process of education ; the metaphor confuses the momentary satisfaction of wants with long-term educational outcomes; it offers a form of pseudo- democracy in the place of authentic engagement; it treats educational outcomes in a reductionistic way; and it distorts the meaning of the very educational process it seeks to describe.
Cheney, G., J. J. McMillan, et al. (1997). "Should we buy the "Student-As-Consumer" metaphor?" The Montana Professor 7(3): 8-11. ( http://mtprof.msun.edu/Fall1997/Cheney.html )

In recent times there have been various attempts by national and state governments to develop curriculum frameworks and guidelines, standards frameworks and other externally imposed structures, the rhetoric of which is to improve the provision and practice of school education. While there are many constituencies who see this as an appropriate practice by the State, there are others who see this as a deliberate strategy to erode teacher professionalism and trust in the teaching profession . In this paper I examine the effects of centralised curriculum control, in particular the imposition of teaching standards on teacher professionalism. I argue that the effect of these initiatives is the control of teachers’ work, and to define what constitutes professional knowledge and judgement which promotes one particular version of teacher professionalism and is eroding alternative forms of teacher professionalism.
Curriculum control: the cost to teacher professionalism, Sachs, 2001

Conclusions
In a policy debate (private or public), only a limited (but not small) inventory of discursive units is available
This inventory is limited both in its form and content by the constructional integrative constraints of its units
The limits of the inventory and the blending parameters in operation can and are always negotiated (both explicitly and implicitly)

Questions
What does textual evidence mean?
What use is understanding policy discourse to policy makers?
Are there any elements of discourse that cannot be negotiated?
Are there limiting factors on frame negotiation?

Dangers
This kind of analysis brings only little new methodologically when compared with traditional modes of discourse description – other than a justificatory framework
Totality of blending/constructional approach makes it possible that other important factors are being overlooked
Naming of frames may diminish the independent agency and inherent validity of texts

http://dominiklukes.net I keep a blog at http://hermeneuticheretic.net

Markets, Local Knowledge And Centralized Justice

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