topic 12 reflection on the ontological, rational and normative foundations of education policy...

Topic 12Reflection on the

Ontological, Rational and Normative Foundations of Education Policy Scholarship

EDM 6209 Policy Studies in Education

Technical-scientific rationality: It refers to conscious and knowledgeable efforts to identify the most effective or even efficient education-policy means to attain pre-determined education-policy objectives.

Political-Practical rationality: It refers to conscious and knowledgeable efforts to reconcile conflicts of interests within the political arena in which the means-to-an-end policy projects are to be “unfolded”.

Reflection on the Rationalities in use in Policy Scholarship in Education

Communicative rationality: It refers to conscious and knowledgeable efforts shared by participants in an education-policy argumentation to work for the goals of difference-bridging and consensus-bringing

through undistorted communication based on Factual claim of truth Rhetorical claim of comprehensibility Political claim of legitimacy Expressive claim of sincerity


Critical rationality: It refers to conscious and knowledgeable efforts to reveal and if possible rectify systemic and socially unnecessary distortions found in education policy making processes and argumentations.


Design rationality: It refers to the conscious and knowledgeable reflections of designers on the three layers of the “design complexity”.


Design rationality: It refers to the conscious and knowledgeable reflections of designers on the three layers of the “design complexity”. Inherent design rationality: It refers to “reflection on

materials, seeing/moving/seeing, unintended effects, emergent intention, and the form and character of the evolving object.” (Schon & Rein, 1994, p. 167)

Social design rationality: In this layer of design reflection, it involve communications and conversations with co-designers in the designing system, stakeholders and other parties involved in the policy environment, and the external context.


Design rationality: ….. Frame design rationality: This third and final layer of

design rationality involves reflection of issues arising from conflicts between policy frames. It involves reflection on the assumptions and frames underlying the

policy “back talks” (oppositions); reflection on new information emerged from transactions

with policy environment, especially opposition parties; reflection on possibilities and resolutions of reframing the

policy problems and designs reflection on the structure and politics of the policy-making

process to seek pragmatic resolution to the controversies over policy frame.


Knowledgeability of policy analysts: Zygmunt Bauman’s conception of “Legislator” and “Interpreter” Policy analyst as legislator:

Reflection on the Ontological Capacities of Education Policy Scholars

“What … constituted the formative features of cultural ideology in its “legislative”, optimistic and audacious, modern phase was not so much the success of the enterprise, as the possibility of its continuation, and of the absorption of successive drawbacks with no irreparable harm to the ongoing discourse. The remarkable resilience of purpose so typical of the modern mentality was grounded in the unshakable belief that the efforts have history and invincible reason on their side and that the ultimate success was not just attainable in principle, but a foregone conclusion. The conviction had in turn all the backing of social, economic and political realities, ….(i.e.) the ever more evident superiority of the western mode of life and thought that kept lending credibility to the hopes of finding the clinching proof of the species-wide validity of western science, morality and aesthetics.” (1992: 12-13)


Knowledgeability of policy analysts: Zygmunt Bauman’s conception of “Legislator” and “Interpreter” Policy analyst as legislator Policy analyst as Interpreter


“For the ‘interpretative’ strategy, relativity is not just a transitory state, but an apodictically given existential condition of knowledge. Something not to be frowned upon objected to, but to be drawn conclusion from and adjusted to. … Within such a world, knowledge has no extralinguistical standards of correctness and can be grasped only inside the communicatively supported, share stock of knowledge of the members. Pluralism is an irremovable feature of such a world. The most salient practical problem in such a world … is communication between systems of knowledge enclosed within their respective stocks and communal systems of relevance.” (1992, p. 21-22)


Controllability of policy analyst: March and Olsen’s conception of “Engineer” and “Gardener” Policy analyst as engineer: It underlines the strategy

adopted by policy scientists who believe themselves are in total control of the policy environment and can manipulate it as an engine.

Policy analyst as gardener: It refers to the strategy in which policy analysts assume a much passive role in the policy making and implementation process. All they can do is to provide the conducive environment in which the policy in point will develop in its own way and pace.


Controllability of policy analyst: March and Olsen’s conception of “Engineer” and “Gardener” Policy analyst as designer: In between March and

Olsen’s dichotomous conception, we may inject Schon & Rein’s conception of policy analyst as designer. It assumes that policy analysts may “work on” the policy design under the imperatives of the inherent, social and frame conditions of the policy environment.


Synthesis: Two Dimensions of Education Policy Analysts Knowledgeablility dimension Controllablility dimension


+ Knowledgeability

Controllability

+

as legislator•

as interpreter•

-

as engineer •

as gardener •

-

as designer •

• Omnipotent & Omniscient

• This Professor

According to Aristotle, education is public act aiming to constitute institutions, rules, organizations and practices through which a society is to inculcate the ideal characters into its future members and consequently constitute the ideal image of the society itself.

To accomplish such an aim, Amartya Sen, the winner of Noble Prize in economics in 1998, suggests that there are two distinctive approaches for us to constitute such an education institution and any social institutions of justice in general.

Reflection on the Normative Assumptions of Education Policy Scholarship

In his book entitled The Idea of Justice, Sen writes in the introductory chapter, “There are two basic, and divergent, lines of reasoning about justice among leading philosophy.” (Sen, 2009, P.5) “The distance between the two approaches, transcendental institutionalism, on the one hand, and realization-focused comparison, on the other, is quite momentous.” (P. 7)


By Transcendental Institutionalism, it refers to the approach in political philosophy “led by the work of Thomas Hobbes in the seventeenth century, and followed in different ways by such outstanding thinkers as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, concentrated on identifying just institutional arrangements for s society. This approach…has two distinct features.” (Sen, 2009, P. 5) “First, it concentrates its attention on what it identifies as

perfect justice, rather than on relative comparisons of justice and injustice. …The inquiry is aimed at identifying the nature of ‘the just’, rather than finding some criteria for an alternative being ‘less unjust’ than another.” (PP. 5-6)


Transcendental Institutionalism …two distinct features.. “Second, in searching for perfection, transcendental

institutionalism concentrate primary on getting the institutions right, and it is not directly focused on actual societies that would ultimately emerge. …It is important …to note here that transcendental institutionalists in search of perfectly just institutions have sometime also presented deeply illuminating analyses of moral and political imperative regarding socially appropriate behavior. This applies particularly to Immanuel Kant and John Rawls, both of whom have participated in transcendental institutional investigation, but have also provide far-reaching analyses of requirements of behavioural norms.” (P. 6-7)


Realization—focused comparison: It refer to “comparative approaches that were concerned with social realization (resulting from actual institutions, actual behavior and other influences). …They were all involved in comparisons of societies that already existed or could feasibly emerge, rather than confining their analyses on transcendental searches for a perfectly just society. Those focusing on realization-focused comparisons were often interested primarily in the removal of manifest injustice from the world that they saw.” (Sen, 2009, P. 7)


In light of Sen’s distinction of two approaches to the normative foundations of social institutions, education policy scholars, who work for educational equality, just distribution of educational treatments, and just relations in educational processes; are required to reflect on their normative foundation of their undertakings, namely transcendental institutionalism or realization-focused comparison.


As Sen suggests the point of departure for the enquiry of social justice starts with “the selection of questions to be answered (for example, what would justice be advanced?), rather than others (for example, what would be perfectly just institutions?) This departure has the dual effect, first, of talking the comparative rather the transcendent route, and second, of focusing on actual realization in the societies invlved, rather than on institutions and rules.” (Sen, 2009, P. 9)


Education policy scholars as omniscient and omnipotent social legislators and engineers who can provide definite and effective prescriptions, i.e. panacea, to education problems or even social architects who can build the prefect education institutions for future generations.

Education policy scholars as skillful political participants who can offer resolutions to conflicts of interests found in policy arenas.

Education policy scholars as deliberative practitioners who strive to attain understanding and if possible consensus in policy processes by maintaining truth, comprehensibility, legitimacy and sincerity in policy deliberation.

Ontological and Rational Postulates of Policy Analysts

Education policy scholars as intelligentsia who strive for revelation and rectification of systemic and socially unnecessary distortions embedded in education policy

Education policy scholar as designer who can reflect and adjust his/her design on the inherent nature and features of the design on the social processes of the design on the frames underlying policy controversies and the

possibilities and difficulties of reframing processes


Education policy scholars as gardeners who could only work on the habitat within which the policy would spawn, grow and hopefully harvest. They strive hard to improve the status quos no matter how depressing and hostile they appear.


The End

EDM 6209 Policy Study in Education

of the Beginning

topic 12 reflection on the ontological, rational and normative foundations of education policy...

Documents

policy environment

policy frames

educationpolicy argumentation

efficient educationpolicy

policy studies

policy problems

education design rationality

layer of design reflection