This document discusses the concept of "21st century education" and entrepreneurial citizenship. It notes the influence of transnational organizations, corporations, and economic analysts in shaping education policy. It unpacks the skills said to be necessary for the 21st century workforce, such as collaboration and problem solving. However, it argues that the focus on entrepreneurialism represents a form of neoliberal citizenship that prioritizes markets over democracy. The document questions whether education policy is truly serving the public good or preparing students as consumers rather than citizens. It considers alternative frameworks centered around democracy, citizenship, ethics and equity.
2. Setting the stage:
Positioning education policy in BC
Supreme Court decision: Outcome
= ???
Arbitrator’s ruling(s): August 28 &
September 2, 2011; outcome =
contestation
Threat of punitive measures, lock-out
Trends in government strategies vis-a-
vis labour: Canadian Post
Global movements: Arab Spring,
Greece, UK, Occupy Wall Street+
4. Background
context:
• Vancouver ToC: Secondary
Social Studies
5. Background
context:
• Vancouver ToC: Secondary
Social Studies
• UBC MA student, Centre for
Cross Faculty Inquiry in
Education
6. Background
context:
• Vancouver ToC: Secondary
Social Studies
• UBC MA student, Centre for
Cross Faculty Inquiry in
Education
• Interested the relationships
between education/curricular
policies and teachers
8. Localizing ‘21st-century
education’: BC borrows an agenda
• Ministry of Education
• Canadian Council on
Learning
• John Abbott, 21st
Century Learning
Initiative
• Premier’s Technology
Council
• BCPSEA
14. Unpacking ‘21st-century education’:
“...school learning is abstract, theoretical and
organized by disciplines while work is
concrete, specific to the task, and organized
by problems and projects...”
OECD, “Learning for jobs”
15. Unpacking ‘21st-century education’:
• “Skills deemed necessary for
success in the 21st century
workforce”:
“...school learning is abstract, theoretical and
organized by disciplines while work is
concrete, specific to the task, and organized
by problems and projects...”
OECD, “Learning for jobs”
16. Unpacking ‘21st-century education’:
• “Skills deemed necessary for
success in the 21st century
workforce”:
(i) communication, creativity,
critical thinking, collaboration
“...school learning is abstract, theoretical and
organized by disciplines while work is
concrete, specific to the task, and organized
by problems and projects...”
OECD, “Learning for jobs”
17. Unpacking ‘21st-century education’:
• “Skills deemed necessary for
success in the 21st century
workforce”:
(i) communication, creativity,
critical thinking, collaboration
(ii) economic/media/civic
literacies
“...school learning is abstract, theoretical and
organized by disciplines while work is
concrete, specific to the task, and organized
by problems and projects...”
OECD, “Learning for jobs”
18. Unpacking ‘21st-century education’:
• “Skills deemed necessary for
success in the 21st century
workforce”:
(i) communication, creativity,
critical thinking, collaboration
(ii) economic/media/civic
literacies
(iii) diversity, leadership, ethics
“...school learning is abstract, theoretical and
organized by disciplines while work is
concrete, specific to the task, and organized
by problems and projects...”
OECD, “Learning for jobs”
19. Unpacking ‘21st-century education’:
• “Skills deemed necessary for
success in the 21st century
workforce”:
(i) communication, creativity,
critical thinking, collaboration
(ii) economic/media/civic
literacies
(iii) diversity, leadership, ethics
• Lifelong learning “...school learning is abstract, theoretical and
organized by disciplines while work is
concrete, specific to the task, and organized
by problems and projects...”
OECD, “Learning for jobs”
20. Unpacking ‘21st-century education’:
• “Skills deemed necessary for
success in the 21st century
workforce”:
(i) communication, creativity,
critical thinking, collaboration
(ii) economic/media/civic
literacies
(iii) diversity, leadership, ethics
• Lifelong learning “...school learning is abstract, theoretical and
• Assessment-driven(?) organized by disciplines while work is
concrete, specific to the task, and organized
by problems and projects...”
OECD, “Learning for jobs”
21. Unpacking ‘21st-century education’:
• “Skills deemed necessary for
success in the 21st century
workforce”:
(i) communication, creativity,
critical thinking, collaboration
(ii) economic/media/civic
literacies
(iii) diversity, leadership, ethics
• Lifelong learning “...school learning is abstract, theoretical and
• Assessment-driven(?) organized by disciplines while work is
concrete, specific to the task, and organized
• ICT by problems and projects...”
OECD, “Learning for jobs”
22. Unpacking ‘21st-century education’:
• “Skills deemed necessary for
success in the 21st century
workforce”:
(i) communication, creativity,
critical thinking, collaboration
(ii) economic/media/civic
literacies
(iii) diversity, leadership, ethics
• Lifelong learning “...school learning is abstract, theoretical and
• Assessment-driven(?) organized by disciplines while work is
concrete, specific to the task, and organized
• ICT by problems and projects...”
• STEM OECD, “Learning for jobs”
23. ‘21st-century education as national/
global imperative:
“There is a global movement to “I’m calling on our nation ... to develop
transform education systems to ensure standards and assessments that don’t
learners are prepared for success in simply measure whether students can fill
the 21st century. Increased in a bubble on a test, but whether they
competition in the global economy possess 21st century skills like problem-
makes improving the productivity of solving and critical thinking and
B.C.’s workforce a necessary and entrepreneurship and creativity.” - U.S.
urgent priority.” - BC Ministry of President Barack Obama,
Education, May 2011 March 10, 2009
30. Citizenship as dualistic tradition:
Liberal Civic Republican
• Focus on rights of individuals • Love & service to State
• Constraints to protect (local, provincial, national)
others • Focus = “healing” civil society
• Redistributionist • Exclusive
Abowitz, K., & Harnish, J. (2006). Contemporary discourses on citizenship. Review of educational research, 76(4), 653-690.
31. Contextualizing entrepreneurialism
as neoliberal citizenship:
“Within the neoliberal view, the public sphere - schools,
parks, social security, and healthcare included - should be
privatized or put into service for the private sphere ... The
real triumph of the market-based rhetoric was to shift
discussion away from political concerns about the role of
public education in preparing citizens for democratic
participation and to redefine public schooling as a good or
service, like toilet paper or soap, which students and
parents consume.” - Kenneth Saltman
Abowitz, K., & Harnish, J. (2006). Contemporary discourses on citizenship. Review of educational research, 76(4), 653-690.
32. Contextualizing entrepreneurialism
as neoliberal citizenship:
• Combination of market
fundamentalism and
aggressive individualism
“Within the neoliberal view, the public sphere - schools,
parks, social security, and healthcare included - should be
privatized or put into service for the private sphere ... The
real triumph of the market-based rhetoric was to shift
discussion away from political concerns about the role of
public education in preparing citizens for democratic
participation and to redefine public schooling as a good or
service, like toilet paper or soap, which students and
parents consume.” - Kenneth Saltman
Abowitz, K., & Harnish, J. (2006). Contemporary discourses on citizenship. Review of educational research, 76(4), 653-690.
33. Contextualizing entrepreneurialism
as neoliberal citizenship:
• Combination of market
fundamentalism and
aggressive individualism
• Merges the fields of
capitalism and democracy
“Within the neoliberal view, the public sphere - schools,
parks, social security, and healthcare included - should be
privatized or put into service for the private sphere ... The
real triumph of the market-based rhetoric was to shift
discussion away from political concerns about the role of
public education in preparing citizens for democratic
participation and to redefine public schooling as a good or
service, like toilet paper or soap, which students and
parents consume.” - Kenneth Saltman
Abowitz, K., & Harnish, J. (2006). Contemporary discourses on citizenship. Review of educational research, 76(4), 653-690.
34. Contextualizing entrepreneurialism
as neoliberal citizenship:
• Combination of market
fundamentalism and
aggressive individualism
• Merges the fields of
capitalism and democracy
• Homo economicus “Within the neoliberal view, the public sphere - schools,
parks, social security, and healthcare included - should be
(naturalization of privatized or put into service for the private sphere ... The
real triumph of the market-based rhetoric was to shift
competition, discussion away from political concerns about the role of
public education in preparing citizens for democratic
marketization as civic participation and to redefine public schooling as a good or
service, like toilet paper or soap, which students and
duty) parents consume.” - Kenneth Saltman
Abowitz, K., & Harnish, J. (2006). Contemporary discourses on citizenship. Review of educational research, 76(4), 653-690.
35. The 21st-century social imperative: Entrepreneurialism?
“Canada needs a national vision for 21st Century learning models of public
education. There is an urgent need for Canadians to understand the
economic and social imperative underlining this debate. The world is
shifting to a knowledge economy ... Wealth creation is and will continue
to be generated by highly creative and innovative people. Failure to impart
21st Century competencies and skills to a nation’s youth will make that
country economically vulnerable[.]” 21st Century Learning Associates,
January 30, 2011.
36. Citizenship & consumption:
“Our enormously productive economy “One of the most chillingly ironic features of this
demands that we make consumption our way of process is the reversal in the meaning of ‘vocation’.
life, that we convert the buying and use of That ‘the vocational’ - a religious concept denoting a
goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual divine calling to some special, morally significant work
satisfactions, our ego satisfactions in in life – should have come to convey the precise
consumption. The measure of social status, of opposite of its established meaning (namely,
social acceptance, of prestige, is now to be something purely instrumental and of economic value
found in our consumptive patterns.” Lebow, alone) epitomizes the current situation: ‘capitalism as
(1955) Price competition. religion’.” Osborne, (2010) Privatisation as anti-
politics.
37. Consumerism & democracy:
• “[T]he undivided reign of the
market and the consumer, the
commercial substitute for the
citizen, has kidnapped the
state: it has made the public
good a private good ... What is
at stake now is winning back
democracy from technocracy.”
- Pierre Bourdieu
Bourdieu, P. (1998). Acts of resistance: Against the tyranny of the market. p. 25.
39. Considering the Present of our Future:
“I’m not sure about the next “What looms on the horizon today is the
millennium but I think I give us a unprecedented possibility [of] biogenetic
50/50 chance of surviving the next mutation, a nuclear or similar military -
hundred years. I fear that the speed social catastrophe and so on. No longer
of man’s [sic] technological can we rely on the safeguarding role of
discoveries is outpacing our wisdom the limited scope of our acts: it no longer
and ability to control what we have holds that, whatever we do, history will
discovered.” - Sir Martin Rees (2003) carry on.” - Slavoj Zizek (2008)
43. ‘21st-Century Education’ as ‘Public Good’?:
• Democracy?
• Citizenship?
• De-professionalization
of teachers?
44. ‘21st-Century Education’ as ‘Public Good’?:
• Democracy?
• Citizenship?
• De-professionalization
of teachers?
• Ethics?
45. ‘21st-Century Education’ as ‘Public Good’?:
• Democracy?
• Citizenship?
• De-professionalization
of teachers?
• Ethics?
• Equity?
46. ‘21st-Century Education’ as ‘Public Good’?:
• Democracy?
• Citizenship?
• De-professionalization
of teachers?
• Ethics?
• Equity?
• Aesthetics?
47. Can education be re-captured as an
emancipatory agenda?
•The Critical Thinking
Consortium (www.tc2.ca)
•MeToWe
(www.metowe.com)
•The Purple Thistle Institute
(www.thistleinstitute.ca)
•School of Everything
(schoolofeverything.com)
•Don McDougal: (a/e)ffective
becomings for ‘at-risk youth’
48. References:
21st Century Learning Associates. (2011). A national vision for 21st century learning. Accessed Oct. 9, 2011 at
http://21stcenturylearningassociates.wordpress.com/2011/01/30/hello-world/.
Abowitz, K., & Harnish, J. (2006). Contemporary discourses of citizenship. Review of educational research, 76(4),
653-690.
British Columbia Ministry of Education. (2011). Revised 2011/12-2013/14 service plan. Victoria, BC: Ministry of
Education.
Bourdieu, P. (1998). Acts of resistance: Against the tyranny of the market. New York, NY: The New Press.
Deleuze, G., & Guattari, F. (1987/2009). A thousand plateaus: Capitalism and schizophrenia. (B. Massumi Trans.).
Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Press. (Original work published in 1980)
Holland, E. (2011). Nomad citizenship: Free-market communism and the slow-motion general strike. Minneapolis, MN:
University of Minnesota Press.
Lebow, V. (1055). Price competition in 1955. Journal of retailing.
Osborne, P. (2010). Privatisation as anti-politics. Reclamations, 3. Accessed Oct. 9, 2011 at
http://reclamationsjournal.org/issue03_peter_osborne.htm.
Rees, M. (2003). Our final hour: A scientist’s warning. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Ruitenberg, C. (2011). The empty chair: Education in an ethic of hospitality. In R. Kunzman (Ed.),
Philosophy of Education 2011. Urbana, IL: Philosophy of Education Society.
Saltman, K. (2007). Capitalizing on disaster: Taking and breaking public schools. Herndon, VA: Paradigm Publishers.
Trilling, B., & Fadel, C. (2009). 21st century skills: Learning for life in our times. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Zizek, S. (2008). In defense of lost causes. New York, NY: Verso.
