Transcript The Social Impacts of Recession

Public Education Systems and Social Cohesion
Andy Green and Germ Janmaat
Centre for Learning and Life Chances in Knowledge Economies
and Societies (LLAKES), Institute of Education
Presentation to Centre for Lebanese Studies Annual Conference on:
‘Education for Social Cohesion in the Lebanon’
15/10/09
Historical Perspective: Education as State Formation
Schooling … 'the most powerful weapon for forming
...nations' (Hobsbawm, Age of Revolution)
‘Practically all modern nations are now awake to the fact that
education is the most potent means of development of the
essentials of nationality.’ (Baron Dubin, Prussia, 1826)
‘Society can only exist if there exists among its members a
sufficient degree of homogeneity. Education perpetuates and
reinforces this homogeneity by fixing in the child, from the
beginning, the essential similarities that collective life
demands.’ (Durkheim, Education and Sociology)
Education and State Formation
Historically, national education systems have been
used as instruments of state formation and social
integration :
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Spreading national languages and cultures
Promoting national identity
Inculcating dominant ideologies
Conveying the rights and duties of citizenship
Education and State Formation in 19th C Western
Europe
The nineteenth-century education system came to assume a
primary responsibility for the moral, cultural and political
development of the nation. It became the secular church. It
was variously called upon to assimilate immigrant cultures, to
promote established religious doctrines, to spread the standard
form of the national language, to forge a national identity and a
national culture, to generalise habits of routine and rational
calculation, to encourage patriotic values, to inculcate moral
disciplines and, above all, to indoctrinate in the political and
economic creeds of the dominant classes. It helped to construct
the very subjectivities of citizenship, justifying the ways of the
state to the people and the duties of the people to the state.
(Green, Education and State Formation).
National Education System
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The preferred means in the West for developing mass
education was the national education system which comprised
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Majority of schools funded and controlled by the state
Compulsory attendance (in German states)
State training and licensing of teachers
State controlled curricula and exams
Later free tuition
Effectiveness of NES in Social
Integration
Developing modern citizens in the western nation states in the 19th century
was a long and contested process. Mainly imposed from above.
Less than 50% of the French spoke French before the Revolution and
before unification less than 3 per cent of the Italian population spoke Italian
(Hobsbawm, 1990, p. 60).
In his book ‘Peasants into Frenchmen’ Weber describes the epic 100 year
process from the Revolution down to Jules Ferry during which the French
education system sought to mould often unwilling student into French
Citizens.
NES in East Asia
NES have more recently played an important role in state building and
economic development in East Asian states – from Japan after the Meiji
restoration to Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea after independence.
These states adopted quite centralised systems with state controlled private
schools and placed great emphasis on civic education.
Singapore – a state about the same size as Lebonon and prone to civil
conflict in the 60s – is an interesting case– it used the national education
system quite successfully to develop a national civic identity amongst its
mutli-faith, multi-lingual population.
• Mostly pubic schools, bi-lingual school (English dominant)
• Religious studies abandoned for Civic and Moral education.
Effectiveness of NES in Social
Integration
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Efforts to socialise students into Citizens was quite successful
in many cases but usually where:
The public system dominated schooling and was centrally
controlled
Where schools were secular or where systems had religious
schools under state control
Where population had incentives to become literate
(industrialisation)
In countries where a dominant group was able to establish an
inclusive overarching national identity for the people.
Current Research on Education and Social Cohesion
Direct and Indirect effects of education on
social cohesion:
From Green, Preston and Janmaat (2006):
Education, Equality and Social Cohesion
Then LLAKES research
Learning Effects on Social Cohesion
Labour market structures:
Union density and compass
Reach of collective agreements
Minimum wage
Income dispersal
Dispersal of outcomes
Social Cohesion
Trust
Civic cooperation
Learning
Socialization
Education and Income Equality and Trust
Using IALS test score ratios for educational equality and Gini
coefficients for income equality, we find strong correlations
across countries between:
• educational equality and income equality (r=.650, p=.009)
• educational equality and general trust (r=-.592, p=.020)
• educational inequality and violent crime correlated (also over
time)
(Green, Preston and Janmaat, Education, Equality and Social Cohesion, 2006)
Social Cohesion Index
Figure 2. Relationship between Social Cohesion and Income Inequality
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100-Gini Coefficient (100=total inequality)
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Figure 1. Relationship between Social Cohesion and Education Inequality
Social Cohesion Index
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Education Inequality
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Education Systems and Social Cohesion
There is an indirect impact of education on social cohesion through distributions of
skills and income, but is there also a direct effect?
Study on the effect of education systems using Mons (2007) database on system
characteristics and the IEA Civic Education study (1999) on civic values
Proposed education system effects:
• The earlier the selection on the basis of ability or tuition fees, the greater the
disparities of SC values;
• The more decentralized regarding curriculum matters, the greater the disparities of
SC values;
• The earlier the selection on the basis of ability or tuition fees, the lower the levels of
SC values;
• The more decentralized regarding curriculum matters, the lower the levels of SC
values
Social Cohesion Values
Which values to focus on?
Curricula of western states stress two sets of values:
• Ethnic tolerance / intercultural understanding
• Common, national identity / patriotism (more recently)
Potential problem: are national identity and ethnic tolerance
compatible?
Findings
• Patriotism and ethnic tolerance are compatible in centralized
systems but not in decentralized/federal ones
• Comprehensive and centralized systems are both associated
with lower disparities in values across social divides
• Centralized systems show higher levels of patriotism
• No effect of early selection on levels of ethnic tolerance and
patriotism
Policy Implications
Historical evidence from the West (and East Asia) suggests that national
education systems (NES) can be effective vehicles of social integration.
• A predominance of public institutions with national curricula, including
Civic Education;
• State licensing of schools and supervision of teacher training and
examinations;
• Secular public schools (USA, France) or with state controlled
denominational schools (German states, Britain, Netherlands).
Centralised systems have often been most effective in promoting overarching
national identities (including in multi-ethnic states such as Singapore).
Comprehensive systems generally enhance equality of outcomes which may
promote social cohesion.
Policy Perspective: Lebanon
Ideally, a national and comprehensive system of secular or multi-faith state
schools focusing on the promotion of an overarching Lebanese identity
would be the most effective in promoting social cohesion. However, the
reality is that in the divided context of Lebanon there is currently little
political support for such a system and the majority will continue to attend
private religious schools.
Higher education probably offers the best potential for social integration
because students from different faiths are mixed.
Schools could do more for social cohesion if common Lebanese values and
identity were promoted in all schools. Teacher training and the adoption on
national textbooks in sensitive subjects such as Civics and History could
play an important role.