CU-Boulder PHYS 4810 - Questioning Assumptions about the Role of Education in American Society

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Questioning Assumptions about the Role of Education in American Society: AReview of Schooling in Capitalist AmericaSeth RosenbergCity College of New [email protected] in America are overwhelmingly authoritarian and undemocratic. They focus onfragmented knowledge that is disconnected from the students’ lives. Proven reforms are resistedat all levels, and systematic progressive change is non-existent nearly a century after theprogressive movement. Why is this so? The standard liberal outlook is that the schools are‘broken’ and ‘neglected’, but that they have the potential, with reform, to be a major progressiveforce in society. This paper questions these assumptions through a review of the seminaleducational-economic work by Bowles and Gintis: Schooling in Capitalist America [1]. Themajor claim of this text is that our educational system’s primary role is to mirror, support,stabilize, and reproduce the fundamentally hierarchical and undemocratic social relationships thatexist in the majority of American workplaces. The major arguments and evidence of this text arereviewed, and implications for PER will be briefly mentioned.I. IntroductionThe current state of our educational system is farfrom ideal. Nearly a century after theprogressive education movement, anoverwhelming majority of classrooms are basedon the transmissionist model: learning isauthority-based and focused on fragmented, roteknowledge. We wonder why proven reformideas are systematically resisted or nearlyimpossible to implement on a large scale.Implicit in this wondering is theassumption that our classrooms are the way theyare because our educational system is ‘broken’or ‘neglected’. The state of our classrooms is anunwanted or accidental result of a lack ofresources, personnel, and coherent ideas forreform. However, underlying these beliefs areeven deeper assumptions about the role ofeducation in our society: that education isinherently progressive and in alignment with ourown educational goals. This assumption is sofundamental to the accepted paradigm that fewhave investigated to see if it is actually true.I claim that the PER community, with itsroots in traditional physics research, has hadlittle exposure to the history of education andeducational reform in America. In this paper, mygoal is to introduce the community to a seminalwork in the study of educational institutions,Schooling in Capitalist America, written bySamuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis [1]. Thiswork has had a dramatic influence on theeducational community, and inspired a widerange of research. So much so that an entiresession was dedicated to the 25th anniversary ofthe text at the 2002 annual meeting of theAmerican Educational Research Association.Using extensive statistical and historicalevidence, Bowles and Gintis question thefundamental ‘hidden assumptions’ of the liberaleducational paradigm. In the remainder of thispaper I briefly review the basic arguments andevidence put forth by Bowles and Gintis, anddiscuss a few implications for PER.II. ‘Hidden Assumptions’ about theroles of educationFew of us in PER are explicit about our goals foreducational reform. Some would like to ‘make abetter physics class’ by improving classroomenvironments and curricula. Some would like toencourage rational/scientific thinking or national‘scientific literacy’ [2]. Other goals includeindependent thinking, personal development,and social/economic equality. Behind thesegoals lie ‘hidden assumptions’ about the role ofeducation in our society. From the history ofprogressive education, Bowles and Gintis distillout three major roles that are assumed.Integrative Function: To prepare childrenfor their roles as adults in society, to providethem with the skills necessary to survive andwork, and to socialize them so that they canwork within the standardized norms and socialrelationships.Egalitarian Function: To provide everychild with an equal opportunity to excel, so thatthose who do will be able to use their educationto their advantage. Those in lower socialpositions will be able to improve their lives, andeducation may mitigate the inequality betweenrich and poor.Developmental Function: To provideopportunities for every child to explore theirpotential and interests, to help them develop intoa fully independent and realized individual.I claim that the smaller scale goals that Ibriefly discussed for the PER community aresubsumed under and assume these roles foreducation in our society.III. Questioning Assumptions: TheMeritocratic MythGiven the state of our educational system, andthe growing inequality in our society, it seemslikely that there is a tension between the threeroles of education, with the integrative roledominating the other two. Why do we notquestion the compatibility of these roles? Theanswer lies in yet another set of hiddenassumptions that many, including Bowles andGintis refer to as The Meritocratic Ideology.The meritocratic ideology begins withthe assumption that the modern economyrequires a highly hierarchical workplace, wheretechnical skills and abilities determine one’splace in the hierarchy. Those with more skillsand higher cognitive ability are more able andproductive, and thus scale the hierarchy so thatthey can aptly direct production. Theseindividuals are rewarded accordingly for theirincreased productivity. The primary place for thedevelopment of these cognitive skills andabilities is the educational system: each year ofeducation leads to higher cognitivedevelopment. Our educational system evaluatesstudents based on their cognitive progress andtracks them accordingly, so that each will beprepared for placement in a role suitable for herabilities.Unfortunately, Bowles and Gintis showthat the meritocratic ideology does not hold upto empirical scrutiny. They present a great dealof data gathered from a number of studies (bythemselves and others). First, in their recent‘Schooling in Capitalist America


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CU-Boulder PHYS 4810 - Questioning Assumptions about the Role of Education in American Society

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