Situating Michael Apples Work

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Situating Michael Apples Work
EDFN 440 Prof. Zavala July 26, 2006
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Earlier Works
Latest Developments
Present
1970s
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The Question of Social Reproduction as central to
the Sociology of Education in Britain and the U.S.
What role does education play in the reproduction
of the social relations of economic production?
Bowles Gintis (1978) Schooling in Capitalist
America
A structural-functionalist analysis of education
and its relation to economic relations.
Correspondence Thesis
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A Critical Reading of Schooling in Capitalist
America
Social systems act as agents!
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Generic, Abstract Construction of the Oppressor
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A functionalist Perspective of Social Systems
Where schooling processes serve to reproduce the
reified "needs" of an overpowering social system
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A Different Approach The Sociology of School
Knowledge
1960s -The new sociology of education in
Britain the U.S.
Vulliamy (1976) - middle class conception of
music legitimated in the classroom Layton
(1973)/Young (1977a) - Science curricula and
dominant group ideology Whitty (1976) -
Reproduction of world-views, eurocentrism in
British educational system Steed (1974) -
Reproduction/legitimation of British Constitution
in history courses Hine (1975) - Physics
curricula and the limits of scientific thinking
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Michael Apples Contributions to Our
Understanding of the Hidden Curriculum
1. Challenged prevailing taken-for granted
assumptions of the school curriculum challenged
the idea that knowledge only serves technical
functions.
2. New sets of questions emerge How do schools
function in the legitimation and reproduction of
values, beliefs, world-views, etc.?
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NEO-MARXIST CRITIQUE overemphasis on social
construction of knowledge, which neglects
explanations for why reality is constructed the
way it is.
The social construction of knowledge approach,
thus, ignores to a very large extent the
political and economic context in which such
social values function and by which certain sets
of social values become the (by whose definition)
dominant values, (Apple, p. 31).
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POWER - KNOWLEDGE CONNECTIONS
These points mean a number of things when they
are applied to what has increasingly been called
the sociology of school knowledge. It means that
for methodological reasons one does not take for
granted that curricular knowledge is neutral.
Instead, one looks for social interests embodied
in the knowledge form itself, (Apple, p. 17)
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THE SOCIOLOGY OF SCHOOL KNOWLEDGE
KEY QUESTIONS
1. WHY DOES A PARTICULAR FORM OF KNOWLEDGE EXIST?
2. HOW IS IT MAINTAINED? (WHO SELECTED IT? WHY
IS IT ORGANIZED AND TAUGHT IN THIS WAY?)
3. WHO BENEFITS?
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Conceptual Foundations behind Michael Apples Work
Neo-Marxist Tradition
Antonio Gramsci
The concept of hegemony
Raymond Williams
Structures of Feeling, Common-Sense
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The centrality of CULTURE IDEOLOGY
INTEREST THEORY of KNOWLEDGE/IDEOLOGY
Knowledge as contested, it emerges through
conflict
Almost all ruling regimes have sought to ensure
that the school knowledge transmitted by the
educational system advances their interests in
state formation. However, it is simplistic to
assume that schools in general and the curriculum
in particular serve the dominant group in
mechanical and unmediated manner, (Apple, 2002,
p. 612).
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RELATIVE AUTONOMY THEORY OF STATE APPARATUSES
The State is not a monolith or reflex of an
economic base Particular sectors have a
particular relative autonomy (classroom-level,
school-level) Other levels of the educational
apparatus are largely determined by powerful
group interests (policy-making)
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Michael Apples Most Recent Work
Focus on policy-making in education
- Rightist policies
- Complex configuration of interests on the
right.
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What are the effects of policies that the
complex configuration of interests on the right
has promoted? How do the seemingly contradictory
policies that have emerged from the various
fractions of the right--such as the marketization
of education through voucher plans, the pressure
to return to the Western tradition and a
supposedly common culture, the commitment to get
God back into the schools and classrooms of
America, and the growth of national and state
curricula testing--actually get put together in
creative ways to push many of the aspects of
these rightist agendas forward? These are the
questions that guide this book, (Apple,
Educating the Right Way, pp. 11-12).
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An Assessment of Michael Apples Analysis Some
Questions
Is Michael Apple deploying a political-economy
approach?
What is the role of knowledge/ideology in
Apples analysis of how political decision-making
gets done?
In the unfolding play of key actors that are
shaping current education policy, who does Apple
include/exclude?
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Group Discussion
Using your Extended Reflections, what questions
do you have for your group, questions that you
would like to address? What stood out for you in
the reading? Please use these questions as
starting points for discussion.