23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education
Paper
A Vote on the Temporal Order of Schools. The 1959 Referendum Among Pupils on the Five-day School Week
Joakim Landahl
Stockholm University, Sweden
Presenting Author: Landahl, Joakim
The five-day school week with Saturdays off was introduced in Swedish schools in 1968. The decision was preceded by a debate in which the student voice was unusually present, not least through a nationwide vote among pupils in 1959. The vote was given a lot of space in the mass media, with several newspaper articles, radio and TV programs. The debate about the five-day week is thus a case that sheds light on two neglected themes in the history of education: school democracy as well as how it was represented in the media. The aim of the presentation is to discuss the conditions and features of this national campaign for/against a five-day school week. Why was it introduced at this very point in time? What does the character of the campaign say about the space for pupil voice in the late 1950s? What can the campaign reveal when it comes to understandings on temporal rhythms at this moment of time?
Theoretically, the presentation draws on the history and sociology of time (Zerubavel, 1981). Of particular relevance is the temporal rhythm that is called the week (Henkin, 2021), and how we can understand attempts to change the temporal order of societies as well as how we can understand temporal conservatism. Drawing on the history of the cultural meaning of the week as well its individual days, the study will shed light on how school weeks are given meaning, and how attempts to change the temporal order of schools have been framed.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe study is based on media representations of the referendum on the five-day school week. The referendum was discussed in different media outlets – newspapers, weekly and monthly magazines, TV, radio as well as in a national magazine for pupils. The campaign also included the use of pupil constructed media in a wider sense, with posters and other means of propaganda being put to use. Rather than studying one particular media type, the study will thus study a larger media system (Harvard & Lundell, 2010) to get a fuller understanding of how different media types were interrelated and how the campaign for/against a new temporal order of schools circulated in society at large.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe vote on five-day school week was an unprecedented event as pupils for the first time on a national scale got the opportunity to vote on an issue of central importance for their life in schools. Being highly mediatised it was an example of how politics became a spectacle (Edelman, 1988). It is also an interesting case of how youth became political actors (Bessant, 2021) and how a social movement developed in symbiosis with the media (Gitlin, 2003). The result of the campaign for/against five-day school week is somewhat surprising. A large majority of the voting pupils wanted to maintain a six-day school week. Possible explanations for this result in the vote are discussed. One can be labeled “temporal conservatism”, another has to do with the zero-sum game of school schedules, a third will be related to the role of media as opposed to national pupil organizations as arenas for democratic deliberation over educational issues.
ReferencesBessant, Judith (2021). Making-up people: youth, truth and politics. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge.
Edelman, Murray (1988). Constructing the political spectacle. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Gitlin, Todd (2003[1980]). The whole world is watching: mass media in the making & unmaking of the New Left. [New ed.], with a new preface Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Harvard, Jonas & Lundell, Patrik (red.), 1800-talets mediesystem, Kungliga biblioteket, Stockholm, 2010.
Henkin, David M. (2021). The Week: A History of the Unnatural Rhythms That Made Us Who We Are. Yale University Press.
Jenkins, Richard, and Matthew Mendelsohn (2001). "The news media and referendums." In Matthew Mendelsohn & Andrew Parkin (eds.) Referendum Democracy: Citizens, elites and deliberation in referendum campaigns. New York: Palgrave.
Rosa, Hartmut (2013). Social acceleration: a new theory of modernity. New York: Columbia University Press.
Zerubavel, Eviatar (1981). Hidden rhythms: schedules and calendars in social life. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education
Paper
The Timeliness of Policy Sociology - Multiple Temporalities, and the Possibilities of a Historical Policy Sociology
Simon Warren
Roskilde Universitet, Denmark
Presenting Author: Warren, Simon
Recently, there has been an attempt by Bob Lingard to introduce a temporal dimension into policy sociology. Lingard challenges top-down policy analyses, arguing for an appreciation of multiple temporalities and effects between global and local, much as Simon Marginson does with his use of the concept of glonacal. This builds on an earlier piece written with Greg Thomson that sought to reclaim temporality in the sociology of education in the context where the spatial had become a dominant theoretical perspective. This presentation responds positively to the interventions made by Bob Lingard and responds to this challenge by offering a different conceptualisation of temporarily, that of Reinhart Koselleck’s notion of multiple temporalities.
The presentation begins by summarising Lingard’s argument specifically that policy sociology is seen as working with the implicit future oriented character of the field of the sociology of education, particularly in its more redemptive forms where concerns for social justice direct attention to some future correction of past inequalities; as well as a certain fetishization of the present where the past is referred to in order to account for change and continuity in policy options for instance, but where the present is the privileged moment of enactment. Lingard claims that policy sociology, in its original articulation, was historically informed but that temporality had become largely absent from policy sociological work.
Next the presentation discusses some absences in Lingard’s argument, specifically the lack of engagement with discussions in historical scholarship relating to multiple temporalities. This question is particularly pertinent since Lingard and Thomson’s 2017 paper was an introduction to a special issue of the British Journal of Sociology of Education focusing on time/temporality. Within that special issue Julie McLeod (2017) dealt with the collision of temporalities and debates within historical scholarship, specifically the contribution of Koselleck, whereas the other papers all adopt sociological or social theoretical discussions of time/temporality. McLeod ends their contribution by calling for greater engagement by the sociology of education, and by implication policy sociology, with historical approaches and historical scholarship.
The last part of the presentation outlines Koselleck’s theory of multiple temporalities and proposes how both Koselleck’s conceptualisation and a specifically historical approach to policy sociology may be useful. It suggests that Koselleck’s conception of conceptual history has affinities with the tradition of policy sociology and therefore a relevant theoretical approach to foregrounding temporality. It introduces Koselleck’s ideas of the synchronicity of the non-synchronous - the interweaving of diachronic and synchronic elements in any given historical (policy) process; and layered time – processes which move at different speeds, have different durations and different rhythms, therefore critiquing modernist understandings of time. The policy sociology concept of policy trajectories is re-articulated by showing how this concept can work with the synchronicity of the non-synchronous and layered time.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedThe presentation is based on a close reading of three sets of texts,
1. The original articles by Lingard and Thomson (2017) and Lingard (2021) which introduce the discussion of temporality in policy sociology/sociology of education. This set also includes three other texts that are especially referred to by Lingard in the 2021 paper, namely Julie McLeod’s 2017 article in the special issue of the British Journal of Sociology of Education focusing on time/temporality, Webb et al’s 2010 article, and Sarah Sharma’s book In the meantime: temporality and cultural politics. These additional texts are reviewed because they appear particularly important for Lingard’s formulation of temporality. McLeod’s article is important because it directly discusses Koselleck’s theory of multiple temporalities. Webb et al’s article is important because Lingard uses their typography of temporality, and Sharma’s sociological concept of lived time and that of chronologies of power frames Lingard’s own sociological and social theoretical articulation of temporality.
2. Policy sociology texts specifically referred to by Lingard such as Jenny Ozga’s (2000) Policy research in educational settings: Contested terrain, Stephen Ball’s (1994) Education reform: a critical and post-structural approach, and Fazal Rizvi and Bob Lingard’s (2010) Globalizing education policy. These are read in order to draw out the implicit or explicit conceptions of time/temporality and to identify the extent to which historical or sociological conceptions are dealt with.
3. Koselleck’s own articulation of a theory of times as well as scholarly discussions of this. Of particular importance is the work of Helge Jordheim who has not just discussed Koselleck but has operationalised his approach in relation to policy relevant issues such as European integration in ‘Europe at Different Speeds: Asynchronicities and Multiple Times in European Conceptual History’.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe main argument presented is that policy sociology can be strengthened by an explicit engagement with the historical. Indeed, it argues that policy sociology has always worked with an implicit historical perspective. Kozelek’s multiple temporalities offers an important methodological and analytical strategy for approaching the policy sociology question, ‘why this particular policy and why now?’ that is different to sociological or social theoretical approaches discussed by Lingard and others. Therefore, advanced is the idea of a historical policy sociology that can bring into view the historical antecedents of dominant structures and practices of education as well as contemporary policy options. That is, current policy options are not only related to economic structures such as capitalism, and political dynamics such as the Cold War and decolonization, but historically longer structures of imperial and colonial projects. This can involve not just understanding the path-dependent qualities of policy formation but also their contingency and how policy formation, enactment, and effect are entangled historically and transnationally, alerting the researcher not only to what education policies are but also why they occur at particular moments, in particular forms, and particular places.
ReferencesBall, S. (1994). Education reform: a critical and post-structural approach. Open University Press.
Hellerma, J. (2020), Koselleck on modernity, historik, and layers of time. History and Theory, 59: 188-209. https://doi.org/10.1111/hith.12154
Jordheim, H. (2012). Against periodization: Koselleck's theory of multiple temporalities. History and Theory, 51(2), 151-171. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2303.2012.00619.x
Jordheim, H. (2017). Europe at Different Speeds: Asynchronicities and Multiple Times in European Conceptual History. In Steinmetz, Willbald; Fernandéz-Sebastián, Javier & Freeden, Michael (Ed.), Conceptual History in the European Space. Berghahn Books. p. 47–62. doi: 10.2307/j.ctvw04kcs.5.
Koselleck, R., & Presner, T. S. (2002). The practice of conceptual history: Timing history, spacing concepts. Stanford University Press.
Koselleck, R., Franzel, S. & Hoffmann, S. (2018). Sediments of Time: On Possible Histories. Redwood City: Stanford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781503605978
McLeod, J. (2017). Marking time, making methods: Temporality and untimely dilemmas in the sociology of youth and educational change. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 38(1), 13–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/01425692.2016.1254541
Ozga, J. (2000). Policy research in educational settings: Contested terrain. Open University Press.
Rizvi, F., & Lingard, B. (2009). Globalizing education policy. Routledge.
Sharma, S. (2014). In the Meantime: Temporality and Cultural Politics. New York, USA: Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822378334
Webb, P. T., Sellar, S., & Gulson, K. (2020). Anticipating education: Governing habits, memories and policy futures. Learning, Media and Technology, 45(3), 284–297. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2020.1686015
Zammito, J. (2004), Koselleck's Philosophy of Historical Time(s) and the Practice of History. History and Theory, 43: 124-135. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2303.2004.00269.x
23. Policy Studies and Politics of Education
Paper
Solving the Challenges of the Future Now: Aspects of Time in the Realization of the Vision of a New School
Katarina Blennow1, Ingrid Bosseldal1, Martin Malmström2
1Lund University, Sweden; 2Malmö University, Sweden
Presenting Author: Blennow, Katarina;
Malmström, Martin
Futurity is central to social life (Adam, 2010). We live in a time where the powerful story of progress is breaking down (Nowotny, 2015) and the future is perceived as a threat rather than as something positive. At the same time, OECD and other organisations make it an obligation for young people to be ‘enterprising’ and ‘aspirational’ in the context of multiple crises (Goring et al., 2023). Aspiration for the future can be seen as an unequally distributed future-oriented cultural capacity (Appadurai, 2004). In complex neoliberal socio-ecologies, young people’s aspirations should be reimagined as complex and ambiguous, according to recent research on education and aspiration (Goring et al., 2023: Froerer et al., 2022).
This paper investigates how the future is anticipated and enacted at a newly established upper secondary school in Sweden. The school’s vision and slogans, clearly inspired by neoliberal ideas (entrepreneurship, challenge-based pedagogy, etc.) short-circuit the future by claiming that “we solve the problems of the future now”. The future is clearly used as a commodity/resource in the school’s marketing, positioning the students as “predecessors” and the school as the “school of the future”. The school’s entrepreneurial approach and “challenge-driven” pedagogy resonate well with ideas of transnational organisations, such as OECD (21st Century Skills and Competencies, Ananiadou & Claro, 2009) and the EU, whose eight key competences include entrepreneurship competence (Halász & Michael, 2011). This also attests to how globalisation influences national and local policies (Lingard & Rawolle, 2011).
Inspired by sociology of the future, we strive to capture aspects of time as fluid, rather than divided into stable entities as past-present-future. To do this, we use a multidirectional time perspective through the concepts future present and present future (Adam & Groves, 2007; Adam, 2010).
The two concepts signal different standpoints in relation to the future:
Present future means that the future is approached from the standpoint of the present. The future is projected as empty and open to colonisation: it is predicted, controlled and transformed in and for the present. Thus, the future is enacted in the present.
In the perspective of future present, people are responsible for the effects of their actions and failure to act. This standpoint makes it possible to follow actions to their potential impacts on future generations. This standpoint acknowledges that there is a future present that is affected by our actions and decisions.
Importantly, our present situation is our ancestors’ present future. Expectations of the future could be individual, but also collective. The collective expectations of the future may turn into taken-for-granted ideas, and importantly, they are performative, and thus guide actions (cf., Borup et al., 2006; Konrad, 2006).
The school aspires to solve future societal challenges now, which creates a complex relation between present future and future present. In relation to the school’s aspiration, the students are beings, with responsibility and power to change. But it is also the schools’ mission on a more general level to educate the workforce/citizens that are needed in the future. In relation to that task, the students are becomings, not-yets.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources UsedWe have studied this particular school since its launch in 2018 as a single case study, approved by the Swedish Ethical Review Authority. A case study can be useful to answer how- and why- questions when examining current, new and complex events that lie outside of the control of the researcher (Yin, 2014). A particular benefit of the case study is the possibility to investigate a phenomenon in its context (p. 16). Further, a strength of case study research is its ability to trace changes over time (p. 151), which is of great value in a study following the establishment of a school over the course of several years.
The establishment of the school has been investigated through interviews with key stakeholders in the municipality and at the school, as well as through document studies, observations of both day-to-day activities and special events at the school. We have followed the school at its different temporary premises, reviewed various internal working documents and also used questionnaires and interviews with students and teachers.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or FindingsThe future is enacted at the school in the vision, the marketing and thematic, interdisciplinary “project weeks”. In this process, the future is commodified and filled with the school’s (and OECD’s) desires. The students are positioned by the school as future makers and moral agents of change, which lays on them much responsibility in relation to future takers, the people who will have our future as their present. At the same time the students are the future takers, the ones who will have to endure or deal with the consequences.
There is a clear tension in the material between the school’s aspirations and enactment of the future and the students’ aspirations and enactment of the future. When the first generation of students arrived, the student group was not the expected one. According to the teachers, they needed much support, owing to a lack of study habits and motivation, as well as neurodevelopmental disorders. Instead of the entrepreneurial subjects eager to solve the problems of tomorrow, the teachers met students not too keen on challenge-based education; many were there because that was what their grades admitted.
These students resist the school’s positioning of them as moral agents of change. In the data we can trace anger at being positioned as responsible for solving problems that the adult generation has caused. The students also use humour (comedy) as resistance, for instance making jokes about them being positioned as “predecessors” when they are at the same time seen as low-achieving, low motivated and disruptive.
ReferencesAdam, B. (2010). History of the future: Paradoxes and challenges. Rethinking History, 14(3), 361–378.
Adam, B. & Groves, C. (2007). Future matters: action, knowledge, ethics. Leiden: Brill.
Ananiadou, K. and M. Claro (2009), “21st Century Skills and Competences for New Millennium Learners in OECD Countries”, OECD Education Working Papers, No. 41,OECD.
Appadurai, A. (2004). The capacity to aspire: Culture and the terms of recognition. Culture and public action, 59, 62-63.
Borup, M., Brown, N., Konrad, K., & Van Lente, H. (2006). The sociology of expectations in science and technology. Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, 18(3–4), 285–298.
Froerer P., Ansell, N. and Huijsmans, R. (2022). Sacrifice, suffering and hope: education,
aspiration and young people’s affective orientations to the future. Ethnography and Education, 17(3), 179–185.
Goring, J., Kelly, P., Padilla, D. C., & Brown, S. (2023). Young People’s Presents and Futures, and the Moral Obligation to be Enterprising and Aspirational in Times of Crisis. Futures. https://doi-org.ludwig.lub.lu.se/10.1016/j.futures.2023.103099
Halász, G., & Michel, A. (2011). Key Competences in Europe: interpretation, policy formulation and implementation. European Journal of Education, 46(3), 289-306.
Konrad, K. (2006). The social dynamics of expectations: the interaction of collective and actor-specific expectations on electronic commerce and interactive television. Technology Analysis & Strategic Management, 18(3-4), 429-444.
Lingard, B., & Rawolle, S. (2011). New scalar politics: Implications for education policy. Comparative Education, 47(4), 489–502.
Nowotny, H. (2015). The cunning of uncertainty. Cambridge: Polity.
Yin, R.K. (2014). Case study research: design and methods. (5. ed.) London: SAGE.
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