EDM 6022 Education and Development

1
EDM 6022Education and Development

• Globalization Education
• The De-traditional Society Postmodern Culture
  and their Educational Consequences

Wing-kwong Tsang Ho Tim Bldg. Room 416 Ext.
6922 www.fed.cuhk.edu.hk/wktsang
2
Detraditionalization the Post-traditional
Society

• Culture as the symbolic universe of a society
• Time-space compression entails compression of
  symbolic universes
• Legitimation bases of symbolic universes under
  threats
• Detradionalization and the rise of
  post-traditional society
• A post-tradition social orderis not one in
  which tradition disappears - far from it. It is
  one in which tradition changes its status.
  Traditions have to explain themselves, to become
  open to interrogation or discourse. In a
  globalizing, culturally cosmopolitan society,
  traditions become forced into open view reasons
  or justifications have to be offered for them.
  (Giddens, 1994, p.23)

3
Detraditionalization the Post-traditional
Society

• The rise of fundamentalism
• "The rise of fundamentalism has to be seen
  against the backdrop of the emergence of the
  post-traditional society. What is
  fundamentalism? It is, so I shall argue, nothing
  other than tradition defended in the tradition
  way - but where that mode of defense has become
  widely called into question. In a globally
  cosmopolitan order such a defense become
  dangerous, because essentially it is a refusal of
  dialogue." (Giddens, 1994, p.23)
• An explanation of the September 11 incidence
  Terrorism in post-traditional and global societies

4
Cultural logic of late capitalism and information
society

• Production of information and knowledge replacing
  production of manufacturing goods, especially
  heavy industrial goods, as the core of
  productivity enhancement and wealth accumulation
• The rise of mass production, mass distribution,
  mass consumption, and mass communication
• Accelerations of the commoditfication cycle
  M?C?P?C?M, i.e. Money capital ? Commodity (i.e.
  labor and the means of production) ? Production ?
  Commodity (products) ? Money

5
Cultural logic of late capitalism and information
society

• The commodification of culture and information
• The use value of cultural products Communicative
  values and meaningfulness
• The exchange value of cultural products Reifying
  cultural meaningfulness into cultural commodities
  and cultural industries
• Culture of signifiers of referent depth was
  replaced by self-referencing and free-floating
  signifiers, information, data, icon.
• Empirically and objectively existing reality
  replaced by hyper-reality and virtual reality
• The proliferation of simulacra and the coming of
  the culture of simulacra
• The culture of heritage and tradition was
  replaced by culture of pastiche and hybrid

6
The Rise of Culture of Consumerism

• Retreat of culture of production and spirit of
  capitalism Culture of asceticism, endurance,
  industrious, enterprising and investment
• Constituents of culture of consumerism
• Hedonism Consumption as desire-satisfaction was
  replaced by consumption as desire-creation.
  Desire does not desire satisfaction. To the
  contrary, desire desires desire." (Bauman, 1998,
  p. 25)
• Ephemeralism "Consumer goods are meant to be
  used up and to disappear the idea of
  temporariness and transitoriness is intrinsic to
  their very denomination as objects of
  consumption" (Bauman, 1998, P.28)

7
The Rise of Culture of Consumerism

• Constituents of culture of consumerism
• Instantaneousness "Ideally, the consumer's
  satisfaction ought to be instant, and this in a
  double sense. Consumed goods should bring
  satisfaction immediately, requiring no delay, no
  protracted learning of skills and no lengthy
  groundwork but the satisfaction should end the
  moment the time needed for their consumption is
  up, and that time ought to be reduced to a bare
  minimum." (Bauman, 1998, p. 25)
• Fetishism From consumption of commodity to
  collection of commodity from consumption as act
  of desire-satisfaction to consumption (or
  possession) as identification of status and life
  style

8
The Culture of Information Management and
Publicity

• The rise of mass media and information
  management The beginning of the degradation of
  the public
• Rational critical citizens of the 19th century
  relegate to clients of the welfare state and
  consumers of welfare services in post WWII
• From culture-debating public to culture-consuming
  public
• The rise of cultural industry and mass media
• Commodification of culture Meanings and
  consensus are no longer constituted through
  critical-rational debates but manufacture by
  cultural industry and mass media

9
The Culture of Information Management and
Publicity

• The rise of mass media and information
  management The beginning of the degradation of
  the public
• From culture-debating public to culture-consuming
  public
• The replacement of a reading public that debated
  critically about matters of culture by the mass
  public of culture consumers (p. 168)
• Going to salons and book clubs are replaced by
  going to movies, listening to radio and watching
  TV. These activities are noncommittal,
  one-sided non- participatory activities
• Debating public relegated into captive audience

10
The Culture of Information Management and
Publicity

• The rise of mass media and information
  management The beginning of the degradation of
  the public
• Rational public debates relegated to administered
  or even commercialized projects
• Public debates were taken over or even
  monopolized by
• compartmentalized intellectual minority,
  professionals and specialists in cultural
  industry and mass media
• lobbyists of organized interests,
• think tank of political parties and the state,
• specialist in information management, public
  relation and publicity

11
The Culture of Information Management and
Publicity

• The rise of mass media and information
  management The beginning of the degradation of
  the public
• Rational public debates relegated to administered
  or even commercialized projects
• Public debates were commercialized, standardized
  and be consumption-ready.
• Cultural goods had to be packaged into
  consumption items, e.g.
• literary communications were pushed aside by
  illustrative, pictorial, sensational
  representations, the constitution of TV news and
  then news in global network (CNN)
• delay reward news (public affairs, social
  problems, education, and health) were pushed into
  the background by immediate reward news
  (comics, corruption, accidents, disasters,
  sports, recreation, social events, and human
  interests). (p. 170)

12
The Culture of Information Management and
Publicity

• Transformation of the political function of the
  public sphere
• The public was release of the task of rational
  and critical debate on public issue. The task was
  left to the politicians. The public relegate to
  the role of recipients of political propaganda.
• The commerialization of mass media and the
  emergence of the trade of public relation gave
  rise to the business of public-opinion
  engineering and public-consent manufacturing
• The principle of democratic public sphere gave
  way to principle of manufactured and staged
  publicity
• Critical and rational public debate repress to
  periodic, manipulated and limited voter choice of
  politics of publicity and seduction

13
Globalization and Its Cultural Consequences The
Culture of the Internet

• The techno-meritocratic culture Legitimacy and
  supremacy of technological merits and
  achievements within the egalitarian peer-review
  system
• The hacker culture
• A shared belief in the power of computer
  networking, and a determination to keep this
  technological power as a common goods - at least
  for the community of hackers. (Castells, 2001,
  p. 52)
• The hackers believe that they should and could
  build their social autonomy on the Internet,
  fighting to preserve their freedom against the
  intrusion of the powers that is, including
  corporate media takeover of their Internet
  service providers, (ibid, p. 51), i.e. fight for
  peoples right to encrypt against the
  government and right to decrypt against
  corporations.

14
Globalization and Its Cultural Consequences The
Culture of the Internet

• The hacker culture
• Virtual communitarian is highly diverse in its
  contents, it does specify the Internet as a
  technological medium for horizontal (equal and
  undistorted) communication, as a new form of free
  speech. It also lays the foundation for
  self-directed networking as a communitarians
  While the communitarian source of the Internet
  culture tool for organization, collective action,
  and the construction of meaning. (ibid, p.55)
• Entrepreneurs The realization of the potential
  of transforming mind power into money-making
  became the cornerstone of the entrepreneurial
  culture in Silicon Valley and the Internet
  industry at large. Internet entrepreneurs sell
  the future because they believe they can make it.
  They rely on their know-how to create products
  and processes that they are convinced will
  conquer the market. (ibid, Pp.56-57) Hence,
  stock option and venture capital are two primary
  constituents in Internet industry.

15
Globalization Its Cultural Consequences The
Culture of the Internet

• The Hacker ethics
• Linuss Law
• Linuss law says that all of our
  motivations fall into three basic categories.
  The categories, in order, are survival, social
  life, and entertainment. (Torvalds, 2001,
  p.xiv)
• A hacker is a person who has gone past
  using his computer for survival (I bring home
  the bread by programming) to the nest two stage.
  He (or, in theory but all too seldom in practice,
  she) uses the computer for his social ties
  e-mail and Net are great ways to have a
  community. But to the hacker a computer is also
  entertainment. Not the games, not the pretty
  pictures on the Net. The computer itself is
  entertainment. (ibid, p.xvii)

16
Globalization Its Cultural Consequences The
Culture of the Internet

• The Hacker ethics
• Hackers work ethics
• For the hacker, the computer itself is
  entertainment, meaning that the hacker programs
  because he finds programming intrinsically
  interesting, exciting, and joyous. (Himanen,
  2001, p.3)
• From The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of
  Capitalism to Hacker Ethic and the Spirit of the
  Information Age Sundayization of Friday
• Nethics (network ethics)
• Freedom of speech Decrypt against government
  censorship and corporation monopoly
• Privacy Encrypt against government and
  corporation surveillance and profiling
• Self-directed activity

17
Growing up in the Information Age

• The Hurried Child (Elkind, 1981) and Child
  without Childhood (Winn, 1984)
• By simplifying the access to information through
  TV and then PC and Internet, it opens children to
  experiences that were once reserved for adults,
  e.g. sex and violence
• By blurring the boundary between adults and
  children and revealing the secrecy of adults in
  electronic media, children are less deferential
  to adults authority and they become less likely
  to trust or respect simply because they are
  adults
• Growing up too fast too soon. (Elkind, 1981)
• Growing up too fast in the world of sex and
  drug. (Winn, 1984)

18
Growing up in the Information Age

• Disappearance of Childhood
• From literacy of printed materials to literacy of
  TV and then IT, the closure of adult world erodes
  and evaporates as the disclosure media of TV and
  then PC rise to dominance
• These result in the exposure of the backstage
  of adulthood in front of screens of TV and then
  PC (Meyrowitz, 1985) and the disappearance of
  children (Postman, 1983)
• Exposure of children to mass media (Sanders,
  1995) and unrestricted knowledge about things
  once kept secret from nonadults (Steinberg and
  Kinchloe, 1997) have caused the death of
  childhood and the loss of the literal selves of
  children

19
Growing up in the Information Age

• The coming of the Y Generation
• Constitution of generation in global-informational
  age
• A generation can be defined as a group of
  individuals who were born at about the same time,
  or in the same era, and who have been subject to
  common social, cultural and economic influence.
  (Mackay, 1997, p. 3)
• Availability of convergence of common cultural
  experiences in the global-informational age
• The Y Generation (OLeary, 1998) Those born
  after 1980 as a distinction from the X
  Generation, those born from 1966 to1979

20
Growing up in the Information Age

• The coming of the Y Generation
• Grow up in the confines of cookie-cutter
  suburbia, these kids are developing their
  interest in the world of exploding technological
  opportunity, learning through computers, video
  and a bursting array of cable options. The
  sophisticated, mouse-wielding, joystick-operating
  group grew up with advanced eye-hand coordination
  and a low threshold for boredom. Within five
  years, they are expected to produce term paper
  with full-motion video. All the conventions that
  shaped a more traditional past are being left
  behind as these early adopters rush into
  ever-changing technology. There are no rules for
  this group With all the media stimulus, things
  like the Internet, theres no one authority for
  them. Every voice has equal power and you see
  more fusions and hybrid (OLeary, 1998, p.49)

21
Growing up in the Information Age

• The coming of the Y Generation
• The Options Generation (Mackay, 1997) The
  Options Generation simply respond to the world as
  they find it, their kaleidoscope keeps moving
  and the patterns are not set for long (1997, p.
  141). They are not anxious about rapid change or
  social destabilization constant change is in
  their air they breathe the water they swim in
  (p.138). Its members keep their options open,
  remaining noncommittal for as long as possible
  and adopting short-term goals and temporary
  solutions when they are ready. They do not expect
  stability and predictability. It is a generation
  that is proud of its ability to live in a
  fluid and hybrid culture (p.174) (Quoted in
  Kenway Bullen, 2001, p. 59)

22
Growing up in the Information Age

• The coming of the Y Generation
• The Net Generation (Tapscott, 1998) The Net
  Generation have new powerful tools fro inquiry,
  analysis, self-expression, influence, and play.
  They have unprecedented mobility. They are
  shrinking the planet in ways their parent could
  never imagine. Unlike television which was done
  to them, they are the actors in the digital
  world. (Tapscott, 1998, P.3)
• The screenagers (Rushkoff, 1996) embrace
  discontinuity, turbulence and complexity. They
  have the natural adaptive skills that enable them
  to deal with the problem pf postmodernity.

23
Education as the Arena of Cultural Crash in
Global-Informational Society

• Crash between culture of production and
  consumption in late capitalism
• Modern education system as the embodiment of the
  culture of production of capitalism
• Worldly asceticism
• Delay gratification
• Endurance and patience
• Long-term saving and investment
• Methodical and instrumental rationalism
• Methodical self-control
• Controllability and calculability of other means
  of production
• Instrumental ends of production Profit
  maximization
• Possessive individualism
• Attribution of success to solely individual
  effort
• Individual success measured solely by possession
  of wealth

24
Education as the Arena of Cultural Crash in
Global-Informational Society

• Crash between culture of production and
  consumption in late capitalism
• Modern education system as the anti-thesis of the
  youth culture and consumer culture of late
  capitalism
• Ephemeral Hedonism
• Jouissance
• Carnivalestque
• Abject
• Parodic and grotesque nihilism
• Fetishistic individualism
• Othering adults

25
Education as the Arena of Cultural Crash in
Global-Informational Society

• Crash between democratic-rational culture of
  emancipation and culture of performativity and
  publicity
• Education as project of emancipation of humanity
• Education for Liberty for All
• Liberation (from ignorance and illiterate) as
  intrinsic value of education
• Equality as inalienable right of education
• Nurture of Speculative Spirit
• Freedom to self-acturalization as intrinsic value
  
• Freedom to pursuit truth, virtue and beauty as
  intrinsic ideal of education

26
Education as the Arena of Cultural Crash in
Global-Informational Society

• Crash between democratic-rational culture of
  emancipation and culture of performativity and
  publicity
• Education as apparatus of performativity and
  publicity
• Education as instrument of performativity of
  economic and administrative system
• Productivity and employability as imperative of
  economic system to education
• Governmentality and power-enhancement as
  imperative of administrative system to education
• Education as project of publicity and
  customization
• Education as manipulation of information of
  public image and representation of schools
• Education as manipulation of information of
  customization

27
Education as Promiscuous Corporation

• From correspondence principle to direct invasion
  of marketing strategies
• Schools as means audience and market reach The
  five pocket child thesis
• Schools as nurturing grounds for brand loyalty
  Catch them young and youve caught them for
  life. (Whitworth, 1999 quoted in Kenway
  Bullen, 2001, p. 97)
• Schools involvement as stages for building
  corporate image Corporations involvement in
  schools as a kind of philanthropic action of
  promoting goodwill within local community
• Schools involvement as means of targeting,
  selecting and attracting future workforce

28
Education as Promiscuous Corporation

• Means of corporation invasion into schools
• Education sponsorship in the policy context of
  budget constraints and self-managing schools
• Edutainment
• Edutainment in the form of tournament and
  competition
• Edutainment in the form of pseudo-instructional
  aids
• Edutainment in the form of role-model building