EDUCATION 646: EDUCATION, CULTURE, AND
SOCIETY
Fall 2004
Dr. Stanton Wortham
GSE 429
215-898-6307;
stantonw@gse.upenn.edu
This
course surveys basic issues in the philosophical and social foundations of
education. It does so by presenting three central questions that have been
raised about educational philosophy and practice.
(1) What is an “educated” person? Education is a teleological process—a
process directed toward a goal. In educating someone, our goal is to help him
or her become a certain kind of person. What kind of person does our
educational system aim toward producing? After
a student has been educated, what kind of person should s/he be?
(2) How does the inevitable fact
of social groups in school—ethnic groups, linguistic communities, economic
classes—affect students’ education? Do
members of different groups receive different educations, even in the same
schools? Should they?
(a) One aspect of this
question addresses issues of equity. What constitutes “equal” treatment of
students? How should schools allocate resources to meet the needs of different
groups?
(b) Another aspect of this
question addresses issues of separation and integration. Should schools encourage students to assimilate to some norm, or should
they encourage diverse and perhaps divergent beliefs and practices?
(3) Should education focus on transmitting the
knowledge and skills that humans have accumulated, or should it focus on
material more directly relevant to the students? Should the student alter his/her preferences to meet the standard
curriculum, should the curriculum be altered to fit the student’s interests, or
is it possible to do both?
The
readings present various answers to these questions, and the students are
expected to learn the authors’ positions and their arguments. But this will not
be sufficient. The course also demands
that students develop their own views
on these questions. With questions as
fundamental as these three, neither the readings nor the instructor can provide
students with an authoritative answer.
This may be frustrating at times during the term, as you search for
solid answers. But this lack of closure
also provides an opportunity: since you
will not be told what to think, you will be able to develop and defend your own
beliefs about these issues.
This
course has two broad goals: (1) to help students critically evaluate prevalent
assumptions about the purposes of schooling and the role of social context in
shaping educational processes, such that students develop a critical,
reflective approach to these topics; and (2) to introduce students to several
basic frameworks that have been used to understand the social foundations of
education. Like all ELD core courses,
this course should help students see how various conceptual approaches
illuminate different aspects of educational phenomena, while hiding other
aspects that might be brought out by alternative approaches.
The
central assignment of the course is for each student to develop her or his own
social philosophy of education. After
learning about the strengths and weaknesses of several important perspectives
on education, you should build on these perspectives to begin forming your own
provisional answers to the three large questions of the course. Because these three larger questions bridge
across philosophical concerns about the ends of education and social concerns
about diverse groups of students, your emerging views will have to be both
philosophical and social.
Sept. 8 Introduction
Sept. 15 Virtue.
Plato,
Meno
Plato,
Republic (Book VII)
Woodruff, P. (1998).
Socratic education. In Rorty, A. Philosophers
on Education. NY. Routledge.
Sept. 22 Equality.
Perkinson, H. (1995).
The imperfect panacea (4th
Ed.) (ch. 1, 2 & 4). NY: McGraw Hill.
Pole, J. (1993). The pursuit of equality in American history.
(
Noll, W. (1997). Taking sides (9th Ed.).
Vonnegut, K. (1968).
Harrison Bergeron. In K. Vonnegut, Welcome to the monkey house. NY:
Delacorte.
Sept. 29 Liberalism
Locke, J. (1988). Two treatises on government
(selections).P. Laslett (Ed.).
Locke, J. (1989). Some thoughts concerning education. J.W.
Yolton & J.S. Yolton (Eds.).
Taylor, C. (1992).
The politics of recognition. In Multiculturalism
and the politics of recognition (pp. 25-44, 51-73).
Mehta, U. (1999). Liberalism and empire: A study in
nineteenth-centuryBritish liberal thought (Ch. 1 and conclusion).
Oct. 6 Empire
Willinsky,
J. (1998). Learning to divide the world:
Education at empire’s end.
Oct. 13 Social Reproduction.
Bourdieu, P. &
Passerson, J-C. (1979). The inheritors.
Bourdieu, P. (1986).
The forms of capital. In J. Richardson (Ed.), Handbook of theory and research for the sociology of education. NY:
Bourdieu, P.,
Passeron, J-C, & de Saint Martin, M. (2000). Academic discourse (Intro. &
Collins, J. (1993).
Determination and contradiction. In C. Calhoun, M. Postone & E. LiPuma
(Eds.), Bourdieu: Critical perspectives.
Oct. 20 Subjectification.
Foucault, M. (1979). Discipline and punish. NH: Vintage
Oct. 27 Power/Knowledge.
Foucault, M. (1982).
The subject and power. In H. Dreyfus & P. Rabinow (Eds.), Michel Foucault.
Interview with Michel
Foucault. (1980/2000). In Essential works
of Foucault (Vol. 3) (pp. 239-297). NY: The New Press.
Luke, A. (1992). The
body literate. Linguistics &
Education, 4, 107-129.
Nov. 3 Oppression and Multiculturalism
Noll, W. (1995). Taking sides (9th Ed.).
Freire, P. (2000). Pedagogy of the oppressed. (Chs. 1 &
2)
Nov. 10 The oral exam takes place on
this day; drafts are due November 9.
Nov. 17 NO CLASS
Nov. 24 Micro/Macro.
Wortham, S.
(forthcoming). Learning identity. (Chs. 2 and 4).
Lemke, J.L. (2000). Across the
scales of time: Artifacts, activities, and meanings in ecosocial systems. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 7, 273-290.
Dec. 1 Democracy I.
Dewey J. (1916). Democracy & education. NY:
Macmillan. Chs. 1-14.
Dec. 8 Democracy II.
Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy & education. NY:
Macmillan. Chs. 15-26.
Dec. 15 Freedom.
Greene, M. (1988). Dialectic of freedom. NY: Teachers
College.
Assignments
(1) There will be one oral exam given, on or about November
10. The question for the exam is
below. The exam will be given in groups,
and the format will be as follows. One
day before the exam, you will submit a 1-1 1/2 page (single spaced) written
answer to the question. This answer
should be submitted, via email, to me and to all the others in your exam
group. During the exam we will discuss
the answers and try to push our thinking forward. As you answer the question, you will be formulating
your own social philosophy of education.
(1a) First Exam
Topic. Please answer the following question: should schools teach one standard curriculum
to all students, or should they allow grouping—like “tracking” of academic
abilities or different curricula like “Afrocentric” ones? Justify your position
with reference to your vision of education—your beliefs about what an educated
person should be. In other words, take a
position on Question 2a or 2b, articulate it with reference to concrete
educational phenomena like tracking or ethnically-specific curricula, and
defend your position by answering Question 1.
My goal in giving this exam is to have you formulate and defend your own
position. Please do not try to figure
out what your think I want to hear. I
want to hear what you think, and
why. The oral part of the exam will be
given in groups. The schedule will be
worked out in class.
(2) For each class, about three students will write brief
(3-page) reflections on the readings—summarizing the main points, connecting
the readings to topics we are discussing in class and raising questions for
discussion. At least one of your
reflections should be based on observations in a school or other educational
setting. The reflection should describe
a salient event observed, plus an analysis of how the act or event helped you
reflect on issues raised in class readings or discussions. You should go beyond descriptions of events
to analyze them, using concepts from readings and class discussions. These reflections should be submitted to the
email list for the class (EDUC646-001-04C@LISTS.UPENN.EDU), by
(3) By the end of the day on December 17, students should hand in
a final reflection. Describe the
development in your own social philosophy of education—i.e., your own
developing answers to the three questions on the first page of the
syllabus—that has taken place over the term.
What did you initially think? How
did you deepen or change your views?
What sorts of evidence can you give now to support your views? How does your position integrate answers to
the central questions of the course? As
you articulate your social philosophy, use at least three of the central
authors from the course. Describe how
the authors’ arguments have been useful to your own developing views.
Books and Bulkpacks
The following books are available at the Penn
Bookstore:
Bourdieu, P. & Passeron,
J-C. The inheritors. (This book is
unavailable. A copy will be on reserve
and several copies are available to borrow.
See Betty Deane.)
Dewey, J. Democracy
and education
Foucault, M. Discipline
and punish
Freire, P. Pedagogy of the oppressed. Continuum
International Publishing Company. (30th Anniversary edition, 2000)
Greene, M. Dialectic of freedom
Perkinson, H. The
imperfect panacea (3rd or 4th Ed.)
Plato, Meno
Willinsky, J. Learning
to divide the world: Education at empire’s end.
All remaining readings are available in a bulkpack
at University Copy Service (898-5320), Houston Hall Lower Level.