Back to the Basics?
Thoughts on Community Conflict and the Purpose of Education
As a new school year starts and many are eager to return to a sense of normalcy in education, I have heard “back to the basics” approaches being espoused by school and political leaders. Undoubtedly, this tagline is in part a response to the chaos and confusion of pandemic-age schooling and the many lapses in achievement that occurred. For some, it likely reflects their sense that schools in general are becoming hotbeds for leftist extreme ideas and the need to return to a place where students were taught traditional subjects and topics in a more traditional manner. I don’t debate the fact that some schools really do need to re-emphasize the foundations of good education, but when leaders make statements about going back to the basics, I’m left wondering several questions—What basics? Whose basics? And what were schools doing the past two years that necessitate this stance? The vagueness of the statement is what makes me nervous. I predict, however, that if we are indeed going “back to the basics,” we are likely not going deep enough.
It is no secret that critical race theory became a hot-button topic in the last year or two, with many pointing out scattered examples of leftist extremism in the classroom and society and framing them all under the label “CRT.” This was a purposeful strategy, as has been acknowledged by Christopher Rufo, the senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute who is credited with inventing the conflict over CRT. The result was a slew of legislation and state education policies aiming to reduce discussions of various racial, sexual, and gender topics, as well as other limitations related to standards and training.
On the opposing side, many claimed that the CRT being propagated was a caricature of the theory itself (often true) and that CRT was only taught in law school and some random other graduate programs. Teachers were not usually taught it, it wasn’t explicitly taught in K-12 classrooms, and its influence wasn’t in teacher training. I was exposed to and read numerous resources utilizing CRT when I was working on my Ph.D., and I can confidently say that both sides are trafficking in half-truths on this issue. Nevertheless, aside from the topic becoming a play for power instead of truth, especially amongst political leaders, I believe that the conflict, where it exists because of truthful concerns, is in part the result of differing views on the purpose of education. What I’ve learned is that most of us carry around ideas on the purpose of education that are usually hidden social theories that we have subconsciously imbibed. Remixing education ultimately requires that we identify and discuss the values and theories that shape our view of education in order to more clearly move forward.
The Purpose of Education
I believe that most Americans have some vague notion of what the purpose of education is, mainly because they haven’t thought about it in depth. In reality, much of what most of us believe in this area has been passed down to us through various social theories and their understanding of the role of social structures in society.
Functionalism
The most dominant view with much of America stems from the ideas of functionalism, which posits that societies develop structures to carry out necessary functions and pass on values, customs, and rules. One of these structures is the school, which serves numerous purposes and fills in the void if other social structures don’t fulfill their roles. This is why we see schools constantly taking on responsibilities that used to be the job of the church, family, and other institutions. According to functionalists, the purpose of schools can thus be divided into four main areas (copied from The Way Schools Work: A Sociological Analysis of Education).
Intellectual Purposes
o Acquisition of cognitive skills (reading, math, etc.)
o Acquisition of substantive knowledge
o Acquisition of inquiry skills (evaluation, synthesis, etc.)
Political Purposes
o To educate future citizens for appropriate participation in the given political order
o To promote patriotism by teaching myths, history, and stories about the country, its leaders, and government
o To promote the assimilation of immigrants
o To ensure order, public civility, and conformity to laws
o In America specifically, to instill values for a unified American identity
Economic Purposes
o To prepare students for later work roles
o To select and train the labor force (stratification)
Social Purposes
o To promote a sense of social and moral responsibility
o To serve as site for the solution or amelioration of social problems
o To supplement the efforts of other institutions of socialize, such as the family and the church
As I review these purposes, I see much that is commendable and much that most people would agree to, but I also see some clear points of contention—namely, promoting patriotism often involves teaching a watered-down curriculum that caters to certain views, promoting assimilation involves immigrants losing much of their cultural identity, and ensuring order and conformity to laws does nothing to address unjust laws and practices. It is precisely these areas where many people from non-dominant cultures and groups (i.e. non-White and immigrant people) feel conflicted and/or defensive. There is no consensus on what is “American” and what values need to be passed down, but traditional schooling has acted like there is and attempted to shoehorn everyone in a particular mold modeled after European-American culture and values. It is thus no wonder that many students buck at their schooling experiences, because the political purposes of school attempt to eliminate or alter part of their identity, rather than embracing it and celebrating it. Functionalism as a theory understands school in more benign terms, where school is mostly neutral and conflict is an aberration. When there is conflict, the goal is to eliminate it as quickly as possible. Conflict and tension is not to be embraced and used as a catalyst for change, because change that is not slow and incremental hurts the overall functioning of society.
Conflict Theory
This is where conflict theory, of which Marxism is part, proposes another model for understanding school. Conflict theorists believe that tension and conflict are dominant/normal features of society, not aberrations. People groups are always in tension because of competing power claims related to inequality of property, resource distribution, and economic opportunity. This conflict plays out in school because schools reflect society and are modeled after the dominant economic system. So, whereas conflict theorists would not necessarily disagree with all of the purposes of school listed by functionalists, they wholeheartedly disagree that school is a neutral site where these purposes play out. Instead, schools serve as sites of reproduction, where the existing and dominant hierarchy, ideologies, and inequalities of society are reproduced, which ultimately keeps power in the hands of the groups that already have it.
Reproduction occurs in many ways, as schools privilege the formal language, behavior expectations, values, and cultural knowledge of the dominant group in society. They also magnify class differences and reinforce the status quo through both formal curriculum and “hidden curriculum”—the subtle messages that are conveyed but not explicitly taught on class, ethnicity, and gender. For example, lower class children are often socialized in such a way that teaches them to accept authority, be punctual, wait, and be compliant. In contrast, middle class students are often socialized into roles of responsibility, authoritative modes of self-presentation, and independent work habits. In this view, schools reflect the ideologies that are espoused by the state agencies that run them, and government policies often prevent alternative views from gaining an audience or establishing legitimacy.
Critical Theory
As you can hopefully see, functionalists and conflict theories disagree tremendously on the role and effect of schools in society. And while functionalists have often been critiqued for their naïve view of the neutrality of our schools, conflict theorists have often been heavily critiqued for their neglect of human agency, or the ability of individuals to overcome oppressive structures and be successful. Into this gap comes the development of critical theory. Critical theory draws from both functionalism and conflict theory, as well as other schools of thought. It posits that inequality is determined by economic structure and that we must deconstruct the hidden assumptions that govern society, usually in favor of dominant groups. It believes, however, that individuals’ outcomes are not pre-determined by social class or status, though the expectations and obligations of these social roles do constrain them. Humans have the ability to use their agency to transform society, especially as they become aware, or conscious, of the forces that oppress them.
In education, this plays out in the view that schools are sites where resistance takes place in response to the cultural and social marginalization that many students feel. Issues of power and control are worked out in the classroom and in individual interactions, which is what leads to so much of the teacher/student conflict we see in schools. In the end, critical theory proposes that, if teachers and students can become conscious of what leads to social reproduction in their schools, they can resist these processes and instead create a site of social transformation. This leads to a heightened concern for pedagogy as the means through which consciousness is raised, and it leads to an emphasis on teachers becoming “transformative intellectuals.” As deMarrais and LeCompte state:
Critical theorists’ belief that their task is to uncover the ways in which dominant ideology is translated into practice in schools and the ways in which human agency mutes the impact of that ideology. Thus, critical educational theorists are deeply concerned with the art and practice of teaching. They argue that teachers must become “transformative intellectuals” and “critical pedagogues” in order to resist the oppression of the dominant ideology and to produce a liberating culture within schools. In other words, teachers must continue to be active, questioning learners. They must have knowledge as well as critical ability, so they can question not only their own practice but school structure as well. Students also must be taught to become active, critical, and engaged learners in an environment made stimulating (32).
A major critique leveled against critical theory, precisely because of its heightened focus on uncovering and resisting oppression, is that it often creates problems or finds some where there are none, as well as neglects the complexity of social issues in favor of an uncritical and unbalanced stance in favor of oppressed groups.
Current Conflict
Can you now begin to see where this plays out in all of our recent school controversies? Some groups, based on their experience and what they have been taught, view school as a largely benign and neutral site where all can succeed equally, whereas others view schools as places that attempt to reproduce the status quo and alter their own identity. It should also be said—this social and cultural reproduction may be purposeful, but it need not be. In fact, most educators, precisely because they come from the dominant social group, fail to recognize how their actions may inspire resistance from students. The problem is subconscious, not intentional. Nevertheless, we are left with very different views of school, along with an increase in activist teachers who may or may not understand their own limits and biases. It all comes down to what we believe the purpose of education is and how it fulfills its role, and my contention is that communities must have frank conversations correctly identifying their conflicts and getting to the heart of this issue in order to effectively and sustainably move forward in remixing education.
Communities and schools need not adopt one of the theories above in full, but should be able to wrestle with the complexities inherent in each, ultimately framing the purpose of education in whatever terms best account for the experiences of their many constituents and students. I am not naïve enough, however, to believe that this can occur effectively without conflict and the sidelining of our defensiveness and quest for power no matter the cost. Even though groups with competing views are unlikely to compromise in our current political climate, I still say that the clarifying conversations and process to determine the purpose of education is a worthy endeavor and that going “back to the basics” should really begin there.