| CODE | EDS4205 | ||||||||||||
| TITLE | Education, Power and Society | ||||||||||||
| UM LEVEL | 04 - Years 4, 5 in Modular UG or PG Cert Course | ||||||||||||
| MQF LEVEL | 6 | ||||||||||||
| ECTS CREDITS | 4 | ||||||||||||
| DEPARTMENT | Education Studies | ||||||||||||
| DESCRIPTION | Study-unit Outline: Part I This study-unit is intended to foster a holistic and 'social justice' approach to education based on a valorisation of difference. The concept of difference is viewed in both its social and environmental dimensions. In terms of the social dimension of difference, or simply, 'social difference', the study-unit will raise such issues as: who benefits from current educational provision and who is being excluded? Which particular cultures are being valorised in our educational system and which cultures are marginalised? What effects do the dominant discourses, in our educational system, have on the shaping of pupils' identities? Which particular social standpoints are to be taken on board if one is to help provide a genuinely democratic and inclusive education? These questions are important if one is to educate for greater social justice and for the creation of a world not as it is but as it should and can be. It will be argued, however, that if we are to educate for a better world, our concerns should include an appreciation and valorisation of a broader sense of difference, namely bio-diversity. Any attempt to educate for change should focus not only on social relations, crucial though these may be, but also on the wider and more holistic domain of human-earth relations. The study-unit will centre on a variety of readings that will raise the issues outlined above. Major focus will be placed on issues pertaining to class, 'race'/ethnicity, gender, disability and sexuality and the environment. Wider issues would include those of parental involvement in schools, the globalisation of racism, the National Curriculum debate, the debate around lifelong learning and the construction of citizenship and migration. We would also look at important wider contexts that have a bearing on the construction of our subjectivities, such as direct colonialism/ post-colonialism, globalisation, Neoliberalism and the field of popular culture. What effects does the legacy of the country's long history of colonialism have on our identity construction? How does this relate to issues concerning social class and ethnicity? What effects does the broad and diversified field of mass popular culture have on the shaping of pupils' identities? How can repositories of culture, such as museums, be more inclusive? 1. Introduction: The Different Dimensions of Difference, Hegemony and the Struggle for Voice This is an introductory lecture in which the rationale of the study-unit will be provided. Main concepts such as 'ideology', 'hegemony', 'normalising discourse', 'regimes of truth', 'Subjectivity', 'bio-diversity', 'colonialism/post-colonialism', 'globalisation', 'Neoliberalism' and, of course, 'identity' will be introduced and explained. - Borg and Mayo (2006), Chapter1 'Introduction. Critical Pedagogy in Neoliberal Times'. 2. Class and Social Differentiation (2 sessions) We will anticipate some of the concepts to be tackled in the next sociology of education study-unit, 'Critical Perspectives on Education.' Concepts such as 'habitus'. 'cultural capital', 'cultural / social reproduction / production', 'resistance' will be dealt with in the context of a discussion around the work carried out at the School of Barbiana in nearby Italy, the school founded and directed by the livewire Don Lorenzo Milani. - School of Barbiana (1967), Letter to a Teacher, Random House obtained from www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/LTAT_Final.pdf - Borg and Mayo (2006), Chapter 8, 'Critical pedagogy and Citizenship. Lorenzo Milani and the School of Barbiana'. 3. Class and Social Differentiation (cont.) Further discussion on the Lettera with reference to Functionalism, Marxism, Neo-Weberian sociology and key authors such as Bowles and Gintis, Bourdieu, Willis, Gramsci, etc. - School of Barbiana (1967), Letter to a Teacher, Random House obtained from www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/LTAT_Final.pdf - Borg and Mayo (2006) Chapter 6, 'Gramsci and the Unitarian School. Paradoxes and Possibilities' with special emphasis on pp. 98-108. 4. Parents, Learners and Cultures This lecture bridges the gap between the discourse on social class and issues concerning gender. It will focus on the involvement of parents in their child's schooling. Class and gender issues certainly come into play here. With the ever increasing multiethnic nature of communities, the ethnicity issue will also become an important feature of this aspect of schooling.Borg and Mayo (2006) Chapter 4, 'Changing the Face of the School. Parental Invovlement in a Working Class Community'. 5. Gender and Social Difference We shall explore some of the factors related to issues of masculinities and femininities that have an impact on the construction of pupil identities. Apart from looking at the organisation of schooling and the way it reproduces patriarchy, we shall also deal with the influence of different forms of mass popular culture on the shaping of subjectivities. These include romance stories, films, fashion, and child beauty pageants. Mizzi, B., Callus, A., Chetcuti, L., Darmanin, M., Laiviera, R., Testa, S., Vella, J. (2000), 'Gender in the National Curriculum' in J. Giordmaina (Ed.), Proceedings. National Curriculum on its Way. A Conference on the Implementation of the National Curriculum Malta 9-11 June 2000, Malta: Ministry of Education, Education Division, Faculty of Education. 6. Sexuality, the Body and Education Participants will be encouraged to explore the role school plays in developing sexual identities, through a variety of means and normalising discourses. Bodies are continuously policed, sanitised and regulated through the images projected by the various textbooks, teacher talk, rituals and other media as well as disciplinary codes. What effects does this process of normalisation have on different groups of pupils? - Caruana, B. (2003), 'The Experiences and Needs of Maltese Homosexuals: Implications for Policy makers' in Bartolo, P. and Borg, M.G. (eds.), Homosexuality. Challenging the Stigma, Malta: Agenda. - Ellis, V and Forrest, S (2000), 'One of Them or One of Us? Sexuality, identity and Equality' in M. Cole (Ed.), Education, Equality and Human Rights; Issues of Gender, ëRaceí, Sexuality, Special Needs and Social Class, London: Routledge/Falmer. - Further Reading: Bartolo, P. and Borg, M.G. (eds.) (2003), Homosexuality. Challenging the Stigma, Malta: Agenda. 7. 'Race', Ethnicity and Education Malta is increasingly becoming more multiethnic. This is evident in the multi-ethnic composition of a number of classrooms in our schools. Also at issue is how the concept of 'the Maltese' is constructed. It has been argued that such a construction occurs through a totalising discourse that excludes particular ethnicities. This involves the construction of those who do not fit the dominant Eurocentric model as ëother.í Issues to be discussed include 'islamophobia', the politics of representation, eurocentrism, the difference between 'race' and European ethnicity, the tendency to deny the salience of race even when it is present and that of setting up ëwhitenessí as the invisible norm, the white-supremacist nature of the dominant western institutions and the pain one faces when trying to 'make it' within them. - Borg and Mayo (2006), Chapter 10 'Towards an Anti-Racist Agenda in Education. The Case of Malta'. - Borg and Mayo (2006), Chapter 11 'Challenges for Critical pedagogy. A Southern European Perspective'. 8. Globalization, Postcolonialism and Education The term 'postcolonial' refers to the process of domination that has its origins in European colonisation but which extends beyond the period of direct colonisation to take on new forms, notably those of neo-colonialism and the intensification of globalisation. Important concepts such as Globalization and Neo-Liberalism are explained to shed light on the way identities are being affected, with an overemphasis, in the dominant discourse, on consumption and production. - Borg and Mayo (2006), Chapter 7 'Making sense of a Postcolonial Context. A Freirean Perspective' - Ngugi Wa Thiong'o (1986), Excerpt from 'The Language of African Literatureí' 111 (pp. 10-20), in Decolonizing the Mind. The Politics of Language in African Literature, London: James Currey, Nairobi: EAEP, Portsmouth: Heinemann. 9. Disability and Education Participants will be encouraged to look at the different models that reflect the different ways by which disability has been viewed. We will focus not only on policy issues concerning disability but on narratives by those who have directly suffered the consequences of a disabling environment. The issue of an inclusive education from a disability perspective will be discussed. The key question to be addressed is: how can we transform schools from the disabling sites that they have traditionally been to enabling ones? - Reiser, R. (2000) 'Special Education Needs or Inclusive Education. The Challenge of Disability Discrimination in Schooling' in M. Cole (Ed) Education, Equality and Human Rights: Issues of Gender, ëRaceî, Sexual Needs, Special Needs and Social Classí, London: Routledge/Falmer. - Camilleri, J.M. (1999), 'Disability: a personal odyssey' in Disability & Society, Vol. 14, No. 6, pp. 845-853. 10. Competing discourses around citizenship and identity This session will focus on the issue of identity and citizenship. Reference will be made to the chapter on Milani from the set text as well as the earlier discussion on Neoliberalism. However the main focus will be on the dominant policy discourse emerging from such supranational organisations as the European Union. What dominant from of citizenship is being propagated in all-embracing European policy documents and how does this impact on the construction of one's identity. The key themes are those of 'producer-consumer' on the one hand and 'social actor' on the other. - Borg and Mayo (2006), Chapter 2 ' The EU Memorandum on Lifelong Learning. Old Wine in New Bottles?' 11. Cultural Representation and Identity Formation In this set of lectures, we shall continue to explore the role of mass popular and 'highbrow' culture in the formation of student subjectivities. As in previous sessions, we will engage in the broad area of 'Cultural Studies.' These sessions are intended to help participants appreciate the relevance of cultural studies to thinking about schools and pupil identity formation. We shall focus on topics which have been explored in the international literature but which have a global resonance in that they affect the sensibilities of the children we encounter in Maltese schools. The set readings, from the work of prolific American writer, Henry A. Giroux, will deal with two domains of cultural production that are very relevant to the Maltese context. These are the Disney Empire, that has appealed to different generations of Maltese and other children, youth and adults, and the ever-growing international reality (quite evident among Maltese school children) of child beauty pageants. What effects do these areas of mass popular culture have on the shaping of student identities? In contras, we will also discuss the politics of representation and inclusion/exclusion in a national Maltese museum. - Borg and Mayo (2006), Chapter 5, 'Museum Education and Cultural Contestation' (co-authored with Bernard Cauchi). - Giroux, H. (2000a), 'Teaching the Cultural with Disney' in Impure Acts. The Practical Politics of Cultural Studies, New York and London: Routledge. - Giroux, H (2000b), 'Nymphet Fantasies: Child Beauty Pageants and the politics of Innocence' in Stealing Innocence. Corporate Culture's War on Children, New York and Basingstoke: Palgrave. 12. Bio-Diversity: Towards a Holistic Approach to Education One of the most prominent oversights in many discussions regarding critical approaches to education concerns ecological issues. We tend to conceive of difference only in social terms, thus providing an important, though limited, worldview. It is an anthropocentric worldview. Difference is a strong feature of not only intra-human relations (or social relations) but also human-earth relations. In these sessions, we shall attempt to develop some of the issues raised earlier, in the study-unit, in the context of an expansive bio-centric perspective. The elements for what has been termed, by Francisco Gutierrez and Cruz Prado, as 'Eco-pedagogy' will be explored. - Berry, T. (1999), 'Foreword', in E. OíSullivan, Transformative Learning. Educational Vision for the 21st Century, London and New York: Zed Books; Toronto: University of Toronto Press. - O'Sullivan, E .(2002), 'The Project and Vision of Transformative Education. Integral Transformative Learning'' in O'Sullivan, E., Morrel, A. and Connor, M.A. (eds.), Expanding the Boundaries of Transformative Learning, Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave. 13. Educational Policy Documents and the Concept of Difference In previous sessions, we would have engaged in discussions regarding specific forms of difference and would have explored domains, such as cultural studies and post-colonial studies, that continue to shed light on the process of learning and pupil identity formation. By the time we reach this session, we should be in a position to explore the extent to which knowledge of the above aspects of social life is having a bearing on Maltese educational policy formation. The focus will be on the new Maltese National Minimum Curriculum document. We can address such questions as: Whose voices and cultural preferences does the curriculum document represent and how? Which cultures have been selected for incorporation in the curriculum document? - Ministry of Education (2000), the Maltese or English version of the New National Minimum Curriculum document (Inwelldu l-Gejjieni Flimkien; Creating the Future Together), Floriana: Ministry of Education. - Borg and Mayo (2006), Chapter 3, Social Difference. Part II This study-unit sets out to foster critical thinking about educational issues among student-teachers. It draws on a number of theoretical frameworks, chief among these being Critical Theory as developed by members of the Frankfurt School, and critical educational practice as articulated and promoted by Antonio Gramsci and Paolo Freire among others, in order to help students: - Learn how to use conceptual and critical sociological tools; - Apply these thinking tools to problematise everyday educational discourse and practices in contemporary Malta; - Become more sensitive to differences among students based on such social ascriptions as class, gender and ethnicity, with a view to developing a pedagogical practice that is responsive to different educational and learning needs; - Make a professional commitment to the development of more equitable practices in Malta's schools. Main Text/s and any supplementary readings: - Borg, C and Mayo, P. (2006), Learning and Social Difference. Challenges for Public Education and Critical Pedagogy, Boulder-Colorado, Paradigm. - Borg, C., Cardona, M and Caruana, S. (2009) Letter to a Teacher. Lorenzo Milani’s Contribution to Critical Citizenship, Malta: Agenda. - Borg, C., Caruana, M and Caruana, S. op.cit. - Chircop, L (2010) Ch14 ‘Citizenship, Difference, and the Schooling of Muslim Children in Malta’ in Andre` Mazawi & Ronald Sultana (Eds.) Education in the Arab World, New York & London: Routledge. - Hedeen, D, Ayres, B. J. & Tate, A (2001) ‘Charlotte’s Story. Getting Better, Happy Day, Problems Again!’ in Grenot-Scheyer, M., Fisher, M & Staub, D (Eds.) At the End of the Day: Lessons learned in Inclusive Education, Baltimore MD: Paul. H Brookes. - Hedeen, D.L.& Ayres, B (2002), ‘ “You Want Me to Teach Him to Read?” Fulfilling the Intent of IDEA’ Journal of Disability Policy Studies, Vol. 13, No. 3, pp. 180-189. - Sadker, D., Sadker, M., & Zittleman, K. R. (2009). Chapter 1: 'Didn't We Solve This Problem Years Ago?' (pp. 5-28) in Still failing at fairness: How gender bias cheats girls and boys in school and what we can do about it. New York, NY: Scribner. - Sensoy, O (2010) ‘ “Mad Man Hassan Will Buy Your Carpets!” The Bearded Curricula of Evil Muslims’ in Kincheloe, J., Steinberg, S. & Stonebanks, C (Eds.) Teaching against Islamophobia New York, Washington, Frankfurt, Vienna Bern, Berlin, Brussles, Vienna, Oxford: Peter Lang. - Scuola di Barbiana (1967), Lettera a Una Professoressa, School of Barbiana (1967), Letter to a Teacher, Random House downloaded from www.swaraj.org/shikshantar/LTAT_Final.pdf |
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| STUDY-UNIT TYPE | Lecture | ||||||||||||
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| LECTURER/S | Carmel P. Borg Peter Mayo |
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The University makes every effort to ensure that the published Courses Plans, Programmes of Study and Study-Unit information are complete and up-to-date at the time of publication. The University reserves the right to make changes in case errors are detected after publication.
The availability of optional units may be subject to timetabling constraints. Units not attracting a sufficient number of registrations may be withdrawn without notice. It should be noted that all the information in the description above applies to study-units available during the academic year 2023/4. It may be subject to change in subsequent years. |
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