Abstract
In this chapter, we turn to the example of school self-evaluation, an internal component of many school inspection systems. Of particular interest here is in how self-evaluation is underpinned by a ‘technicist’ logic of understanding and accounting for the practices of teaching. This stands in opposition to the ‘existentialist’ forms of accounting that I call for in subsequent chapters. First, I endeavour to briefly explore the connection between school self-evaluation and neoliberal accountability regimes, before turning to an example from my own context in the Republic of Ireland. Whilst I am by no means suggesting that this is the only example of technicist thinking in teaching, nor that it is the only example of neoliberal discourses in education, it nevertheless provides a concrete point of departure, one that is likely to resonate with other contexts and practices. Since this technicist logic underpins wider trends in teacher training and development, it thus serves to exemplify the broader ways of thinking that this book seeks to address. Indeed, by drawing attention to the technicist logic, we can thus begin to address some of their assumptions and the implications these have for the ways we account for teaching. In doing so, a space is created in which alterative accounts might be offered.
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Notes
- 1.
During the 1980s, Fukuyama controversially wrote about the end of the Cold War and the rise of neoliberal capitalism as marking the ‘end of history’ (Fukuyama, 2006) which would be followed by a period of unprecedented global economic growth. Giddens (cited in Coulter & Nagle, 2015, p. 4) supports this idea, claiming that: …capitalism, for all its flaws, represents the form of social organisation that affords the individual optimal wealth and the opportunity to transcend the restrictions of traditional or collective identities… [with] the rapid evolution of information technology [that] has ‘disembedded’ individuals from their locale.’
- 2.
Until the 1990s, Ireland was a relatively poor and peripheral state, perched on the edge of Europe. Since the early 1990s, however, the economy experienced a surge with a rapid shift towards high-skilled manufacturing supported by foreign direct investment (much of which continues today), a huge growth in the service industry, population spurts, a housing property boom, and the development of a strong consumerist society. Ireland was commended internationally during this time as a ‘beacon of what the deep liberalisation of a small open economy might deliver’ (Kitchen et al., 2012, p. 1302), and with what the OECD once described as one of the fastest growing economies in the post-industrial world. Due to its ‘attractive’ corporation incentives, Ireland is home to a range of multinational corporations. These companies – and, indeed, their CEOs – epitomize the personal wealth generation that is associated with neoliberal logic, and for this reason, Ireland is sometimes referred to as the ‘poster child’ of neoliberal Europe.
- 3.
It is worth noting that many Irish educational institutions today (most notably at primary school level) have continued to be under the patronage of the Catholic Church. As Hogan (2009, p. 17) remarks, this too represents the ways in which the ‘purposes that are educational in their own right can become colonized and redefined by the interests of a powerful institution.’ Whereas in most contexts in Western Europe have seen a decline in the dominance of ecclesiastical authorities in education, this has been, for Hogan (2009, p. 21), ‘replaced by that of commercially minded politicians and technocrats’ where ‘teachers have increasingly come to be ruled by a new set of masters, and their work has been subject to a range of recurring economic and social pressures’. Thus, whilst the question of the actual separation of church and state is a complicated matter in Ireland, the same sorts of mechanisms of control over education in Ireland today may be secular but follow a similar pattern of paternalism.
- 4.
See, for example, the 1996 policy ‘Implementing Agenda for Change’ (Government of Ireland, 1996).
- 5.
This is in line with the implicit post-critical approach I draw on throughout the text, where my interest not only lies in uncovering or deconstructing the discourses that shape teaching, or that are, as Felski remarks (in reference to Ricoeur), purely within the realm of a ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’. Like Hogan (2009), I believe that it is unproductive to merely provide (perpetual) critique without any possible alternative. Having said that, some deconstruction is necessary in order to make space for new accounts, which I hope to provide in the remainder of the book.
- 6.
According to the OECD (2013, p. 406) report Synergies for Learning: An International Perspective on Evaluation and Assessment, nearly every EU country has a similar combination approach, with the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union making it a clear recommendation for improvement purposes in 2001.
- 7.
‘Delivering Equality of Opportunity in Schools’, an initiative launched as part of the government’s 2005 ‘Action Plan for Inclusion’, functions as a ‘policy instrument to address educational disadvantage’. DEIS schools are those that have been identified as catering to disadvantaged communities in Ireland (DES, 2005). This has since been updated in the Department for Education and Skill’s Action Plan for Education.
- 8.
Increasing trust in this way is even more evident since 2011, where external inspections are only undertaken where there is perceived risk, a conclusion that is drawn in part from the school’s annual self-evaluation report (Brown & McNamara, 2016).
- 9.
In recent literature (e.g. Brown et al., 2021), the inclusion of parental and student voice, mandated by the school self-evaluation guidelines, is at best ‘aspirational’.
- 10.
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Brady, A.M. (2022). Self-Evaluation and the Technicist Logic of Teaching. In: Being a Teacher. Contemporary Philosophies and Theories in Education, vol 19. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7323-9_2
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