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.

‘Academic Digital Libraries of the Future…’ (2009)

Law (2009) argues that ‘the very need for libraries is being questioned’ (p. 53).

Academic libraries (and more than few of the people who work in them) have always been stern, a mood reflected in the UK’s University Grants Committee Annual Report: ‘the character and efficiency of a university may be gauged by its treatment of its central organ – the library’ (p. 54). The problem is that the quote is taken from the 1921 report; learning practices have changed radically, and at an accelerating rate, since then (Carr [2007], cited in Moss [2008, p. 118] talks about white water change since the mid-1990s).

Law reads Prensky’s ‘digital natives’ theory unproblematically, but he also produces other evidence, such as the CIBER (2007) report showing that students seek information by themselves, not requesting help from librarians, and only occasionally from teachers or peers. A student can do all the research they want with one networked device.

Institutional reactions to changing patterns of accessing knowledge can be unhelpful. Law refers to ‘eat spinach syndrome’ (p. 57) whereby students are shown what is purportedly good for them, rather than something they might actually use. Laws argues, ‘every significant library activity or process has been usurped by one or more social networking tools. Each of the arks of the professional covenant has alternatives which are readily available to users at times and in places which are convenient to them’ (p. 60). Why would students use library facilities when they have all the resources they need at their immediate disposal?

There is evidence to back up Laws’s argument. The University of Surrey (in a JISC funded project) converted one floor of its library to the ‘Splash’ centre, with easily portable furniture enabling informal learning groups (and a lot of aimless sitting around). Furthermore, the University of Texas at San Antonio has very recently and proudly announced the opening of the first bookless library.
The problems affecting academic libraries are symptomatic of the problems facing the H.E. sector as a whole. The structure and practices of H.E.I.s do not reflect the realities of learning in a digital age. Plagiarism, a practice aided and abetted by technology, was easy until a technological solution (Turnitin) arose. Students and academics are not going to attend a library to take a journal from the shelves when they can access the same material at a time and in a place that suits them. Technology allows learning (formal and informal) to happen wherever the individual happens to be, not solely within institutional settings. H.E.I.s need to work with their own decreasing control over learning.

References

CIBER (2007) Information Behaviour of the Researcher of the Future, London, CIBER.

Law, D. (2009) ‘Academic Digital Libraries of the Future: an environment scan’ New Review of Academic Librarianship, no. 15, p. 53-67.

Moss, M. (2008) ‘“Nine O’Clock And All’s Well”, or “Fire, fire, the library’s burning”: the future of the academic library’ Minerva, no. 46, pp. 117-125.

‘Inside-out: analysis of the insider-outsider concept as a heuristic device to develop reflexivity in students doing qualitative research’ (2006)

David Hellawell (2006) has successfully supervised doctoral candidates. He argues, ‘this ability objectively to stand outside one’s own writing, and to be reflexive about it, and about one’s own relation to it, are some of the hallmarks of a good thesis’ (p. 483). This is sound reasoning, but the means by which critical self-reflection can be incorporated into research are less clear. For reflexivity to become a governing preoccupation in the composition of the research itself could be an invitation to be introspective, digressive and self-referential. Hellawell gives one case-study example of how to manage reflexivity in research effectively, with the candidate writing a reflexive appendix as a supplement to the research methodology chapter (p. 484).

Hellawell’s anxieties about the role of the researcher in relation to the researched are not recent. He cites Lewis (1973) who criticised the then-dominant practice of being an outsider. Lewis had argued that such assumptions coincided ‘with those engendered by the colonial relationship’ (Lewis, p. 585).

The position of the researcher in relation to the researched is contentious, and it is not resolved by categorically being an insider or an outsider. Instead, the researcher is constantly shifting, what Hellawell defines as ‘a continuum from insider to outsider’ (p. 488).

Hellawell is attracted to ‘alienation’, which he intends in a Brechtian rather than strictly Marxist sense. Alienation involves detachment, a refusal to be convinced of the uncomplicated reality of what may appear in front of the researcher. Alienation can be understood figuratively as looking at something familiar from an unfamiliar angle, thereby allowing some hitherto unnoticed feature of the object to be foregrounded.

In my original research proposal I was cautioned against using the personal pronoun, yet the use of scientific language in academic research (‘it was done’ instead of ‘I did it’) is arguably just a conceit; a construction of impartiality masking the actual, unavoidable involvement of the researcher with the researched. The researcher is immanent, and can never be wholly removed from that which they research. Even the most external researcher is still bound and shaped by history and culture, carrying the baggage of their own epoch. Triangulation makes the researcher’s findings more credible, but the researcher is still a storyteller, a role they needn’t eschew.

References

Hellawell, D. (2006) ‘Inside-out: analysis of the insider-outsider concept as a heuristic device to develop reflexivity in students doing qualitative research’ Teaching in Higher Education, vol. 11, no. 4, pp. 483-494.

Lewis, D.K. (1973) ‘Anthropology and colonialism’ Current Anthropology, vol. 14, pp. 581-602.