POSTMODERN TRANSFORMATIONS

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POSTMODERN TRANSFORMATIONS
Kari Winer
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What is a Postmodern Perspective?

• There is no single reality Challenges
  science
• Challenges binary opposition
• Male / female
• Black / white
• Gay / straight
• Order / disorder
• Nature / culture
• Rational / irrational

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Why is postmodernismhappening?

• A reaction against enlightenment/modernism
  and the search for absolute truth. Whose
  absolute truth? Hitler and Stalin ultimate
  seekers of the absolute truth. Dominance of
  the USA and research in developmental psychology
  is rejected. Modernism vehicle for oppression
  and domination.

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MODERNITY V POSTMODERNITY

• Modernity power
• Liberty, equality, brotherhood (for white
  males)
• Universalism, uniformity
• Progress through science

• Postmodern ethicsLiberty, diversity,
  tolerance (for all)No absolute
  truth/knowledgeSocial and individual diversity,
  complexity,uncertainty, creativitySocially
  constructed world

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Rejection?

• We do not need to reject modernity and the
• enlightenment.
• We must not ignore the possibilities of
  thesemovements.
• There are shared concerns.

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Where does Postmodern thinkingcome from?

• Michael Foucault a French philosopher.
• Interested in the ethics of discipline andpower.
• Disciplinary power seen to shape us as we
• conform and take up binary positions aseither
  powerful or passive.
• Believes society behaves without thinking
  critically about what they are being asked
  todo.

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Knowledge

• Provides techniques for normalising suchas
  surveillance, measurement,categorization,
  regulation and evaluation.
• Through this knowledge we categoriseourselves
  and take up discourses of truth.
• These discourses regulate our experiencesof the
  world, we see them as truth and theright
  thing to do.
• Concepts and classifications shape ourthinking.

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Power

• To become powerful individuals must learn
• how not to be governed so much.
• Individuals need to challenge dominant
• discourses.
• Foucault calls this care of self.

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Implications for Pedagogy

• Move from voice of pedagogue as authority.
• Move away from question-answer
  wherepedagogue only listens for correct
  answer.(See overhead).
• This type of exchange shows how very poorand
  helpless a child appears.
• Child to be filled with knowledge but
  notchallenged.

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Pedagogy in PostmodernConditions

• The potential of a
• child is stunted when
• the end point of their
• learning is formulated
• in advance.
• (Rinaldi, 1993104)

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Implications for Childhood

• Postmodern thinking has led to a rejectionof the
  dominant discourse on developmentalpsychology.
• Instead of this Anglo-American deficitmodel of
  childhood, children are seen aspowerful
  co-constructors of culture andknowledge.
• Classificatory practices are rejected
  asdiscriminatory and the effect of
  dominantdiscourses on power.

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Taking a Postmodern perspective means we no
longer fall back on universal knowledge
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We no longer determine childrens development
in terms of predetermined categories
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• We try to see andunderstand what is goingon in
  the pedagogicalwork and what the child is
  capable of without anypredeterminedexpectations
  and norms.
• (photo from RapunzelsSupermarket, Kolbe 2001)

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• Knowledge isunderstood asreflecting
  andcorresponding tothe world

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• Children formand shape theirownunderstandingof
  the world,knowledge, aswell as identityand
  lifestyle.

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• Knowledge,identity and cultureare constituted
  andreconstituted inrelation to others they
  are co-constructed.

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Reggio Emilia
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In Reggio schools children are seen as powerful,
competent co-constructors of knowledge
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Understanding how knowledge isconstructed

• What engages these children the most?
• What kinds of theories do these childrenhave?
• How can I challenge these theories?
• How is it possible to extend the
  learningprocess?
• How should work continue?

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• The Postmodern child is a co-constructor
  ofknowledge, identity and culture.