Allman et al. (2003) ‘After the Box People…’

Allman et al. argue, from a Marxist perspective, that education plays a key role in perpetuating capitalist society. They see the underperformance of working class students, relative to their middle class peers, as an inevitability given the function of education in capitalist society, and see research that identifies the relative underperformance of working class students as ‘non-research’ (p. 2).

Where Allman et al.’s analysis overlaps with Activity Theory (Engestrom 1987, 2001) is in relation to dialectics, but Allman et al. centre their analysis on the primarily economic and political concept of class. They argue, ‘All dialectical contradictions are internal relations’ (p. 6) which links with Activity Theory in the sense that Engestrom argues conflicts occur internally between nodes in an activity system. Allman et al. develop their argument by suggesting that one of the antagonists in a dialectical relationship benefits from the status quo and will thus have an interest in sustaining it, whereas the other party can only marginally improve its circumstances within the existing relationship and will therefore have an interest in getting rid of the relationship. Engestrom’s analysis is less interested in the balance of power in conflicts between individual nodes.

Allman et al., citing Rikowski, also see tension within the subject: ‘We are social beings incorporating antithetical social drives and forces’ (Rikowski 2001, p. 20, cited in Allman et al. 2003, p. 18). Where Engestrom sees the subject as a node within a system in which conflict is inevitable, Allman et al. see conflict inhering within the subject. Moreover, Allman et al. cite Merrifield’s analysis, which argues that ‘class is always a dynamic process, an intricate battle of roles and relationships’ (Merrifield 2001, pp. 74-75, cited in Allman et al. 2003, p. 21). Applying the Activity Theory framework to Merrifield’s analysis, class itself becomes an activity system, with its own social nodes and inevitable conflicts.

Allman et al. argue conflict between labour and capital is inevitable, as the wealth generated by people in their labour exceeds what they obtain for their labour, with the surplus being retained by the capitalist. They cite Marx in Volume 1 of Capital who, writing before the advent of mass state education, identifies a structural feature of work which prevails irrespective of the kind of work being undertaken: ‘a school master is a productive worker when, in addition to belabouring the heads of his pupils, he works himself into the ground to enrich the owner of the school. That the latter has laid out his capital in a teaching factory, instead of a sausage factory, makes no difference to the relation’ (Marx 1867, p. 644, cited in Allman et al. 2003, p. 8).

Viewing education and society through an explicitly political lens, Allman et al. see the expansion in higher education as serving an end of capitalism: ‘One of capital’s needs, on a global scale, is millions of young people with a similar skill level – often a very high level. This is not because there are jobs for all of these people. Rather, their level of skills will make them eligible to compete with one another for the jobs that do require this level of skill, thereby, as is true of all competition, driving down the value of their labour-powers expressed as wages’ (p. 9).

Allman et al. argue that educators can present alternative value systems to students, calling their approach ‘revolutionary critical education.’ However, rather than lay down a template for how this new approach might look, they argue it is more ‘praxiological than prescored. The path is made by walking, as it were’ (p. 19). There is a further, and presumably unintentional, overlap with Engestrom in this regard, as his theory of Expansive Learning (1987, 2001) is centred on constructing new knowledge out of existing conflicts, but without the end of learning being known a priori.

That there are similarities between Allman et al.’s Marxist reading of education and Engestrom’s Activity Theory is not surprising, as Activity Theory has its roots in research undertaken in the Soviet Union in the 1920s. The modern link between the two may be found in Avis (2009) who argues that Engestrom eschews the political implications of his own analysis.

References
Allman, P., McLaren, P. & Rikowski, G. (2003) ‘After the Box People: The Labour-Capital Relation as Class Constitution and its Consequences for Marxist Educational Theory and Human Resistance,’ in J. Freeman-Moir & A. Scott (Eds.) Yesterday’s Dreams: International and Critical Perspectives on Education and Social Class, Christchurch, NZ, Canterbury University Press. Also available at http://gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/pages/mclaren/Publications/afterthebox_AllmanMcLarenRikowski.pdf (accessed 7 June 2011).

Avis, J. (2009) ‘Transformation or transformism: Engestrom’s version of activity theory?’ Educational Review, vol. 61, no. 2, pp. 151-165.

Engeström, Y. (1987) Learning by expanding: an activity-theoretical approach to developmental research. Helsinki, Orienta-Konsultit Oy. http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Paper/Engestrom/expanding/toc.htm (accessed 28 April 2011).

Engestrom, Y. (2001) ‘Expansive Learning at Work: toward an activity theoretical reconceptualization,’ Journal of Education and Work, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 133-156.

Marx, K. (1867 [1976]) Capital: a critique of political economy – Volume 1, Harmondsworth, Penguin.

Merrifield, A. (2001) ‘Metro Marxism, or Old and Young Marx in the City,’ Socialism and Democracy, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 63-84.

Rikowski, G. (2001) ‘After the Manuscript Broke Off: Thoughts on Marx, Social Class and Education,’ a paper presented at the British Sociological Association Education Group, King’s College London, 23 June.

Literature round-up

Awaiting the reports on the pilot study, I’m catching up on reading. I’m also preparing my paper for the European Conference on E-Learning.

The subject node in an activity system is particularly problematic because contradiction can be inscribed within it. If there is a gap between the subject’s use value, the functional value of what they produce, and the subject’s exchange value, the wealth their labour creates for their employer (which exceeds the subject’s rewards for their labour), then some contradiction is created for the subject. Daniels and Warmington (2007) argue the subject node in the activity system is under-theorised, as the system takes insufficient account of the relations within and between subjects.

Part of education’s function is shaped by the economic and political context within which education occurs. Hence, for example, the Education Act of 1870 existed primarily to make UK subjects functioning units within a fully-fledged industrial economy (regulated hours of attendance, regulated conduct within the institution, punishment for transgression). Rikowski (2002) argues, ‘General education… nurtures those attitudes and personality traits pertinent to working in capitalist enterprises in general’ (p. 20).

Activity Theory presupposes that activity is purposeful. There is no activity system without an object. Engestrom and Kerosuo (2007) argue that Activity Theory ‘is strongly committed to pedagogical and interventionist actions to facilitate and change learning’ (p.337). Hence, as a practical approach to learning it is not about waiting for change to happen via the internal pressures of contradictions, but, instead, provoking change through an analysis of activity systems and the contradictions between their various nodes.

Activity Theory argues that human activity is mediated through tools, a term broadly defined to include signs and codes as well as physical artefacts. However, and as with subjects, the tools node is complex, as Engestrom and Blackler (2005) argue (using objects to signify tools, not objects to signify outcomes): ‘First, it would be a mistake to assume that objects are “just given”; objects are constructed by actors…. Second, at the same time it would also be a mistake to assume that objects are constructed arbitrarily on the spot; objects have histories and built-in affordances, they resist and “bite back”’ (p. 310). On the one hand, meanings for objects (tools) are constructed by users through usage, but on the other hand objects have a back-story created by their previous uses, which are likely to exert an influence on how they are used subsequently. Using an object in an unfamiliar way can provoke resistance.

A significant value and potential of Activity Theory is that it can expose contradictions in existing human activity, and posit alternatives. In this sense it is empowering, and can, potentially, resolve contradictions experienced within subjects. Rikowski (2002), placing his analysis within an explicitly political context, defines Marxism as a ‘promethean scream: we are everything, there are no gods, no superhuman forces. People are the sole creators, it is labour alone which constitutes social reality’ (p. 1).

References
Daniels, H. and Warmington, P. (2007) ‘Analysing third generation activity systems: labour-power, subject position and personal transformation,’ Journal of Workplace Learning, vol. 19, no. 6, pp. 377-391.

Engestrom, Y. and Blackler, F. (2005) ‘On the life of the object,’ Organization, vol. 12, no. 3, pp. 307-330.

Engestrom, Y. and Kerosuo, H. (2007) ‘From workplace learning to inter-organizational learning and back: the contribution of activity theory,’ Journal of Workplace Learning, vol. 19, no. 6, pp.336-352.

Rikowski, G. (2002) ‘Methods for researching the social production of labour power in capitalism,’ University College Northampton School of Education research seminar, 7 March 2002.

Miettinen, ‘The Sources of Novelty…’ (2006)

Miettenen (2006) repeats Csikszentmihali’s argument that creativity cannot occur in a vacuum, an argument which challenges the concept of original creation: ‘Edison’s and Einstein’s discoveries would be inconceivable without the prior knowledge, without the intellectual and social network that stimulated their thinking, and without the social mechanisms that recognized and spread their innovations’ (p. 174). Wenger (1998, p. 141) makes the same argument: ‘Our knowing – even of the most unexceptional kind – is always too big, too rich, too ancient, and too connected for us to be the source of it individually.’ T.S. Eliot said essentially the same of artistic creativity in Tradition and the Individual Talent (1919). Innovation finds a form in its historical context.

Miettenen also repeats the idea that failures prompt learning. Knowledge can be transferred from one generation to another, but when contexts change the old knowledge no longer works, and hence reflection can lead to the production of new knowledge appropriate for a new context (an argument carrying echoes of the saber-tooth curriculum). Hence, knowledge is not static but is in a constant state of renewal.

In common with Engestrom, it’s hard to avoid the presence of Marxist thought in Miettenen’s analysis. He cites the ongoing tension between use value (functionality) and exchange value (price). Is it his contention that this tension is likely to precipitate a failure, resulting in reflection and, thereafter, a new form of economic organisation? This could well be a good idea (given that the capitalist economic model profits from scarce resources rather than protecting them), but the durability of the market economic model doesn’t seem to be considered in the article.

Miettenen acknowledges ‘the impossibility of predicting the various historical developments that may turn out to be significant for the emergence of an innovation’ (p. 179). What seems to emerge here is that new creations come from trial and error, with the parameters for any new creation being shaped by the historical moment. Miettenen, therefore, seems to be steering towards Foucault’s notion of epistemes, that each historical period has knowledge parameters determining the limits of the achievements of the era.

Engestrom’s theory of expansive learning may help us to recognise knowledge limits (if only in localised contexts), and maybe even challenge them. The Marxist thread comes from the recognition of dualistic tension as a structural feature of societies. Learning and teaching can be on either side of the dualism, either reaffirming existing knowledge and understanding, or attempting to catalyse new forms of knowledge.

References
Miettinen, R. (2006) ‘The Sources of Novelty: A Cultural and Systemic View of Distributed Creativity’ Creativity and Innovation Management, vol. 15, no. 2, pp. 173-181

Wenger, Etienne (1998, repr. 2005), Communities of Practice, Cambridge , Cambridge University Press.

Engestrom – Expansive learning at Work: toward an activity theoretical reconceptualization

Engestrom’s opening position is not controversial: who are the learners, why do they learn, what do they learn, and how do they learn? However, as he moves into analysis his position becomes more complex, and broadly Marxist.

Engestrom sees contradictions as a potential source of learning. Furthermore, he describes contradictions as ‘historically accumulating structural tensions’. This carries echoes of Marx’s idea of dialectical tension. Moreover, Engestrom seems keen to locate his analysis in economic and political contexts: ‘the primary contradiction of activities in capitalism is that between the use value and the exchange value of commodities’ (p. 137).

Engestrom directs his analysis to the impact of technology: ‘When an activity system adopts a new element from the outside (for example, a new technology or a new object), it often leads to an aggravated secondary contradiction where some old element (for example, the rules or the division of labor) collides with the new one. Such contradictions generate disturbances and conflicts, but also innovative attempts to change the activity’ (p. 137). This analysis overlaps with Christensen’s disruptive technology theory, in the sense that a new technology can contradict existing practices (thereby risking rejection), but also that the new technology can go on to change the practice itself.

The idea of expansive learning also features in Engestrom’s article. Traditional learning theories posit knowledge as stable. It is there to be obtained by the learner, with guidance from a teacher who has a priori possession of the knowledge. However, this can impose limits on knowledge. It becomes a stable commodity being perpetuated from one generation of learners to the next. Engestrom argues, however, that ‘people and organizations are all the time learning something that is not stable, not even defined or understood ahead of time. In important transformations of our personal lives and organizational practices, we must learn new forms of activity which are not yet there. They are literally learned as they are being created. There is no competent teacher’ (p. 137-38).

One of the implications of Engstrom’s analysis is that it complicates the communities of practice theory, because it challenges the extent to which a stable centre is a structural feature of learning. Centripetal learning presupposes a centre; Engstrom’s analysis challenges that proposition.

However, in Engestrom’s analysis there is a still a purpose to learning, or a goal. Therefore, there is movement towards an objective. What may be lacked is the expert facilitator to steer the learners towards the goal. Instead, a community of learners learns collectively, pooling resources to achieve the common goal. The advantage of this model of learning is that it brings learners to somewhere they have never been before. In this sense Engestrom proposes an exciting, pioneering learning journey.

Constructivist theories of learning position knowledge not as a stable commodity that can be acquired, but as something that is constructed, with the facilitator acting as a form of scaffolding, giving support and parameters but letting the learners do the learning, acquiring valuable skills and knowledge by that route. Constructivism therefore seems to align more closely with Engestrom’s idea than the communities of practice theory. Leaning is a journey but, crucially, a journey into the unknown.

Reference

Engestrom, Y. (2001) ‘Expansive Learning at Work: toward an activity theoretical reconceptualization’ Journal of Education and Work, vol. 14, no. 1, pp. 133-156.

Bringing in the Excluded?…

Nickson et al.’s article in the Journal of Education and Work (2003) contributes to the communities of practice discussion, because it explores potential barriers to entry to a community, before the individual can even be considered a peripheral participant: ‘A key consideration is the possibility that certain potential employees will be excluded from these “style” labour market jobs, and indeed more general employment involving interactive service work. This exclusion arises firstly because employers determine who is aesthetically acceptable during recruitment and selection processes’ (p. 186).

The authors’ focus is the service industry, and the idea that applicants have to hold particular persona attributes before they can be allowed entrance to the community (Wenger and Lave [1991] are interested in what happens within the community, but less interested in what the individual has to do in order to gain entry). In addition, the authors pick up on Nolan’s (2001) concept of the Hourglass Economy, characterised by ‘an expansion of high skill, high wage, high value added work at the top end of the labour market and the expansion of low skill, low wage, low value added work at the bottom end’ (Nickson et al, p. 187).

In common with Jewson (2007), the authors have a dystopian vision: ‘there will be cyber workers who enjoy their time musing in and able to afford high price lattes and cappuccinos at the style bars, cafes and restaurants. And they will want these places, its hardware (that is the physical environment) and software (that is the people serving them), to be pleasing to them’ (p. 191).

One of the questions explored in the article relates to who is most likely to gain entrance to these communities of practice. For the authors, following-on from the argument of Langlois and Lucas (2002) the role of higher education is important in this regard: ‘Students who have access to higher education, in particular, may undergo a process of socialisation that allows them to further refine and develop the cultural capital which may be inherent anyway from their largely middle-class backgrounds’ (p. 194).

The authors attempt a balanced conclusion, noting that ‘hospitality and retail can offer rapid career progression, often without formal qualifications’ and suggest that individuals would benefit from cultivating ‘masks for tasks’ (p. 201). Individuals adjusting their personae to suit particular contexts is probably as old as human civilisation, but possessing a niche set of attributes as a precursor to entering a certain employment sector is a marked feature of the Hourglass Economy, and the correlation between those attributes and a particular social class gives an advantage to the class that has been socialised in those behavioural patterns from infancy. Service sector communities of practice can offer rapid centripetal progress, but the gatekeepers to those communities exercise considerable power, leading to closed communities of practice, or maybe Lodges of Practice.

References

Langlois, M. and Lucas, R. (2002) ‘Knowledge and skill in the labour process: student workers in hospitality’ 20th Annual International Labour Process Conference, April, University of Strathclyde.

Lave, J. and Wenger, E. (1991) Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Nickson, D., Warhurst, C., Cullen, A.M. and Watt, A. (2003) ‘Bringing in the Excluded? Aesthetic labour, skills and training in the “new” economy’ Journal of Education and Work, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 185-203.

Nolan, P. (2001) ‘Shaping things to come’ People Management, 27 December, pp. 30-31.

Private H.E. in the UK

I spent yesterday at a conference at Regent’s College: ‘The Growth of Private and for Profit HE providers in the UK: Competition or Collaboration?’ The conference was based on a report commissioned by Universities U.K..

The surprise of the conference was realising how much private provision already exists within the H.E. sector. Glynne Stanfield of the Eversheds legal firm pointed out that there are already 75 United Sates universities with sites in the UK and, while some of these presently cater only for US students on overseas programmes, the number is likely to increase. In addition, Polish universities have set up sites in London, enabling Polish citizens living and working in the UK to study.

The Principal of Regents College, Prof Aldwyn Cooper, argued for the removal of the fees cap altogether. I heard the same argument from a Vice-Principal at King’s College London when I worked there. This issue is not far off critical mass, but questions of fair and equal access to H.E. are not in the foreground of the discussion.

The last keynote was David Willetts, Tory Shadow Minister for H.E.. He stated that H.E.I.s would increasingly specialise, focusing on their strengths, and not offering every subject. Lord Mandelson said the same thing at the Dearing conference in February. So, whoever the government is, we’re likely to be looking at similar changes.

I came away from the conference thinking that H.E. buildings are starting to resemble portals or (pejoratively) supermarkets, in which the consumer purchases the college brand and product of their choice (assuming they can afford it). The metaphor is apt for a period when approaches to H.E., from governments and students alike, are predominantly utilitarian.

The alignment of H.E. with goods and services makes a lot of us feel uneasy (and education is distinct from goods and services in the sense that the outcome is dependent on the input of the purchaser), but are supermarkets necessarily bad? I like the thought of boxes of organic veg, but it’s quicker and far cheaper to go to Tesco’s, and the job still gets done. Piety looks good, but it’s Brecht who argues, ‘Give us bread first, ethics later.’

The City and labour

I was at a Society for Research into Higher Education event yesterday, exploring the experiences of Business Studies students.

The most enjoyable speaker on the day was Prof Stefano Harney of Queen Mary, University of London. He posited an idea called ‘the exhausted student,’ whereby students have so many demands on their time, both economic and social, that deep learning becomes difficult, if not impossible. His idea was anchored in Althusser’s theory of over-determination.

In the Q&A session, I suggested that it was ever thus. In the UK, a main purpose of the Education Act of 1870, which made education compulsory for 5-13 year olds, was to prepare them to be functioning adults in an industrial economy. The outer manifestations of an education system linked to economic production change from generation to generation, but the structural principle replicates.

Prof Harney made another very interesting point, which is that business studies students are closer to labour than capital. The students come to degree programmes looking to gain skills which will prepare them for work. Personally, I am in charge of learning and teaching at an institution that prepares students for work in the City. In terms of self-perception, I would imagine that the students see themselves as part of capital, but if they could be encouraged to think of themselves as part of labour, then this basic shift could feed through into their conduct. If they think of themselves as part of labour, and networked to other people engaged in labour, they might be more likely to undertake actions which serve the interests of labour rather than a reified capital (the latter perception having arguably contributed to the recent crash). This won’t happen as simple cause and effect, but the perception change could take us somewhere interesting.

I will encourage lecturers to get their students to think of themselves as part of labour. I will also provide them with tin hats.