Teaching in the Knowledge Society: Education in the Age of Insecurity (Professional Learning)

241 Pages·2003·0.92 MB·English

by  Andy Hargreaves

TEACHING IN THE KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY
Education in the Age of Insecurity

TEACHING
IN THE
KNOWLEDGE SOCIETY
Education
in the
Age of Insecurity
Andy Hargreaves
Teachers College
Columbia University
New York and London
Published by Teachers College Press, 1234 Amsterdam Avenue,
New York, NY 10027
Copyright © 2003 by Teachers College, Columbia University
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy,
or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the
publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hargreaves, Andy.
Teaching in the knowledge society : education in the age of insecurity /
Andy Hargreaves.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8077-4360-7 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 0-8077-4359-3 (pbk. :
alk. paper)
1. Effective teaching. 2. Education—Curricula—Standards. 3. Compe-
tency based education. 4. Education—Social aspects. I. Title.
LB1025.3.H366 2003
371.102—dc21 2002035459
ISBN 0-8077-4359-3 (paper)
ISBN 0-8077-4360-7 (cloth)
Printed on acid-free paper
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 09 08 07 06 05 04 03 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
To Pauline
—humanity and integrity personified—
with great love

CONTENTS
Acknowledgments ix
Introduction 1
1 Teaching for the Knowledge Society:
Educating for Ingenuity 9
The Paradoxical Profession 9
Before the Knowledge Society 10
Profiting from the Knowledge Society 14
Developing the Knowledge Society 18
Teaching for the Knowledge Society 23
2 Teaching Beyond the Knowledge Society:
Dealing with Insecurity 35
The South Sea Bubble 35
The Knowledge and Information Bubble 37
From Information to Insecurity 40
Fundamentalism or Cosmopolitan Identity 43
Community and Character 49
Cultivating Social Capital 54
Educating for Democracy 55
Teaching beyond the Knowledge Society 57
3 Teaching Despite the Knowledge Society, Part I:
The End of Ingenuity (with Michael Baker and Martha Foote) 72
The Cost of the Knowledge Society 72
Market Fundamentalism 73
Education Off the Rails 74
vii
viii Contents
Standardized Policies 82
Standardized Practices 85
Teachers’ Work and Relationships 90
4 Teaching Despite the Knowledge Society, Part II:
The Loss of Integrity (with Shawn Moore and Dean Fink) 96
Introduction 96
The End of Ingenuity 99
The Absence of Integrity 115
5 The Knowledge-Society School: An Endangered Entity
(with Corrie Giles) 127
The School as a Learning Community 127
The School as a Caring Community 138
The Pressured Community 143
Learning, Caring, and Surviving 155
6 Beyond Standardization: Professional Learning
Communities or Performance-Training Sects? 160
Toward a Learning Profession 160
Futures for Teaching in the Knowledge Society 161
Cultures, Contracts, and Change 162
Culture Regimes 163
Contract Regimes 166
7 The Future of Teaching in the Knowledge Society:
Rethinking Improvement, Removing Impoverishment 189
Differential Development 190
Conclusion 200
Appendix 211
Index 221
About the Author 230
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This has been a demanding book to write. It almost certainly would never
have come to print had it not been for the benefits of a Rockefeller Foun-
dation writing residency at the Villa Serbelloni in Bellagio, Italy, in fall 2001.
On the edge of Lake Como the foundation has created a remarkable intel-
lectual oasis where academic dedication and humanitarian contribution are
brought together as one. I am immensely grateful to the foundation for the
precious opportunity it has provided to me and to others like me.
The core of the book is based on research evidence from two large-scale
projects concerned with high-school improvement and reform. The study of
eight Canadian and U.S. secondary schools in Change over Time?was funded
by the Spencer Foundation of the United States. The five-year improvement
project with six Ontario secondary schools was supported through partner-
ship funding from the Peel Board of Education where the schools were
located and the Ontario Ministry of Education and Training. On behalf of
my colleagues and myself, I extend my very great thanks to the time and
goodwill that teachers, principals, and district staff gave freely to partici-
pate in these projects in a reform climate that was professionally difficult
and sometimes overwhelming for many of them.
The work on these projects has benefited from collaboration with a range
of colleagues and fellow researchers who have influenced my thinking in
many ways. They include Carol Beynon, Dean Fink, Corrie Giles, Sonia
James-Wilson, Susan Lasky, Shawn Moore, Michele Schmidt, and Paul Shaw
at the International Center for Educational Change in Toronto, along with
Colin Biott at the University of Northumbria in England, who contributed
to one of the projects as a visiting scholar. My co-investigator Ivor Good-
son and his researchers, Michael Baker and Martha Foote at the University
of Rochester, New York, also worked with me as supportive and stimulat-
ing colleagues on one of the key projects. Those whose case-study analy-
ses are most strongly represented in the text of this book are listed as co-
authors of chapters 3, 4, and 5. An analogy I draw between public-education
reform and the privatization of the railways in Britain owes much to Ivor
Goodson’s paper The Personality of Change, presented at the invitational
ix