Away with all teachers?

Away with all teachers: The Home Schooling Debate

The Phenomenon

• Paper is from U.S. but similar debates taking place in this country.

• Rise is numbers of children being home schooled.

• Apple attempts to connect this to wider restructuring of society (‘conservative modernisation’)

Through the eyes of power

• A new hegemonic bloc: – imaginaries and fantasies

• Neoliberals• Neoconservatives• Authoritarian populist

The Welfare State

• Welfare state established after WW2 (Keynesian economics)

• Teaching a profession that formed part of the state

• Teachers professionals afforded autonomy based on qualifications.

• State seen as ‘legitimate’

Neoliberal attacks

• Bureaucrats hiding behind red tape• Professionals motivated by self interest and

insulated from real world of competition.• New public management (1990s) began t0

transform public services....

Adam Curtis

Cocooning: a world free of conflict

• Privatised consciousness• Worried about crime, violence, poor schools• Social homogeneity as a norm• Unwillingness to spend collectively• Atomisation (are we ‘Bowling Alone’?)

Gated communities: safe and predictable reality

• Complexity, ambiguity, uncertainty and proximity to ‘other’ replaced with well planned universe where everything is in rightful place.

• Rich go to rich schools, Christians go to Christian schools.....

• How many organisations do you belong to?

The paradox of freedom

• Desire for equality, recognition for beliefs and perspectives.

• Fear uniformity and a lack of control.• We want everyone to be like us but we want a

right to be different.

Attacks on schooling

• Incompetent teachers• Bureaucratic• Schools as violent, dangerous places

Home Schooling

• Facilitated by new tools (Internet). • Allows ‘customisation’ of our lives as

individuals• Learning is ‘personalised’• Is customisation and personalisation at the

expense of local communities?• Mina expresses herself as an individual but

where is the ‘social glue’?

Two theories of social justice

• Redistribution• Recognition

Redistribution

• Exploitation• Marginalisation• Deprivation

Recognition

• Interpretations• Representation• Being confronted with cultural patterns alien

to one’s own

The evidence

• Neoliberal reform reproduces traditional hierarchies.

• Those who already possess economic and cultural capital reap more benefits than those who do not.

• Reduction in willingness of those who do not use state provision to pay taxes.

Questions for your seminar

• Should Mina be home educated?• What are the benefits?• What are the drawbacks?• What are the possible hidden outcomes of

home schooling?• Should all schools be privatised?• Does the state have any duty of care towards

home schooled children?