Notes on: Nash,
R. (2004) 'Can be arbitrary and the
necessary be reconciled? Scientific realism
and the school curriculum'. Journal of
Curriculum Studies, 36 (5): 605-23.
Dave Harris
Contemporary studies of the sociology of the
curriculum have focused on what counts as
knowledge and who should have access to it -
reproduction. One reproductive thesis
suggests that implicit knowledge represents the
arbitrary culture of higher status groups.
Young and the new sociology of education is
prominent here.
Bourdieu and Passeron argued that all
pedagogic action is symbolic violence, and this
widens the narrower interest in the curriculum.
However, the reproductive role of schools can be
countered with 'the realist case that accurate
knowledge of the world can be obtained and should
constitute a non arbitrary element of the school
curriculum' (606). Implications are pursued
for both Bourdieu and Bernstein. Ironically,
both also maintained 'the traditional
enlightenment concept of educational knowledge',
and both are ambiguous in terms of scientific
realism. However, full realism suggest that
there is some necessary knowledge to be taught in
schools. The discussion here is focused on
the science curriculum.
One form of critical pedagogy has been influenced
by both Bourdieu and Bernstein and it argues that
school actively excludes the majority of students
with popular modes of thought. As a result,
the bodies of knowledge taught in schools are
social constructions with specific histories,
producing 'formidable barriers of incomprehension'
(607) for those students with different codes of
communication. Young [in Young and Whitty]
describes how school science was deliberately
selected to be pure knowledge with abstract laws
and lists of facts to preserve high status
knowledge. Nash's own work in New Zealand
confirms the feelings of exclusion for the non
academic and displays 'real suffering inflicted by
such institutionalised symbolic violence'.
However, contemporary science in upper secondary
schools might be quite different. The
curriculum is not the only factor in reproducing
social differences. The construction of
contemporary school curricula might be read more
sympathetically as attempting to reconcile quite
different interests for students of different
backgrounds and destinations, although traditions
tend to persist.
The schools do persist in dividing theoretical and
practical and this clearly 'blatantly endorses'
the split between mental and manual labour
(608). The divisions reflected in the status
of schools subjects is recognized by students and
others, even though they might not understand the
basis for these evaluations. Student
instrumentalism often follows the school's
emphasis on passing examinations towards such
relevant topics. The division of labour lies
at the heart of it, including the emphasis on
exchange value, and schools can overemphasise
credentials. However, credentialism ignores
the case that some subjects might actually provide
'knowledge about the real structures of the
physical universe and in that sense is thus, for
the most practical of reasons, the intellectual
birthright of all' (609). [What a strangely
muddled discussion, unless it is me]
Bourdieu sees intellectual and attitudes as
socially conditioned, but schools see them as
gifts and transform them into
qualifications. This seems to reject not
only positivism but scientific realism, and
Bourdieu sees any relations between scientific
knowledge and the natural world as a matter for
'philosophical skepticism'. He uses the term
arbitrary, based on the anthropological idea of
human society as managing social differences, with
cultures or solutions to the problems of
life. The solutions are arbitrary 'in the
sense that one will function as well as another'.
LiPuma says that the practices can be arbitrary
from a class cultural standpoint, that their
valuations can be arbitrary, and that any practice
can become 'an arbitrary symbolic marker of
distinction'. Bourdieu is not consistent
here, and sees cultural capital for example as
both relative, arbitrary, and normalised,
providing a symbolic capital that is
valuable. It follows that struggle and
competition goes on in all intellectual fields
including science, but Nash thinks this 'is not in
any sense incompatible with scientific realism'
(610). We do get a focus on the school
curriculum its history, characteristic concepts
and its social relations.
Scientific realism insist that some knowledge of
the world is necessary. It's particularly
difficult to show that working class students are
effectively denied access to it simply because of
its structure. We could see curriculum
reform as 'an attempt to eliminate the
arbitrariness embedded in its forms'[much as in
various kinds of rational pedagogy]. The
struggle would then be to strip out the arbitrary
bits and retain the 'real necessary'. This
led to Bourdieu proposing universal pedagogy
[apparently a chapter in Egglestone 1974
Contemporary Research in the Sociology of
Education] but this remained undeveloped, and
flirted with deficit theory. Bourdieu did
believe that scientific sociology would offer a
transformative potential, and defended it against
postmodernism. This could be seen as a
social realism, but this is disputed.
However, there is certainly 'no blueprint for a
rational pedagogy… designed to transmit a
universal knowledge' (611). For other
commentators, Bourdieu's realism is a discussion
of realpolitik.
Bernstein developed ideas over a long period, and
so there are difficulties with providing
authoritative statements of the core
argument. Most people think of it as the
discussion of restricted and elaborated speech
codes, which have possibly been replaced by a
horizontal and vertical forms of discourse.
'Bernstein is fundamentally a structuralist, and
the term "code" cannot be understood outside that
theoretical framework', further indicated by the
'dichotomized forms' of his arguments. It is
to some extent a comparison between commonsense
knowledge, 'context specific, loaded with affects,
and embedded in the concrete' with theoretically
informed systematically structured knowledge which
is 'independent of context, impersonal and
abstract' [Parsons' pattern variables seem to
cover it]. The latter requires specialized
social groups. If codes are principles, they
refer to abstract properties of speech 'at the
level of semantics and meaning' and these are also
mechanisms to produce language, through grammar
and various 'semantic operators'. The code
is therefore 'some kind of operational linguistic
mechanism… [a]… "theoretical" entity
controlling the production of language in the form
of speech genres common to specific groups and
social contexts'. He gets them through the
analysis of speech.
The elaborated code 'generates a language or
discourse of social power'(612). Controlling
labour and capital requires a 'the discourse with
a capacity to express generalised and abstract
conceptions', while subordinates are limited by
their contexts' and limited relationships 'to
certain forms of linguistic expression' [which
reminds me of an old study by Julie Ford on
different sorts of families and the way they
allocate roles to children on the basis of persons
or positions]. The educational system
reproduces the structures of social power through
its pedagogy.
However, Bernstein argues that these forms are not
entirely arbitrary, but rather 'provide durable
intellectual capacities entirely necessary to the
competent mastery of the analytical and scientific
knowledge that must form the basis of the modern
school curriculum'[I am pretty sure Bourdieu
thinks the same, arguing that academic language in
universities does produce cognitive power].
[The reference here is to Bernstein's work on
classification and framing in Young et al]
Bernstein adopted a realist ontology and supported
empirical scientific research, but there is a
problem linking to the structuralism, as Maton
apparently has shown. There is also too much
emphasis on the subject as a subordinated voice,
and this is misleading in terms of modern science,
overcommitted to a particular epistemology, and
therefore mistaken 'in its understanding of the
status of knowledge and the educational system'
[citing Moore and Muller 1999 -- apparently in the
BJSE 20, 2]. Schools must transmit universal
knowledge through a pedagogy based on an
elaborated code. However, in so doing, it
privileges students who already work with these
forms of meaning.
There are different forms of realism, including
political realism. Scientific realism argues
that 'the physical and social entities of the
world exist' (613), that there is a material world
and we can gain an accurate knowledge of it.
Bhaskar's critical
realism offers a transcendental ontology, so that
the explanatory models of modern science actually
demonstrate the nature of the world. Reality
is tested by 'demonstration', things like pointing
pointing out in such a way that evidence 'can only
be accepted or rejected' [Popper's 'basic
statement']. The point about scientific
explanation is to explain a real world, to show
how things work. Scientific realism
'requires a correspondence theory of truth in some
form'. This contrasts with the view that
says scientific theory is a set of theoretical
statements, clearly produced by human beings, and
meaningful if they constitute a discourse.
[Blimey, we're going to get to logical positivism
and the difference between grammatical validity
and truth]. If objects are addressed by
theory, they become an object in discourse:
discourses can not be transcended. Bunge is
quoted to deny this, and says that the meaning of
theory can be externally derived. The whole
area is still controversial, though.
For Bunge, knowledge is produced by humans, but it
can be compared to the way things actually
are. In a homely example, a student might
recognise that the fallopian tube is a part of the
human body; another one might be able to identify
in a diagram; another might think it is part of
the underground system of Rome. However,
there is a tautology here, where the logical truth
of what a fallopian tube his depends on how it is
defined. There is a more practical task,
though, which is to try to show whether what we
know is 'in accordance with the way things
actually are.' (614) [Round and round we
go]. Nash calls this 'factual truth'.
He tells us most philosophers are now realists,
and even naive versions 'are less misleading than
naive idealism' in philosophical terms, despite
the influence of idealist versions in the school
curriculum [who can he have in mind? Post
structuralists? The dreaded
constructivists?].
We can simply argue that the world exists and that
we can understand it. We can check some of
our theories against what it 'is actually
like'(615). Therefore we must put science
centrally in the curriculum. Even when we
argue about the relative weight of science as
opposed to, say literature, even when we
acknowledge the arbitrary content of a literature
courses or the precise topics in a maths course,
we still note that both literature and mathematics
are matters of 'universal human necessity at the
level of being', important for any modern
state. [so we are arguing for social realism
on all sorts of grounds, not just ontological
ones. Does the subject being important for
any modern state indicate that they are
arbitrary? Can other things be seen as even
more relevant for the modern state, whether they
are real or not - unless being important to the
modern state makes them real?]
The issue of access turns on first the principles
and practice that sustain knowledge hierarchies,
and secondly those that control social access to
knowledge. Further issues concern what the
relationship is between knowledge and reality, and
the extent to which differences in perception and
cognition relate to economic and cultural
production. How do epistemological and
social hierarchies map together? If the
curriculum is less arbitrary and more universal,
that undermines the conventional ideology which
controls class access to knowledge, because we can
assert that everyone has the right to real
knowledge. Other distinctions, such as those
between pure and applied can clearly appear as a
class arbitrary. Bernstein happens to offer
the best way to understand these issues for Nash.
Bernstein does not see the relation between class
knowledge and condition as only arbitrary.
He is understandably cautious about deficit theory
and has warned of '"the semiotic time bomb ticking
away in all mass educational systems"'(616) [what
does that mean? Apparently it is in his
response in Sadovnik]. However he does think
it is possible to identify a discourse that
is not context dependent. He also
thinks that middle class people are more likely to
recognise 'semiotic elaboration, explicit
description, and conceptual abstraction', which
happily appear in decision-making contexts in
capitalism. However, there may be additional
logical reasons for preferring these
functions. Nash thinks that there is no
necessary desire for domination over nature.
The connection with social class, however is
'emphatically a matter for social practice', not
necessary. Other commentators on Bernstein
disagree, however. Educational practice
itself might have an effect. Others support
the basic insights [including Walkerdine] but call
for a fundamental change. However, 'the
economic division of labour in all actually
existing industrial societies' (617) ensures that
executive positions 'require comprehensive,
universal, spheres of interest', for Bernstein
[strange argument, presumably Durkheim on how the
class structure is really just a result of a
division of labour].
The nature of the world and the [technical?
Economic?] problems it provides 'must influence
the methods of inquiry adopted' Physical
scientists can isolate and describe the material
entities and their properties, but the nature of
reality does become elusive 'at the very limits of
theoretical physics'. Their methodologies
are so robust that it makes no difference what
philosophical position is developed, implying that
philosophies with few practical implications need
not be taught in the school curriculum.
Social scientists are different. They are
right to reject theories and methods that
constrain attempts to gain adequate knowledge, and
the 'most satisfactory way' to proceed involves
'integrated naturalism appropriate to scientific
and critical realism'. This implies, for
example that we do not stick to a particular
method as universally adequate. However,
there is no need for eclecticism either - the
abandonment of truth leads to difficulties like
holocaust denial. Bunge and Bhaskar offer a
more powerful basis than 'idealist relativism'.
The popular way of thinking about curriculum is in
terms of practical relevance vs. abstract theory,
but this is unproductive, if we take an educated
person as one who can understand 'the structures
of the physical and social world' (618).
Self realization is also important, and learning
the 'fundamental laws' can help students go on to
observe for themselves. The sense of knowing
is itself satisfying and this 'should be
inculcated systematically by forms of a realist-
based scientific education'. Schools can do
this systematically. There is no association
between wanting to learn and being a member of a
social class. Social class links may only be
statistical, or they might rely on intrinsic
objective interest, or custom and habit. If
we assert that members have an objective interest
in knowledge, this may overwhelm the other
aspects.
However common practice of class communities can
lead to only an outline knowledge of what is
available in technology and science. Schools
should demonstrate the value of science, describe
their history, and show their potential critical
value. Pedagogies involving 'video
production, debates, scientific clubs, magazines,
and other activities' have been suggested by
Bhaskar and Bunge [apparently focusing on 'the
fundamental unity of science']. The career
possibilities of having mastered science should
also be discussed - some form of mathematics might
be more useful than others in terms of
technology. However, the point is to let
students see the personal value of acquiring
mathematical and scientific knowledge, to let them
participate adequately, for example in debates
about environment and planning. Knowing the
world is itself a form of power, including power
over one's self. Schools should compensate
for any inadequate frameworks provided by the
family, although we must avoid stereotypes of
working class thought - it consists of craft
expertise, and other 'realist and practical'
conceptions (619), if only at the level of naive
realism or 'robust materialism' and an enthusiasm
for experimentation, at least in school science.
Students will be better served by this approach
compared to constructivist teaching, which is
unlikely to produce sophisticated
understanding. Schools should build on these
enthusiasms rather than encourage instrumentalism.
'Teachers should want students to learn what the
world is actually like. Scientists do
that...' School curricula should help students
construct knowledge, to do science. Some
people think that, by practical activity alone,
'they might get as far as the science of
Archimedes and Galileo' [highly unlikely, because
this was not just an experimental science, says
Nash]. Purposeful activity will ensue.
However, we should not relativize this as student
science, and teachers need to know the standard
scientific theories. Relativism 'is
grievously in error', and one theory is not as
good as another. Science requires
significant demonstration and accurate knowledge.
The issue of access becomes a problem for
curriculum studies. However, we need a
detailed account of the mechanisms of social
exclusion, and we must not assume that everything
in the curriculum is culturally and socially
arbitrary. If critical pedagogy aims at
emancipation or empowerment, and if the curriculum
is a selection from available knowledge, then the
principles of inclusion and exclusion need to be
clarified. Realist ontology offers the best
guide to these principles, and helps develop 'a
grounded concept of the educated person'. It
is not enough just to dismiss relativism, however,
and we need more concrete analysis of practices
that maintain subject hierarchies and social
hierarchies. Bourdieu on the 'economy of
practices' might help, at least in denying that
such hierarchies are natural. Just basing a
curriculum on realist principles will not suffice.
There is misrecognition in that the notion of the
educated person is currently clearly related to
structures of dominance. However, realism
can offer a vigorous critique here as well.
Realist notions of reality knowledge and truth can
help to expose the arbitrary nature of school
knowledge and pedagogy. Curriculum studies
become central to the sociology of education.
Bhaskar argues that 'if modern science is right
then a realist ontology is necessary', and if that
is so, then the school curriculum should be based
on that reality, and this is not as arbitrary as
might be implied. Relativist discourse can
even confirm reproduction by suggesting that the
school itself is unreal in some senses. We
can round out the work of Bourdieu and Bernstein
by attempting to distinguish the arbitrary and the
necessary. [Well you haven't really done
that here have you? We just have to except
that science produces what is necessary, and
constructivism what is arbitrary. It is an
argument for the teaching of science in a
particular way, rather than a discussion of the
whole curriculum]
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