Interpretative Theories

1
Interpretative Theories

• BASIC IDEAS
• The social world is a world made up of purposeful
  actors who acquire, share, and interpret a set of
  meanings, rules, and norms that make social
  interaction possible.
• In the school, children acquire a sense of
  societys way of life by learning its traditions,
  history, and its norms of cooperation and public
  service.

2
Basic Assumptions Present in Both Functionalist
and Conflict Theory Perspectives (Modernist
Values)

• There is a universally true description of social
  reality based on objective evidence
• There are standards that can be used for judging
  whether an explanation is verifiable or not --
  the standard is to be found in substantiating
  theories, laws, and hypotheses provided by the
  natural sciences
• There is only one view which is scientific -- the
  other views are ideological and politically
  motivated

3
Interpretation Theories Characteristic Elements

• Rejects the basic assumption found in both
  functionalist and conflict theories that the
  natural sciences (as commonly understood) provide
  an appropriate model for understanding social
  life.
• No global political argument about the role of
  schools in society.
• Local rather than global orientation.
• Research focuses on interpretations, not on some
  universal, political salient theory of
  explanation or single true description of social
  reality.
• Qualitative-interpretivist-constructivist research

4
The Social Game

• Regularity whether two events are the same
  depends not only upon the events themselves but
  also upon the rules that a particular community
  (be it social or scientific) uses to identify
  sameness or difference (for example, saying
  words, doing gestures, etc.)
• Universality the primary task of social research
  is not to uncover universal laws of regularities
  that can be applied to any culture. It is rather
  to uncover the specific framework that defines
  the rules and meanings of cultural life for a
  specific social group.
• Society Social behavior is role and rule
  following behavior that requires human agency,
  interpretation, understanding, and monitoring (it
  is not some kind of social engineering).
  Socialization is learning how to be able to
  interpret and take part in the games people and
  society play. The ability to interpret what is
  going on is a key skill.

5
The act of interpreting

• The activity of interpretation occurs when there
  is some kind of ambiguity or some event that
  needs explication (e.g., a poem).
• People need to interpret what is going on in the
  activities of social life so they can participate
  in activities in ways meaningful to themselves
  and to others
• they need to know the point of an activity
• they need to know how to be a recognized
  participant in the activity
• they need to know what constitutes engaging in
  the activity

6
Interpretive scholarship in education

• Interpretation involves a reading of some kind of
  human text. It is like a hypothesis, a
  sophisticated guess that things will turn out a
  certain way, if tested against the facts of the
  social text. As more of the social text is
  read, the interpretation becomes more, or less,
  validated (during this reading one should
  remain within the social text).
• Two forms of scholarship in education
• looking at the intentions and reasons of
  individuals in classroom contexts
• looking at the shared system of meanings found
  within a school
• Ethnographic research in education educational
  researchers should avoid imposing their own
  theories on those who are the object of their
  studies we should try to understand the various
  meanings and rules of the game.
• classroom is a place where status and meaning are
  always negotiated success and failure are the
  results of the politics of everyday classroom
• the proper unit of analysis for what people do
  together is what people do together social
  rules that structure individual behavior in a
  particular group setting
• a student may be competent in a whole range of
  activities except the ones that the school
  defines as significant we must explore the
  meaning which a behavior has for the actor

7
Interpretive Theories

• Jackson in order to appreciate the significance
  of trivial classroom events consider the
  following three facts
• frequency of occurrence of events (time spent in
  school)
• standardization of the school environment (odors,
  furniture, rituals, etc.)
• mandatory attendance (compare with prisons,
  mental hospitals, etc.)
• Characteristics of school life (key words)
• CROWDS -----gt playing the game of patience (see
  p. 18)
• PRAISE -----gt playing the game of involvement
  in the school tasks which includes the
  development psychological buffers that help to
  cope with the wear and tear of classroom life
  (see p. 27)
• POWER -----gt playing the game of power in a
  way that favors the individual student (see pp.
  32-33)
• See Chapter 1, Life in the Classrooms, by Philip
  Jackson (University of Chicago Press)

8
School and Society

• Socialization is not a passive process of
  imprinting and habituation, like the acquisition
  of habits, attitudes, beliefs of the older
  members.
• Well socialized members of a group need not share
  all the attitudes and beliefs of other members of
  their group, they may be behavioral variations
• The members of a group share a structure of
  intelligibility that enables communication and
  inter-subjective understanding to take place.
  This structure provides a foundation for shared
  commitments to be expressed
• Schools develop in students a shared social
  structure of intelligibility.