Technicism

Abstract: In a review of the challenges to progress in providing social research evidence that might usefully inform policy, Oakley (2004) argues strongly that the ‘paradigm divide’ between qualitative and quantitative research communities continues to constitute a major problem. Oakley refers to a number of recent critiques of what is seen as ‘misplaced positivism’ in educational research and Hammersley (1997, 2005) has suggested that educational research findings are now routinely being applied uncritically to inform educational policy and practice. Research in early childhood education has not been immune to these general criticisms and specific concerns have also been expressed regarding alleged technicism, and the reification of dominant conceptions of early educational quality. In this paper we test these theoretical claims against the realities of conducting one recent and influential early years study: the Effective Provision of Preschool Education (EPPE) Project. The paper provides an account of the EPPE r...

Abstract: Within European countries and across them, forms of quality assurance have multiple purposes and are being driven forward by different interest groups. The academic community, the state and the market are the dominant forces at work, with forms of quality assurance being oriented separately towards judgments on quality (a summative function) and quality improvement (a formative function). A major fault line distinguishing the different purposes at work is that between enlightenment and surveillance. Any one form of quality evaluation can be assessed against this dimension: is it essentially a means for the faculty to understand itself better and so be enabled to transform its own activities by and for itself? In such a situation, we are in the presence of a form of enlightenment. Or is it a means by which the state can know better and thereby control more effectively what goes on in the institutions increasingly drawn together into a higher education system? In this latter situation, we are in the presence of a means of state surveillance. Partly as a proxy for state steerage but also a force in its own right, the market represents a separate fault line. However, in Europe at least, consumer satisfaction remains for now a weaker, if strengthening, form of leverage in quality evaluation and in the discussion that follows, it will take a residual place behind the state-academe axis. Each form of quality evaluation offers a particular reflection of the forces at work: the collegium, the state and the market. Nonetheless, within this melange of differential power and purposes and the resulting multitude of forms of quality evaluation, a dominant trend can be detected. The greater weight of developments reflects a drive on the part of the state to secure higher levels of control and surveillance over higher education. Firstly, a technicist approach to quality evaluation is adopted, most notably through the growing use of performance indicators. Secondly, this technicism is coupled with an attempt to deploy evaluation as a means of steering the higher education system more in the direction of the labour market. This is a double instrumentalism which reduces the possibility of evaluation having hermeneutic or dialogic value within the academy and which could enable the academic members of the higher education system to become more genuinely a professional community. This, at any rate, is the thesis to be argued for here.

Abstract: Adopting a critical perspective of the social sciences, this study initially analyzes some aspects of the technicism of the Brazilian Civil Defense to have it as a benchmark of the usual indifference of its technical and operational personnel to the multidimensional social suffering of the groups affected by disasters. The analytical framework is based on documentary research, especially of official records, and also a review of the literature of the main authors in the field as well as recent studies about the most emblematic recent disasters in Brazil. The conclusion reached is that concern about the multidimensional social suffering of the social groups affected by disasters is absent in the institutional framework.

Abstract: Employer criticism of British school-leavers is long-standing. Coherent statements by employers regarding their educational 'needs' have not materialised; employers' accounts concerning such needs are typically confused or contradictory. This paper formulates a 'filter' enabling better understanding of industry's educational needs. The starting point is that these needs are essentially labour-power needs. The 'needs filter' rests on this and another concept drawn from Marxism: capital. Furthermore, its development is grounded on a series of assumptions (that employers 'needs' can in principle be stated, that there are no contradictions within labour-power, and that employers' labour-power needs are realisable through education and training). After discussing conventional views on the 'needs of industry', the filter is presented as a series of labour-power needs for categories and functions of capital. Its utility for curriculum design, employers and researchers is explored. However, if the guiding assumpt...