Conference Agenda

There is an abundance of studies showing that even when educational selection processes are “meritocratically” set up (e.g. standardised, based on achievement), a student’s socioeconomic background still influences the track or stream a student is allocated to (Mijs, 2016, p.18). Yet, there are few studies (e.g. Spruyt, 2015) looking at the way in which people perceive the fairness of educational opportunities. Access to educational opportunities can be conceptualised as “fairness capital”, made out of dimensions related to both societal and personal circumstances (Thomas, 2021).

This article investigates the way in which people educated in different types of educational systems perceive the fairness of educational opportunities in their countries. Thus, this research addresses the following question: How do people with different education levels from Germany and Romania perceive the fairness of educational opportunities in their countries?

Using data from round 9 of the European Social Survey, I look at perceptions of fairness regarding educational opportunities in Germany and Romania. Romania and Germany were selected because they belong to different educational regimes (Dumas et al., 2013). In Germany, there is a relatively strong link between educational qualifications and labour market positions (Allmendinger, 1989), although there are also large social background effects on track allocation in secondary school (Skopek & Leopold, 2020). Inequality has increased in Germany since the beginning of the 2000s, which has been accompanied by a rising share of affluent individuals who believe their society is unfair (Sachweh and Sthamer, 2019). Romania is a post-socialist country that has recently experienced growing levels of inequality, currently being one of the most unequal countries in the EU in terms of income disparities (Precupetu, 2013).

This article explores individuals’ perceptions about the fairness of opportunities for everyone in their country to assess the level of legitimacy attributed to educational systems in Germany and Romania. Moreover, the paper investigates how individuals perceive their own opportunities relative to others in their country, with the aim to infer the satisfaction levels of individuals with different education levels regarding their relative chances to gain the education level sought.

Empirically, research is inconclusive on how education level affects perceptions of meritocracy (Duru-Bellat & Tenret, 2012). Therefore, Mijs (2016) warns that the approach to studying meritocratic beliefs in terms of (universal) human psychology is rather narrow. Instead, he suggests that researchers should explore how different institutional configurations contribute to shaping individuals’ perceptions of meritocracy. Research by Lavrijsen and Nicaise (2016) suggests that opinions about the fairness of opportunities differ significantly between countries. Cross-national variation in perceptions of fairness might be explained by differences in the structure of opportunities in different countries, and the visibility of unfair (dis)advantages.

The visibility of educational privilege could be influenced by the forms of capital that constitute educational privilege. Bourdieu and Passeron (1977) argue that privilege is mostly noticed in its crudest forms, as help with schoolwork, but the essential part of cultural capital is passed on more discretely. Their work talks about the visibility of privilege to external observers, but does not touch on individuals’ awareness of their own privilege. This paper will look at people’s perceptions of their own privilege, as well as the extent to which they evaluate opportunities for other people in their countries as fair.

In order to identify barriers that stand in the way of a fair distribution of educational opportunities, this paper focuses on the opinions of elite students from Germany and Romania. Based on semi-structured interviews, this paper will further answer the question: How do elite students from Germany and Romania conceptualise educational privilege and the barriers to fairly rewarding talent and effort in their countries?

The following paper uses an autoethnographic method to investigate current teacher practice in schools. It narrativises my experience as a high school teacher and illuminates the fragmentary and diminishing spaces for teacher- produced professionalism in education.

The work of teachers in schools has suffered from “the rise of top-down prescription of both the content and form of education” (Biesta, 2020a, p. 72) restricting our professional autonomy - our daily practices defined by measurement of externally-imposed outcomes. The impact of technicist measurement regimes has led to a degradation of the important role of teachers, catalysing a crisis in attracting people to teaching, and misguided descriptions of ‘teacher burnout’ (Santoro, 2019). I discuss Ball’s description of “exteriorisation” (Ball, 2003, p. 226, see Lyotard, 1984 : 4) to external pressures, resulting in a palpable intensification in teachers’ working lives. The intention of this paper is to exemplify and interrogate the daily work of teachers and draw attention to the concomitant problem of retaining teachers in our ‘profession’ (in Australia our professions remains defined by others through externally-imposed standards). I draw on three decades of work as a practising English teacher in secondary schools in New South Wales, Australia to explore the paradigm that reduces individual teacher judgement and professionalism and encourages a sense of ‘demoralisation’ (Santoro, 2019) about my/our work.

Common narratives exist of ‘teachers do a wonderful job’, but… ‘they also need to prepare students for an unknown future, improve standardised testing results, focus on student-centred learning, teach online for ‘asynchronous learning’, teach to demonstrate ‘competency’ in achieving outcomes, track student data for school improvement…’. The list goes on and on, highlighting a confusing and disturbing melange of disparate and externally-imposed purposes.

In this paper, I tell a story about the tensions between externally-imposed factors and teacher professionalism and artistry. ‘Artistry’ should be endemic to teaching practice and involves making situational, pedagogical decisions in response to uncertain or unexpected moments in the classroom. This differs substantially to the current discourse of teacher ‘competency’ or ‘proficiency’, which reduces teacher artistry/practice to the fulfilment and measurement of outcomes and often stifles artistry/creativity in drawing out ‘subjectifying’ experiences. I draw on Gert Biesta’s writing, as his work focuses on the rediscovering the importance of teaching, particularly in the subjectification domain of educational purpose. Subjectification relates to the “subjectivity or subject-ness of those we educate”, (Biesta, 2013, p. 4) becoming “subjects of action and responsibility”, (Biesta, 2013, p.18), which orientates them towards questions about problems in relation to freedom and emancipation. The other purposes of education, qualification and socialisation, (Biesta, 2013), are overly emphasised in current schooling systems in Australia and other parts of the Anglosphere and the Global North, resulting in a reduction in the importance of teacher virtuosity (Biesta, 2103) and teacher-led professional action. Teaching in the subjectification domain requires freedom in teacher practice to maintain the integrity of education as an educational field, not one colonised by multiple external incursions.

Schools should be places of ‘freedom’ for students, providing ‘free time’ and the “space to leave their own known environment, rise above themselves and renew (and thus change in unpredictable ways) the world” (Masschelein & Simons, 2013, p. 9-10). Without this ‘renewal’, Biesta (2013) argues that education and democracy are at risk.

My paper highlights the extent to which teacher professionalism has been hindered as our practices are inflected by discourses of accountability and performativity, the antithesis to Biesta’s ideas about education. Referring to Biesta’s more recent work, I further consider how I navigate the contemporary classroom and varied school systems and attempt to maintain a sense of purpose in my work.

The following is my proposal for a PhD research project. I am looking to present this project in hopes of receiving feedback on my research design.

While universities increasingly aim to address the contemporary crises faced by society, it is critical educators who contextualize such crises as structural and help students engage with these structures. The demand for critical education is more pressing than ever, yet the struggles such educators face in the classroom are often unaddressed. To teach a course on capitalism, white-supremacy and patriarchy means to create both personal and interpersonal tensions in your classroom. Students arguing with each other, students arguing with the lecturer, frustration, expectation, disappointment and sometimes even anger are par for the course of critical education. The point is not that ‘regular’ education does not encounter its own set of tensions, such as neoliberal policy forcing the instrumentalization of higher education, but that critical educators experience an added set of tensions that revolve around their course content and pedagogy. While such tensions are highly visible, sometimes even making the news, they are rarely conceptualized as something structural, as something which educational programs need to account for.

One explanation for such tensions in critical education revolves around the politicization of ‘critical’ topics. The topics addressed by critical educators are politically contentious topics, racism, feminism, the climate crisis, which means there will be divisions and disagreements along people’s political alignment. This explanation covers some of the difficulties critical educators face, allegations of ‘wokeness’ or students who expect certain conclusions from you. However, this explanation fails to explain why these topics become political and therefore fails to explain a range of other tensions encountered in critical education. Another explanation for the tensions in critical education says that critical education arouses anger and other emotions that can derail the classroom (Zembylas, 2007; Harlap, 2014). For example, a student might take offense to the course content and their discontent becomes a stumbling block to continue class. A flaw of this explanation is that it is too broad. Any classroom tension can be classified as related to emotions and it remains unclear why critical education would arouse more emotions than ‘regular’ education. While these explanations are not exhaustive, the struggles facing critical education remain obscure and therefore difficult if not impossible for universities to take account of.

The central questions for my research proposal would then be: how can educational scientists conceptualize the particular struggles facing critical education? What even are the tensions experienced by critical educators? Lastly, how are these tensions related to the structures addressed by critical educators?

Theoretically, to investigate the tensions critical educators experience in university classrooms the project will lean on three concepts. First, I will use Paulo Freire’s understanding of critical education and specifically his concept of ‘the oppressor in us’, second Max Van Manen’s concept of ‘critical reflection’ as the goal for critical education, and third Baxter’s conceptualization of tensions as dialectical and other scholar’s application of dialectical tensions to the classroom setting.