The New Publicness of Education Democratic Possibilities After the Critique of Neo-Liberalism 9781032266091, 9781032266107, 9781003289067

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The New Publicness of Education

This book explores democratic possibilities for education after the critique of the impact of neoliberalism on educational policy and practice. Together, the authors investigate the contours of a ‘new publicness’ of education. This edited volume refers to well-established critiques that expose how neoliberal governance has normalised the privatisation of public life and undermined the public nature of education. Through historical reconstruction, theoretical exploration, and analyses of educational policies and practices, the chapters take a novel approach by investigating democratic possibilities within and beyond the current neoliberal hegemony in education. Covering a range of educational settings – from early childhood education through to higher and professional education – the chapters spotlight the Irish educational and political context, as well as exploring international implications. Ultimately, this book opens up new avenues for discussion around public education and its future and will therefore be of great interest to researchers and students in the felds of educational theory, education politics, educational policy, and democratic education. Carl Anders Säfström is Professor of Educational Research and Director of the Centre for Public Education and Pedagogy, Maynooth University, Ireland. Gert Biesta is Professor of Public Education in the Centre for Public Education and Pedagogy, Maynooth University, Ireland.

Routledge Research in Education

This series aims to present the latest research from right across the feld of education. It is not confned to any particular area or school of thought and seeks to provide coverage of a broad range of topics, theories and issues from around the world. The Improvising Teacher Reconceptualising Pedagogy, Expertise and Professionalism Nick Sorensen The Role of Metaphor and Symbol in Motivating Primary School Children Elizabeth Ashton Plurilingual Pedagogy in the Arabian Peninsula Transforming and Empowering Students and Teachers Edited by Daniela Coelho and Telma Gharibian Steinhagen Theoretical and Historical Evolutions of Self-Directed Learning The Case for Learner-Led Education Caleb Collier Learning as Interactivity, Movement, Growth and Becoming, Volume 1 Ecologies of Learning in Higher Education Edited by Mark E. King and Paul J. Thibault The New Publicness of Education Democratic Possibilities After the Critique of Neo-Liberalism Edited by Carl Anders Säfström and Gert Biesta For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/ Routledge-Research-in-Education/book-series/SE0393

The New Publicness of Education

Democratic Possibilities After the Critique of Neo-Liberalism Edited by Carl Anders Säfström and Gert Biesta

First published 2023 by Routledge 4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2023 selection and editorial matter, Carl Anders Säfström and Gert Biesta; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Carl Anders Säfström and Gert Biesta to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN: 978-1-032-26609-1 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-26610-7 (pbk) ISBN: 978-1-003-28906-7 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9781003289067 Typeset in Galliard by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

Editors and Contributors Acknowledgement 1 Introduction: The publicness of education

vii xii 1

G ERT B I ES TA A ND CA RL A NDERS S Ä FS T RÖ M

2 The ‘publicness’ of primary education in Ireland: Tracing its historical lineage

8

TH O M AS WALS H

3 The forgotten language of public education: From hope to equality

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CARL AN D E RS S Ä FS T RÖ M

4 Curriculum: The great public project

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M AJ EL L A D E MP S EY

5 ‘Publicness’ in pedagogical thinking

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J O E O Y LER

6 A new publicness for early childhood education and care in Ireland

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L EAH O ’ TO O LE, GEO RGA DO WL ING, A ND T RACY Mc ELHER ON

7 Claiming a new public education for children with special educational needs

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D EI RD RE F O RDE

8 New modes of marginalisation: Teachers’ ways of knowing themselves S U ZAN N E O ’ KEEFFE

100

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Contents

9 ‘Among Others’: Reinventing initial professional education with student teachers and youth workers

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M ARI AN N E O ’ S H EA A ND A NGEL A RICKA RD

10 Public parents: Reclaiming publicness of education in the new tyrannies

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H AN A C E RV INKO VA A ND L O TA R RA S I ŃS KI

11 Whose school is it anyway? On the insistence of education and the need for the emancipation of the school

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G ERT B I ES TA

12 Expanding the publicness of education: Worlding the world in a time of climate emergency

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S H ARO N TO DD

13 Conclusions: The new publicness of education

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CARL AN D E RS S Ä FS T RÖ M A ND GERT BIES TA

Index

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Editors and Contributors

Gert Biesta Centre for Public Education and Pedagogy Maynooth University, Ireland. Gert Biesta is Professor of Public Education in the Centre for Public Education and Pedagogy, Maynooth University, Ireland. He is also Professor of Educational Theory and Pedagogy at the University of Edinburgh, UK, and Adjunct Professor at the University of Southern Australia. His work focuses on the theory of education and the philosophy of educational and social research, with a particular interest in questions of democracy and democratisation. Areas of interest include curriculum, teaching, teacher education, education policy, art education, religious education, and civic and citizenship education. Recent books include World-Centred Education: A View for the Present (Routledge, 2021) and Educational Research: An Unorthodox Introduction (Bloomsbury, 2020). Hana Cervinkova Department of Anthropology Maynooth University, Ireland Hana Cervinkova is Professor of Anthropology at Maynooth University, Ireland. A political and educational anthropologist, she focuses on issues of democracy, nationalism, racism, and historical memory in East/Central Europe. She has also published on anthropology of post-socialism, postcolonialism, participatory research methodologies, and educational reforms in East/Central. Her recent work appeared in the journals Anthropology and Education Quarterly, Educational Philosophy and Theory, Critical Education, Urbanities, Journal of Urban Ethnography, and Journal of Critical Education Policy Studies. Majella Dempsey Department of Education Maynooth University, Ireland Majella Dempsey is Associate Professor at Maynooth University. She is strand leader for the professional doctorate in curriculum studies. Majella leads the Special Interest Group in Curriculum Studies and is a link convenor for European Educational Research Association (EERA) Network 3 Curriculum. Her work focuses on curriculum, pedagogy, assessment, and STEM education with a particular interest in teacher agency and curriculum making. She recently co-authored Undertaking Capstone and Final Year Projects in Psychology (Routledge, 2022).

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Editors and Contributors

Georga Dowling Maynooth University, Ireland Georga Dowling is a practising early childhood educator and owner of two early childhood settings in Ireland. She is Lecturer in Early Childhood Education in Maynooth University since 2015, working across the degree and master’s programmes. She has extensive experience across the early childhood sector in Ireland for 18 years, including sitting on the Board of Early Childhood Ireland for 4 years. Her areas of expertise include managing a team of 25 early childhood pedagogists, advocating for children’s rights within early years, action research within early childhood education, and deconstructing dominant discourses in early childhood education and care to elevate the quality of the early childhood system in Ireland. Her research includes her master’s dissertation: “Children’s rights through the looking glass. A critical analysis of negotiating children’s rights within an early childhood care and education centre in Ireland” (2013). Deirdre Forde Froebel Department of Primary and Early Childhood Education and Centre for Public Education and Pedagogy, Maynooth University, Ireland. Deirdre Forde is Assistant Professor of inclusive and special education in the Froebel Department of Primary and Early Childhood Education and an affliate member of the Centre for Public Education and Pedagogy, Maynooth University, Ireland. Her work focuses on issues of inclusion and exclusion in education and society. Areas of interest include inclusive and special education, strengths-based approaches in supporting neurodiverse learners, children’s voice, and relational education. Tracy McElheron Maynooth University, Ireland. Tracy McElheron is a practising early childhood educator and Adjunct Lecturer in Early Childhood Education in Maynooth University. She has worked in the early childhood sector in Ireland for 25 years, teaching children from 2 to 5 years old. Her areas of expertise include curriculum and assessment for early childhood education, and the theory and practice of play as a pedagogy in the early years. Her doctoral work explores the implications of the hidden curriculum on children’s articulation of gender in early childhood education. She is a passionate advocate for the transformative capacity of relational pedagogy to build child, family, and educator identity. Suzanne O’Keeffe Froebel Department of Primary and Early Childhood Education Maynooth University, Ireland. Suzanne O’Keeffe is Assistant Professor of Education in the Froebel Department of Primary and Early Childhood Education, Maynooth University, Ireland. Her work focuses on sociological questions in education with a particular interest in questions of gender and masculinities. Areas of interest include care, children and childhood, teachers’ daily lives, and feminist research designs. Recent publications include Masculinities and Teaching in Primary Schools (Palgrave MacMillan, 2022). Marianne O’Shea Department of Applied Social Studies Maynooth University, Ireland. Marianne O’Shea is Lecturer in the Department of Applied Social Studies at Maynooth University. She is a professionally qualifed community and

Editors and Contributors ix youth worker and has worked as a community worker in Ireland and beyond. She is currently involved in professional education for community work and youth work, where she works with students from certifcate to doctoral level, supporting them to develop, examine, and deepen their professional practice in order to contribute to identifying and addressing inequality and injustice. Marianne is committed to supporting the participation of excluded voices in the debates, dialogue, and decision-making that shape the lives we live. Leah O’Toole Froebel Department of Primary and Early Childhood Education Maynooth University, Ireland. Dr Leah O’Toole is Assistant Professor in Early Childhood Education in the Froebel Department of Primary and Early Childhood Education, Maynooth University. Located in the broad felds of psychology and early childhood education, her research interests include relational pedagogy; the role of parents, families, and communities in education; constructions of children; and accessing the voices of our youngest citizens from birth. She is co-author of books including Introducing Bronfenbrenner: A Guide for Practitioners and Students in Early Years Education, now in its second edition, and Supporting Positive Behaviour in Early Childhood Settings and Primary Schools. She has also authored a range of book chapters and journal articles, and the defning themes of her work are the crucial nature of relationships for learning and development in early childhood and beyond, and advocacy for quality early childhood education as the frst stage of the educational journey. Joe Oyler Department of Education Maynooth University, Ireland. Joe Oyler is Assistant Professor of Education in the Department of Education, Maynooth University, Ireland. His work explores the use of dialogic approaches in education and the pedagogical thinking of practitioners. In particular his empirical research has looked at teachers’ thinking and practice in relation to student dialogue, argumentation, and argument literacy within philosophy for children and language arts classrooms. He teaches in the areas of dialogic teaching, philosophy of education, research methods, and philosophy of research. Areas of interest include philosophy for children, distributed cognition, teacher education, teacher autonomy, and teacher cognition. Lotar Rasiński Faculty of Applied Studies University of Lower Silesia Wroclaw, Poland. Lotar Rasiński is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Lower Silesia in Wroclaw. He held fellowships at New School for Social Research in New York (2000) and the University of California at Berkeley (2002). Recently he was also Visiting Professor at Palacky University in Olomouc (2019–2022). For his latest book, In the Footsteps of Marx and Wittgenstein. Social Criticism Without Critical Theory (in Polish; 2012), he received the prestigious Award of the Prime Minister of Poland (2014). In his research and numerous publications he focuses on political philosophy, philosophy of education, theory of discourse, critical theory, and methodology of social sciences. His books include Discourse and Power. Exploring Political Agonism

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Editors and Contributors (in Polish; 2010), Language, Discourse, Society. Linguistic Turn in Social Philosophy (in Polish; ed., 2009), Marxism and Education. International Perspectives on Theory and Action (ed. with D. Hill and K. Skordoulis, 2018).

Angela Rickard Department of Education Maynooth University, Ireland. Angela Rickard is Assistant Professor in the Department of Education in Maynooth University. Course leader for year 1 of the professional master of education (PME), she teaches on this and on other postgraduate and undergraduate programmes in the department. Angela has worked to promote collaborative, inclusive practice generally and team teaching in particular. She is concerned with integrating education for social justice in initial teacher education, supporting creative approaches to teaching and learning, and exploring how educational technology can be used to complement these approaches. Carl Anders Säfström Centre for Public Education and Pedagogy Maynooth University, Ireland. Carl Anders Säfström is Professor of Educational Research and Director for the Centre for Public Education and Pedagogy, Maynooth University, Ireland. He is also Adjunct Professor at the University of Southern Australia and affliated to the Faculty of Education and Society at Malmö University, Sweden. He writes in educational theory, philosophy, and history of education; educational policy; and didactics. He is currently working on the sophists’ contribution to educational thought and practice. His areas of interest include education and teaching as praxis of democracy, active strategies of non-violent resistance to authoritarian capitalism, and teaching as a sophistical practice. Recent books includes Education for Everyday (Springer, forthcoming) and A Pedagogy of Equality in a Time of Unrest (Routledge, 2020). Sharon Todd Centre for Public Education and Pedagogy Maynooth University, Ireland. Sharon Todd is Professor of Education and member of the Centre for Public Education and Pedagogy at Maynooth University, Ireland. She has published widely in the areas of embodiment, social justice, and ethics in education and is currently engaged in making connections between the climate emergency, art practice, and political aesthetics in education. Her most recent book, The Touch of the Present: Educational Encounters, Aesthetics, and the Politics of the Senses, is forthcoming from SUNY Press. She is author of Learning from the Other: Levinas, Psychoanalysis and Ethical Possibilities in Education (SUNY, 2003) and Toward an Imperfect Education: Facing Humanity, Rethinking Cosmopolitanism (Paradigm, 2009). Her co-edited volumes include Re-imagining Educational Relationships: Ethics, Politics, Practices with M. Griffths, M. Honerød, and C. Winter (Wiley, 2014); Philosophy East/West: Exploring the Intersections Between Educational and Contemplative Practices with O. Ergas (Wiley, 2015). Thomas Walsh Department of Education Maynooth University, Ireland. Thomas Walsh is Associate Professor in the Department of Education, Maynooth University. Tom joined the Department in 2014 having previously worked as a primary school teacher, an education researcher, and a primary school inspector

Editors and Contributors xi at the Department of Education and Skills. His teaching and research interests focus on history of education, education policy and legislation, and curriculum studies. He is currently the Chair of the Social Research Ethics Subcommittee and a member of the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment’s Advisory Panel for the redevelopment of the primary school curriculum.

Acknowledgement

This book is the result of many conversations we had among the authors over a 2-year period. We are grateful to everyone for their energy and commitment to this book project and to the ‘case’ of public education more generally. The conversations took place in the Centre for Public Education and Pedagogy, which was established at Maynooth University in 2018. We also would like to thank Professor Philip Nolan and Professor Mark Maguire for their support for the work of the Centre.

1

Introduction The publicness of education Gert Biesta and Carl Anders Säfström

Public education and the rise of neoliberalism Public education as education funded by public means, accountable to the public, and accessible to everyone has been a key institution of modern democracies (see, e.g., Higgins & Knight Abowitz 2011). On the one hand, public education can be seen as the expression of the democratic values of liberty, equality, and solidarity. On the other hand, public education has played a key role in promoting and sustaining these values and has explicitly been tasked with playing this role. In many contexts and settings, public education has contributed signifcantly to reducing educational inequalities, the common school has always tried to be a meeting place for different individuals and groups, the question of authoritative information is the curriculum question par excellence, public education has always sought to make room for a wide range of different identities, and public education has always been seen as a key lever in the education of a democratic citizenry (see, e.g., Carr & Hartnett 1996; Biesta et al. 2013). Today there are many signs that this confguration of public education is in decline and that other priorities have taken over. The rise of school choice, privatisation, and commercialisation has eroded the democratic governance of public education and has led to new patterns of educational segregation and inequality (see, e.g., Whitty & Power 2000). The growth of privately funded education has challenged the idea of public education for all and thus has contributed to the redefnition of the very meaning of public education (see Ball 2007). New public management has caused a shift from democratic to technocratic forms of accountability with a strong focus on meeting the needs of ‘customers’ rather than being oriented towards the common good. It has thus also challenged the role of the state as a key actor in both serving and securing the common good (see Gunter et al. 2017). There is strong evidence, therefore, that the historical connection between public education and democratisation has come to an end or has at least become extremely fragile and vulnerable. All this is not just an ‘internal’ matter for education but has gone hand in hand with the erosion of democracy itself. The rise of far-right movements, parties and governments, the aggressive suppression of difference, the increase

DOI: 10.4324/9781003289067-1

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of violence on the streets, the sharp rise of inequalities, and the misleading belief that the voice of the people is by defnition a democratic voice, are all expressions of anti-democratic tendencies in which liberty, equality, and solidarity have been rebranded as the values of a liberal elite, rather than seen as the values that seek to make peaceful living together in plurality and difference possible (Biesta 2011). In addition, neoliberal modes of governing and governance have replaced the public sphere as a domain orientated towards the defnition of the common good with the (logic of) markets, where individuals and groups simply express their preferences and seek providers who can meet these preferences either for the lowest price or at the best price-quality ratio (see, e.g., Marquand 2004). In all this the state has retreated to the role of market regulator, mainly through regimes of inspection and quality control. And quality itself has been increasingly redefned in formal terms, either in terms of consumer satisfaction or, in the case of education, through data from the global education measurement industry (on this notion see Biesta 2015).

The critique of neoliberalism Over the past 20 years, much work has gone into the critique of neoliberalism, both as a general mode of governance and as a mode of governing education (for the latter see, e.g., Giroux 2015; Ravitch 2011; Norris 2011; Boyask 2020; Hogan & Thompson 2021). This critique is now well established and can, in a sense, be considered as conclusive. It has exposed in much detail how neoliberalism, through its ongoing normalisation of the privatisation of public life, has transformed education from a public concern into a private commodity. It has also shown how, through this, it has signifcantly altered the identities of all involved, be they teachers, be they parents, be they pupils or students, be they the communities and societies that education has sought to serve. By suggesting that the critique of neoliberal modes of governing education is conclusive, we are not claiming that the critique has been accepted, and even less so that it has brought an end to neoliberal governance and governing, in education or elsewhere. On the contrary: the marketisation of education seems to be ongoing, the voice of educational customers is as strong as ever, the global measurement industry keeps pushing for a narrow and technicist defnition of educational quality, and schools experience little room for manoeuvre in this complex feld. Yet we are claiming that precisely because of all this, a new challenge has arisen – a challenge that is both intellectual and political. Rather than only adding more fne-grained analyses of the impact of neoliberalism on contemporary education, the challenge we see is that of exploring and envisioning democratic possibilities for education after the critique of neoliberalism, despite the fact that in many situations the main mode of operation of education remains neoliberal. The challenge, in other words, is to explore whether a new publicness of education may be emerging and, if so, what this new publicness looks like, what its potential is, and what challenges it may be facing. The

Introduction

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contributions brought together in this book seek to take up this challenge from a range of different angles and in a number of different ways. The ‘taking up’ needs to be taken seriously as the chapters brought together in this book are not ‘perfect.’ They do not provide a crisp and clear theory of the new publicness of education and also do not outline a safe and secure road map for getting there. The chapters are the outcome of a slow conversation between the authors in which we tried to move beyond the critique of neoliberalism while acknowledging the ongoing impact of neoliberal forms of governing and governance at all levels of education. The chapters show, in other words, what emerges when the challenge to think a new publicness of education is taken up, building on the critique of neoliberalism but looking for ways to move beyond that critique, while not denying the ongoing neoliberal erosion of public education in many contexts and settings.

Exploring a new publicness of education There are two distinctive qualities to this book. One is that in our attempts at exploring what may lie beyond neoliberal confgurations of education, we do not start from political theories or strategies that seek to re-politicise the public. While such approaches are important, both for theoretical analysis and for political activism, they run the risk of approaching education as instrument for political change and, in doing so, may overlook the inherent democratic potential of education itself. The contributions in this book take inspiration from the educational interest in the freedom of the other (see Biesta & Säfström 2011), an interest which stands in sharp contrast to capitalism’s need for self-interested subjects. We are interested, in other words, in the publicness implied in education and in understanding such publicness as a thoroughly educational issue – an insight that goes back to the Greek idea and practice of paideia (see Jaeger 1939, 1943; Säfström 2020). The second distinctive quality of the book has to do with the particular national context in which it originated, namely the Republic of Ireland. Being formed through a fairly recent and complex history of colonialisation and postcolonial sentiments in which public forms of education have remained rather marginal rather than ever become mainstream, Ireland is reinventing itself on the basis of new claims of publicness. In Ireland, a slow revolution of public life is currently taking shape, founded on persistent claims from social movements to be heard and to be seen. This is having an impact not only on public life in general but also on laws and the constitution. What is visible in Ireland, therefore, is the force of an expanding democratic public and a reformulation of the publicness of publics. While in many other European countries there are strong polarising forces, Ireland seems to be moving in a different direction, largely, so far, without far-right populism. A key ambition of the book is to make these dynamics visible and intelligible but also to place them in Ireland’s unique historical trajectory, not just to make sense of the Irish

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experience but, through this, shed light on educational futures that are democratic rather than merely populist. Rather than providing readers with the obligatory overview of chapters, we want to share seven key issues that have emerged from our explorations. These issues, so we wish to suggest, not only provide an angle from which the chapters in this book can be read. We also believe that these issues and the questions they raise are an important starting point for further explorations concerning the possibility and viability of a new publicness of education.

Seven themes While the critique of neoliberalism remains valid both in its general gesture and in its detail, we wish to suggest that the new questions emerging from our effort in this book may provide an additional strategy for overcoming the ongoing erosion of public education. Or, in those cases where education has not even yet managed to become fully ‘public,’ they may provide support for working towards a new publicness.

1. New publicness and old publicness It is one thing to look for manifestations of a new publicness of education, but it is important to be mindful of the fact that public education itself is not a taken-for-granted historical confguration of education. The question this raises, therefore, is in what ways in particular contexts and settings education has or hasn’t (yet) managed to establish itself in a public way, and what this means for the work towards a new and different publicness, particularly in response to neoliberal tendencies and confgurations of educational policies and practices.

2. Customer satisfaction and the common good Public education can be understood as a response to authoritarian confgurations of education, that is, education controlled by the state, the church, or other powerful groups or institutions. Public education is, in other words, not just education for the public but also education of the public. But here lies a particular trap of neoliberalism, as it seems that markets are perhaps one of the best ways to give the public – or in the plural, publics – what they desire. How then should we deal with the tension between what individuals or groups want from education and the orientation towards a common public good that may go against such particular desires?

3. The voice of the people and progressive populism The question of the common good also has to do with the bigger issue of democracy and the voice of the people. Just as one can argue that not all that publics want is orientated towards the common good, it is also obvious that

Introduction

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the voice of the people is not automatically or necessarily democratic. It thus remains important to not just take the voice of the people for granted but always raise the question of what we might term the ‘quality’ of this voice. Negatively this means that it remains important to make a distinction between populism and democracy, but perhaps a new publicness also requires a struggle for progressive forms of populism – a ‘left populism’ as Mouffe (2018) has called it.

4. Instrumentalisation and the integrity of education One tension in considering the relationship between education, publics, the public interest, and the common good is that much effort focuses on how the common good is defned and how this can provide a sense of direction for education. Positively this is the ongoing effort to prioritise public over private interests, and many progressive and political ‘agendas’ for education seek to precisely do this, for example by orientating education towards social and ecological justice. This, of course, stands in opposition to the market logic that seeks to prioritise private interests over public ones, highlighting different priorities and different agendas. One issue that is easily forgotten in all this is education itself. Is education just an instrument that needs to be provided with the ‘right’ agenda,’ or does education have an integrity of itself which needs to be taken into consideration as well? And if the answer to the latter question is affrmative, in what ways can it be said that education itself is either on the side of private or on the side of public interests?

5. The question of inclusion One important dimension of public education is that it is education for all. The theme of inclusion is therefore never far away from discussions about education and its publicness. But inclusion comes with its own paradoxes. One is, to what extent inclusion should be understood as including those who are on the outside into existing confgurations of schooling, or whether inclusion should always mean a (radical) transformation of those confgurations themselves? The other is, to what extent inclusion can be a public matter orientated towards a common good that lies ‘beyond’ individual interests and desires, or whether inclusion by necessity needs to give those who are excluded what they ‘need’ or, in a stronger formulation, what they ‘desire’?

6. The school and society The publicness of education is not only a matter for education – it is not only an ‘internal’ matter but is also intimately connected to the relationship between ‘school and society,’ to use Dewey’s phrase. The main problem with the neoliberal confguration of education is that it sees only one direction in this relationship, one in which society ‘asks’ and education ‘delivers.’ Again, it may look like that this is exactly what public education should mean; that is, the public –

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however defned – receives from education what it needs or wants. What is forgotten in such a functionalist positioning of the school vis-à-vis society is that the possibility for the school to be an educational institution strongly depends on societal dynamics. This at the very least suggests that for a new publicness of education we do not just need to ask what kind of school society needs but also what kind of society the school actually needs in order to serve publicness rather than just publics (on this reversal see Biesta 2019).

7. Curriculum and pedagogy: Publicness from the inside out While it is tempting to look at the school from a distance and consider questions of old and new publicness mainly in terms of the social confguration of the school in its relation to society, we shouldn’t forget that education always takes place in the daily practices of teachers and students and thus frst and foremost ‘through’ curriculum and pedagogy. Whereas the question of the social confguration of the school in its relation to society thus considers publicness ‘from the outside in,’ so to speak, there is also the question of the publicness of curriculum and pedagogy themselves. To locate publicness there thus raises the prospect of a new publicness emerging ‘from the inside out,’ highlighting public possibilities for education in the very enactments of curriculum and pedagogy. As mentioned, we do not present these seven issues as conclusions but rather see them as insights that emerged in our work on this book – insights which will hopefully provide guidance towards considering the possibilities for a new publicness of education to emerge and take shape within and also despite of the neoliberal confgurations that continue to shape the realities of schooling in many contexts and settings.

References Apple, M. W. (2018). The struggle for democracy in education. New York: Routledge. Ball, S. J. (2007). Education plc. London: Routledge. Ball, S. J. (2012). Global education Inc. London: Routledge. Biesta, G. (2011). Learning democracy in school and society: Education, lifelong learning, and the politics of citizenship. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. Biesta, G. (2015). Resisting the seduction of the Global Education Measurement Industry: Notes on the social psychology of PISA. Ethics and Education 10(3), 348–360. Biesta, G. (2019). What kind of society does the school need? Redefning the democratic work of education in impatient times. Studies in Philosophy and Education 38(6), 657–668. Biesta, G., De Bie, M. & Wildemeersch, D. (Eds.) (2013). Civic learning, democratic citizenship, and the public sphere. Dordrecht/Boston: Springer. Biesta, G. J. J. & Säfström, C. A. (2011). A manifesto for education. Policy Futures in Education 9(5), 540–547. Boyask, R. (2020). Pluralist publics in market driven education. London: Bloomsbury.

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Carr, W. & Hartnett, A. (1996). Education and the struggle for democracy: The politics of educational ideas. Buckingham: Open University Press. Giroux, H. A. (2015). Education and the crisis of public values: Challenging the assault on teachers, students, and public education. New York: Peter Lang. Gunter, H., Hall, D. & Apple, M. (2017). Corporate elites and the reform of public education. Bristol: Policy Press. Higgins, C. & Knight Abowitz, K. (2011). What makes a public school public? Educational Theory 61(4), 365–380. Hogan, A. & Thompson, G. (Eds.) (2021). Privatisation and commercialisation in public education. How the public nature of schooling is changing. London/New York: Routledge. Jaeger, W. (1939/1965). Paideia. The ideas of Greek culture. Vol 1. Archaic Greece the minds of Athens. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jaeger, W. (1943/1986). Paideia. The ideas of Greek culture. Vol II. In search of the divine order. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press. Marquand, D. (2004). Decline of the public: The hollowing-out of citizenship. Cambridge: Policy Press. Mouffe, C. (2018). For a left populism. London/New York: Verso. Norris, T. (2011). Consuming schools. Commercialism and the end of politics. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Ravitch, D. (2011). The death and life of the great American school system. New York: Basic Books. Säfström, C. A. (2005). The European knowledge society and the diminishing state control of education: The case of Sweden. Journal of Education Policy 20(5), 583–593. Säfström, C. A. (2020). A pedagogy of equality in a time of unrest. London/New York: Routledge. Whitty, G. & Power, S. (2000). Marketization and privatization in mass education systems. International Journal of Educational Development 20(1), 93–107.

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The ‘publicness’ of primary education in Ireland Tracing its historical lineage Thomas Walsh

Introduction Understandings of ‘publicness’ in education are time-specifc and linked to wider contextual and societal factors. Using Ireland as a case study, this chapter traces the evolving understandings of publicness in primary education over the past two centuries as represented in key legislative and policy documents. Throughout, an emphasis will be placed on the voices of both the privileged and the marginalised in terms of determining the shape of public education, as well as the tensions in terms of power, roles, rights, and responsibilities. While acknowledging the importance of relational and ethical questions, the focus in this chapter is on structural issues relating to the ownership and management of the primary education system. One distinctive feature of Ireland’s colonial context is the historical involvement of the religious denominations in education as a counterbalance to state control. The physical, managerial, and proprietary presence of the religious in education in every village, town, and city to this day has greatly impacted public understanding of, and arguably limited its direct engagement with, the education system. It also resulted in a different trajectory and response to the understanding and provision of public education that was witnessed across much of Europe in the past century. An exploration of the pathway leading to 93% of ‘public’ primary schools being owned and managed by religious authorities in Ireland in 2023, and how this impacts on society’s relationship to the education system, is a central purpose of this chapter. The interface and tensions between these evolving structures and understandings and how they both supported and resisted neoliberal ideology will also be critically analysed. Ultimately the chapter claims that the twin infuences of Ireland’s colonial/post-colonial context and the integral involvement of religious denominations at all levels of the education system have impacted, and continue to infuence substantially, the understanding of the ownership or publicness of the education system. The analysis reveals that some of the core characteristics of public education (e.g., funded by public means, accountable to the public, and accessible to everyone) have not been core to the operation of primary education in Ireland, either historically or contemporaneously.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003289067-2

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Before moving to analyse the historical lineage of publicness in education in Ireland, a brief examination of the impact of neoliberalism on Irish education is warranted. Broadly defned, neoliberalism is “a complex, often incoherent, unstable and even contradictory set of practices that are organized around a certain imagination of the ‘market’ as a basis for the universalization of social relations” (Shamir 2008, p. 3). Since the 1960s, Ireland has cultivated strong relationships with organisations such as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which Rinne et al. (2004, p. 456) characterise as the éminence grise of national education policy development. However, Ireland’s linguistic and geopolitical context has also resulted in strong Anglo-American infuences, where neoliberal discourses dominate social service provision (Ball 2016). While it is evident that neoliberal ideology and its management strategy, new managerialism, have permeated Irish education structures and discourses in Ireland since the 1990s (Conway & Murphy 2013; Lynch et al. 2012; Mooney Simmie et al. 2016; Skerritt 2019), specifc cultural and historical factors play a role in the nature and extent of infuence. Lynch (2012) argues that the dominance of Catholic ideology and a socially disengaged form of nationalism following political independence resulted in an absence of effort to institute public control over key social services such as education. However, from the 1990s, the language of education policy and legislation has been increasingly underpinned by neoliberal overtones and undertones. Lynch et al. (2012, p. 3) argue that neoliberalism has been contested with some success at primary school level through their denominational management structures and well-organised teacher unions. As will be delineated later, schooling structures instituted in independent Ireland provided for a subsidiary state role and a primordial role for denominational interests, and this arguably insulated the education system from the worst excesses of neoliberalism experienced in other jurisdictions. Using document analysis for policy documents (Bowen 2009) and a harmonious approach for constitutional and legal texts (Farry 1996; O’Mahony 2006), this chapter begins with an analysis of the origins of public national education and the seminal Stanley Letter of 1831 establishing the national system of education in Ireland by the (then British) state. The evolving role of the state, and the increased involvement of the religious denominations as intermediaries in the 1800s, is then explored through a range of historical policy documents. The chapter then moves to assess the changing conceptualisations of the publicness of education following political independence in the 1920s. Key articles in the Constitution of Ireland 1937 (Government of Ireland 1937) are then examined as these set out the key principles and power relationships between the main protagonists underpinning educational provision to the current day. Finally, more recent government policy assertions and legislation which capture contemporary understandings and aspirations of publicness are critiqued. The chapter provides a foundation and context for an ongoing conversation about the appropriateness of this current conceptualisation of publicness, and the concluding discussion proffers some suggestions and signposts for a new publicness of primary education in Ireland.

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Educational provisions in the colonial era The origins of public education in Ireland Ireland’s long tradition of education through monastery, Bardic, and charter schools was interrupted by the effects of the Penal Laws introduced by the British administration in the seventeenth century which forbade the education of Catholics. The chief response to the Penal Laws was the establishment of an extensive network of illegal Hedge Schools1 to educate Catholic children, where the ‘Master’ was paid directly in kind or money by parents (McManus 2004). While the education provided was often rudimentary in nature and limited in scope, it was highly valued and sought after by parents and communities (Coolahan 2017). The Hedge Schools, numbering close to 11,000 by the 1820s (O’Brien 2013) when the Penal Laws had been relaxed, operated in parallel to a number of state-sponsored and philanthropic schools from the late seventeenth century, catering primarily for Protestant children, and many were avowedly proselytising in intent. Hedge Schools represented a grassroots and democratic movement in the provision of public schooling to the poorest members of society and symbolised a resistance to state control and imposition. While there was some oversight and regulation of state-sponsored schools, Hedge Schools operated outside the auspices or oversight of any regulatory framework of the state or churches, affording democratic control to the teachers, parents, and communities establishing and operating such schools. Hickman (1995, p. 127) argues that the stimulus for a national system of education in Ireland was not a lack of education but the “crisis of order” in its operation and delivery as perceived by the state and the churches. The legacy of state intervention and support for proselytising impacted greatly on the subsequent structures and operation of the system, leading to an inherent and lasting suspicion and rejection of state control of schooling.

Establishing a national system: The Stanley Letter (1831) European and Empire thinking greatly infuenced the momentum and direction for the provision of mass education in Ireland. While many continental countries advanced the role of the state as the agency providing education, England employed a more laissez-faire attitude but understood the potential of education as a tool of cultural and political assimilation in Ireland. The national system of education in Ireland was discreetly and fexibly introduced by setting out the principles of the system in a letter, the Stanley Letter (1831). It built on the proposed principles of a series of earlier commissions (1791, 1806–1812, 1824– 1827: see O’Brien 2013) which provided for combined secular instruction and separate religious instruction in mixed schools to be overseen by a mixed committee of lay and religious community interests. This approach, as opposed to a parliamentary act, avoided much political and public interrogation, discussion, and debate on the system (O’Donovan 2017).

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The four-page Stanley Letter reveals the intentions of the British administration for the education system in Ireland. The key tone underpinning the Letter is that the establishment of a national system was an attempt to exercise ‘superintendence,’ ‘control’ or ‘complete control’ over its operation. It provided for a division of power between central authorities and local interests with the state grant-aiding schools in response to local initiative rather than directly providing schools or employing teachers. The Letter placed emphasis on the signifcant role the ‘resident clergy’ would play in the establishment and management of schools; the word ‘parent’ is not used once in the Letter. The requirement that one-third of the cost of a school building, a permanent salary for the master, repairs of the schoolhouse and furniture, and the provision of the site be provided locally before any public aid be awarded no doubt dissuaded individuals from making applications. This signifcantly reduced the control parents and local communities once played in determining educational provision for children and positioned the churches in the absence of local government structures or extensive middle-class interests, as the main ‘intermediate group’ (Bayly 1983) between the local and the state on the educational landscape. A National Board was established to oversee the system, comprising “men of high personal character, including individuals of exalted station in the Church” (The Stanley Letter 1831, p. 2), refective of the various denominations. This Board set out the rules and regulations of the system, dispersed grants, developed the curriculum, approved textbooks, and had the power to suspend or remove managers and teachers. Inspectors were the agents of the Commissioners in terms of oversight of the system (Coolahan & O’Donovan 2009). More locally, the patron (usually the local bishop or ecclesiastical authority) was at the apex of control in national school management and initiated the establishment of a school and normally appointed the local clergyman as manager. While the initial intention was that schools built with state aid would be vested in the National Board, many were vested in the local bishop and thus began the process of denominational ownership of educational settings. The school manager enjoyed considerable powers at a local level in terms of hiring and fring teachers, distributing teacher salaries, managing the timetable, and overseeing the overall operation and maintenance of the school.

Operation and control of public education, 1831–1921 While the Stanley Letter set out the broad framework and principles for the operation of the national system of education, the National Board developed more precise rules and regulations for its operation. These increasingly complex, onerous, and elaborate rules and regulations alienated many of the previous parents and community leaders who had been involved in educational provision and resulted in the majority of school managers being clerical as they had the social and fnancial capital to navigate the complexities of the national system. Despite the Stanley intention, denominational tensions also led to the establishment of separate schools along denominational lines. The increasingly powerful

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Catholic Church, asserting a more powerful, unifed, and Ultramontanist voice under Cardinal Cullen from 1850, became increasingly suspicious of and resistant to state intervention in education (O’Donoghue & Harford 2011). The Catholic Church insisted that education was not a state function but a parental duty which was fulflled by the churches. By the late 1800s, the vast majority of schools were “parochially organised, denominationally segregated and clerically managed” (Ó Buachalla 1988, p. 28). The British administration had always envisaged that local sources of funding would jointly fnance education, but this never materialised (Coolahan 2017, p. 5). As the decades went on and the management of schools became predominantly associated with clergymen and religious denominations, there were state efforts to involve local communities more in the funding and administration of schools. The Royal Commission of Inquiry into Primary Education (1870) recommended that local funding should amount to one-third of national funding and that state-aided schools should have management committees as opposed to single managers. Further unsuccessful attempts were made by Lord Wyndham in 1904 by Chief Secretary Augustine Birrell in the Irish Council Bill (1907) and in the McPherson Education Bill of 1919 to introduce more democratic structures and a local rate aid for schools. These measures had an implicit aim of weakening denominational control and management of schools and to enhance parent and local involvement in education. Overall, there was a deep sensitivity and resistance by the churches, especially the Catholic Church, to any interference by the state, or arms of the state, in the administration and management of education or to erode its power and control of the education system. The Catholic Church in particular viewed the education system as a religious rather than an educational structure (Akenson 1975, p. 6), and, consequently, clerical control was a moral necessity. By 1900, the patronage system provided Catholic bishops with signifcant power over education policy on the National Board, through the vesting of school buildings in diocesan structures and their managerial role in schools (Walsh 2020). As Ó Buachalla (1988, p. 44) states, the structures effectively excluded wider parental and public interests from a role in education The nineteenth century witnessed a distinct redefnition and clarifcation of the agencies concerned with policy making in education. In the early decades, a multiplicity of agencies, denominational leaders, associated church bodies, education societies and political groups sought to participate in the formulation of education policy. By mid-century, the churches had begun to exercise a dominant role, to the partial exclusion of almost all other groups. In summary, the structures instigated in the 1830s “refected an interesting division of power between central and local bodies” (Coolahan 2017, p. 11). It had the effect of placing schooling in the hands of state and church authorities that left little space for wider public, parental or local involvement. Communications and decision-making followed along state and religious lines, leaving

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little space or opportunity for public input. The detailed rules and regulations of the National Board left little space for local adaptation or interpretation. Parents and communities, which had once largely organised and fnanced the operation of thousands of Hedge Schools, gradually withdrew their fnancial support and direct interest in schooling decisions and vested decision-making in denominational structures. The minimal fnancial support provided by parents and communities for the education system in the 1800s is testament to the disempowerment and distance they felt from the national system, which was understood by many as a colonial structure that should be paid for by Westminster. These structures and power patterns proved remarkably resilient in the post-colonial context.

Educational provision in independent Ireland Establishing educational structures in the 1920s The advent of political independence in 1922, following a protracted and violent revolution, represented an opportunity for a re-imagining and reframing of education in the newly established Free State. There was much confdence that a democratisation of education would follow new political structures in a revolutionary context. This optimism emerged from statements such as the Democratic Programme, a declaration of economic and social principles adopted by the First Dáil at its meeting on 21 January 1919 (Dáil Éireann 1919). This declared there would be state provision for education but like the Constitution of the Irish Free State (Saorstát Éireann) Act, 1922 (Government of Ireland 1922), it did not specify any details as to its provision. New educational structures instituted in the 1920s are particularly worthy of examination as the relative roles of the state, churches, teachers, and management bodies instituted in this decade proved steadfast and were subsequently enshrined in policy and legislative provisions from the 1990s. The National Board which had been in operation since 1831 was dissolved in January 1922 and power was concentrated centrally in the hands of a small number of civil servants and politicians. The Department of Education subsequently was established under the Ministers and Secretaries Act 1924. This Act provides that the Minister for Education is ‘corporation sole’ of the Department, meaning s/he is responsible for the policy focus and administration of the Department and is accountable for the acts and actions of its civils servants (Barrington 1980, p. 32). Akenson (1975, p. 31) characterises this development as “substituting for an academic and professional oligarchy, an unfettered bureaucracy.” There was no effort to reappraise or revise the existing administrative or managerial structures for education, and many of the assumptions underpinning the functioning of the system were subsumed into the new system. While the establishment of an advisory council that comprised educationalists was mooted (see Walsh 2012, pp. 86–87), this was never given serious consideration in the early decades of the Free State. Akenson (1975, p. 107) holds

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that Catholic Church and state were united in this regard, as neither wanted a body of citizens sitting to examine, and perhaps criticise, its work. Moreover, there was no attempt to enact any comprehensive legislation to underpin the operation of the system, perhaps infuenced by earlier unsuccessful legislative efforts by British authorities. This “tradition of informality” (Glendenning 1999, p. 10) provided fexibility for the system in its infancy but in the absence of enacting legislation, “the democratic process normally associated with the enactment of substantive educational legislation was largely by-passed” (Glendenning 1999, p. 41). Overall, the attempts to centralise control refect a level of authoritarianism and distrust of representative institutions, excluding parents, teachers, and lay citizens in the process. Indeed, the state used the education system for political ends with an equal zeal to that of the previous administration. Building national identity and nationhood, comprising the twin pillars of nationalism and Catholicism, became a core function of primary schools. The control of most aspects of the education system became highly centralised within the Department with little opportunities or fora for public engagement until the 1990s (Coolahan 1989). The Church asserted its role increasingly following independence, and owing to its power base, it was personally and politically inexpedient for politicians to challenge these assertions. As the Catholic hierarchy stated in 1921 upon the advent of independence [a]nd, in view of pending changes in Irish education, we wish to assert that the only satisfactory system of education for Catholics is one wherein Catholic children are taught in Catholic schools by Catholic teachers under Catholic control. (Irish Catholic Directory 1921, pp. 577–578) The state acknowledged the pivotal position of the Catholic Church and accepted its authority in matters such as education, describing the system as being “semistate,” with power shared between the state and the managers (Department of Education 1926, p. 7). This concretised the system whereby schools continued to be managed by clergymen, to the exclusion of the wider public, at a local level. Curricular changes also led to an explicit integration of religious and secular instruction, whereby “a religious spirit should inform and vivify the whole work of the school” (National Programme Conference 1926, p. 21).

The Irish Constitution/Bunreacht na hÉireann 1937 and its infuence on education The 1937 Constitution, still the apex of legislative provisions in Ireland, enshrined the status quo, spirit, and essence of educational provisions that had developed in Ireland in the preceding century and set the tone for the operation of the education system to contemporary times. It articulated a more elaborate conceptualisation of education than the 1922 Constitution or most international

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constitutions (O’Mahony 2019, p. 3), particularly in Article 42 on Education2 and Article 44 on Religion. The principles of state subsidiarity, parental supremacy, and Catholic social doctrine are particularly evident in the provisions for education, and these are explored, in turn, here. The fundamental principle of state subsidiarity in relation to education is evident in Article 42.4. Unlike the 1922 Constitution, the 1937 Constitution does not expressly state that there is a right to free primary education but instead that [t]he State shall provide for free primary education and shall endeavour to supplement and give reasonable aid to private and corporate educational initiative, and, when the public good requires it, provide other educational facilities or institutions with due regard, however, for the rights of parents, especially in the matter if religious and moral formation. (Government of Ireland 1937, Article 42.4, emphasis added) In effect, it was not the role of the state to provide education but to provide for it. Farry (1996, p. 24) argues that while the state can delegate the provision, “it cannot absolve itself from responsibility should these fail to provide free primary education suffcient to satisfy the constitutional rights of the individual.” The purpose of Article 42.4, according to O’Mahony (2019, p. 3), was to keep the State at one remove from the actual provision of education, and copper fasten the arrangement whereby primary education was funded by the State but managed and delivered by religious denominations. State subsidiarity is further reinforced in Article 44.2.4 by expressly providing for state funding of denominational education. This, and subsequent Supreme Court interpretations of the provision, endorsed the existing system of denominational school management (Whyte 1992). Parental supremacy is one of the main constitutional constraints on the state’s control of and power in education. The family is lauded in the Constitution as the “primary and natural educators” of their children and the state “guarantees to respect the inalienable right and duty of parents to provide, according to their means, for the religious and moral, intellectual, physical and social education of their children” (Article 42.1). While the state “as guardian of the common good” requires that each child receives a certain minimum education (Article 42.3.2), parents can provide for this at home, in private schools, or in schools recognised or established by the state. The state is only empowered to provide “other educational institutions” in the event that the public good requires it. The position of the state is further clarifed in Article 42.3.1 in the following statement The State shall not oblige parents in violation of their conscience and lawful preference to send their children to schools established by the State, or to any particular type of school designated by the State. (Article 42.3.1)

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Interestingly, the rights of children as individuals independent of their parents and families were not enumerated in the 1937 Constitution (Hayes 2002), and this absence largely removed them from the landscape of consideration until such provisions were made by a constitutional amendment and the insertion of Article 42A in 2015. Glendenning (1999, p. 68) asserts that “parents are theoretically at the apex of the pyramidal constitutional structure supporting education” but were largely excluded in practice with the churches acting on their behalf. The situation was exacerbated by the absence of any legislation underpinning rights and responsibilities and the centralist nature played by the Department of Education, despite the state’s role being considered as subsidiary. Coolahan (2017, p. 7) similarly notes that “a notable tradition in Irish education up to recent times has been the lack of direct involvement by parents and the general laity in the policies and administration of schools.” Article 42 is redolent with Catholic social doctrine principles, many of which were articulated in the Papal Encyclical of Pope Pius XI Divini Illius Magistri (On the Christian Education of Youth, 1929) (see Farry 1996, p. 167). This positioned the Catholic Church, as opposed to the state, as the key agency in educational provision. Protections for the distinctive ethos of schools are also provided for in Article 44.2.5 of the Constitution, affording religious denominations “the right to manage its own affairs, own, acquire and administer property.” The constitutional recognition of denominational schools and the rights afforded to denominations to manage their affairs underpin patrons’ or owners’ entitlement to ensure the denominational ethos is observed by management, principals, teachers, and students (Farry 1996, p. 92). Despite the “God-given and inviolate” (Ó Buachalla 1988, p. 236) rights and primacy afforded to parents and the family in the education of children, their role was largely usurped by the religious denominations which asserted under Catholic social doctrine their primacy in the role and effectively excluded parents from all church education structures. As Archbishop McQuaid stated Only the Church is competent to declare what is a fully Catholic upbringing. . . . Accordingly, in the education of Catholics every branch of human training is subject to the guidance of the Church, and those schools alone which the church approves are capable of providing a fully Catholic education. (McQuaid 1945, p. 674) This reinforced a decision taken by the Church hierarchy in 1934 that “[n]o lay committee of any kind is to be associated with the manager in school management” (quoted in Ó Buachalla 1988, p. 228). The established role of the single clerical manager for the vast majority of primary schools in Ireland continued, and parents’ capacity to assert their constitutional rights of supremacy in education remained very limited. The Church maintained this control by asserting the rights of parents in relation to education and subsequently

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affrming its right to decree what an appropriate education entailed for its religious adherents. As Titley (1983, p. 137) states, parental rights in education were “as much a slogan of convenience for the State as it was for the Church.” Constitutional provisions refect both the Church’s and state’s striking suspicions of and hostility towards the direct involvement of the community in educational matters. The constitutional principles of state subsidiarity, parental supremacy, and Catholic social doctrine created a framework that effectively excluded the general public and communities, and ironically parents, from a central role and voice in education.

Structural changes in primary education from the 1970s Proposals to alter structural provisions for primary education became increasingly prevalent on the landscape from the 1970s. Given their relevance to the themes of the book, three such measures are explored, in turn, next: the establishment of boards of management (1975), the inception of multidenominational schools, and proposals for regional education structures. A shift in thinking regarding the role of the Catholic Church in education was heralded by Vatican II (1962–1965). This re-conceptualised the ‘Church’ as consisting of both the clergy and laity, encouraging much greater parental and lay involvement in schools (Abbot 1966, pp. 486–492). This thinking permeated discourses in Ireland from the late 1960s and was given offcial blessing by a hierarchy pastoral letter in 1969 providing for the formation of teacher, parent, and management associations at school level (see Coolahan 1989, p. 55). In 1975, boards of management were established to replace the single manager system following protracted negotiations on their structure and functions. Board structures provided for parents and teachers to be involved in the management of schools, albeit in a minority position, as the patrons’ appointees outnumbered other members and the patron appointed the chairperson who had a casting vote (Coolahan 2017, p. 125). While the view was asserted that the functions of the board were largely administrative in character and did not impact greatly on wider education policy (Department of Education 1990, p. 36), they represented the frst structural change to the management system since 1831 and the frst formal attempt to involve parents in primary education structures. Membership composition was altered in the 1980s and again in the 1990s when equal representation of parents, teachers, owners, and the wider community was achieved following guarantees regarding school ethos to religious interests (Walshe 1999, p. 197). Frustration at the denominational character of most primary schools and their non-democratic character led some parents to seek recognition for multidenominational schools from the 1970s. Ironically given the pivotal role of parents in the Constitution, these were reluctantly tolerated rather than promoted by the state (Hyland 2020). The number of non-denominational schools has increased considerably since the 1970s, and these operate under a range of patronage and management structures. However, they still represent less than 7% of schools in 2023.

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The sensitivity and resistance to regional structures so vehemently articulated pre-independence remained in the psyche of the education partners. Unsuccessful proposals for some form of regional structures were mooted in numerous policies from the 1960s (see Coolahan 2017, pp. 170–172; Walshe 1999, pp. 45–86). The overly centralised nature of the Department of Education was highlighted in a number of reports in the early 1990s, most impactfully by the OECD in 1991 (OECD 1991, p. 39). Regional structures featured prominently in the Green Paper on Education (Department of Education 1992) and the National Education Convention discussions (Coolahan 1994). Episcopal sensitivity to the proposals for regional councils and equal representation on boards of management is evident from Bishop Thomas Flynn, Chairperson of the Episcopal Commission on Education, when he stated at a round table discussion on school governance in 1994 We fnd within the documents on the governance of schools and on the Regional Education Councils the bricks of a secularist agenda and a bid to control the schools to such an extent as to undermine the principle of subsidiarity. The ideology behind some of the proposals is seen by some bishops as an attempt by the state to push the church out of education. (quoted in Walshe 1999, p. 107) Despite this view, the White Paper (Department of Education 1995) provided for ten regional boards that would be representative of the education partners, the wider community, and ministerial nominees. Their role was to coordinate educational provision and oversee systematic planning for education in their region. While regional boards were initially advanced and included in the provisions of early drafts of the Education Act (Government of Ireland 1998), the proposal was abandoned and replaced by the establishment of bespoke executive agencies established to advance particular elements of education policy under the auspices of the Department of Education. Walshe (1999, p. 84) argues that the decision to abandon the regional structures was strongly infuenced by the Catholic Bishops’ stance that they would exercise excessive control in church-managed schools and union arguments relating to their impact on school autonomy.

Policy and legislative developments from the 1990s The 1990s witnessed increased opportunities for public debate, critique, and contribution to education, underpinned by the social partnership approach to public policy initiated in the late 1980s (Walshe 1999). This involved signifcant efforts to engage both education stakeholders and the general public in debate and decisions about the education system (Coolahan 2017, p. 209). The consultative processes underpinning the preparation of the Green Paper on Education (Department of Education 1992) and the White Paper on Education (Department of Education 1995), particularly through the convening of the National Education Convention in 1993, introduced a greater energy and

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democracy into educational debate with a view to building consensus. Walshe (1999) notes that the Green Paper prompted more public submissions than any other previous public policy document, an indication of the level of public interest in the education system. The National Education Convention provided for multilateral dialogue sessions among the education partners, a change from the normal bilateral conversations and more secretive decision-making processes between the Department of Education and stakeholders (Coolahan 1994). This tradition of consultation was continued in the 2000s with the inception of the Your Education System (YES) national consultative process in 2004 where the wider public was invited to regional meetings to share their views of the vision and values of the education system (Kellaghan & McGee 2005).

Education Act (1998) Despite the groundwork of consultative processes and the publication of a White Paper (Department of Education 1995), the framing of the frst comprehensive legislation for the education system in the late 1990s posed a number of challenges in terms of conceptualising the purposes, governance, and structures for education in Ireland. It also sought to capture the status quo that had evolved over the previous 150 years and to balance the constitutional rights and obligations of all partners. In its preamble, the Education Act states that its purpose is “to make provision in the interests of the common good for the education of every person in the State” (Government of Ireland 1998). It goes on to state that the Act is to ensure that the system is accountable to students, their parents, and the state (in that order). The complexity of the range of stakeholders is captured in the preamble with the Act promoting respect for the “diversity of values, beliefs, languages and traditions in Irish society” and a spirit of partnership “between schools, patrons, students, parents, teachers and other school staff, the community served by the school and the State.” The frst objective of the Act is giving “practical effect to the constitutional rights of children.” Enhancing the accountability and transparency of the education system is also listed as objectives, as is promoting “the right of parents to send their children to a school of the parents’ choice having regard to the rights of patrons and the effective and effcient use of resources.” The Minister is ascribed the function of determining national education policy in Section 7 with statutory responsibility for the level and quality of education provided in Ireland. In summary, the role of the Department of Education relates to policy formulation and review, resource allocation and monitoring expenditure, quality assurance, advice and support of educational management and staff, as well as an array of executive and operational functions. These are extensive duties and responsibilities, certainly not refecting a subsidiary state role in education. Critically, the requirement to consult with education partners (“patrons of recognised schools, national associations of parents, recognised school management organisations and recognised trade unions and staff associations representing teachers”) in the development of education policy, for both the Minister of Education and education agencies, is enshrined within the Act.

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The Education Act provides statutory recognition for the National Parents’ Council (established in 1985), giving parents a statutory right to establish local parents’ associations, and provides for their involvement on boards of management and school planning processes. The functioning of boards of management is delineated in Section 14. Each patron (the patronage system is given a statutory footing in Section 8) has a “duty” to appoint a Board of Management to ensure that schools are managed in a spirit of partnership. The members of the Board of Management are appointed by the patron of the school, and the composition of boards is agreed through consultation with the education partners. One of the key provisions of the Education Act is an explicit recognition of the “characteristic spirit” of schools, the term used rather than “ethos” in the Act. The Act states that a duty of the Board of Management is to uphold, and be accountable to the patron for so upholding, the characteristic spirit of the school as determined by the cultural, educational, moral, religious, social, linguistic and spiritual values and traditions which inform and are characteristic of the objectives and conduct of the school. Provisions within the Education Act represent a shift in the power base of Irish education. The rights of children and parents are now foregrounded alongside those of denominational interests and the state. Schools, which existed largely in a legislative vacuum up to 1998, are now governed by a wide range of legislation following on from the seminal Education Act.3 Collectively, legislative provisions attempt to balance the rights and responsibilities of all partners and assign extensive duties to the state in the provision of education. The Act contains a mix of social democratic and neoliberal language and discourses. Lynch et al. (2012, p. 31) argue that the Education Act was the single most important landmark in institutionalising new managerial changes in Irish schools, outlining accountability procedures in law. The more recent Education (Admission to Schools) Act 2018 (Government of Ireland 2018) is worthy of particular attention as it extends the roles and functions of the Minster beyond that provided for in 1998. Under this Act, the vast majority of schools will no longer be permitted to use religion as a selection criterion when considering applications for enrolment, a signifcant weakening of the discretion afforded to patrons historically.

Discussion: The new publicness of education If public education is education funded by public means, accountable to the public and accessible to everyone (Higgins & Knight Abowitz 2011), then certain features of public education in Ireland lack such ‘publicness.’ Indeed, the question may be asked if Ireland has or ever had a public system of primary schooling or if the system is more akin to the understanding of private education in other jurisdictions. Has the primary school system in Ireland been ‘destatalised’ long before Bob Jessop coined the term in 2002, with the state outsourcing provision primarily to denominational interests? Has the state been

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able to provide for the common good in primary schooling in light of its subsidiary role? The broad-based and democratic structures that underpinned educational provision prior to the establishment of the national system in 1831 were replaced systematically by a state-church binary that gradually but determinedly resisted wider public involvement in the education system. The sensitivity of the public to state control or involvement in education took on a symbolic signifcance and continued to inform structural developments until recent times. Contemporary educational provisions and structures have their origins in this colonial past and the enshrining of the underpinning assumptions of a binary power structure in the educational framework and constitutional provisions in the early decades following political independence. Colonial and post-colonial struggles and structures, now enshrined in constitutional and legislative provisions, have resulted in a system with both high levels of centralised control and high levels of local autonomy. From the 1990s, the Catholic Church became more amenable to sharing responsibility for denominational schools with both parents and teachers, catalysed by their diminishing numbers as well as by their weakening authority. However, in spite of this, its ownership and control of schooling enabled it to maintain its ideological and structural power base, remaining what the OECD termed in 1991 as a ‘major actor’ if not the ‘principal actor’ in Irish education (OECD 1991). The Irish system of education is best characterised as state-aided rather than national or public, whereby the state supports and fnances other agencies to provide education (Ó Buachalla 1988, p. 205). As O’Mahony (2019, pp. 1–2) asserts, the use of the term ‘national schools’ is somewhat deceptive in the Irish context Although primary schools in Ireland are referred to as “National Schools”, as a matter of fact they are in no way national or public. What would, in other countries, be referred to as the public school system is, in Ireland, a system of privately owned and managed schools that are funded by the State. Focusing on neoliberalism, Lynch et al. (2012, p. 11) argue the principles of new managerialism aligned well to educational structures in Ireland which are characterised by both a centralised and decentralised approach to the control and management of schools. However, the Catholic Church’s involvement in the ownership and management of schools, and as employer of the vast majority of teachers, provided a buffer or resistance to the absolute embedding of neoliberal tendencies in Irish primary schools. The very role, power, and presence of patrons have supported the resistance of neoliberal discourses and practices in Irish primary schools by tempering the state’s express involvement in directing education policy. Resistance to neoliberal tendencies such as linking pay to performance and the publication of league tables were also provided by parents and denominational bodies, which owned the vast majority of primary schools. Lynch et al. (2012, p. 17) also cite the small and community-based nature of most primary schools in Ireland, and high levels of teacher unionisation, as other resistance factors of new managerial tendencies.

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However, the increasingly multicultural, multi-ethnic, and diverse belief systems of the population of Ireland are increasingly incompatible with the structural provisions of education, in the absence of a universal public alternative (Farry 1996, p. 102). The constitutional and legislative provisions for parental freedom of choice are increasingly at odds with the reality that primary schooling provisions are predominantly denominational. This means that many parents, in particular those of minority faiths or of no faith, are forced to avail of a school operating under an ethos to which they may not subscribe, a complex problem given the considerable protections to the “characteristic spirit” or ethos of the school in the Education Act. The even unambitious targets of the National Forum on Patronage and Pluralism (Coolahan et al. 2012, p. 57) to divest 50 schools (out of 3,200) from religious patronage, or the more ambitious 2017 announcement to increase the number of non-denominational and multidenominational schools to 400 by 2030 (Department of Education and Skills 2016, p. 3), are unlikely to be achieved without a more fundamental catalyst. Overall, it is proving complex and challenging to alter the existing patronage system in schools with little substantive change since the Forum’s report in 2012. Given the scale of the denominational underpinning of primary education in Ireland, the constitutional rights and needs of children, parents, and families who do not identify with any particular religion (9.8% in 2016) or who live in areas where there is no denominational school of their faith require urgent attention. This complexity is magnifed by the provision for an integrated curriculum since the 1920s, which prevents any meaningful opt-out from religious education and infuence for children (Mawhinney 2009; Kitching 2020). Moreover, many other parents may identify culturally as Catholic but may not profess a deeper affliation. While there has been an exponential growth in Irish-medium, Educate Together schools, and community national schools, most of which are multidenominational, they still account for less than 7% of current primary schools (Department of Education and Skills 2019, p. 2). Indeed, many parents and communities continue to favour denominational primary education provision above multidenominational structures when offered a choice (Department of Education and Skills 2013), indicating a satisfaction with the status quo. While not challenged in the courts to date, it is arguable that current structures breach both international charters and conventions and constitutional provisions in terms of religious freedom. A new publicness requires a more fundamental alteration in structures and an interrogation of assumptions underpinning the publicness of primary education provision in Ireland.

Notes 1 Hedge Schools were fee-paying schools established in temporary accommodation, sometimes outdoors under hedges, to provide education primarily for Catholics, who were precluded by the Penal Laws from being educated. 2 While a referendum in 2012 has altered one clause of Article 42 in relation to children’s rights, the analysis here relates to the original 1937 text.

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3 This includes the Education (Welfare) Act 2000 (Government of Ireland 2000), the Equal Status Acts (2000–2015) (Government of Ireland 2015), the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs Act 2004 (Government of Ireland 2004), and the Education (Admissions to Schools) Act 2018 (Government of Ireland 2018).

References Abbott, W. (Ed.) (1966). The documents of Vatican II. London: Geoffrey Chapman. Akenson, D. (1975). A mirror to Kathleen’s face – Education in Independent Ireland 1922–1960. London: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Ball, S. (2016). Neoliberal education? Confronting the slouching beast. Policy Futures in Education 14(8), 1046–1059. Barrington, T. (1980). The Irish administrative system. Dublin: Institute of Public Administration. Bayly, C. (1983). Rulers, townsmen and bazaars: North Indian society in the age of British expansion, 1770–1870. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bowen, G. (2009). Document analysis as a qualitative research method. Qualitative Research Journal 9(2), 27–40. Conway, P. and Murphy, R. (2013). A rising tide meets a perfect storm: New accountabilities in teacher and teacher education in Ireland. Irish Educational Studies 32(1), 11–36. Coolahan, J. (1989). Educational policy for national schools, 1960–1985. In D. Mulcahy & D. O’Sullivan (Eds.), Irish educational policy – Process and substance (pp. 27–76). Dublin: Institute of Public Administration. Coolahan, J. (Ed.) (1994). Report on the National Education Convention. Dublin: National Education Convention Secretariat. Coolahan, J. (2017). Towards the era of lifelong learning: A history of Irish education 1800–2016. Dublin: Institute of Public Administration. Coolahan, J. with O’Donovan, P. (2009). A history of Ireland’s school inspectorate 1831–2008. Dublin: Four Courts Press. Coolahan, J., Hussey, C. & Kilfeather, F. (2012). The forum on patronage and pluralism in the primary sector: Report of the forum’s advisory group. Dublin: DES. Dáil Éireann (1919). Democratic programme, 21st Jan 1919, Volume F, Column 23. Available at: www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/1919-01-21/15/ Department of Education (1926). Report of the department of education for the school year 1924–25 and the fnancial and administrative years 1924–25–26. Dublin: The Stationery Offce. Department of Education (1990). Report of the primary education review body. Dublin: The Stationery Offce. Department of Education (1992). Education for a changing world – Green paper on education. Dublin: The Stationery Offce. Department of Education (1995). Charting our education future – White paper on education. Dublin: The Stationery Offce. Department of Education and Skills (2013). Report on the surveys regarding parental preferences on primary school patronage. Dublin: DES. Department of Education and Skills (2016). Action plan for education 2016–2019. Dublin: DES. Department of Education and Skills (2019). Statistical bulletin – Enrolments: September 2019– preliminary results. Dublin: DES.

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Farry, M. (1996). Education and the constitution. Dublin: Round Hall Sweet & Maxwell. Glendenning, D. (1999). Education and the law. Dublin: Butterworths. Government of Ireland (1922). Constitution of the Irish Free State (Saorstát Eireann) Act, 1922. Dublin: The Stationery Offce. Government of Ireland (1937). Constitution of Ireland. Dublin: The Stationery Offce. Government of Ireland (1998). Education act 1998. Dublin: The Stationery Offce. Available at: www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1998/act/51/enacted/en/html Government of Ireland (2000). Education (welfare) act, 2000. Available at: www. irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2000/act/22/enacted/en/html Government of Ireland (2004). Education for persons with special educational needs act, 2004. Available at: www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2004/act/30/enacted/en/html Government of Ireland (2015). Equal status acts (2000–2015). Available at: www. irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2000/act/8/enacted/en/html Government of Ireland (2018). Education (admission to schools) act, 2018. Available at: www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2018/act/14/enacted/en/html Hayes, N. (2002). Children’s rights – Whose right? A review of child policy development in Ireland. Dublin: The Policy Institute. Hickman, M. (1995). Religion, class and identity: The state, the Catholic Church and education of the Irish in Britain. Aldershot: Avebury. Higgins, C. and Knight Abowitz, K. (2011). What makes a public school public? Educational Theory 61(4), 365–380. Hyland, A. with Green, D. (2020). A brave new vision for education in Ireland. The Dalkey School Project 1974–1984. Dublin: Áine Hyland. Irish Catholic Directory (1921). Record of Irish ecclesiastical events for the year 1921, 20 October 1921. Jessop, B. (2002). The future of the capitalist state. Cambridge: Polity Press. Kellaghan, T. & McGee, P. (2005). Your education system. Dublin: Educational Research Centre. Kitching, K. (2020). Childhood, religion and social injustice. Cork: Cork University Press. Lynch, K. (2012). On the market: Neoliberalism and new managerialism in Irish education. Social Justice Series 12(5), 88–102. Lynch, K., Grummell, B. & Devine, D. (2012). New managerialism in education: Commercialization, carelessness and gender. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Mawhinney, A. (2009). Freedom of religion and schools: The case of Ireland. Saarbrücken: VDM Verlag. McManus, A. (2004). The Irish hedge school and its books, 1695–1831. Dublin: Four Courts Press. McQuaid, J. C. (1945). Irish Catholic Directory, 20 February 1944. Mooney Simmie, G., Moles, J. & O’Grady, E. (2016). Good teaching as a messy narrative of change within a policy ensemble of networks, superstructures and fows. Critical Studies in Education 60(1), 55–72. National Programme Conference (1926). Report and programme presented by the National Programme Conference to the Minister for Education. Dublin: The Stationery Offce. O’Brien, G. (2013). The 1825–6 Commissioners of Irish Education reports: Background and context. In J. Kelly (Ed.), Irish primary education in the early nineteenth century: An analysis of the frst and second reports of the Commissioners of Irish Education Inquiry, 1825–6 (pp. 1–44). Dublin: Royal Irish Academy.

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Ó Buachalla, S. (1988). Education policy in twentieth century Ireland. Dublin: Wolfhound Press. O’Donoghue, T. & Harford, J. (2011). A comparative history of church – State relations in Irish education. Comparative Education Review 55(3), 315–341. O’Donovan, P. (2017). Stanley’s letter: The national school system and inspectors in Ireland 1831–1922. Galway: Galway Education Centre. O’Mahony, C. (2006). Educational rights in Irish law. Dublin: Thomson Round Hall. O’Mahony, C. (2019). Ireland. Available at: https://edpolicy.education.jhu.edu/ global-pluralism/v2-ireland-r2/ Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (1991). Reviews of national policies for education – Ireland. Paris: OECD. Rinne, R., Kallo, J. & Hokka, S. (2004). Too eager to comply? OECD education policies and the Finnish response. European Educational Research Journal 3(2), 454–485. Royal Commission of Inquiry into Primary Education (Ireland) (1870). Conclusions and recommendations contained in the general report, Volume 1. [C. – 6]. Available at: https://archive.org/details/op1249643-1001/mode/2up Shamir, R. (2008). The age of responsibilization: On market-embedded morality. Economy and Society 37(1), 1–19. Skerritt, C. (2019). Privatization and ‘destatization’: School autonomy as the ‘Anglo neoliberalization’ of Irish education policy. Irish Educational Studies 38(2), 263–279. The Stanley Letter (1831). Available at: http://irishnationalschoolstrust.org/wpcontent/uploads/2015/04/Stanley-letter-1831-Boards-Of-Management.pdf Titley, B. (1983). Church, state, and the control of schooling in Ireland 1900–1944. Dublin: Gill and Macmillan Ltd. Walsh, T. (2012). Primary education in Ireland 1897–1990: Curriculum and context. Bern: Peter Lang. Walsh, T. (2020). The evolving status of elementary teachers in Ireland (1831–1921): From ‘feckless and impoverished’ to ‘respectable.’ History of Education 51(3), 326–345. Walshe, J. (1999). A new partnership in education: From consultation to legislation in the nineties. Dublin: Institute of Public Administration. Whyte, G. (1992). Education and the constitution. In D. Lane (Ed.), Religion, education, and the constitution (pp. 84–119). Dublin: The Columba Press.

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The forgotten language of public education From Hope to Equality Carl Anders Säfström

Introduction Education is often taken for granted as a practice fulflling whatever needs and desires put on it from individuals to states, teachers and students. There is great hope that education has the ability and capacity to solve not only the problems societies and individuals face but the totality of our political and existential situation in today’s global world. Educational research is increasingly asked to position itself as the fxer of political problems to be funded or even allowed to exist within the universities. Educational research is frequently positioned to fnd solutions to diverse issues “such as sustainable development, migration, tolerance and understanding of ethnocultural and linguistic diversity, international solidarity and global citizenship, inequality, disability, hate speech, polarisation and extremisms, ethnicity/race, religion and gender” and to help “promote gender equality, disability inclusiveness, a culture of peace and non-violence, environmental awareness, appreciation of linguistic, ethnic, cultural and religious diversity” as stated in the EU document “Horizon Europe 2021–2022” (Annex 5, pp. 26–27). One must admit that there is something good in the faith in education to address such a wide range of problems and issues, a frm hope in what education can achieve, but also something quite sinister. One could argue, as some have done already (Masschelein & Simons 2013), that by placing all this hope on education, at least three things follow: frstly, what are essentially political problems are reduced to educational issues; secondly, in consequence, neutralising politics itself; and thirdly, in the process, reifying education as well. This chapter will discuss the third consequence or problem, the reifcation of education and how to avoid it. In the following, I will frst contextualise the problem of reifcation by showing what kind of tension it triggers in educational theory. This is done to situate the concept of hope in modern forms of educational theory. The second step moves beyond this tension by connecting to the sophist politics of the present, in which hope is related to the possibilities of the present rather than a future possession. The third step clarifes/critiques the role and function of hope within the Platonian/Aristotelian scientifcation of educational thought. In a fourth

DOI: 10.4324/9781003289067-3

The forgotten language of public education 27 step, the critique of the idea of nature as fundamentally rational and human nature as a refection of such rationality, purifed by education, is discussed, followed by a ffth step in which a fundamental shift is made from the idea of human nature as driving educational thought to the centrality of logos. In a sixth step, logos is connected to pedagogy, which is shown to be essentially political and rooted in an understanding of equality. A temporary conclusion discusses what logos means to educational thought and how logos not only locates the issue of hope differently than the Platonian/Aristotelian tradition of educational thought does but also signifes another starting point for educational thought as such.

On reifcation and its problems The reifcation means, in short, that education is reduced to a tool for solving social and political problems but is understood as an empty signifer and, therefore, an essentially contested concept. Education as a tool for whatever desires one puts on education to fulfl is meaningless at best and dangerous at worst. It fosters the fascist and the democrat. The expectations put on public education in Europe and the US, at least since World War II, have been to foster the democratic personality rather than the fascist personality, which the war had exposed as a characteristic common in the US and European nations, if not spread throughout the world (Herman 1995; Arnstad 2016). After World War II, public education arose as a project of democratisation. Public education is publicly funded, democratically controlled, and for everyone (Higgins & Abowitz 2011), as it was founded on the need to educate a democratic public as part of the reconstitution of a Europe without war and national violence as driving forces. Today there are plenty of signs that such foundational aim for public education is in decline for other priorities: Signs such as to be schooling a fexible workforce stuck in a mode of constant learning (Skolverket 2000; Säfström 2004), being able to adjust to the rapidly shifting demands of late capitalism (Bauman 2000), and to adapt to a language of self-interest, individualisation, competition, effectiveness, and competence (Säfström 2004; Biesta 2006), rather than foster democratic forms of “associated living” through schooling (Dewey 1916, p. 93; Säfström & Månsson 2021). The return of the far-right and its aggressive politics of racism, anti-feminism and homophobia, the subsequent increase of violence on the streets of Europe (Berardi 2017; Zizek 2008), as well as a sharp rise in inequality, produced an ever-increasing precariousness of populations (Butler 2004) are also signs of the need to ask some serious questions to the viability of the project of public education as we have understood it up to this point. The idea of public education as a project of democratisation is today clearly in trouble if such expectations on education only rely on the goodwill of politics and a specifc policy when this policy shifts. When politicians have other priorities than the common good of a genuinely democratic society, the very content of public education changes as well. The neoliberal wave which has washed over

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the totality of social, political, psychological, and economic life (Berardi 2017), with its choice-rhetoric, hyper-individualism, and aversion against the strong society and the common good, has had profound effects on the very actualisations of the project of democratisation through education, particularly breaking down what can be called the publicness of education. According to Berardi (2017), the neoliberal wave has caused a situation in which we no longer can understand our sensibilities as extensions of others’ sensibilities, and the very social fabric of democratic societies is broken down. In socio-political terms, a reifed education gives rise to a particular kind of relativism, in which educational research theories become or are understood as relative. That means that the political aspirations put on education are understood as beyond the relative, to stand fast, and instead are seen as representative of how reality would describe itself, if it could speak, to paraphrase Rorty (1980, 1982).1 Political ideologies claim absolute truth rather than an expression of a particular will, while “willing” defnes and distinguishes politics from other aspects of public life (Rancière 1999). This situation also implies that the posttruth of the populist right is not so much post at all but must be understood as something of a superimposed extra-terrestrial truth. It is a sign, not so much of post-truth but of exclusively post-political, as Mouffe (2005) has described our times. The Horizon Europe (2021/2022) call given earlier can be understood as a sign of this state of affairs; it makes perfect sense in a post-political neoliberal hegemony, in which there is an ever-expanding wish list for what education is to be achieved and which therefore also can be blamed if it doesn’t succeed in solving those problems. It puts education in a position of constant failure and is a useful tool for politicians for whatever desires they may have.2 Therefore, this chapter suggests it is necessary to reconnect educational thought to its roots in being the very praxis of democracy. The tension mentioned previously, in which education belongs to either humanity or the political desires of the state to steer people in a particular direction, is not new but is instead something of an anomaly within educational thought. It is an anomaly since it cannot be rationally solved. One must choose from where to start, but rather than grounding theory on such a choice, educational theory and practice often seem to have been incorporating the anomaly as tension within its selfunderstanding. In technical terms, this tension can be understood as the tension between reproduction and change. If reproduction in education is emphasised, it tends to negate the possibility of change since reproduction focuses on what repeats itself over time, the same over time. As such, educational theories of reproduction, both progressive and conservative, tend to cement the idea of an original social order to be reproduced, which they either are critical to (progressives) or try to overturn for an alternative social order to come but in so doing rather cementing both (see Rancière 1991). Or reproduction is celebrated (conservatives) as the repetition of the same social order, guaranteeing social stability over time. The neoconservatives and the far right typically hold the latter position in which any disturbance or challenge to the often nostalgically imagined mythological social

The forgotten language of public education 29 order is violently repressed since any change of that order is believed to be threatening the very existence of the nation as well as the national subjects as such. The myth defnes the soul and body of the nation and its true inhabitants. Change is perceived as a fundamental existential threat to that very myth and therefore has to, with all powers, be repressed (Orellana & Michelsen 2019). Therefore, the socio-political expectations and desires put on public education in these two scenarios are quite different and give rise to entirely different and competing understandings of what public education is to achieve and why. What they both rely on, though, is a distinct type of foundationalism which produces the problem in the frst place, both progressives and conservatives, and tends to be fxating the idea of an original social structure, which is an idea, as we shall see, emerging at a certain point in history and which put education in particular relation to the state and the individual. Suppose not a reproduction, but the change is emphasised. In that case, nothing seems to be standing fast, producing anxieties and irrationality, what Bernstein (1983, p. 18) referred to as the Cartesian angst: Either there is something foundational and fxed to ground the totality of life on, social as well as intellectual and psychological, or there is only chaos and despair. In a discussion on foundationalism in science, Rorty’s (1982, 1990) solution was to suggest therapy for the scientists (or foundationalists) who cannot stand to live with the necessary ambiguity of life itself and to give up their quest for absolute certainty, which seems to have produced more problems throughout history than what it has been able to solve. We are, after all, living in the times of the Anthropocene (Petersen et al., 2022). Moreover, rather than start from therapy, or maybe as a complement to therapy, Rorty (1980) suggests that we start our theoretical journey before the split between (rational) ideas about and distanced from the world and the direct lived experience of living a life with others in a fallible world – that we start beyond all versions of foundationalism, progressive as well as conservative. Rorty, therefore, goes along the lines established by the sophists since they are teachers and educationalists whose main concern was how to live with others in the present city-state and how to navigate to be embodying the ethical and political virtues of their times (see Jaeger 1939, 1943) and not to fxate an absolute frame derived from an idea outside of the everydayness of life itself. That also means that the concept of hope for the sophists was, rather than based on ethics, as is the most common today, formed through the Christian tradition of hope as a hope for future possession of that which one hopes for3; the sophists understood hope as an opening of the present and its self-explanatory reality for ambiguity and otherness to enter. That hope or elpis signifes ambiguity and the possibility of difference in the present (Cassin 2016) and is not a possession to come and is, therefore, essentially an open politics of the present: hope open for different possibilities to move and connections to be made with others within the present state of affairs. There is, in that sense, no future in the understanding of hope for a morally or otherwise perfect future in sophists’ thought (there is either, of course, yet no modern ideas of progress). However, at least in Dewey’s (1916) reading of the

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sophists, there may be a present in which the future is already implied as a possibility of that present but then formed with the desire for growth in modernity.4

The concept of hope in platonian/aristotelian education Hope, beyond the Christian tradition but certainly playing a part in it, is given a particular context and location through Plato’s Republic (Bloom 1991). Hope here can be understood as related to hope for the perfection of oneself, thereby the perfection of society as a whole. The Republic is forming an authentic self in the image of a perfect state or nation The perfect man can be shaped only within the perfect state and vice versa. To construct such a state, we must discover how to make such men. That is the ground for the universal correspondence between man and state’s inner structure, for the resemblance between both patterns. (Jaeger 1943, p. 259) What Plato does, according to Jaeger, is to connect the aspirations of the individual to the political aspirations of the state, to establish the authentic citizen as an embodiment of the idea of a perfect state itself. A such idea as the perfect state, in which the individual is already internally linked, functions within the Platonian universe as a representation of the original social order itself, an order which in diverse political theories either can be derived from the past or are imagined as a future constellation fxating the perfection of man and state. Therefore, education in the Platonian universe is necessarily linked with the possibility of perfection of state and nation. So hope in this line of thought is entangled with the hope of perfecting oneself as perfecting the society in which one lives.5 However, in that perfecting oneself, one fulfls the state’s desires.6 In the Christian tradition, to possess what one hopes for is simultaneously in the Platonian line of thought to possess that which the state desires to be a state of a particular type.7 Through Aristotle and Plato’s universe, ethical ambitions are made political and rational by making educational thought scientifc, conceptualising a particular worldview as foundational for the very possibility of civilisation and education proper for ethics and politics. Their program was centred on the desire to “dominate education” (Jaeger 1943, p. 318) since education hereafter is the main force to link man to the state and distinguish man from nature. To establish civilised man, nature also needed to be dominated through science and education. So what nature had planted in man’s education needed to be perfected, according to a hierarchy and inequality already established, and as expressed in the Republic: “the farmer is a farmer, and the potter is a potter,” says Plato (in Bloom 1991, p. 98, # 421a in the Republic) and the enslaved person, says Aristotle, is “a slave by nature” (Aristotle, Politics Book I, section 1252a [1] and 1252b [1]).

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Education and the perfection of nature’s work At this point, Cassin (2014) has an exciting reading of Aristotle juxtaposed with a reading of Kant regarding education and its relation to nature. The discussion centres on the idea of morality in Kant and its connection to the understanding of nature and radical evil and the Aristotelian idea of the enslaved person by nature. Interestingly, in this, to a large extent, philosophical discussion on nature is the connection to education and how it qualifes the role of education – particularly distinguishing man from nature by making the natural in man evil – and then understanding education as a necessity to take that evil out of man to fnalise nature’s work of perfection (and it is “man”; there is little room for women in the Platonian/Aristotelian universe). Education is “that [which] perfects nature’s work” (Cassin 2014, p. 154) for both Aristotle and Kant. For Kant, education concerns correcting the child so that he or she will not prioritise self-love but rather obedience to the (moral) law Radical evil – fragility, impurity, malice – is “perverse” only because it “inverts” the ethical order by prioritising the motive of self-love over that of obedience to the law. It is the reversal which education is charged with correcting in the child. (Cassin 2014, p. 154) Furthermore, Cassin continues further on by quoting from Kant’s “On Education,” and I use her reading in length With education is involved the great secret of the perfection of human nature. . . . The human being will become ‘disciplined’ (tamed), ‘cultivated’ (skilful), ‘civilised’ (prudent), and ‘moral’ (capable of choosing good ends, namely ones which may be universalised). (Cassin 2014, p. 154; emphasis in original) Education needs to perfect the human species since man is susceptible to radical evil, which is both of nature and not according to Kant: “Kant ends up positing the existence of this ‘radical innate evil in human nature [but] (not any less brought upon us by ourselves)’” (Cassin 2014, p. 153). According to Kant, innate radical evil is universal; it belongs to the human species but not necessarily. Therefore, radical evil is linked to and gives meaning to the relationship between the human species and education. It defnes the place and role of education and its function in producing a perfect (moral) order by correcting the child, taming their innate radical evilness so she can fulfl the moral destiny of her society. By understanding education as an act of morality, the characteristics of the human species, its radical evilness is individualised and distributed among the population at the same time as it is corrected by education; it is individualised and universal but not necessary. Education is, therefore, possible for Kant as

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the process of purifcation of and perfection of the human species to be more fully human, which means to be a morally perfected being and, as such, perfecting the society in which one lives. What seems to be a problem here, and Cassin dwells on it in detail, is the idea of human nature, the obsession to tell who is human and who is not and that such understanding is to be based on an idea of perfecting nature’s work through morality.8 For the sophists, “there is no such thing as nature, and, in particular, there is nothing natural about the so-called human nature” (Cassin 2014, p. 161). Cassin (2014) points out that the very idea of nature is a construct which emerges at a particular time and place and implies, mainly through the Platonian/Aristotelian universe, a rationalisation of and conceptualisation of that reality. It means what Rorty (1980) refers to as the invention of philosophy, distancing us from the everydayness of living with others as the sole condition for our being in the world. The signifcant contribution of ancient Greek thought, says Jaeger (1939), was that they invented man and nature from such a viewpoint as well. And also, the very nature that was invented was “aristocratic,” either fxating inequality as a natural condition for man or, for the sophist, “democratic,” understanding nature as an expression of equality (Jaeger 1939, p. 324). The invention of man and nature tends, at least in the Platonian/Aristotelian universe, to be based on an idea of a particular foundational and original social and political structure of the state and the role and function of education (see Säfström 2021). According to Cassin (2014), such a State is thought of as an organism in which man and state are embodied. The image of the original social structure is a hierarchal composed unity of One organism, in which no real autonomy is possible; all parts are defned as such from the viewpoint of the whole. This whole, this organic body of state and man, is distanced from nature simultaneously as it gives nature meaning through education. For the sophist, though, education is not about perfecting the body and soul of the state but about how to move with others in the mixture of the everydayness of life. The sophist, says Cassin, “takes as its model not the unity of an organism but the composition of a mixture” (Cassin 2014, p. 124). It is a mixture precisely because it is not getting its meaning from an aristocratic unity of the body of man and state but through radical pluralism. Such pluralism emphasises difference and ambiguity as a condition for everyday life and equality as a condition for political and social life (Jaeger 1939). The sophists, in other words, make democracy possible as equality across differences. At the same time, Platonian/ Aristotelian education thwarts such possibility in an image of hierarchy and inequality as a condition for political and social life. It produces two radically different relations: The frst deals with horizontal relations of equality over a moving plane in a social spectrum, and the second with vertical relations of power within a fxed social order. Equality for the sophists is not to melt pluralism within an organic whole but to negotiate how to move with others.9 In everyday life, to be able to go on together but differently (see also Säfström 2021). The publicness of the public is not formed in the same as an organic whole repeated over time but the same in the sense of moving together across differences.

The forgotten language of public education 33 Moreover, concerning ethics and politics, “[n]or indeed are ethics and politics ever matters of nature” (Cassin 2014, p. 161). What the sophists emphasise, therefore, is not the nature in man but logos: “It is words, and not the things beneath the words, that transforms our condition: Words by themselves are capable of reorganising souls” (Cassin 2020, p. 47). Language, words for the sophists, is the frst and foremost action that can reorganise souls. It is an action that speaks itself into being which, says Cassin (2020), “Gorgias show [in] that ontology only holds its position, and only takes centre stage, if it forgets not being but that it is itself a discourse” (Cassin 2020, p. 34). As such, discourse cannot represent the real; “and it should not have to do so, it does stand in for, or make reference to, a thing or an idea external to itself” (Cassin 2014, p. 35), but it is not representational; discourse instead creates and performs. According to Cassin, discourse is understood in this way, it “creates being.” Its meaning “can only be grasped after the fact, in view of the world it has produced” (Cassin 2014, p. 35): In this way, not only is sophistic discourse a performance “in the epideictic sense of the term, it is in every way a performative in the Austinian sense of the term” (Cassin 2014, p. 35). It speaks the world into being. To emphasise logos as a performative also means that the sophist position is not to be understood concerning truth “but with respect to discourse: Being, and truth if one holds to it, is an effect of saying” (Cassin 2020, p. 37). In that sense, being and truth are a consequence of a verb, a saying expressed by the sophists in the notion “the one who says says a saying” (Cassin 2020, p. 37). What this sentence is about, says Cassin (2020), is the inscription of temporal order into the present, in which speech is spoken: “the inscription of time into the logos to come, in the dis-course chain” (Cassin 2020, p. 37). It is the initiation of time in the present to expand that present from within itself outwards. The present unfolds rather than being linked in a chain of events. Cassin’s readings are related to her reading of Lacan as a sophist and have consequences for psychoanalysis, in which all speech is meaningful in the present. However, education has slightly different implications since education is not therapy. What follows, though, is that education in being about how to live well with others and how to extend the relations implied by residing within the presence is to be understood in discursive terms because of discourse and as an extension of logos, in which hope, if anything, is an insertion of time into the logos to come, the instantiations of time in the present. The politics of the present can be understood as this instantiation of time in the present, opening for ambiguity and difference within that present and, as such, making a multiplicity of expanding and new relations possible.

Logos and pedagogy Logos, for the sophist, is also connected to pedagogy since, as expressed by Protagoras in the myth of aidos and dike, the additional gift of Zeus in the myth, the source of all political virtue, implies the sharing of the myth among

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the citizens. According to Cassin, what gives meaning to the myth is the “sharing of logos by way of pedagogy throughout the entire city, from the wet nurse to the magistrate” (Cassin 2014, p. 161; my emphasis). What can be noted then, if one follows the paths of the sophists, is not only the shift from nature to logos and education for the perfection of self and state to education for living well with others in an expanding public but also that what those shifts imply is a different understanding of the socio-political conditions in which education is to operate. Education, differently than in the call from Horizon Europe in the introduction to this chapter, in a democratic society, is to produce merit based on skill and excellence rather than fxate inequalities by reducing them to problems of education rather than politics, such as those inequalities based on blood, race, strength, and so on in an aristocracy: “They [the Sophists] held that one skill alone – logos – was the equal of every other,” and Cassin continues: “This skill is both shared by all . . . and is capable of achieving excellence” (Cassin 2014, p. 163). Furthermore, she emphasises: “[M]erit and excellence are not to be found in the ethical domain but, from the very beginning, in the political,” and this, says Cassin, “is perhaps among the most important of those elements of democracy handed down by the Sophists” (Cassin 2014, p. 163). For hope in educational thought, it means that rather than urging us to realise the state’s desires of perfecting more effectively ourselves in the name of the moral law, it points to the possibility to move differently with and Among Others in the present. Hope is no longer connected to the image of a foundational original social order. Still, an open possibility within the life we live here and now and, as such, has more to do with the confrmation of equality and difference. The very content of hope in education, from being flled with either the possessives of Christianity and the fxation of inequalities of the Platonian/ Aristotelian universe or the morality of Kant (2003) in correcting the child, is for the sophists entirely about equality. Or maybe more accurately, sophists’ education is not concerned with hope since, for them, equality is what drives discourse as well as what makes education essentially political. Furthermore, excellence in speaking is something that can be taught to anyone. Their frm rootedness in a democratic worldview in which equality is possible as negotiation across differences is an expression of radical pluralism. It is a pluralism, in which any consensus to be reached is not based on the implosion into the same. The same for the sophists is not imploding into the consensus of One, but into a with, within a mixture: a sophistical consensus, says Cassin, “does not even require that everyone think the same thing (homonoia) but only that everyone speak (homologia) and lend their ear (homophonia)” (Cassin 2014, p. 33). To move with others, in a mixture of the present social life (and not as representing an original social order), to fnd the way in an expanding public, the very publicness of this situation demands of us to speak with others in our own words and to hear the words of other speaking beings. It is to speak, not as an exercise of power in a hierarchically organised social order but in a way as to verify the equality of all speaking beings.

The forgotten language of public education 35 Rancière (1999, p. 29) speaks about the difference between noise and voice, that not all are heard, even when speaking, and that some are noisemakers whose words lack meaning and therefore do not form discourse. Concerning such situations, education and teaching are about listening (Todd 2003) to voices that cannot be heard, turning noise into voice by verifcation of the equality of logos, hearing the world in words spoken, hearing words touch souls, and attaching value to such speech. The politics of the presence is located within the discourse and the ongoing negotiation across differences. It is not, as, for example, Rawls (1996) says, about different forms of distribution of goods, rights, and duties since these forms always tend to involve a centre of power from which the distribution is organised over what is considered to be a natural and necessary inequality. The politics of the presence emphasises politics as a force that cannot be fxated within an image of one or another socio-political order without being reduced to a violent reifcation and repression through the fxation of that order. In short, the sophist politics of the present cannot be reduced to education as the very instrument for this repression. It announces another starting point for education as such. Rather than through education fxating on an original social order uniting the soul and body in the state’s image within Platonian/Aristotelian educational thought, the sophists educate for and through a discourse of equality. Again, the aim of such educational discourse within the social mixture is to fnd workable ways of moving with and Among Others in the present, acknowledging that in this mixture, there is a pluralism of radically different people rather than a multiplication of one image of a male aristocrat: It is precisely for this reason that democracy is a possibility of the present. The political present for the sophists is a world of words, logos, and not conceptualisations of ideas representing a hierarchical order of inequality. Education is not either, as for Kant, to correct the child or even to turn her away from self-love towards obedience to the moral law but to teach excellence in logos for the child, any child, to participate in the expansion of equality of public life. And as such, join in the performativity of discourse in making meaning of being in the world in which equality and difference are conditional for its existence. The politics of presence, implicated by the sophists, is something other than the transformation of desires from outside education and through the domination of man and nature, perfecting the state. The politics of presence in sophist education, its “[s]ophistical practice” (Cassin 2014), does not exclusively belong to the state and is neither an expression of its desires to form and create man in its image. A sophistical practice is a discourse that builds on the everydayness of people interacting in the mixture on the presumption of equality. A sophistical practice is a language of public education in which discourse implies equality across difference. Such educational language is not derived from the idea of One but from the immediacy of at least two. It signifes a radical openness and ambiguity of life in its everydayness. It is a discourse that speaks the world into being different from educational theories reproducing the state and original social order.

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Discussion: The new publicness of education For a sophist understanding, logos are already pedagogy in sharing logos throughout the entire city, which means that anyone can have the right to speak, even though some are excellent in their speech. Anyone can be taught to be excellent in speech, which does not imply the perfection of the individual as an embodiment of the state but rather concerns excellence in how to move among and with others within the everydayness of life. It is education belonging to humanity and not the state. Therefore, education is essentially ethical and political through logos, not nature. Education is about moving among and with others who have an equal right to speak in a shared space of publicness. Therefore, the very aim of pedagogy and education to spread logos throughout the city concerns the expansion of the publicness of the public and is essentially democratic. It allows more people to be placed on the scene, to be seen, to appear as a speaking being who speaks and therefore demands to be heard. A sophist position locates hope in that everydayness of life, not above and beyond the present. It also signifes an opening of the present in which its contingency and multiplicity are brought out in the light. Hope is not for a future that may not come but for a present to show itself, and it is hope as a commitment to the equality of speaking beings fguring out how to move together here and now. The very capacity to speak is shared equally in democracy and education. Pedagogy verifes the equality of logos over the social spectrum of the city: This implies that the new publicness of education is no longer dependent on the desires of the state but is entire to be understood as belonging to humanity as such, for which the central concern is how to live with others here and now and under the conditions set for us by living on this earth at this time. The publicness of the public then is not to be understood from the positioning of education as a means for the state to reproduce itself but as a way for a multiplicity of people to fnd ways of moving in concert across differences in everyday living with other people in the present.

Notes 1 An excellent example of this situation is the liberal party in Sweden which, during its period in power and as holding the Ministry of Education, announced that school research was ideological, implying that it was the minister himself that was telling the ‘real’ truth about schooling, basically using the same strategy as the far right today (see Säfström 2014). 2 In other words, it is not accidental that the parties on the right in Sweden were so focused on pointing out wrongs with schooling as well as teacher education and research as part of their strategy to get into power (see Fejes & Dahlstedt 2018). 3 Hope in Christian thought, as defned by Encyclopaedia Britannica, “ceases to be hope and become a possession” when it has attained its object (see also Säfström 2020, pp. 13–14). 4 Dewey’s (1939) instrumentalism, though, is not so straightforward instrumental as one can frst think since, for him, the ends in views are already within the present means, basically allowing for a certain ambiguity in the present; it is and is not itself simultaneously.

The forgotten language of public education 37 5 See also Todd (2009). 6 One can see what gave rise to Durkheim’s (1956) understanding of socialisation, and when over-emphasised as fascist ideology, the latter in which the individual is only meaningful concerning its realisation of the desires of the (total) state and nation. 7 And if this state is capitalist, hope, as understood through Platonian/Aristotelian education, is contaminated by a particular pattern uniting the individual with the state through capitalist desires. Hope tends to turn into desires produced by capitalism. 8 For Aristotle, the sophist as not relying on his conceptualisations of ‘nature’ is comparable to a ‘plant,’ ironically in that move placing the plant as outside the possible conceptualisation of nature as well, so in that sense, Aristotle is a sophist but still not in the making of concepts. 9 Everyone has the right, as (Bauman 1999) says, “to go on differently” (p. 199).

References Aristotle. (1995). Politics. Book 1. Edited by R. F. Stalley and translated by Ernest Baker. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Arnstad, H. (2016). Älskade fascism. De svartbruna rörelsernas ideologi och historia. Stockholm: Norstedts. Bauman, Z. (1999). In search of politics. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Bauman, Z. (2000). Liquid modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Berardi, F. (2017). Futurability: The age of impotence and the horizon of possibility. London: Verso. Bernstein, R. (1983). Beyond objectivism and relativism. Science, hermeneutics and praxis. Oxford: Blackwell. Biesta, G. (2006). Beyond learning. Democratic education for a human future. Boulder: Paradigm. Bloom, A. (1991). The Republic of Plato. New York: Basic Books. Butler, J. (2004). Precarious life. The powers of mourning and violence. London: Verso. Cassin, B. (2014). Sophistical practice. Toward a consistent relativism. New York: Fordham University Press. Cassin, B. (2016). Nostalgia. When are we ever at home? New York: Fordham University Press. Cassin, B. (2020). Jacques the sophist. Lacan, logos, and psychoanalysis. New York: Fordham University Press. Dewey, J. (1916/1966). Democracy and education: An introduction to the philosophy of education. New York: The Free Press. Dewey, J. (1939). Theory of valuation. International Encyclopaedia of Unifed Science, 2:4. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Fejes, A. & Dahlstedt, M. (Eds.) (2018). Skolan, marknaden och framtiden. Lund: Studentlitteratur. Herman, E. (1995). The romance of American psychology. Political culture in the age of experts. Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press. Higgins, C. & Abowitz, K. (2011). What makes a public school public? A framework for evaluating the civic substance of schooling. Educational Theory 61(4), 365–380. Horizon Europe (2021–2022). Annex 5: Culture, creativity and inclusive society. Brussels: European Commission.

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Jaeger, W. (1939/1965). Paideia. The ideas of Greek culture. Vol 1. Archaic Greece the minds of Athens. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press. Jaeger, W. (1943/1986). Paideia. The ideas of Greek culture. Vol II. In search of the divine order. New York/Oxford: Oxford University Press. Kant, E. (2003). On education. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications. Masschelein, J. & Simons, M. (2013). In defence of the school. A public issue. Leuven: E-Education, Culture & Society Publishers. Mouffe, C. (2005). On the political. Abingdon/New York: Routledge. Orellana, P. D. & Michelsen, N. (2019). The New Right: How a Frenchman born 150 years ago inspired contemporary nationalism. New Statesman, July 3. Petersen, K. B., et al. (2022). Rethinking education in light of global challenges: Scandinavian perspectives on culture, society and the Anthropocene. London: Routledge. Rancière, J. (1991). The ignorant schoolmaster. Five lessons in intellectual emancipation. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Rancière, J. (1999). Disagreement: Politics and philosophy. Minneapolis/London: University of Minnesota Press. Rawls, J. (1996). Political liberalism. With a new introduction and the reply to Habermas. New York: Columbia University Press. Rorty, R. (1980). Philosophy and the mirror of nature. Oxford: Blackwell. Rorty, R. (1982). Consequences of pragmatism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Rorty, R. (1990). Pragmatism as anti-representationalism. In J. P. Murphy (Ed.), Pragmatism. From pierce to davidson (pp. 1–6). Boulder: Westview Press. Säfström, C. A. (2004). Kunskapssamhället, det livslånga lärandet och individens behov: Regleringens förändrade ansikte [The knowledge society, lifelong learning and the needs of individuals: The changing face of power]. In C. A. Säfström (Ed.), Validering som utbildningspolitiskt instrument, Vol. 1. Rapporter från Instutionen för Läratutbildning. Uppsala: Uppsala Universitet. Säfström, C. A. (2020). A pedagogy of equality in a time of unrest: Strategies for an ambiguous future. London: Routledge. Säfström, C.A. (2021). The ethical-political potentiality of the educational present: Aristocratic principle versus democratic principle. Teoría de la educación. Revista Interuniversitaria 33(1), 11–33. Säfström, C. A. & Månsson, N. (2021). The marketisation of education and the democratic defcit. European Educational Research Journal 21(1), 124–137. Skolverket (2000). Det livslånga och livsvida lärandet. Stockholm: Liber. Todd, S. (2003). Learning from the other. Levinas, psychoanalysis and ethical possibilities in education. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Todd, S. (2009). Towards an imperfect education. Facing humanity, rethinking cosmopolitanism. Boulder/London: Paradigm. Zizek, S. (2008). Violence. Six sideways refections. London: Profle Books.

4

Curriculum The great public project Majella Dempsey

Introduction Within education curriculum has always been a public project. It is my contention that in recent years curriculum is the great public project of our time in education. There is, I will argue, a small but signifcant move away from the hegemonic public school system serving the needs of politics and economy to education as a discursive space where alternative ways of being can be imagined (Suissa 2016; Ryen 2020). I see this move in how the discourse around curriculum change in Ireland is evolving to an emphasis on how education is experienced, encountered, the process rather than the product, with particular reference to the reforms at senior cycle (see, e.g., NCCA 2022; Smyth et al. 2019). In senior cycle education there is a move in thinking to the German concept of Bildung where education is a self-cultivation, a process of both personal and cultural maturation to thrive in and with the world (Ryen 2020). Curriculum studies as a feld has gone through a crisis of identity from the assertion by Schwab in 1970s that the feld was moribund, to talk of the feld being in crisis (Wheelahan 2010) to a call from Priestley and Philippou (2019) to put curriculum at the heart of practice. Deng in his critique of developments in the discipline of curriculum studies contends that there is an evolution of practice away from classroom concerns to a wider cultural studies perspective “that encompasses literally any topic pertaining to politics, culture, society, environment, technology and human existence” (Deng 2018, p. 692). He echoes concerns of Wraga and Hlebowitsh (2003) who assert that curriculum studies has neglected practical curriculum design by over theorising and over politicising the feld. Curriculum development has a rich and complex theoretical background and is inextricably intertwined with social and political fabric of the world of education. The strength of a given orientation at a particular time appears to have resulted from powerful social forces impacting on curriculum in the form of competing messages of what is good for the public at a given time, for example more recently, the pervasive discourses of well-being (Spratt 2017) and the push for student-centred curriculum (OECD 2020; DES 2019), the discourse around workplace skills (Dempsey 2021), and the individualisation of the concept of democracy (OECD 2017). The crisis in the feld of curriculum

DOI: 10.4324/9781003289067-4

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studies is due, in part, to the shifting and diverse stakeholders involved in school reform (Sullanmaa et al. 2018; Tikkanen et al. 2017), the layers of infuence from the supra to the nano (Priestley et al. 2021), and the increasing globalisation of ranking scores evident across education (Rizvi & Lingard 2010). This global policy infuence is mediated at the local level by particular cultural, historical, and political dynamics, and these dynamics are evident in the classroom in addition to the school culture, social structures, and material resources (Priestley et al. 2015). This, therefore, impacts in practical ways on the work of classroom teachers and school leaders. The term ‘curriculum’ means different things to different people depending on their context. Curriculum is text, pedagogy, assessment; it is what we actively do in different educational settings; it is the totality of the learning experience. Curriculum is multidimensional and is developed, implemented and enacted in multiple sites. These sites exist in a particular context and have a prior history (e.g., Ireland’s post-colonial aspirations), have other policies that interact with curriculum in particular ways (e.g., health policy), and have individuals and groups involved that bring further complexity to curriculum implementation. In Ireland curriculum is state policy, developed in partnership with key stakeholders, and as such is infuenced by a number of factors such as the infuence exerted by the public looking for change and the infuence of interest groups during the development and implementation of curriculum reform. Contestation is important in this process. Curriculum is as stated earlier a public project; in times past this project was more about control and regulation towards normative cultural, social, and economic ends (Luke & Hogan 2006). Now in the new publicness of education could curriculum be more about living in and with the world and questioning our place in the world? The classroom is a site where students can be opened up to taking public action and responsibility (Higgins 2011) on issues that are relevant to their lives such as inclusion, sustainability, equality, peace, and justice. This view of the classroom is all the more important in light of recent legislative changes in some US states where critical race theory, social justice, culturally responsive teaching, social and emotional learning are being explicitly excluded from curriculum in public schools (Strauss & Bever 2022). For this public action to happen the curriculum needs to provide space for authentic engagement with ideas and complex questions that do not have immediate answers or perhaps do not have any answer. Rather they require an ability to agree to disagree. This requires a move to less specifcation of curriculum, a move to providing curriculum space (see, e.g., Pieters et al. 2019). This sees a changed role for teachers, in Ireland, positioning them as curriculum makers. Curriculum and pedagogy have a key role to play in educational publicity by providing space for students to work with ideas, narratives, allegory, and approaches to understanding (Popkewitz & Lindblad 2004; Doll & Gough 2002; Pinar 2019). In this public space the teacher enacts the curriculum through intentional, integrated pedagogical decisions that may or may not contribute to students taking action.

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Curriculum is a public project in that it is infuenced by actors from national and international spaces (Priestley et al. 2021), it is experienced by individuals, it impacts communities and societies, and it has potential to change the world we live in. We can see this in the many critics of how neoliberalism has impacted education but equally in how neoliberalism has not worked for society with the catastrophic co-lateral damage consumerism has caused to the world (D’Agnese 2019; Ball 2016; Lynch 2022). The curriculum is enacted within a tension between the singular public of the state and the multiple publics and counterpublics of everyday problems and interests, all of which are looking for attention (Suissa 2016; Asen 2000). The argument in this chapter is that through curriculum and pedagogy we can actively make school public within the classroom as a public space. What I mean by this is that each student can experience the curriculum as something active and an ongoing process of developing a voice in this space. Here schooling is seen as an initiation into a range of practices and the place where students can see a purpose for their learning (Higgins 2011). They can learn to think for themselves while also acknowledging and knowing that this learning is dependent on others. Curriculum is a right, and it specifes what students have a right to encounter. Teachers through pedagogy have an expanded role in resisting the tightening curriculum control we see with standardised curriculum confgurations with prescribed outcomes, specifcation of curriculum knowledge in tandem with high stakes testing and reporting of results (Winter 2017; Lingard 2011). The enacted curriculum is the space where teachers and students make public; the public in this sense is now not a noun but a verb (Higgins & Knight Abowitz 2011). Sussia rightly contends that these ought to be spaces where “challenges to dominant narratives can take place” (Suissa 2016, p. 771) and that this role for education is needed for democracy (Carr 1998). That the classroom is a space for these kinds of discussion where alternative ways of thinking and acting can happen is not a given, and curriculum is crucial to providing scaffolding for this to materialise. Students have a right to be agentic in their encounter with curriculum and to discursive engagement with ideas and questions that interest them and are relevant to their lives in the world of today (Manyukhina & Wyse 2019; Suissa 2016). This chapter focuses on curriculum in second-level education in Ireland. It looks at curriculum development in Ireland and how curriculum changes are often infuenced by and are a manifestation of larger social and political forces. It moves on to look at the role of the teacher in curriculum enactment, and then it examines the educational encounter. Finally, it comments on the new publicness of education in this curriculum space.

Curriculum development in Ireland Public conversation1 about curriculum in Ireland over the last century has refected wider social and political concerns. The conservative inclinations of the new state were to maintain the status quo in schooling by retaining the structures of the British-run state using curriculum to support national identity

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by focusing on the Irish language and religion and the equating of ‘education’ with passing examinations (Department of Education 1924). This credentialism still persists (Lynch 2022). In the 1960s there was a shift in focus to education for all. Vocational subjects were added to the curriculum to meet the needs of the economy at the time. Moving ahead to Lisbon in 2000, the curriculum public project infuenced by the OECD and others was around a so-called knowledge economy with a proliferation of documents on the development of twenty-frst-century competences. More recent conversations centre on relationships and sexuality education (NCCA 2019a) and climate change (Department of Education 2022). There is always a tension between what society needs and what the school is actually doing. To understand curriculum development in the Irish context one must frst acknowledge that our education system has operated within an Anglo-American tradition (Lynch et al. 2012), and while there are some changes from this tradition (see, e.g., the curriculum changes at lower secondary in Ireland) this perspective continues to dominate educational discourse. This is a result of our history as a colonised nation, our common language, and close trade relations with our nearest neighbouring country and the US. When the colonial powers left Ireland, education and health were subcontracted out by the state to religious bodies resulting in a system that is not quite a public education system but is a publicly funded one. This historied past has its own language about education and curriculum, has highly evolved concepts of what education is for and how curriculum fts into this purpose, and is highly charged with emotion predicated on previous curriculum change (Gleeson 2010). This has impacted on how curriculum is understood, structured, developed, and enacted (Gleeson 2021; Dempsey et al. 2021). Curriculum development is highly complex; it is not linear and involves unique social practices that push with and pull against one another in a constant interplay involving different levels of infuence (Priestley & Philippou 2018). It is made at multiple sites: at the policy table, in the school, and at the classroom and individual levels, Among Others, and above all it is political and involves power (Priestley et al. 2021). The actors involved can represent cultural, political, or epistemological stances, or, as is often seen, a combination of all three (Slattery 2013). The written curriculum text is just one aspect of curriculum as public project, but it is the aspect that arguably gets the most attention (Gleeson et al. 2020). Underlying such tensions and power plays are contested views as the fundamental role a school plays in society. Different actors attach different weight to personal development, or social competence, or meeting labour market needs. Seeing curriculum as a public, political text provides impetus to move beyond the written text to looking at the enacted and experienced curriculum for teachers and students. In Ireland, the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) a statutory body of the Department of Education (DES) advises the Minister for Education on curriculum and assessment for early childhood education, primary and post-primary school. This agency also has a role in advising on assessment procedures used in schools. This advice is developed through research,

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deliberation, consultation, and working with networks of schools. The twentyfve members of the NCCA Council are appointed by the Minster for a 3-year term and represent the partners in education, industry and trade unions, parents’ organisations, Irish language interests, student representative and other educational bodies. The Council also includes one nominee each of the Minister for Education and the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. The Minister for Education appoints the chairperson. The Council is supported in its work by three boards and a number of development groups. Members of these represent similar stakeholders to NCCA Council (see www. ncca.ie). Through the NCCA Council, boards and subject development groups a wide range of individuals and groups, have a say in curriculum development. One can laud this form of democratic deliberation and see it as a way curriculum development is made public, public for all to take part in while also acknowledging that the process is led in certain directions and often infuenced by multiple publics and counter-publics. The current specifcation structure, promoted by public policy in Ireland (DES 2011), has been described as a learner-centred constructivist-infuenced curriculum (Gleeson et al. 2020). This move to focusing the curriculum on the students’ experience places more emphasis on how teachers plan for enactment and how they make pedagogical decisions. As an example of this, I will focus on the recent curriculum developments in second-level (post-primary) school system in Ireland to make two key points. Firstly, the public engages with curriculum development and reform predicated on their personal needs and interest. These interests as said earlier can be epistemological, cultural or political. Secondly, curriculum is not developed on a blank canvass and therefore is a product of the past, the present, and the future aspirations for individuals and society. The past encompasses the stories we want to pass on and the knowledge, skills, and attitudes we see as important. The present is infuenced by political narratives from the supra, macro, and to a lesser extent the meso and micro levels of the system. The future orientation is predicated on an imagined future citizen, individual, society, and world. This major phase of curriculum change in lower second-level education began in 2010 with a consultation (NCCA 2010). What followed was the publication of a Framework for Junior Cycle education (NCCA 2011) with innovation and identity in its title signalling the neoliberal infuence prevalent at the time (Printer 2020). There were two parallel message systems at play during this time, one that the experience of students in junior cycle was not meeting their needs or the needs of the imagined future (Smyth & McCoy 2011). Students were disengaging with learning. In tandem with this there was a narrative mainly from the teacher unions that there was no need for curriculum development, particularly not any change to assessment (ASTI 2012). The DES 2012 publication of the revised Framework for Junior Cycle was followed by a protracted dispute with teacher unions focused on how the subjects would be assessed. These antagonisms provide a good example of how the consultative process of curriculum development can break down. The teacher unions had representatives on the NCCA Council, the Board for Junior Cycle, and on

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each subject development group, yet their members, the teachers, did not feel they had been consulted, and the union advised them to reject the proposals (Dempsey et al. 2021). This was in part due to poor communication of the key messages of curriculum reform (Doyle 2019). The teacher unions were successful in their negotiations, and the proposed assessment reform was revised to where 90% of the assessment is now an external examination, designed, distributed, and examined by the State Examinations Commission (SEC) on behalf of the DES. The fnal Framework for Junior Cycle (DES 2015a) that was implemented was a diminished version of the original innovative proposal. From these developments we see how self-interested stakeholders, for example the Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland (ASTI) and their members in this case, can impact and shape the curriculum. The move away from dependence on a terminal externally assessed examination was halted by their intervention. This impact was further explicated, when through public pressure and lobbying from historians of the Minister for Education, the subject history was made compulsory and added as a core subject with Irish, English, and Mathematics, thus restricting curriculum fexibility and choice despite the rhetoric of student agency in the original proposals. This was a clear signal that the move away from emphasis on subjects, to a focus on learning, was not supported by the public despite extensive consultations (Murchan 2018; Gleeson 2021). The role of the media in curriculum debate is also of interest here but beyond the scope of this chapter. To look at the external factors impacting on curriculum development, the work on senior cycle science subjects is now considered. Before any curriculum is developed, there is a background paper prepared by NCCA (2019b). This paper sets out the parameters for the development of subject specifcations. The brief provided for the review of Leaving Certifcate physics, biology, and chemistry specifcations gives an insight into the political imperatives for curriculum development in Ireland at present and illustrates the numerous strands and considerations that can inform curriculum. The subject development groups were asked to address the following key areas within the curriculum: • • • • •

•

the key skills of senior cycle and the skills of literacy and numeracy, as appropriate, will be embedded in the learning outcomes of the specifcation progression and continuity from Junior Cycle Science a curricular balance that underpins propositional knowledge and supports the acquisition of procedural and epistemic knowledge sustainability and how such contemporary issues might be explored by learners how students will be assessed; the integration of a coursework assessment component allowing for the assessment of inquiry-based learning, critical thinking, and elements of experimental investigation into each of the three subject specifcations how to widen the appeal of the subjects in order to meet the targets of the STEM strategy and rebalance gender uptakes

Curriculum • •

•

•

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how to encourage student agency and an associated capacity for lifelong learning how to differentiate on conceptual depth to meet the needs of a diverse range of students; for example, those who wish to progress to STEM careers through third level or apprenticeships or those who will pursue other pathways outside STEM but still need to be scientifcally literate citizens how to embrace technology in the learning, teaching, and assessment associated with the specifcation, in such a way that students are digital consumers and creators the identifcation of supports necessary for successful enactment (NCCA 2019b, p. 35)

This brief presents a good example of curriculum as a public project. The infuence of the Lisbon Strategy (Council of the European Union 2000) is still evident in the inclusion of key skills that were developed following this period, and these skills are now included in all specifcations. The focus on literacy and numeracy (DES 2011) came after Ireland’s anomalous poor PISA performance in 2009 (Cosgrove & Cartwright 2014). The STEM (DES 2017) and the digital strategy (DES 2015b), the focus on apprenticeships (Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science 2021), sustainability, and gender are all included as features of policy. There are few signifcant observations from this brief. Unlike in previous curriculum developments where there was an emphasis on the knowledge that young people needed to know which resulted in curriculum texts that specifed content knowledge in an atomised way, the emphases here are on broader issues as listed earlier such as sustainability and gender. In addition, the political nature of curriculum, the linking of it to other policy imperatives and the language of the economy are still very evident. However, there is scope for the specifcation to be presented in such a way so as to allow for local interpretation; there is a move away from tightly specifed content. This is a move to seeing teachers as professionals with the capacity to make pedagogical decisions around how and why to teach particular content and ensure it is relevant to the individuals in their own context. Recent curriculum developments in Ireland have tried to move away from an emphasis on listing content towards an outcomes-based approach with varied responses from those involved in curriculum enactment (Gleeson 2021). Learning is defned in terms of what the students should be able know and do at the end of a course. In the Irish context, learning outcomes were frst used in the rebalanced Junior Certifcate subject syllabi in the early 2000s (NCCA 2019c). This coupled with the inclusion of key skills in specifcations seeks to move the student from being a passive receiver and consumer of knowledge to being agile, creative, innovative, and taking on a more critical and engaged role in learning. This focus on student in the learning process has a rich history in the works of Dewey (1902), Vygotsky (1978), Piaget (1948), and others and has recently re-emerged in calls for increased student agency in learning (NCCA 2014). Manyukhina and Wyse see student agency as “multi-dimensional, dynamic

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and contextualised,” and this requires a curriculum that provides space for enacting this agency and teachers who are expert in the kinds of pedagogy needed (Manyukhina & Wyse 2019, p. 224). There is reciprocal causality between structure and agency; therefore, the curriculum text is important. The curriculum text is the policy document that scaffolds and informs the teaching, learning, and assessment in the classroom; it is both text and action; it is what is enacted as well as what is proposed. In Pinar’s words, “[t]he curriculum is our key conveyance into the world, and it is the world’s way into us” (Pinar 2019, p. 1, emphasis in original), not unlike how Klafki sees education as the double disclosure of self to the world and world to self (cited in Ryen 2020). Curriculum is theoretical and shaped by a number of key theorists through the ages, is political and infuenced by stakeholders across multiple levels of policy development; it is both a public and private project. The next section looks at curriculum, and pedagogy and the role of the teacher in curriculum enactment.

Curriculum and pedagogy It is important that teachers are recognised as curriculum makers (Priestley et al. 2021) and within this, pedagogical decision-makers (Blackley et al. 2021; Toetenel & Rienties 2016) because if not, the alternative is to see them as technicist, robotic-like teaching to the test implementers of curriculum objectives and outcomes developed by others, where they are now not public servants but domestic servants (Pinar 2019). For teachers this means developing curriculum thinking and entails deliberative decision-making at the planning stage and in the work within the classroom and self-refection on their thinking (Deng 2020; Ryen 2020). These decisions are linked to the purpose of education and to the needs of the students within a specifc context of a school or classroom; it is both practical and projective (Priestley et al. 2015). Deliberative decisionmaking requires the use of theory to illuminate and interpret specifc issues and problems (Deng 2018) and involves the fundamental questions of teachers’ thinking and teachers’ doing (Connelly & Clandinin 1988). The agency for curriculum making is not about applying theory to practise or theory-informed practice; it is much more complex and personal. Teachers need to be able to refect on practice within the context of their schools, their classes, their students, and their subjectivity and critically select the content with the pedagogy to unlock the potential in the moment for each individual (Ryen 2020; Deng 2017, 2020). Here the teacher sees the uniqueness of each student and through interaction increases their knowledge of the student’s needs, strengths, and interests. They are informed by their past and present educational experiences and have a focus on the future, the way they want to develop as teachers, how they wish their practice to be embodied in their professional career. Teacher agency is temporal, personal, interpersonal, and contextual (Priestley et al. 2015) and is linked to teacher professional identity (DeLuca et al. 2019). Ryen (2020) referring to Klafki’s critical constructive relationship between pedagogy and

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Bildung in encouraging interdependence, self-determination, and solidarity describes it as how the teacher takes on an autonomous role that goes well beyond choosing the right method and content that goes well with the method. The teacher has to interpret the curriculum and make choices that can be justifed deliberatively with reference to how specifc content can become meaningful to his students, while at the same time helping them to “unlock” the world and become independent and socially responsible agents and masters of their own lives. (Ryen 2020, p. 227) Pedagogy here is understood as the approach to teaching, the instructional methods used, the method and practice of teaching; it is the curriculum conversation between teacher and student. It is a transformative endeavour conducted with others and is relational and ethical (Todd 2020). Pedagogy is never innocent; it carries its own message about education (Bruner 1996). The pedagogical decisions teachers make are crucial because education is a “site where identities are being continually transformed, power is enacted, and learning assumes a political dynamic” (Giroux 2004, p. 6). Deng argues that teachers need “curriculum thinking, alongside specialist curriculum knowledge” for them to identify and interpret content and unlock its potential (Deng 2020, p. 60). This potential is unlocked by facilitating students’ agency to question, to have a voice, to learn to disagree so that we can enhance their ability to live in and with the world, not for any predetermined reason other than to be and imagine possible futures for themselves (Todd 2020; Pinar 2019). In taking on this role teachers must grapple with the “intellectual and moral questions of what content should be taught, why it should be taught and how it should be taught within a particular classroom context” (Deng 2020, p. 65). The concept of teacher agency requires teachers who think educationally, can take initiative, and have expansive aspirations for education and to be able to work collegially (Priestley et al. 2015). The move to using the space for curriculum making provided in our written curriculum specifcation has challenged teachers. The planning is important. If the teacher has done the planning, then the chances of opening up the learning process is much greater. However, having been schooled in a dominant ‘teaching to the test’ culture, many teachers fnd creative curriculum making challenging. For example, telling young people facts about climate change is unlikely to have an impact on their thinking about it. Whereas asking them to carry out an audit of water quality or an ecological mapping exercise in their area is more likely to spur them on to question environmental impact of intensive farming. Asking them to carry out research in their own communities is likely to help them see their learning as relevant to their lives. Deng calls such deliberative planning for teaching as “‘fruitful meetings’ between students and content that give rise to the cultivation of human powers” (Deng 2020, p. 91). Curriculum making to cultivate human powers through fruitful meetings means teachers drawing on their “personal practice knowledge”

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(Connelly & Clandinin 1988, p. 25) and seeing students as having agency in the process. Curriculum is contextually shaped (Cornbleth 1990; Manyukhina & Wyse 2019). Understanding curriculum making and agency in this way helps us to acknowledge the many dilemmas experienced by teachers as they negotiate and use this personal practice knowledge in developing curriculum within the dominant social, cultural, political, and institutional narratives structuring educational contexts (Goodson 2003, 2005; Priestley et al. 2015). However, without this kind of cultivation of human powers the classroom remains closed in every sense of the word, closed to the infuence from outside, closed from thinking beyond the curriculum text, closed to possibilities to make public within the classroom, closed to experience curriculum as active as a site of resistance (Lynch 2022). In recent years our thinking about children, particularly as active agents rather than as passive recipients, has developed signifcantly. This has been infuenced by most countries ratifying the 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (see, e.g., Jeffers 2014).

The enacted curriculum All learning is relational, involving relationships, between students, students and teachers, students and the content, schools and communities, schools and other institutions, and so on. Kathleen Lynch in her book Care and Capitalism talks about the “commitments that bind people to one another” (Lynch 2022, p. 5) and the need to begin to recognise the “relationality of life, the interdependence and vulnerability of all humanity” (Lynch 2022, p. 203). Bildung in the curriculum encounter is about the process of “unfolding individuality by learning” (Hopmann 2007, p. 115), and this meeting has impact on the individual and social world (see also Deng 2020; Gleeson 2021; Ryen 2020). “In the Didaktik tradition Bildung is what comes out of the unique meeting between student and contents,” and the curriculum is used to instigate this meeting (Hopmann 2007, p. 115). Klafki (2014) (quoted in Ryen 2020) defnes Bildung as the process of achieving the threefold aim of self-determination, codetermination, and the ability to have solidarity with others. He goes on to say that the student must also understand and experience as meaningful the possibilities for action opened up by the new insights. They must be aware of the responsibility this entails Klafki understands every educational situation as unique, as each is a situated encounter between a unique individual and unique content. The role of the teacher is to facilitate this encounter using his experience and knowledge to increase the chances that it will be fruitful and result in Bildung. Lesson preparation is therefore seen as the core task of the teacher, a task that involves considering all aspects of the lesson, including questions of methodology. (Ryen 2020, p. 224) Curriculum materials such as specifcations,2 textbooks, supporting digital sites, or teacher support documents carry the curriculum messages from the

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policy-makers to the classroom (Jones & Pepin 2016; Lambert & Penney 2020; Dempsey & O’Shea 2019). These curriculum materials include content for the subject to be taught, which is selected, interpreted, and organised based on to some extent political, cultural, social, economic, and pedagogical purposes (Deng 2011; Dempsey 2021). The encounter the student experiences with these materials is largely transacted by the teacher (Deng 2020). Pedagogy must be viewed from a situated perspective, from the perspective of a learning community, where the individual actions and interactions between all participants are seen as part of one process and where these curriculum materials are interpreted and experienced. Therefore, while teachers use different pedagogical practices in their classrooms, different curriculum materials, the application of the process is very context-dependent in each setting, with each teacher, each group of students, different subjects, and different environments. The classroom is a space that can be transformative where knowledge is created in the understanding that teaching is itself tentative and context specifc and can have intended and unintended outcomes (Hopmann 2007). In this public space there is potential for action. Higgins (2011) identifes some basic categories of educational publicity. These include schooling as preparation for public life, the vision of the educated and participative citizen. School as a site of communal concern for example around environmental education and fnally the classroom as a public space here is where the student can build a capacity for judgement on matters of common concern. Here interdependence is experienced from the position of difference; we are individually different but interconnected in living in the world. Curriculum is experienced in situations which are made up and surrounded by people and the environment (Dewey 1938). Building on Arendt and MacIntyre, Higgins provides the following vision of school as the key institution around which a public might cohere to take responsibility for the social world, as the key agency through which the young are brought into touch with the central human good of public action, and as an exemplar within its classrooms of how to seek the good together in multiple forms, disagreeing to agree. (Higgins 2011, p. 466) Teachers and students are involved in a complex set of relationships in the classroom. The most obvious one is the student-teacher relationship; however, there are also peer relationships to consider and the learners’ relationship with the discipline. We must acknowledge the complex identities, biographies, and histories each of us brings to the pedagogical situation. All learning is relational. Friends and social relationships are very important for young people in their schools (Tirri 2011). Attention to building ethical relationships in pedagogical choices is central to student experience (Lynch 2022). This concept of our consciousness of the world in the classroom is important and is always partial and evolving.

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Discussion: The new publicness of education In this chapter I want to argue for a new publicness of education where ‘how’ and ‘why’ we teach matters as much as ‘what’ we teach. Curriculum is a public project, and by this I mean it is public and infuenced by political interests. Historically this public was built on an Anglo–American post-colonial structure where a single bourgeois public was considered, but this has changed to embrace multiplicity and difference. By moving the focus from the curriculum as text to teachers and students, I envision the new publicness of education as being more aligned to the concept of Bildung. It moves the student and teacher centre stage. This is not to say curriculum as text is not important but to argue that curriculum as text must focus on, and provide space for, the encounter between the teacher and student and the text. In this vision of curriculum, the policy imperatives such as Literacy and Numeracy (DES 2011), the STEM (DES 2017) and the digital strategy (DES 2015b) and so on are not important except to the extent they are deemed important to the student experience, it is the educative quality of the content that is important. We must trust teachers to make the pedagogical decisions based on their students about what is important informed by the curriculum as text. For example, well-being cannot be externally mandated but is critically dependent on the teacher-student and student-student relationship within a context. It is about how the student meets knowledge based on their own being (Hopmann 2007) and how they come to form in terms of their individual and social potential (Ryen 2020). Curriculum moves to recognise multiplicity, acknowledging the complexity of society and sociocultural diversity (Asen 2000). This is evident in the current proposal for senior cycle reforms where there is a move to looking at curriculum for its educative potential to support young people becoming intellectually, socially, and culturally as individuals and as a collective (NCCA 2022). These proposals highlight the relational aspect of learning and recognise the central role the teacher and student play in this educational encounter. The teacher is the critical curriculum maker, and teaching is a transformative endeavour that is conducted with others. In this vision of the classroom as a public space, then the power and infuence are now coming from within the school, within the curriculum encounters, within individuals and collectives, and it has potential to change the world through powerful interconnections and ethical actions.

Notes 1 For a discussion on this history see Coolahan (2017). 2 In Ireland we present our curriculum as a specifcation; these were formally called syllabi. The change to specifcation was to signal the inclusion in these documents of more than content material.

References Asen, R. (2000). Seeking the ‘counter,’ in counterpublics. Communication Theory 10(4), 424–446.

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Lingard, B. (2011). Policy as numbers: Ac/counting for educational research. The Australian Educational Researcher 38, 355–382. Luke, A. & Hogan, D. (2006). Redesigning what counts as evidence in educational policy: The Singapore model. In J. Ozga, T. Seddon & T. S. Popkewitz (Eds.), World Yearbook of education 2006. Education and policy (pp. 170–184). New York: Routledge. Lynch, K. (2022). Care and capitalism. Cambridge: Polity Press. Lynch, K., Grummel, B. & Devine, D. (2012). New managerialism in education. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. Manyukhina, Y. & Wyse, D. (2019). Learner agency and the curriculum: A critical realist perspective. The Curriculum Journal 30(3), 223–243. Murchan, D. (2018). Introducing school-based assessment as part of junior cycle reform in Ireland: A bridge too far? Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability 30(2), 97–131. National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) (2010). Innovation and identity: Ideas for a new junior cycle. Dublin: NCCA. National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) (2011). Towards a Framework for Junior Cycle Innovation and Identity. Dublin: NCCA. National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (2014). Key Skills Framework for Junior Cycle. Dublin: NCCA & DES. National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) (2019a). Report on the review of Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) in primary and post primary schools. Dublin: NCCA. National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) (2019b). Background paper and brief for review of leaving certifcate physics, chemistry and biology. Dublin: NCCA. National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) (2019c). Learning outcomes: An international perspective. Dublin: NCCA. National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) (2022). Senior cycle review advisory report. Dublin: NCCA. OECD (2017). Trust and public policy: How better governance can help rebuild public trust. OECD public governance reviews. Paris: OECD Publishing. OECD (2020). Curriculum (re)design: A series of thematic reports from the OECD education 2030 project. Paris: OECD Publishing. Piaget, J. (1948). The moral judgment of the child (Orig. publ. 1932). Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Pieters, J., Voogt, J. & Roblin, N. P. (2019). Collaborative curriculum design for sustainable innovation and teacher learning. Cham: Springer Open. Pinar, W. F. (2019). What is curriculum theory (3rd ed.). London: Routledge. Popkewitz, T. S. & Lindblad, S. (2004). Historicizing the future: Educational reform, systems of reason, and the making of children who are the future citizens. Journal of Educational Change 5, 229–247. Priestley, M., Alvunger, D., Philippou, S. & Soini, T. (Eds.) (2021). Curriculum making in Europe: Policy and practice within and across diverse contexts. London: Emerald Publishing. Priestley, M., Biesta, G. & Robinson, S. (2015). Teacher agency: An ecological approach. London: Bloomsbury. Priestley, M. & Philippou, S. (2018). Editorial: Curriculum making as social practice: Complex webs of enactment. The Curriculum Journal 29(2), 151–158.

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Priestley, M. & Philippou, S. (2019). Curriculum is – or should be – at the heart of educational practice. The Curriculum Journal 30(1), 1–7. Printer, L. (2020). A critical analysis of the rationales underpinning the introduction of Ireland’s Framework for Junior Cycle. Irish Educational Studies 39(3), 319–335. Rizvi, F. & Lingard, B. (2010). Globalizing education policy. London: Routledge. Ryen, E. (2020). Klafki’s critical-constructive Didaktik and the epistemology of critical thinking. Journal of Curriculum Studies 52(2), 214–229. Slattery, P. (2013). Curriculum development in the postmodern era (3rd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. Smyth, E. & McCoy, S. (2011). Improving second-level education: Using evidence for policy development. Renewal Series Paper 5. Dublin: ESRI Web Published. Smyth, E., McCoy, S. & Banks, J. (2019). Student, teacher and parent perspectives on senior cycle education. Research Series No. 94. Dublin: ESRI. Spratt, J. (2017). Wellbeing, equity and education. A critical analysis of policy discourses of wellbeing in schools. Switzerland: Springer International Publishing AG. Strauss, V. & Bever, L. (2022). Florida rejects maths books with ‘references’ to critical race theory. The Washington Post. Available at: www.washingtonpost.com/ education/2022/04/16/forida-rejects-math-textbooks-prohibited-topics/ Suissa, J. (2016). Refections on the ‘counter’ in educational counterpublics. Educational Theory 66(6), 769–786. Sullanmaa, J., Pyhältö, K., Pietarinen, J. & Soini, T. (2018). Differences in stateand district-level stakeholders’ perceptions of curriculum coherence and school impact in national curriculum reform. Journal of Educational Administration 57(3), 210–225. Tikkanen, L., Pyhältö, K., Soini, T. & Pietarinen, J. (2017). Primary determinants of a large-scale curriculum reform: National board administrators’ perspectives. Journal of Educational Administration 55(6), 702–716. Tirri, K. (2011). Holistic school pedagogy and values: Finnish teachers’ and students’ perspectives. International Journal of Educational Research 50(3), 159–165. Todd, S (2020). Creating aesthetic encounters of the world or teaching in the presence of climate sorrow. Journal of Philosophy of Education 54(3), 1110–1125. Toetenel, L. & Rienties, B. (2016). Analysing 157 learning designs using learning analytic approaches as a means to evaluate the impact of pedagogical decision making. British Journal of Education Technology 47(5), 981–992. Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher mental processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wheelahan, L. (2010). Why knowledge matters in curriculum: A social realist argument. London: Routledge. Winter, C. (2017). Curriculum policy reform in an era of technical accountability: ‘Fixing’ curriculum, teachers and students in English schools. Journal of Curriculum Studies 49(1), 55–74. Wraga, W. G. & Hlebowitsh, P. S. (2003). Toward a renaissance in curriculum theory and development in the USA. Journal of Curriculum studies 35(4), 425–437.

5

‘Publicness’ in pedagogical thinking Joe Oyler

Introduction In this chapter, I want to explore the concept of ‘publicness’ as a quality of pedagogical consideration. The exploration will involve approaching ‘publicness’ in way that may seem counter-intuitive, as it will relate to thinking, which is often understood as a purely internal and by extension a private (not public) phenomenon. To make my case, I will draw from the categorisation of public pedagogies provided by Gert Biesta in his article “Becoming public: Public pedagogy, citizenship and the public sphere” (Biesta 2012). I will then build on Biesta to articulate ‘publicness’ as a kind of relationship to self that depends on a willingness to critically engage oneself by calling oneself into question. This sense of questioning will draw upon Hannah Arendt’s theories of thinking and action, in part understood through Marie Morgan. I will argue that this kind of thinking/questioning is ultimately relevant to all forms of public pedagogy offered by Biesta, albeit in different ways. In making this fnal case, I will suggest that this pedagogical thinking is a way of infusing a quality of publicness into all of our educational relationships. Once I have outlined the sense of pedagogical thinking above, I will offer a set of considerations that can help animate one’s pedagogical thinking and by extension publicness. My larger goal here is to think about the pedagogical agent, especially as it relates to the conception of public or new publicness that tends towards (and rightly and thoughtfully so) a consideration of relationships and broader contexts.

Public pedagogies The exploration of public pedagogy has been traced back to as early as 1894 (Sandlin et al. 2011) and in its early interpretations refects an orientation Biesta has called ‘pedagogy for the public’ (Biesta 2012, p. 691). What counts as ‘public’ in instances of pedagogy for can be understood in terms of outcomes. In such cases, the outcome is typically some form of unifed, national identity or production of the ‘good’ citizen (Biesta 2012; Sandlin et al. 2011). Pedagogy, by extension, appears to be best understood as instruction that is shaped and

DOI: 10.4324/9781003289067-5

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informed by a given conception of the good citizen, driven by the state and executed by schools as institutions built and maintained for these ends. The literature refects a signifcant and ongoing shift away from pedagogies for starting in the 1990s.1 These are taken up in a second conception of public pedagogy offered by Biesta. He labels the second conception ‘pedagogy of the public’ (Biesta 2012, p. 692). Two key features of this orientation are refected in both Biesta’s account and the broader literature – a focus on ‘learning’ or the individual learner, and a shift towards the pedagogical work being driven by the engagements within these spaces, rather than aiming at a product, imposed from the outside (e.g., the good citizen). The critical forms of pedagogy of are resistant to imposition of a unifed identity and take the form of analysing and critiquing the mechanisms of oppression and reproduction, often represented in popular culture. Pedagogy in this conception involves a shift towards orchestrating a shared inquiry – into mechanisms of oppression and reproduction, for example – that stimulates an increasingly critical consciousness. What I call orchestration here Biesta refers to as ‘facilitation’ (Biesta 2012, p. 692). Said another way, pedagogy of is about bringing the public to bear on the conditions of their shared cultural and political existence. It would be dangerous, Biesta notes, to assume that pedagogy as facilitation is innocent of the charge of imposition, often levied against pedagogy for. Even pedagogy as facilitation (pedagogy of) can make impositional demands and in fact does. Biesta warns that even the seemingly innocuous demand that individuals learn itself brings with it a set of prescriptions that can run counter to the open or emancipatory spirit the shift towards facilitation is supposed to offer. Learning, for Biesta (2016), always implies a judgement about what is to be learned or is worth learning, and who by extension can be considered a good learner, for example, one who develops a critical consciousness, one who adopts a particular view of social justice, and so on. In response to the limitations of pedagogy for and pedagogy of, Biesta offers an alternative that he suggests can “work at the intersection of education and politics” (Biesta 2012, p. 693). This pedagogy is concerned with creating spaces and opportunities for engagement “where action is possible and freedom can appear” (Biesta 2012, p. 693).2 The pedagogical approach in this conception is to interrupt, rather than to teach or demand that learning happen. By staging dissensus, the pedagogue can avoid domestication of ways of thinking and being together. The pedagogue’s task is instead to enact a concern for forms of togetherness where freedom can appear and thus allowing the space to become public. The character of togetherness here depends on conditions of plurality. Here Biesta draws from Arendt She shows that as soon as we begin to reduce plurality, as soon as we begin to ‘homogenise’ and ‘purify’ public spaces, by prescribing and policing what is ‘proper’ and what is ‘deviant’, we begin to eradicate the very conditions under which action is possible and freedom can appear. (Biesta 2012, p. 689)

‘Publicness’ 57 So, through interruption, we can hopefully halt the prescriptive tendencies of spaces and places and maintain plurality. Biesta is quite clear that staged interruptions or engaging with a plurality are not suffcient conditions for publicness to be generated and maintained. In order to maintain (or even establish) the plurality that allows freedom to occur, individuals also need to maintain a kind of strangeness, a distance, and even eccentricity that, while dependent on others, also resists a sense of commonality that would foreclose on the possibility to act in ways that bring something new into the world. I wish to state here that I agree with Biesta’s account of the limitations of pedagogies of teaching (for) and learning (of). Equally, it appears to me that staging dissensus is an insightful pedagogical strategy for opening up, and keeping open, possibilities for people to be together in particular ways, including in strangeness. The questions that Biesta’s proposition raise for me are ones that are continually raised when I think about the work of teachers, pedagogues, or even stagers of dissensus: How do we nurture our capacity to effectively execute these roles? What does the good interrupter understand or do that helps her interrupt (and be interrupted) in appropriate and effective ways? How can she maintain a disruptive stance given the natural tendency for things to become familiar (as opposed to strange). Asked another way, how do we become pedagogues of becoming?3 To answer these questions, I’d like to think through some of the additional conditions that must be met in order to achieve and maintain the kind of publicness Biesta is interested in. My ultimate goal is to think in terms of what this means for individual pedagogues, including teachers who work within formal educational institutions and structures. I’ll start by exploring the role of the individual in a pedagogy of becoming public and then try to work out how these conditions apply to pedagogies of and for. As a way of prefacing the remaining discussion, I’ll present my argument in short form here to help readers follow my logic (or illogic). My argument is that Biesta’s publicness requires more than conditions of plurality. It also requires agents who are capable of/disposed to engaging in that plurality. That capability is marked by a kind of presence or self-understanding. The presence is achieved via thinking as understood through Arendt. Thinking is essential to and constitutive of a kind of critical questioning (more on this later) that informs judgement and allows us to act and be acted upon in constructive ways – ways that allow for our disruption without destruction. As it relates to action, bringing something new into the world (freedom that can only occur in public) requires that it refect my judgement and initiation if it is to avoid simple reproduction. Action that is absent of judgment is either homogenised, instrumental, or comes from someone else and can be understood as non-thinking (Morgan, 2016). I’ll go further to claim that this same thinking can and should inform all pedagogical decisions and, as Biesta has noted, these decisions need to constantly be worked out in practice – not just in public pedagogy but in school-based pedagogy as well. Otherwise, teachers risk becoming methodological robots. In the next section,

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I present the conception of thinking that is central to my argument and begin to outline its public quality.

Thinking Based on the discussion to this point, it seems to me that I can neither act nor take up and respond to other’s actions if I cannot distinguish myself from the views and judgements of others. In distinguishing myself, I set the conditions for maintaining strangeness or distance. It follows then that the threat of homogeneity is not only a threat to plurality but also a threat to my own relationship to myself. By not thinking, judging, and initiating, I run the risk of losing myself (as an agent). I can only achieve and maintain distance, and further to be interrupted, when I engage myself in certain ways, ways that I suggest can be captured in Marie Morgan’s article “Hannah Arendt and the ‘freedom’ to think” (Morgan 2016). As Morgan notes, central to Arendt’s conception of thinking (as opposed to non-thinking) is the potential of the inner self to be in dialogue with itself. Although acting with others is constitutive of my freedom, to act I must think and to think I must bring myself, my thoughts and my actions, into question. Calling myself into question is an important move by Arendt and one that allows us to think of this as a kind of publicness itself, especially to the extent that we can understand ourselves as ‘two-in-one’ (Arendt 2003, p. 98). If I am in fact a kind of plurality, and if my thinking presents opportunities for me to generate and question new thoughts and new actions and to carry them into the public realm, then it seems to me that this dialogue with myself may be a kind of togetherness that allows personal or internal freedom to occur (or at least the potential for it to). My internal dialogue therefore has a public quality under the right conditions. And further, that public quality has implications for my engagement with others. So what is the nature of this discussion with myself and what might that discussion look like in relation to my pedagogical work? In short, it is a weighty encounter that must take place outside of the public sphere. This should be understood as a mental space, one Arendt describes as a place of solitude, but also very much involves a retreat from public spaces in the physical sense. In The life of the mind, Arendt describes the space of solitude as the “human situation in which I keep myself company” (Arendt 1978, p. 185). To call myself into question, I must retreat from time to time into a space of solitude where I can confront issues of concern (that arise in, and because of, my interactions with the world), and myself, and bring my moral conscience to bear on them. That the questions I ask myself are about issues of concern is what gives the discussions and questions weight. Contrast this to more instrumental deliberations about what to do, that can have a tendency to maintain the status quo. Responding to questions of concern, calls forth my moral conscience and makes demands of me as an agent to account for the consequences of my thoughts and actions. Arendt draws from Socrates in framing this dialogue as aiming

‘Publicness’ 59 towards a kind harmony with oneself4 and within my duality requires me to consider whether I like the company I am keeping. Whether I keep good company or not is in part a matter of how I feel I am dealing with issues of concern. Because this happens in solitude, I cannot hide from or avoid my responsibility to answer. This, according to Morgan, “develops not only self-criticality but the capacity to develop moral conscience and judgment” (Morgan 2016, p. 177). So I can’t just act, or act together with others, or be disrupted unless I also ask myself what I ought to do given who I want to be, in ways that demand answers, not from others but from myself. As I see it, it is precisely one’s moral conscience and judgement5 that constitutes a signifcant part of what makes an agent strange or eccentric or unique – essential to maintaining plurality. One’s conscience is also the thing that gets disrupted, at least in the most meaningful (or educational) moments of disruption. Said another way, my thinking – marked by internal dialogue – opens me up to being impacted by the particularities of the political sphere because I have a heightened moral conscience that can be offended, shocked, challenged, or disrupted by the world and those within it, including myself. This does not end with the disruption though. Keeping my self-criticality and judgement alive further demands that these potentially disruptive experiences be taken up in my subsequent retreats into solitude and thought. They create new questions and demand new answers. Thinking then culminates in the making of moral judgements regarding what I ought to do, which “in turn determines, or at least contributes to, the subjective actions of political life” (Morgan 2016, p. 178). This retreat from and return to the political sphere itself opens a possibility for freedom to occur within me by providing the conditions and stimulating a concern for rethinking my actions and judgements and opening the door for new ways of thinking, being, and acting. I would like to further suggest that the same thinking that informs my actions and subsequent retreat described earlier is part of what allows me to stage disruption for others. Here is where I see the connection to a pedagogy that enacts a concern for publicness proposed by Biesta. As I see it, thinking in solitude helps in staging disruption in at least two ways. The frst is that locating and relocating myself in relation to action helps me to appraise actions and events in the political sphere that might be ripe for disruption. This appraisal might involve identifying places and moments when our shared traditions or habits have started to put our (my) moral conscience into autopilot. For Arendt, these autopilot moments are the conditions under which we eventually relinquish our autonomy completely. The second way my calling myself into question helps is by nurturing a disposition that keeps my own disruptions from turning into impositions that Biesta raises concern about in pedagogies of (facilitation for critical consciousness) and for (production of the good citizen). This assumes of course that my moral conscience is concerned with not being impositional. If I am fne keeping company with a person (myself) who imposes, then staging disruption may not make it onto my pedagogical repertoire. To the extent that I am interested in

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staging disruption, or in opening spaces where freedom can occur, this sensitivity should help. In the next section, I apply this current discussion of thinking to pedagogical contexts and specifcally to the need to call my teacher self into question.

Pedagogical thinking I have argued that a particular dialogue with myself sensitises me to those things in my subjective experience and my shared experience with others, which might serve to disrupt. The importance of the dialogue (and returning to it) in staging disruption rests on the fact that once the disruptive event or object has been staged it will immediately begin a process of becoming familiar. To stage, in an ongoing way – say in a 3-week workshop or across a school year – will require ongoing appraisal and re-staging in order to maintain plurality. It will also require a stager to self-assess as to whether they are staging or teaching or imposing. Pedagogical thinking that has a public quality then must involve pedagogues of or for or becoming, regularly calling themselves into question in regard to their stance on educational issues and practices. Refusing to confront these questions risks the practitioner turning themselves into a methodological robot who simply reproduces rather than initiates or having their practice devolve into one that shuts down opportunities for freedom to occur. This does not mean that all practices must appear new and unique, but it does mean that they must come under scrutiny (from within) in order to represent and refect the uniqueness of the agent. In the following two sections, I explore questions I think might help nurture and maintain a dialogue with myself – in this case my pedagogical self – and look at the implications for more formal educational contexts like schools. I suggest that these questions apply to pedagogies of and for as well as a concern with allowing freedom to occur (i.e., a pedagogy of becoming public). I further suggest an authentic and coherent engagement with the questions can infuse a quality of publicness into all pedagogical thinking.

Questions of purpose Questions regarding the purpose of education are nothing new to education. Biesta himself has addressed the question in characteristically thoughtful ways in his article “What is education for?” (Biesta 2015). There Biesta highlights the role of judgement and even suggests that the question of good education (rather than effective education) should inform that judgement. I want to suggest that the question of purpose be addressed in a way that is similar but also importantly different than suggested by Biesta. The question is one for the individual to take up in solitude. It is a question that cuts across the ‘qualifcation,’ ‘socialisation,’ and ‘subjectifcation’ domains Biesta outlines, and I suggest it should take two different forms, ones that refect Arendt’s question of good company: •

Am I okay being in company with the kind of teacher who supports others in living certain kinds of life?

‘Publicness’ 61 •

Am I okay being in company with the kind of teacher who contributes to the creation of certain kinds of society?

These questions demand that I come to terms with my participation in activities and systems that align with and promote some ways of living and being over others. The terms “certain kinds” in each question serve as placeholders for the many possible kinds one can support or value. Answering the question involves an exploration and clarifcation of potential kinds and demands that I submit them to my own moral conscience. For example, am I willing to be the kind of person who supports others in living a life that defnes success in terms of material gain? Or by the commodifcation of experience? If not, what kind of life should my, and our, educational actions align with? It is important to note that the framing of the question does not invite the pedagogue to use their answers as a moral foundation for future action. That would run contrary to Arendt’s own thinking about such foundations and result in an example of pedagogy for outlined by Biesta. Instead, it asks the pedagogue to put themselves into relation to the various particulars they run across in the public sphere and to let those particulars help shape and refne one’s moral conscience. The particulars may not always disrupt or raise concern. The answer to questions of being in company may very well be, Yes I am comfortable in this company, and pleasantly surprised by it. As pedagogical questions though, these necessarily involve serious consideration of our public actions and draw upon our experience with others (in particular from my teaching) in ways that carry weight. Framing the questions of purpose as a kind of life or society also helps to effectively broaden the scope of consideration. Thinking about the kind of life I want to help support as a teacher reminds me that I am a part of a wider community of people and processes (e.g., the school, the university, the neighbourhood, and so on) that can work together with or against each other in introducing new ways of thinking, new forms of knowledge, and moments of disruption that align with some ways of living over others. This widening of scope helps me orient my moral conscience towards my relation to others, rather than focusing on how I want to live in an isolated sense. Here again, calling myself into question and answering these questions opens up the opportunity for me to be disrupted by what happens in the public sphere. How my students respond, what other teachers do, the curriculum I have to navigate, the policies in place, are all things that I need to bring with me in my return to solitude and ask whether I am the kind of person who is okay being complicit in those actions and events. If I don’t have answers or cannot take a stance on these issues, they will be answered for me. Educational institutions are flled with answers to these questions via curriculum, standards, policies, theories, and so on. To allow questions of purpose to be answered for me is to relinquish my agency and by extension my freedom to act in concert with and be taken up by others. In answering these questions myself, I (re)assert my uniqueness in the world, open myself up to being disrupted by the particularities of the public sphere, and energise the cycle of retreat from and return to the public sphere of action.

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Finally, the framing of the question explicitly brings the personal and professional self into relation. By inviting the I to question whether they like the company of their teacher self, they are bringing the two into dialogue and activating personal agency and moral conscience that can’t be left at the door of the school at the end of the day. Although it is beyond the scope of this chapter to explore, I see the infusion of a public quality of thinking as very much part of what elevates teaching as a profession. In renewing and stewarding the profession, critical questions like those proposed here offer opportunities for the profession and professional selves to be disrupted, making room for re-invention and re-imagining.

Questions of pedagogy Following on from questions of purpose, I suggest a second set of questions must be taken up in solitude, and these are particularly relevant to teachers (formally recognised members of a profession) as opposed, say, to a public pedagogue. These questions aim at directly applying my criticality and judgement into pedagogical action within the more restrictive environment of the formal school. The frst of these is a question regarding the kind of sensitivities, understanding and opportunities I want to animate in my pedagogical engagements with others. When these questions are asked in relation to formal school environments, the answers typically take the form of objectives. The second question acknowledges the institutional apparatus that teachers must navigate in their day-to-day practice and is concerned with maintaining agency despite their often restrictive nature. The third question is most directly relevant to action. 1

2

3

What sensitivities, understandings, and skills might constitute the lives and society I am comfortable supporting (i.e., Am I okay being in the company of someone who prioritises these objectives over others)? How can my thinking about purposes and objectives be reconciled with the curricular, institutional, and political realities of my pedagogical work (i.e., Am I okay being in the company of someone who teaches what I am, in the place I am, with the people I am)? What objects, opportunities, and experiences can I curate in support of my objectives (i.e., Am I okay being in the company of someone who teaches as I do)?

Questions of constitution The question of constitution (Q1) invites me to think in specifc and more practical terms about what constitutes living certain kind of lives or developing a certain kind of society. It is a matter of highlighting and focusing on aspects of our selves or our experience that can help realise our purposes. This question is similar to those asked within pedagogies for (e.g., what constitutes a good citizen) but resists being answered for me or in a fnal way because it is informed

‘Publicness’ 63 by my own moral conscience and committed to by a person I am happy to be in company with. Additionally, answering this question in relation to my purposes means that objectives are conceptualised prior to thinking about specifc subjects or specifc curriculum or at least not exclusively conceptualised within them. What kinds of understandings might help nurture an autonomous life? What kinds of sensibilities are critical to the development of a more equitable society? Am I comfortable being in the company of someone who prioritises ways of thinking over retention of content? Putting the questions before the curriculum helps maintain the scope of consideration of purpose and by extension the weight of my commitment to them.

Questions of reconciliation The question of reconciliation (Q2) is a question of navigating the diverse and pressing demands of the school and wider community. These demands are signifcant and as part of a larger political context can easily drag individuals into a regime of action and practice. A critical appraisal of the institutional and communal demands needs to inform the discussion I have with myself in solitude. How to navigate a prescribed curriculum or the school’s ethos is a practical and professional question that teachers are adept at answering. Whether I am comfortable being in the company of someone who uses these materials or principles (e.g., ones refecting a single narrative or perspective) is a different kind of question – one that brings the weight of the engagement to the fore. Am I comfortable being in the company of someone who utilises and shares messages that exclude or dismiss certain kinds of experiences or privileges certain identities? Am I comfortable being in the company of someone who ignores valuable voices and perspectives in the name of job security or avoiding controversy? These are not simple questions to answer. Different people will answer them differently in different contexts and at different times. What matters is that they call themselves into question and come to some personal conclusion and commit to testing it out in action. As stated earlier, if I don’t have answers or refuse to answer, answers will be given for me. When given for me, these answers sacrifce my own agency. They shut down opportunities for freedom to occur (publicness) both within me and in my classroom, especially to the extent that they avoid disruption. The stances I take in response to these questions inform my decisions regarding bringing them into action. This subsequent move to action involves answering questions of curation.

Questions of curation Questions of curation (Q3) invite me make decisions regarding what actions I will take or nurture in my classroom with my students. Said another way, it invites me to bring the public quality of my thinking to bear on my public actions. It invites the I(s) who dialogue in solitude to come into relation with my students. Together, questions of constitution and reconciliation call upon

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me to go beyond prescribed curriculum and content standards to think about, refne, and revise them in ways that allow me to retain my own strangeness and agency. As particulars of a system that I am working within, I can’t ignore curriculum and standards (without risking my professional future), but I can maintain my distance and strangeness in relation to them. That in turn will allow me to navigate (and even disrupt) them rather than simply reproduce them. Together, questions of reconciliation and curation are aimed at bringing my critical capacity to bear on that navigation. If I am not comfortable being in the company of someone who reinforces a single narrative, then what materials and engagements can I curate for students that can enrich, if not counter, that narrative? How can I open up more space for my students’ agency to play a central role in our daily classroom activities? Am I comfortable being in the company of the person who has curated the way I have? Public pedagogues of all types have insightful answers to such questions of practice, but whether I am comfortable being in the company of someone using these methods is still a question I must take up in solitude and in relation to the other questions proposed here. Replication that does not result from a process of calling oneself into question can easily result in one more instance of domestication Biesta cautions against. Further, these questions must be taken up in solitude rather than (or in addition to) practice as the pressures and complexity of schools are numerous. The higher the stakes, external pressures, and number of complex interests at play in a given context, the easier it is to silence or break my internal dialogue. When the dialogue is silenced or broken, I am left “vulnerable to the dangers of “non-thinking” and thus to the suppression of self-criticality and the continued capacity for the development and renewal of moral conscience and judgement” (Morgan 2016, p. 178).

Publicness in pedagogies for and of As I suggest earlier, calling myself into question can infuse a quality of publicness into the pedagogical thinking related to all three forms of public pedagogy outlined by Biesta. I have discussed its role in a pedagogy of becoming public. Here I briefy return to pedagogies for and of to highlight that what I am proposing is not an additional pedagogy but instead is a quality of thinking with broad pedagogical and professional implications. In terms of publicness in thinking about pedagogy for (creating a good citizen), the public quality comes from confronting the question of purpose and whether I am comfortable being in the company of a person who is complicit in producing a citizen defned in a particular way. As she illustrates with in her analysis of Eichmann,6 I simply can’t say I teach towards this conception because it is refected in existing policy or what the school is committed to. Following from the earlier discussion, I can only defer to the school if I am okay being in the company of someone who lets an institution answer their (my) questions of concern or more critically to hand over their (my) freedom. If, upon emerging from a dialogue with myself, I can say that I am comfortable with the defnition being used, that is another thing and represents an agentic agreement.

‘Publicness’ 65 Publicness in pedagogy of (critical consciousness) involves maintaining the criticality of it by maintaining a criticality towards it. As in any other pedagogy, replication of thought has a homogenising tendency. Social justice robots are still robots, and even a critical pedagogy risks turning oppressive if it hasn’t been interrogated in solitude from time to time (Biesta 2012). In other words, if I am a Marxist Feminist, the me I am in dialogue with in solitude will have to ask whether I am okay being in company with a person who is a Marxist Feminist, in the way I am, acting as I do with these students, in this context. If I don’t ask, I shut down the possibility of developing a new understanding of that stance, a new relationship to myself, to others, and to the world. Absent of these new understandings I reduce my ability to initiate and act. I become a methodological robot of a certain kind.

Discussion: The new publicness of education There is of course a great deal more that needs to go into one’s thinking and refection to support public ends and the good of education, and I do not want to suggest that the questions I have offered here are suffcient. The simple claim here is that a good frst step, and maybe even an essential step, is to call myself into question in certain ways and continue to do so as I teach more, engage more, and learn more from these events in the public realm of action. Infusing this quality of publicness into my thinking will continue to call forth the essential agency of my pedagogical self, regardless of whether I am acting as a pedagogue for, pedagogue of, or a pedagogue concerned with becoming public. In calling myself into question, I also call myself into account in an important way. When I teach, act, or disrupt out of a sense of institutional obligation or commitment to a tradition, the success or failure of those actions is not my own. In a very real sense, ‘I’ am not even a part of those public acts but am instead insulated from them, just as Eichmann felt he was.7 When my pedagogical actions and engagements are the response to calling myself into question, then my very ability to live with myself is at stake, and these are the kinds of stakes that an increasingly fragile world demands. They are also just the kinds of stakes that might lead to creating a space for freedom to occur and bring a new version of myself into the world. The discussion of a public quality in one’s pedagogical thinking takes a stance on ‘publicness’ that on frst glance may seem contrary to the concept and related discussions. Here I have tried to suggest that what is traditionally understood as a very personal and private (contra public) endeavour is essential to publicness and is even partially constitutive of a kind of publicness. If the domestication of agency serves to shut down plurality and by extension opportunities for freedom to occur, then maintaining agency can be considered necessary for publicness. The infusion of a public quality to our thinking seems to be one way of animating our agency in our relationship to ourselves and our actions with others, including our educational ones.

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The sense of publicness developed here also fts with the insightful focus on relationality discussed by Sharon Todd in this volume. The move away from thinking of people in atomistic, dualistic, and isolated senses towards more expanded senses of inter-subjectivity and interdependence suggests a shift in scope that aligns with my own questions of purpose and pushes the consideration even further. The public quality of thinking I outline simply acknowledges that just as we can fail to adopt a suffciently expansive conception of the public, we can also fail to look in the mirror. I am suggesting that we also apply the insight of interrelationality back upon the aspects of myself that can be lost in the buzz of acting and being, to think about, and with oneself in new ways. Just as the natural and physical environment can escape our attention, so too can our agentic selves. By heightening the public quality of my thinking, I can bring the public that is in me into relationship with those many publics that exist beyond the space of solitude. What is ‘new’ here then is not a conception of publicness but the location and orientation of it. As Todd and others in this volume make clear, our relations to and actions with others are of central importance. The claim here, drawing from Arendt, and in line with Biesta in this volume, is that being in relation is not enough. Existing as part of a herd or acting within a political or ecological space does not ensure that freedom will occur. In a very real sense, collective action or unchecked desires (see Biesta this volume) can result in less than desirable, if not evil, consequences. Inviting the individual to critically refect and to hold themselves accountable to themselves increases the opportunity for disruption and self-correction and for the creation of spaces for freedom to occur.

Notes 1 Sandlin et al. (2011) suggest this timing of the shift and offer an expanded set of categories. Three of these (popular culture and everyday life; informal institutions and public spaces; dominant cultural discourses) I feel are reasonably accounted for by Biesta’s ‘pedagogy of’ at least for the purposes of this chapter. 2 He borrows from Arendt here. 3 I recognise that I may be asking questions that reframe the issue as one of learning or teaching that Biesta wants to resist. I hope to make clear where and when I am doing so as the discussion progresses. 4 See Arendt’s discussion of the ‘two-in-one’ in the Life of the mind (1978). 5 The imagination also has an important role to play here. See Biesta’s discussion of ‘visiting’ in How to exist politically and learn from it: Hannah Arendt and the problem of democratic education (2010). 6 See Arendt’s Eichmann in Jerusalem: A report on the banality of evil. 7 In short, Adolf Eichmann claimed no responsibility for his role in the Holocaust based on the premise that he was following both orders and the law.

References Arendt, H. (1978). The life of the mind. New York: Harcourt. Arendt, H. (2003). Responsibility and judgement. New York: Schocken Books. Arendt, H. (2006). Eichmann in Jerusalem: A report on the banality of evil. London: Penguin Classics.

‘Publicness’ 67 Biesta, G. (2012). Becoming public: Public pedagogy, citizenship and the public sphere. Social & Cultural Geography 13(7), 683–697. Biesta, G. (2015). What is education for? On good education, teacher judgement, and educational professionalism. European Journal of Education 50(1), 75–87. Biesta, G. (2016). Have lifelong learning and emancipation still something to say to each other? Studies in Education of Adults 44(1), 5–20. Morgan, M. (2016). Hannah Arendt and the ‘freedom’ to think. Journal of Educational Administration and History 48(2), 173–182. Sandlin, S., O’Malley, M. & Burdick, J. (2011). Mapping the complexity of public pedagogy scholarship. Review of Educational Research 81(3), 338–375.

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A new publicness for early childhood education and care in Ireland Leah O’Toole, Georga Dowling, and Tracy McElheron

Introduction Recent years have seen extensive developments in policy, curriculum and practice in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) world-wide, and in Ireland at present, government policy seems to be moving the sector towards a publicly-funded approach. However, it is important to unpack tensions associated the with the concept of a ‘public’ system and to problematise the idea that ‘publicly funded’ and ‘public’ ECEC are one and the same. In doing so, this chapter offers an exploration of what a ‘new publicness’ might look like for ECEC within the Irish context and beyond.

What is ‘public’ early childhood education? Biesta et al. (2022, p. 1216) state, “Public education is not just a way to organise and fund education. It is also the expression of a particular ideal about education and of a particular way to conceive of the relationship between education and society.” As policy appears to move Irish early childhood education and care (ECEC) towards a publicly funded model, unpacking Ireland’s tensions, politically, culturally, and pedagogically is essential to understand the nuances of ownership and public visibility. Biesta (2012, 2013) has written extensively about the meaning of ‘public’ education, developing a framework for analysis that distinguishes between education ‘for the public,’ ‘of the public,’ and ‘in the interests of the public.’ This framework has been widely applied to educational debate but not often, as far as we are aware, to analysis of public systems of ECEC. According to Biesta’s framework, education ‘for the public’ is education aimed at the public. The job of the educator in this mode is to instruct the public on how to think and act and what to be, erasing plurality and ensuring that all learners are the same; in short, education systems know what is best for the public and will teach it to them. This often focuses on creating citizens to follow a particular path towards an idealised societal outcome, and ECEC in particular is often viewed as a ‘magic bullet’ to combat societal ills through early intervention (Farquhar & White 2014). For example, a narrative of ‘school readiness’ can emerge, which views the purpose of ECEC as inculcating young children with specifc skills and dispositions to make a smooth transition to formal school education. The concept

DOI: 10.4324/9781003289067-6

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of ‘school readiness’ is problematic because it moves the focus from learning through play – vital in supporting important developmental achievements like self-regulation and attentiveness – to a more school-like pedagogy emphasising the development of ‘basic skills’ and literacy outcomes. It also propagates a defcit model, with some children seen as insuffcient, ‘unready’ for school, without any deconstruction of whether schools are ready for children (O’Toole et al. 2019). This is refected in policies and practices worldwide promoting a ‘quality’ agenda based on structures and outcomes, while disregarding relational process measures. The prevailing neoliberalism within early education in some countries encourages a narrow focus on bringing settings (structure) and children (outcomes) to a predetermined fxed point, irrespective of experience, background, or culture (O’Toole et al. 2019). Those who get to this point are applauded, while those who do not are, through a functionalist lens, seen to have failed (Ó Breacháin & O’Toole 2013). While such narratives often have the admirable aim of closing achievement ‘gaps’ (Osborne 2022), based on factors like socio-economic status, ethnicity, or gender, the focus on outcomes early in children’s lives is also often related to public management and a culture of measurement (Einasdottir et al. 2015). Within a neoliberal logic, the aim of ECEC ‘for the public’ becomes to bring all children to a set, homogenous level of ‘achievement’ within a narrow range of valued areas, usually literacy, numeracy, and science, to the neglect of areas not seen to have utility in a global economy such as the arts. The point of ECEC in this mode is to give everyone an equal chance of success within the system without problematising that system in any way. If treated uncritically, approaches advocating early education ‘for the public’ can actually become instruments of social reproduction, excluding groups of children and their families based on social class, language, and ethnic background (O’Toole et al. 2019). As Säfström (2021, p. 26) points out Equality within teaching . . . does not mean equality in which, each and everyone has to score the same on a test in order for equality to be confrmed . . . but is essentially about each and everyone’s ability and capacity to “live a life” here and now, to speak, and live together with others, to share meaning with those others. This resonates with contemporary understandings in ECEC of young children as ‘human beings’ rather than ‘human becomings’ (Einarsdottir et al. 2015), and the importance of engaging with them in their present lives, rather than always with one eye on ‘training’ them for the future (Hayes & Filipović 2018). Biesta (2012, 2013) provides an alternative conceptualisation of publicness – education ‘of the public’ which emphasises learning rather than instruction, moving us towards an ECEC system based on citizenship, emancipation, and visibility. Those working within this vision emphasise consultation and incorporating the voices of educators, children, parents, and communities (often called ‘stakeholders’) into pedagogy and policy. For example, educational research has highlighted the importance of understanding children’s learning as embedded

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in the social, cultural, and family contexts in which it occurs, leading to an increasing focus on the role of parents, families and communities. However, Biesta (2012) argues that some faws remain in this approach due to its populist underpinnings. With the viewpoint that ‘everyone’s voice is equal,’ the diffcult question is never addressed that sometimes what people want is not useful, fair, or even educational. For example, often a key driver of the ‘school readiness’ agenda is the voices of parents who want to provide their children with the best start in life, allowing them to ‘compete’ in the education system. While this may seem reasonable on the surface, it does not understand the counter-intuitive course that children’s development often takes, with later skills more strongly linked with playful opportunities for learning in early childhood than with earlier formal instruction (Sahlberg & Doyle 2020; Zosh et al. 2017). Biesta (2012, 2013) maintains therefore that ‘education of the public,’ everyone having a voice, is simplistic because there is no judgement of the quality of these voices. In fact, this approach could even lead to anti-democratic outcomes. Consultation tends, in reality, to involve the incorporation of the concerns of those with the most powerful, infuential voices into policy-making, and governments who drive policy change are of course subject to the whim of public narratives. In a ‘post-truth’ era in which opinions may have been shaped by algorithms that amplify the most contentious voices, incorporating the wishes of the majority of stakeholders could at its extreme be dangerous, keeping in mind the troubling turn worldwide towards right-wing, xenophobic ideologies. A truly ‘public’ education should not solely be about keeping everyone happy, but rather it must ask something deeper from us; to think about how we decide which voices are helpful for education. Education ‘of the public’ is limited in this regard. Alternatively, Biesta (2013) articulates a preference for his third mode, education ‘in the interests of the public.’ This mode involves ‘troubling’ the relationship between educator and the individual (Caris & Cowell 2016). Education ‘in the interest of the public’ lies “at the intersection of education and politics” becoming more activist in the focus on the creation of real alternatives for public relationships (Biesta 2013, p. 23). Inherent in this approach to publicness is resistance to the logic of the market or a conceptualisation of education as a private endeavour; instead, plurality and negotiated realities are central (Biesta 2012; Säfström 2021). Education ‘in the interest of the public’ allows us to question which voices are helpful to living together in plurality and which are hindering. For example, the internationally renowned system of ECEC in the Emilia Romagna area of Northern Italy known as Reggio Emilia grew out of a post-World War II reckoning with the experience of fascism, and ECEC was identifed as a way to promote democratic thinking in citizens from their earliest days. Children’s early learning and development is seen as the domain not only of their families but of the whole citizenry as a municipal endeavour (Smidt 2012). The focus on democracy is also evident in the pedagogy of Reggio, known as the ‘Pedagogy of Listening,’ in which importance is placed on the agency of democratic speech within the classroom (Edwards et al. 1998). Central to this is negotiation of power and shared knowledge, shared democracy, and the importance of social relationships within the community (Balfour 2018). These social relationships are at the centre of the

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curriculum, not only the child or ideas of ‘content’ (Balfour 2018). The awareness of these social relationships is key where confict is negotiated, not avoided, and where self-awareness is visible. In short, the ‘point’ of ECEC in the discourse of Reggio is to support democratic negotiations of multiple realities. This brings to mind Biesta’s (2012, 2013) rejection of the idea that common action is only possible on the basis of total agreement, total consensus, or total sameness since that would destroy the very plurality that is necessary for democracy. Education ‘in the interests of the public’ therefore is an orientation towards the common good rather than towards the pursuit of private agendas. Mindful of this, while many changes seem to be happening in ECEC in Ireland at present, we must ask ourselves what (and whom) ECEC is for rather than simply how it should be funded. The debate currently in Ireland may be failing to ask those bigger questions as discussions emerge from a complex history.

History of ECEC in Ireland The history of ECEC in Ireland is a short and inconsistent one. Firmly embedded in a societal discourse of ‘care’ without due regard to the educative value of early childhood education (Hayes 2013), the frst foray of young children outside the family home has traditionally been conceptualised as freedom for parents, mothers in particular, to work. Until comparatively recently, women in Ireland have not represented a major presence in the Irish workforce, unsurprising with far-reaching historical policies like the ‘marriage bar’ in place. Until 1973, this required women working in the public sector to cease work once they were married and was a strategy which actively prioritised men’s presence in the workforce (Clark et al. 2007). In a society where hegemonic views of women as carers abounded, the number of children a woman had directly impacted her already limited freedom to work outside the home (Russell et al. 2017). Given the Catholic Church’s welldocumented sway on reproductive options in Ireland, women often found themselves with no choice but to be stay-at-home carers to large families, and during the twentieth century, Irish families were, on average, twice the size of European (Fallon 2005). There was, therefore, scant call for childcare provision until the positioning of women within the workforce changed due to legislation such as the Employment Equality Act (1977), outlawing discrimination on grounds of gender or marital status in recruitment, training, or promotion. Building on this, the Maternity Act (1981) provided for maternity leave and the right for women to return to work after childbirth. Equally, the economic boom of the 1990s known as the ‘Celtic Tiger’ led to increasing employment opportunities for women. When childcare was required in Ireland, it was traditionally provided by extended family in home environments. It could be argued that historically ECEC simply did not exist in the forms evident in other jurisdictions, for example the ‘nursery’ system north of the border (O’Toole et al. 2021). Considering that there was once a time when schooling or formal education was forbidden for huge swathes of the population in Ireland (explored in the chapter by Walsh in this volume), it is not surprising that there was a signifcant uptake once the National School system was established in 1831. Access to education

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was valued for the post-colonial freedom and opportunity it represented, and children could access the national school system from age 3 (Walsh 2016). Arguably, this historical context has led to the conceptualisation of primary school as exclusively a realm of education and elsewhere as that of care (Fallon 2005). It is certainly true that concepts of care and education have taken two different trajectories in the Irish context, where they are not only seen as different but, in some cases, mutually exclusive (Fallon 2005). Hayes (2010) reports that when care and education are viewed independently, children’s rights and needs are compromised and ultimately provision is affected detrimentally. Compounding this misconstruction of the reciprocity of education and care is the framing of two of the most recently developed guidance frameworks concerning ECEC provision in Ireland – Síolta, the Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education (CECDE 2006); and Aistear, the Early Childhood Curriculum Framework (NCCA 2009). While both these frameworks fall under the remit of the Department of Education, lack of funding and cohesive implementation has resulted in a fragmented enactment of both (Woods et al. 2021). Each has been viewed in isolation with Síolta fundamentally linked to improving the quality of care and Aistear to improving the quality of education. Recent developments have seen the launch of the Aistear Síolta Practice Guide in an attempt to support the fuency of both frameworks in praxis, and work is currently ongoing with a view to updating Aistear (NCCA 2021). Up until the 1990s the unfolding ECEC sector in what little form it existed was mainly serviced by voluntary or community organisations. Since Ireland gained independence in 1922, the state’s main partner in the voluntary and educational sectors had been the Catholic Church (O’Toole et al. 2021), but the ‘Social Partnership’ initiatives of the 1990s, led by the National Economic and Social Council (NESC), represented a signifcant change of direction in Irish policy-making generally (O’Donnell 2001). From this point on, the predomination of the Catholic Church in matters affecting policy-making decisions was diluted by other social partners such as unions or advocacy groups (Hayes 2016); however, those arguably most effected by ECEC, children, were initially excluded from the consultation process. The eventual inclusion of the ‘Community Pillar’ led to some signifcant changes in matters affecting the evolving ECEC sector, including accessing some previously marginalised voices. While the dilution of the Catholic Church’s infuence on policy-making decisions was generally welcomed, it has been argued that having a ‘shared governance’ approach prioritises economic policy over wider social policy (Hayes 2016). This brings to mind Biesta’s (2011, p. 142) exploration of democratic processes which notes “how ‘newcomers’ can be inserted into an existing political order” rather than addressing “the question of how democratic subjectivity is engendered through engagement in always undetermined political processes.” It may be that the social partnership processes simply drew a wider range of ‘stakeholders’ into an existing political order that did not and has not changed. Regrettably, governance was for many years the only shared arena in terms of Irish ECEC and shared it certainly has been. With ECEC under the remit of

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several different governmental departments with little interrelatedness, the lack of cohesion in rolling out key policy documents has been identifed by many commentators (Hayes 2016; Woods et al. 2021). When the government appointed an expert working group to review funding models stemming from the frst whole-of-government strategy for early childhood, First Five (Government of Ireland 2019), they were met therefore with a fragmented system, largely reliant on private providers whose services were funded by a complex mix of government grants and high-cost fees paid by parents. Ireland’s public spending on ECEC as a proportion of GDP was the lowest in Europe at 0.3–0.4%, private provision predominated, and legal guarantees of childcare places did not exist. Fees paid by parents were among the highest in Europe with only the UK and Cyprus more expensive (OECD 2020).

The emergence of publicly funded ECEC In November 2021, the Irish government published the report of the expert working group appointed to direct reforms to funding models for ECEC. The report, titled Partnership for the Public Good, underpinned a range of moves aiming to see ECEC increasingly publicly funded and publicly managed with the expressed aim of delivering a service for the public good, through partnership between the state and educational providers to the beneft of children, parents, educators, and society overall (DCEDIY 2021a). However, while the changes being implemented at time of writing are extensive, in spite of these stated aims of publicness and public good, rather than redesigning Irish ECEC systemically with publicness in mind, Irish policy-makers have chosen, rather, to work with the system already in place. The Report of the Expert Working Group notes that [t]he Expert Group is not asked to propose changes to the current model of delivery (i.e., privately-operated provision), rather the Group should seek to further achieve policy objectives of quality, affordability, accessibility and contributing to addressing disadvantage, in a privately-operated market through increased public funding and public management. (DCEDIY 2021a, p. 153) In other words, a fully publicly owned and delivered ECEC sector for Ireland was never even considered, and the opportunity to create a new system that is truly ‘public’ may have been lost since the terms of reference deliberately exclude ‘public provision.’ The bold title to this document is at odds with this, and at time of writing many contentious questions of implementation remain. The relationship between the state and private providers in recent years could certainly be characterised as turbulent and the creation of a collegial partnership based on trust will be challenging with private providers unsure where they ft within an increasingly publicly funded system. The new model introduced ‘Core Funding’ designed, according to policy-makers (DCEDIY 2021a), to underpin a shift

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away from the current largely “marketised” approach to service provision towards partnership between providers and the state refecting a values-based approach to the delivery of ECEC for the public good. Until recently, a hybrid between a supply-side (funding goes to the provider) and demand-side (funding follows the child) was in place. The shift towards a more supply-side funding model will, policy-makers argue, increase the state’s capacity to implement strong public management of the sector with the vision to improve quality, affordability, accessibility, social inclusion, and sustainability for the public good (DCEDIY 2021a). Regarding terms and conditions for early childhood educators, the state will not fund wages as they do in other educational sectors, instead relying on the private provider to improve wages using Core Funding. Considering the for-proft nature of the majority of ECEC provision, the success of this plan remains to be seen. However, to further enforce the regulation of this, the Employment Regulation Order (ERO), to which all private providers wishing to avail of Core Funding must sign up, will determine minimum rates of pay for early childhood educators, as well as terms and conditions of employment. At time of writing, there are concerns that the system in development seems to favour large ‘childcare’ chains over small, locally run ECEC settings, and some elements, such as limits to payments to one graduate per room, may actually impede the development of a quality, degree-led sector. The notions of ‘quality,’ ‘value for money,’ and ‘public good’ are also still largely undefned. Thus, while the Core Funding model includes explicit aims to address some of the diffculties with the Irish ECEC system, the problematic development of the Early Childhood sector in Ireland demands a re-conceptualisation of what constitutes, and who has ownership over, this domain before any claim to ‘publicness’ can be made. Moss (2017) argues for multiple, democratic narratives to underpin nuanced, culturally valid approaches to ECEC, and while such conceptual ideas have seeped into ECEC scholarship, policy, and curriculum in recent years, there have been diffculties in genuinely translating them into practice on the ground. One reason for this may be that the unarticulated dominant discourses underlying ECEC in different jurisdictions can direct a different understanding of the same language or different enactment of ideas that may on the surface seem similar, perhaps explaining how a document titled Partnership for the Public Good can in reality advocate a system of private providers.

Dominant discourses underlying ECEC in Ireland While analysis of ‘public’ education in other educational sectors tends to lament an erosion of public education that is threatened by neoliberal discourses (Biesta et al. 2022), on the surface ECEC in Ireland appears to be travelling in the opposite direction, away from a system reliant on privatised provision and towards a publicly funded model. However, questions of ownership, visibility, and value remain. Traditionally in Ireland, patriarchal structures meant that anyone who did not ft a male, Irish, Catholic ‘norm’ was at risk of being segregated “as a means

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of intervention to protect, and contain the threat from, those who were ‘other than’ or different to ‘mainstream’ society” (Forde 2022, p. 1220). This was evident for instance in the institutionalisation of individuals with disabilities, incarceration of children in ‘industrial schools,’ and locking away women who became pregnant outside of marriage in ‘Magdalene laundries.’ As Säfström (2021, p. 22) puts it, within this mindset, such people do not really matter . . . lacks matter, do not really appear on “the stage”, are absent from the dominant web of meaning; being meaningless, and as such do not fll their space and place within the nation, and risks, therefore, be treated as waste. The invisibility of young children in the development of ECEC historically in Ireland can be directly traced from these origins and the conceptualisation of children as ‘evil’ (based in notions of original sin) as ‘adults in training’ or as a ‘commodity’ for nation building (O’Toole et al. 2021). It could be argued that the dominant discourse in Ireland today continues to hide children away as the domain only of business and private interests with many early childhood settings entirely separate from the communities in which they should be rooted. The paucity of children’s perspectives in any documentation of the unfolding ECEC sector in Ireland, with the notable exception of the current ongoing consultation with babies, toddlers, and young children to inform the updating of Aistear (O’Toole et al. 2023), is symptomatic of societal regard towards children as objects rather than agentic subjects. The younger the child, the more this seems to apply; for example, the Core Funding model is the frst time in Irish history that any public funding has been offered for ECEC for babies and graduate-led baby rooms. Consideration of the tensions between governmental initiatives and lived experiences of families and children is one that needs further exploration if we wish to move beyond simply education ‘for’ or ‘of’ the public and towards ECEC ‘in the interests of’ the public. Dominant discourses in particular societies, such as neoliberalism, become ‘self-evident’ (Moss 2017), and enactment of policies is fltered through these self-evident ‘truths,’ often without acknowledgement or even awareness of this process. This explains how policies that on the surface use language like citizenship, agency, and children’s rights have often been interpreted in practice in Ireland to serve only the logic of the market and the logic of the individual (Biesta 2012, 2013; Marquand 2004). The neoliberal, outcomes-based discourse relies on narrow, positivist approaches to ECEC that do not allow the relational complexity of pedagogy to be captured (O’Toole et al. 2019). However, because such measurement is easily understood and ‘sold’ within a neoliberal discourse, it is readily appropriated by governments to promote effciency frameworks of standards, outcomes, and policies (Farquhar & White 2014). For example, in the list of indicators of ‘quality’ in the terms of reference for the expert working group who developed the Core Funding model for ECEC (DCEDIY 2021a), there is not one mention of pedagogy or

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curriculum with focus instead on mostly structural indicators like staff ratios and qualifcations. Equally, in the list of implementation considerations in the terms of reference, there is not one mention of children, with the focus rather on sustainability and value for money, with a balance of public funding, parental fees, and living wages for educators. It can be argued therefore that fundamentally, those who are directly affected by ECEC policy decisions – children, families, educators, and communities – have never been truly considered in a philosophical or foundational way within policy-making in Ireland. While ‘public good’ is now beginning to enter the lexicon, up to this point, rather than considering the notion that ECEC is fundamentally a society/community building enterprise in which those who are ethically involved are at the height of their investment in working towards a greater ‘public good,’ decisions regarding ECEC in Ireland have been made in short-sighted, ad hoc, and ill-informed ways (Hayes 2016). Policy decisions have been infuenced by framing ECEC within three discourses; frstly, as childcare for working parents, complicating conceptualisations of ECEC and limiting recognition as ECEC as the frst stage of education; secondly, as a way to tackle social disadvantage with the introduction of the free preschool years and a central focus on creating an ‘even playing pitch’ for all children; thirdly, as a way to improve school readiness, a now outdated concept. Underpinned by Biesta’s (2012, 2013) philosophy of public education, we argue for a ‘new publicness’ of ECEC ‘in the interests of the public,’ not reliant solely on all stakeholders simply being ‘consulted,’ as in the Social Partnership initiatives of the 1990s. In the case of ECEC in Ireland, the voices being heard at present are those of (generally middle-class) working parents who need support to balance their care-taking duties with the requirements of work. Their concerns are largely fnancial with many parents, even those with relatively high incomes, struggling to meet high rents and mortgages in the context of a housing crisis and childcare costs among the highest in Europe (OECD 2020). Pedagogy (early childhood education) may be of little concern in the context of the need for care – a false dichotomy that has been reinforced by the introduction of the term ‘Early Learning and Care’ in the First Five policy (Government of Ireland 2019) to replace the internationally recognised term ‘Early Childhood Education and Care’ (ECEC). While the concerns of parents are of course genuine, and while the Core Funding model does address some of them through a commitment to public funding for ECEC (DCEDIY 2021a), this dominant discourse positions ECEC and, more broadly and importantly, the daily experiences and lives of children, as the sole concern of the childcare business, who needs to charge high rates in order to meet stringent inspection requirements, pay for insurance, and maintain staff-child ratios (Marquand’s 2004, ‘logic of the market’) and children’s own parents who may access ‘childcare’ for fnancial rather than educational reasons (Marquand’s ‘logic of private interest’). The logic of private interests and the logic of business collide when parents actively choose the ECEC setting that they feel will meet the needs of their child based on personal,

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interpersonal, and socio-economic factors, as well as traditions and discourses in their specifc country about what factors characterise good ECEC (Ojala et al. 2021). Different providers of ECEC may market different aspects of education and care, and parents with the means to choose what they see as ‘the best’ do so, while the children of parents without such means may ‘sink or swim.’ Merely paying ECEC providers from public funds does little or nothing to challenge these logics. Through the epistemological and ontological lens of an Irish perspective on ECEC, some may question the necessity to problematise such understandings and may wonder why anyone other than the parents of children and their ECEC providers should care about what happens in early childhood education. The image of the child as embedded in and important members of their community that is prevalent in the international literature on ECEC (Balfour 2018) throws into stark relief the neoliberal underpinnings of the largely privatised ECEC system in Ireland in which parents are offered choice, quality, and value for money from a “set menu” of services “rather than being involved in deliberations about what goes on such a menu in the frst place” (Biesta 2013, p. 17). In Ireland these deliberations have moved from being the concern of only the Church and state to the concern of a select few ‘social partners,’ to a position where middle-class, working parents’ voices are foregrounded. Since their voices are rooted in the struggle to keep afoat fnancially, their focus is not likely to be on truly public early education in Biesta’s sense of ‘education in the interests of the public’ but rather on whatever form of ‘childcare’ makes it easier to survive. This is of course an important function of ECEC, but it is not the only one in a thorough understanding of what ECEC is ‘for’ and who ‘owns’ it. The Irish ECEC system is at a turning point of a historic nature at present with huge potential for a paradigmatic shift in how we engage with ECEC as a force for ‘public good.’ However, without a thorough deconstruction of what public early education actually looks like and is for, there is a danger that this potential could be lost. It has taken decades of advocacy to bring ECEC onto the political agenda in Ireland, so should the opportunity be squandered, it is unlikely to be revisited for many decades more.

A ‘new publicness’ of early childhood education and care for Ireland While Biesta’s conceptualisation of education ‘in the interests of the public’ argues that we need to consider which voices are helpful for understanding education, this of course begs the question of who gets to decide that. Biesta (2011) maintains that the status quo is laden with assumptions of who is in and who is out, ‘politics’ is always about troubling that status quo, and democracy is the very act of debate. Instead of creating space for debate and plurality, the current developments in ECEC rely on the fndings of ‘experts,’ supported by ‘consultation’ with a select few, perhaps leading at best to ECEC ‘for’ or ‘of’ the public. It is not enough to argue that resisting neoliberalism and

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creating a public pedagogy ‘in the interests of the public’ can work, without establishing the essence of what a quality pedagogy and a public system might look like. To create a quality ECEC system in Ireland ‘in the interests of the public,’ the building blocks of quality pedagogy need to focus on inclusivity, equity, and democracy rather than solely the ‘logic of the market’ or the ‘logic of private interest.’ The sector is dominated by the hegemonic state power, and the distrust that has developed over the years between the state, parents, owners of ECEC settings, and educators practising in ECEC has created a shaky foundation for future partnership with everyone at risk of losing sight of the babies, toddlers, and young children at the centre of negotiations. We argue that rather than everyone being ‘consulted’ in the development of a new public ECEC system, everyone should instead be ‘considered.’ Being ‘considered’ means being “included in and defned by a certain web of meaning as really ‘there’, as fully present, and as someone that matters, who makes meaning and not just noise” (Säfström 2021, p. 27). This would require invention of new ways of being and doing, emphasising solidarity and sustainability rather than proft maximisation and exploitation, and cooperation and plurality rather than individual advantage, competition, and excellence (Biesta 2012, 2013). We argue that considering ECEC through the four lenses of the child, the parent, the educator, and the community would create a framework through which to develop a genuinely public ECEC system in Ireland. Of course, within a potential move away from a business model of ECEC, there must also be consideration for the (mostly female) providers/owners of early childhood settings, who by building their businesses kept the early childhood sector afoat in Ireland when nobody else would, and it is not clear what role, if any, they would play within a public system that actively resists the logic of business interests. There is an opportunity now to do things differently in ECEC in Ireland but only if we unearth what we mean by publicness – otherwise we may end up with a publicly funded sector that still is threatened from two ‘sides,’ one being the (logic of the) market and the other being (the logic of) private interest (Marquand 2004) rather than an ECEC that is genuinely ‘in the interests of the public.’ Such developments must allow for ‘publicness’ as an internal and an external concept, envisaging ECEC as a space for future-building and creation of a complex and pluralistic democracy, rather than inculcating skills and dispositions within the child to prepare them for a neoliberal future that is expected to be unchanging. Children must be seen as operating within a social and democratic community, unlike traditional child-centred education focused on the individual child’s development and measured against standardised developmental outcomes (Balfour 2018). Early childhood education ‘in the interests of the public’ provides space for plurality and tensions to emerge; our aim is not to erase tensions or expect the same perspectives from each lens we suggest (children, parents, educators, community) but rather to embrace and acknowledge plurality within and across these groups. A both/and rather than an either/or understanding can emerge allowing us to sit with ‘not knowing,’ bringing to life the multiple

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possibilities of seeing more than one perspective at a time (O’Toole 2020). Such a public pedagogy is relational and democratically oriented, emphasising both what we hold in common and what we do not (Biesta 2012, 2013). This means that public early education can be developed as a ‘common good’ but also that common good is never what individuals or particular groups want or desire, but always reaches beyond such particular desires towards that which societies as a whole should consider as desirable. This does, of course, put the common good in tension with the desires of individuals and groups. (Biesta et al. 2022, p. 1216)

Consideration of children in an ECEC ‘in the interests of the public’ Conceptualising babies, toddlers, and young children as full citizens within an ECEC ‘in the interests of the public’ provides an illustrative example of Biesta’s (2013) contention that this approach represents the intersection of the political and the educational. One such approach that embodies this visibility, essentially the ‘publicness’ of children, is the theory of documentality in the Reggio tradition. Reggio uses documentation as a shared public space to witness the wonders of young children’s agentic creativity, for example through public exhibitions of children’s artwork, and as a reminder that we all build community. There is no shared or communal civic space to encounter the fundamental truths that emerge from educators’ work with young children and families in Ireland; no shared space to witness children, families, and educators having the freedom to be their best selves. Children are generally not visible in Irish society, and it is diffcult to truly consider that which we do not see. Ferraris and Torrengo (2014) suggest that documentation, as social objects, is recording of social acts and therefore the essence of social reality. They argue that when documentation is ‘socially relevant,’ the content determines the identity and nature of the social object that depends on it. The documentation shapes the viewer and the documenter. This dynamic, if undergone in a public space, may be one key to formulating a new and co-constructed identity in ECEC ‘in the interests of the public’ with the visibility of babies, toddlers, and young children at the core of a democratic approach. A ‘new publicness’ of ECEC respects the youngest children as citizens with insights and agency and ensures they are visible and valued.

Consideration of educators and educational settings in an ECEC ‘in the interests of the public’ The public funding for education and upskilling of early childhood educators provided for in the Core Funding model (DCEDIY 2021a) is to be welcomed. However, in Ireland, an increasingly well-educated workforce of early childhood educators who engage with complex ideas of pedagogy of play, relational

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pedagogy, emergent curriculum, and so on still enjoy signifcantly lower levels of respect, pay, and benefts than colleagues at other educational levels (DCEDIY 2021b). Educators have little opportunity in Ireland to contribute to the public debate or discourse and yet are the ones who must enact the direction of ‘experts’ under penalty of censure through inspection or parental complaints. A ‘new publicness’ of ECEC also respects early childhood educators as citizens with insights and agency and ensures they are visible and valued. The current processes of implementation of the Core Funding model seems to have engendered a split between educators, who wish to have their expertise recognised and adequately remunerated, and providers/managers, who want to ensure their businesses can survive. Incorporation of private providers into a public system, similar to the role of principals in a school, may be one option to show consideration of both groups. Consideration of the expertise, agency, and citizenship of early childhood educators must be central to a truly public ECEC.

Consideration of parents/families in an ECEC ‘in the interests of the public’ Consideration of parents must acknowledge the genuine pressure experienced by families in financial terms, and note that such pressures are not so evident in any other sector of the educational system. For example, parents’ access to high-quality primary education in Ireland does not rely on their ability to pay for teachers’ wages. Not only is primary education funded by the public purse, but there is general recognition across Irish society that this is a good use of public funding because of the societal benefits of positive educational experiences for children at primary level. Consideration of parents as not the only ones with interest and responsibility for the early educational experiences of babies, toddlers, and young children would allow for an ECEC system ‘in the interests of the public.’ This means that we can consider what parents may want (affordable childcare), but that can be tempered with the kind of early education that children and the broader society need.

Consideration of the community in an ECEC ‘in the interests of the public’ When the values and assumptions that underpin the pedagogy of approaches like Reggio Emilia are unpacked and analysed it becomes apparent that that system views ECEC as a ‘public good,’ and a sense of public responsibility for its success is inextricably intertwined with its approaches. This narrative of publicness is underpinned by the value that is placed on each participant: children, parents, educators, and the community. It is this cultivation of relationships that evoked the creation of a system that values all, but such consideration of community is not currently evident in Irish ECEC. According to Biesta (2012), society has an educational responsibility; therefore, recognition of the fact that

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society should have an interest in ECEC is crucial. However, the role of education is not simply to make students ft into existing ways of thinking, doing, and being within societies and communities, and so consideration of the other lenses ensures that public ECEC retains a democratic understanding of what early childhood education is for.

Discussion: The new publicness of education Biesta (2012, p. 691) notes that “community education is a fragile and unpredictable art, particularly when compared with school education which always operates in and through strong institutional infrastructures.” It could certainly be argued that this applies equally to ECEC in Ireland, and the current developments aim to cultivate such infrastructures for Irish ECEC with regard to everything from education and training structures for early childhood educators to career progression pathways and leadership. However, it is crucial that we think now about what we are training the educators for and what are we asking them to lead towards. It may be that if we now focus solely on publicly funding the system, the very best we can hope for is early childhood education ‘of’ or ‘for’ the public. While it is tempting to create a model of ‘publicness’ based on simple expenditure (municipal versus privately owned), there are more complex issues at stake regarding the value placed on and the visibility of children, early childhood educators and parents, and the conceptualisation of ECEC as a ‘public good’ for the community, an education ‘in the interests of the public.’ In this chapter we have suggested moving beyond simply ‘consulting’ with children, parents, educators, and communities to rather ‘consider’ them deeply. However, these ‘considerations’ are not discrete and must be understood in dynamic synergy. There are of course often tensions between the four perspectives, and the needs and wishes of, for example, individual parents may not always align with the needs and wishes of, for example, the community as a whole. However, the negotiation of these tensions is part of a democratic society and is necessary for ECEC in the interests of the public as the frst stage of a new publicness of education as a whole.

References Balfour, B. J. V. (2018). ‘Wounded memory’, post-war gender confict and narrative identity: Reinterpreting Reggio Emilia Schools’ origin stories. History of Education (Tavistock) 47(6), 727–740. Biesta, G. (2011). The ignorant citizen: Mouffe, Rancière, and the subject of democratic education. Studies in Philosophy and Education 30(2), 141–153. Biesta, G. (2012). Becoming public: Public pedagogy, citizenship and the public sphere. Social & Cultural Geography 13(7), 683–697. Biesta, G. (2013). Making pedagogy public. In J. Burdick, J. A. Sandlin & M. P. O’Malley (Eds.), Problematizing public pedagogy (pp. 15–25). London: Routledge.

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Biesta, G., Heugh, K., Cernikova, H., Rasiński, L., Osborne, S., Forde, D, Wrench, A., Carter, J., Anders Säfström, C., Soong, H., O’Keeffe, S., Paige, K., Rigney, L.-J., O’Toole, L., Hattam, R., Peters, M. A. & Tesar, M. (2022). Philosophy of education in a new key: Publicness, social justice, and education; a South-North conversation. Educational Philosophy and Theory 54(8), 1216–1233. Caris, A. & Cowell, G. (2016). The artist can’t escape: The artist as (reluctant) public pedagogue. Policy Futures in Education 14(4), 466–483. CECDE (2006). Síolta, the quality framework for early childhood education. Dublin: CECDE. Clark, M. M. & Waller, T. (2007). Early childhood education and care: Policy and practice. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. DCEDIY (2021a). Partnership for the public good: A new funding model for early learning and care and school age childcare. Dublin: DCEDIY. DCEDIY (2021b). Workforce development plan phase 1 progress report. Dublin: DCEDIY. Edwards, C., Gandini, L. & Forman, G. (Eds.) (1998). The hundred languages of children: The Reggio Emilia experience in transformation (3rd ed.). Santa Barabara and Prager. Einarsdottir, J., Purola, A. M., Johansson, E. M., Broström, S. & Emilson, A. (2015). Democracy, caring and competence: Values perspectives in ECEC curricula in the Nordic countries. International Journal of Early Years Education 23(1), 97–114. Fallon, J. (2005). Targeting disadvantage among young children in the republic of Ireland: An overview. Child Care in Practice 11(3), 289–311. Farquhar, S. & White, E. J. (2014). Philosophy and pedagogy of early childhood. Educational Philosophy and Theory 46(8), 821–832. Ferraris, M. & Torrengo, G. (2014). Documentality: A theory of social reality. Rivista di Estetica 57(3), 11–27. Forde, D. (2022). Public education for children with special educational needs: Segregation to internal exclusion? In G. Biesta et al., Philosophy of education in a new key: Publicness, social justice, and education; a South-North conversation. Educational Philosophy and Theory 54(8), 1216–1233. Government of Ireland (2019). First fve: A whole of government strategy for babies, young children and their families, 2019–2028. Dublin: Government of Ireland. Hayes, N. (2010). Childcare? Early childhood education and care? Towards an integrated early years policy for young children in Ireland. Early Years 30(1), 67–78. Hayes, N. (2013). Early years practice: Getting it right from the start. Dublin: Gill & Macmillan. Hayes, N. (2016). Early childhood education and care: A neglected policy arena? In M. P. Murphy & F. Dukelow (Eds.), The Irish welfare state in the twenty-frst century (pp. 193–214). London: Palgrave Macmillan. Hayes, N. & Filipović, K. (2018). Nurturing ‘buds of development’: From outcomes to opportunities in early childhood practice. International Journal of Early Years Education 26(3), 220–232. Marquand, D. (2004). Decline of the public: The hollowing out of citizenship. Cambridge: Polity Press. Moss, P. (2017). Power and resistance in early childhood education: From dominant discourse to democratic experimentalism. Journal of Pedagogy 8(1), 11. NCCA (2009). Aistear, the early childhood curriculum framework. Dublin: NCCA.

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Ó Breacháin, A. & O’Toole, L. (2013). Pedagogy or politics? Cyclical trends in literacy and numeracy in Ireland and beyond. Irish Educational Studies 32(4), 401–419. O’Donnell, R. (2001). The role of social partnership. An Irish Quarterly Review 90(357), 47–57. OECD (2020). Net childcare costs in EU countries. Impact on family incomes and work incentives, 2019. Paris: OECD. Ojala, M., Ladru, D. E. & Gustafson, K. (2021). Parental reasoning on choosing the mobile preschool: Enabling sustainable development or adjusting to a neoliberal society? Early Childhood Education Journal 49(3), 539–551. Osborne, S. (2022). The in-between spaces; public education in local-remote aboriginal schools in Australia. In G. Biesta et al., Philosophy of education in a new key: Publicness, social justice, and education; a South-North conversation. Educational Philosophy and Theory 54(8), 1216–1233. O’Toole, L. (2020). Participant Action Research (PAR) for early childhood and primary education: The example of the THRIECE project. Problemy Wczesnej Edukacji 49(2), 31–44. O’Toole, L., Kerrins, L., Walsh, G., Doherty, A., Forde, D., Kelleher, F., Matson, S., McCartney, S., Stafford, P., Stokes, T. and Mooney, E. (2023). A consultation with babies, toddlers and young children to inform the updating of Aistear, the Early Childhood Curriculum Framework (NCCA, 2009). Dublin: NCCA. O’Toole, L., McClelland, D., Forde, D., O’Keeffe, S., Purdy, N., Säfström, C. A. & Walsh, T. (2021). Contested childhoods across borders and boundaries: Insights from curriculum provisions in Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State in the 1920s. British Educational Research Journal 47(4), 1021–1038. O’Toole, L., Regan, C. & Nowak-Lojewska, A. (2019). ‘To learn with’ as an alternative voice for children’s education. Introduction to a European project: Teaching for holistic, relational and inclusive early childhood education (THRIECE). Kwartalnik Pedagogiczny/Issues in Early Education 251(1), 175–182. Russell, H., McGinnity, F. & O’Connell, P. J. (2017). Gender equality in the Irish Labour Market 1966–2016: Unfnished business? The Economic and Social Review 48(4, Winter), 393–418. Säfström, C. A. (2021). The ethical-political potentiality of the educational present: Aristocratic principle versus democratic principle. Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca 33(1), 11–33. Sahlberg, P. & Doyle, W. (2020). Let the children play: For the learning, well-being, and life success of every child. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Smidt, S. (2012). Introducing Malaguzzi: Exploring the life and work of Reggio Emilia’s founding father. London: Routledge. Walsh, T. (2016). Recent policy developments in early childhood education (ECE): A jigsaw with too many pieces? An Leanbh Óg 10, 69–94. Woods, A., Mannion, A. & Garrity, S. (2021). Implementing Aistear – The early childhood curriculum framework across varied settings: Experiences of early years educators and infant primary school teachers in the Irish context. Childcare in Practice: Northern Ireland Journal of Multi-disciplinary Childcare Practice, 1–20. Zosh, J. N., Hopkins, E. J., Jensen, H., Liu, C., Neale, D., Hirsh-Pasek, K., et al. (2017). Learning through play: A review of the evidence. Billund, Denmark: LEGO Fonden.

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Claiming a new public education for children with special educational needs Deirdre Forde

Introduction This chapter will explore the publicness of Ireland’s education system for children with special educational needs (SEN), who historically have always occupied a position on the margins of society. Drawing on Biesta’s philosophy of public education “as education for the public, that is, accessible by everyone and available to anyone, funded by the public, that is, by public means, and accountable to the public through democratic structures, principles, and practices” (Biesta 2023 this volume) this chapter demonstrates the positioning of children with SEN as “outside” of the public schooling system. In reviewing the transformation of mainstream schools into inclusive educational settings, it will become evident that this transformation requires the recognition of difference and mainstream schools are under pressure with the necessity to fnd ways of working with children with SEN. Challenges that pervade the implementation of educational inclusion in Irish mainstream schools show that the practice of inclusion frequently results in integrative approaches. European policies concerning educational inclusion mandate EU member states to guarantee the right of access to mainstream education for all children despite the variety of their needs. The ideals of inclusion embodied as they are in UN and EU policy, which are not yet fully refected in national policy, could potentially lead to the most profound change towards a full-inclusion model of education. Ireland is at the cusp of embracing a full-inclusion model of education so that children with SEN can become valued members of an equitable public education system in their local communities. With inclusive education now at a juncture, special education is in jeopardy of being disassembled. This chapter explores the possibilities for future public education for children with SEN and addresses some key areas such as the neurodiverse model of disability to mobilise discourses around disability and more democratic processes in involving key stakeholders in special education policy. It will contend that the publicness of education for children with SEN in the immediate future is dependent on the re-conceptualisation of inclusive education as the process of bolstering both specialist provision and mainstream provision within the entire system as opposed to narrowly focusing on inclusion as a process of including children with SEN into mainstream education.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003289067-7

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The history of special education in Ireland: public education for some Public education is envisaged as education for all (Lynch, 2022). Nonetheless, Ireland’s education system has a long and complex exclusionary history in relation to children with disabilities. Understandings of the publicness in education were linked to wider societal and contextual factors. The public at this time was a national political entity which was infused by hierarchical social inequalities in society. Roman Catholic hierarchy exercised considerable infuence over decisions taken by government in relation to education, health, sexual, and moral issues (Cooney 1999, p. 21 cited in Deegan et al. 2004) (see Walsh, this volume). Societal attitudes towards disabled people, were infuenced by the church. Disablism was rife, subjecting disabled children to discriminatory, oppressive and prejudiced practices. The beginnings of ableism in Irish society presented in many different ways such as policies, societal values, people’s beliefs, attitudes, and behaviour, resulting in disability being a grave source of stigma. Most people have the privilege of benefting from ableist systems that have evolved, often unconsciously, of and for the majority of the public (Goodley 2014). During the nineteenth century, discourse was infltrated by concerns that the asylum population in Ireland had increased from 3,436 in 1851 to 12,251 in 1898, an incidence of 1 in 657 to 1 in 222 respectively (48th Report of the Inspectors of Lunatics 1898, 1–4. p. 54, cited in McDonell 2007). Commentators expressed anxiety about the relatively large numbers of “defectives” in Ireland and complained about the tax burden involved in “the care and support of degenerates” (McDonnell 2007). With the growth of urbanisation, industrialisation and wealth, came the rhetoric of progress, effciency and benevolence (McDonnell 2007). People with disabilities were viewed as an economic liability. Consequently, sterilisation and segregation were two kinds of interventions proposed. Sterilisation was thought to be effective and effcient. Segregation was thought to be costly and would have to extend over several decades. They had two major objectives: to promote higher birth rates among ‘the better stocks’ and prevent reproduction among ‘the unft’ (McDonnell 2007). While, sterilisation was legalised in most US states, in Germany, and in all the countries of northern Europe, Britain and Ireland, due to religious infuences, had huge resistance to eugenics and, therefore, rejected this ideology in favour of the main policy which became known as segregation. Disability was regarded (by the public) as an inconvenience to be rectifed and a problem requiring elimination. This socially sanctioned segregation reinforced negative societal attitudes towards human difference (Griffn & Shevlin 2007). This led to acceptance in relation to the categorisation of disabled people in Ireland and their placement within impairment-specifc residential schools to access specialised care from nuns and priests. Disability was characterised by shame and disablist attitudes positioned the disabled person outside of the public that mattered, separating many disabled children from their families, community, and society at large. They were not treated as worthy agentic members of the ‘public’ but, on the contrary, as outcasts needing intervention.

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Upon the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1922, the Church asserted its role increasingly following independence. The focus of education turned to nationaliation, and schools were arenas for power struggles over nationality, religion, and language, a struggle in which the child was often the unwitting subject (Walsh 2018, p. 27). The very fact that the schools were serving this purpose meant that children were a means to achieving the adult ideals of a catholic, gaelicised Ireland, serving the ultimate goals of achieving nationalism. With the focus of education centred on the creation of a Gaelic catholic state and a revival of the Irish language and culture, children with SEN were not the concern of the Department of Education (DES). There were as few as eight special schools in the 1920s, all of which were voluntary, private, and depended on donations to exist ((Shevlin in Walsh, 2016, p.181-202). Children with SEN depended on a charity-response model of education as they were not publicly funded by the state. Many of these schools were founded by individuals, supported by religious orders, and set up for specifc needs such as visual impairment or hearing impairment. Education during the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s for children with special educational needs has been described as an era of denial and neglect. Education for children with disabilities was not carried out with their peers as it was seen as “detrimental to the education of others” (Department of Education 1936). Consequently, segregation was being used as a means of intervention to protect the majority and contain the threat from those who were ‘other than’ or different to ‘mainstream’ society. This narrative of disability was rooted in the defcit-based medical model of disability where within child factors were seen as the central reason for a child not being able to participate in a public school. This approach also led to a dichotomous structure between normal and abnormal with abnormality regarded as a pitiful tragic state. With no egalitarian philosophy underpinning a public education system for children with disabilities, a charity-response model of education ensued as they were considered unworthy of being educated in the mainstream school, which only concerned itself with the more abled child in ‘perfecting’ the nation through educating its future citizens (O’Toole et al. 2021). The segregation of children with SEN was largely the outcome of the power exerted by religious infuences. However, the exclusion of children with SEN served to heighten the state’s concern for the treatment of children with disabilities in the 1960s when a Department of Health Commission was established to examine ‘the problem of the mentally handicapped’ (Griffn & Shevlin 2011). The Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Mental Handicap was issued in 1965, and while it viewed children as incapable of mainstream education, it was the frst step towards infuencing educational policy, albeit, special education policy. It advocated special school provision for children with SEN, and it also recommended that the capacity of residential specials schools, day special schools, and special schools attached to mainstream schools be increased. Endorsing segregated provision and its expansion, it is clear that this report had very little awareness of international initiatives in the process of de-institutionalisation. Within Ireland, public policy in relation to people with disabilities remained

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relatively unchanged until the 1980s. Until then the Department of Health was principally responsible for matters pertaining to their treatment, care, education, and employment (Griffn & Shevlin 2007). Children with disabilities were to be cared for rather than educated and, thus, were beyond the realm of ordinary public education. Special education operated in virtual mutual isolation.

The inclusion movement in Ireland Education for the common good lies at the intersection of education and politics (Biesta 2013) where negotiated realities are central. Arising from institutionalisation and segregation, it emerged that policies at government level were not representative of the public and education (or lack of) for children with SEN became a very contested issue. A major driver towards educational inclusion has been the concern that children who were placed in special provisions were at a disadvantage to their mainstream peers due to lack of contact with non-SEN pupils and restricted access to the mainstream curriculum, educational practices (Lindsay 2007) and their communities. Parental litigation, arising from fears that their children were being neglected at the hands of an indifferent government began to make their voices heard through the courts. In a landmark case in 1993, the state argued that children with a moderate general learning diffculty, like Paul O’Donoghue with SEN were “ineducable” and therefore, did not have a right to access education (Shevlin 2016 p.193). The High Court determined in this case that the task of education was to enable the individual “to make the best possible use of his (or her) inherent and potential capacities, physical, mental and moral – however limited those capacities might be” and that “no child was ineducable” (Shevlin 2016 p.193). Parental litigation cases served to erode the powerful decision-making process of the government and expand the public education system, in terms of progressing education in the interests of those on the margins. Ireland, a “latecomer to inclusion in terms of its legislative commitment” (Banks & McCoy 2017) was left with no choice but to fulfl its legal responsibilities after litigation cases exerted pressure on the education system to include children with disabilities in mainstream education. Parental litigation, coupled with the Special Education Review Committee (Government of Ireland 1993) were pivotal in infuencing the Department of Education to increasingly promote policy advocating mainstream provision for children with SEN. Since the 1990s, the inclusion movement subsequently saw the evolution of national policies and programmes aimed at guiding implementation of ‘access’ to education. The Education Act (1998) gave statutory defnition for SEN and conferred more rights on parents to become involved in their children’s education and to choose a school for their child; it was soon followed by the Equal Status Act (2000), which prohibited discrimination on the basis of disability, and the Education (Welfare) Act (2000), which expressed the rights of persons with disabilities within the education system. Nonetheless, this gradual move towards inclusion of children with SEN into mainstream education became a conficted process.

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One of the most pivotal policies of its time in Ireland was that of the Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs (EPSEN) Act (2004) which conferred rights upon children with SEN to access education. When the EPSEN Act was passed in 2004, as a central tenet of the National Disability Strategy, it was seen as groundbreaking in legislating for inclusive education and providing for children to access inclusive educational supports. The EPSEN Act promised not only educational equality but also a legal obligation to deliver that education in mainstream settings where possible. It advocated that exclusion from the mainstream should be the exception rather than the norm in meeting the needs of children with SEN. Nonetheless, fundamental education rights for disabled children, legislated for in the EPSEN Act 2004, have laid dormant for 17 years. In 2007, during an economic crash, the Minister for Education announced the deferral of EPSEN. Thus, despite the state fulflling their legal obligations up to this point, the right to an education assessment of needs, the development of student support plan (formerly Individual Education Plan) based on assessment, the delivery of the education supports detailed in the plan, and an independent appeal process, all legislated for in 2004, have still not been initiated. This means a child with a disability does not have a legal right in Ireland to an assessment of their education needs and have these identifed needs addressed through an inclusive education plan. Parents have no legal right to have an input into the plan. Thus, if education does not give statutory rights for supported inclusive education practices for children with SEN, their access to education is dependent on the goodwill of teachers, many of whom already work in a pressurised and overloaded system and have no qualifcation in specialist provision. Because the act has not been fully implemented, the possibility for children with disabilities to access education and educational supports is, in some cases, diminished, and they are at the whim of policy-makers, changes in government, funding priorities, and other factors. Therefore, while it was recognised that children with disabilities have a right to access educational provision on an equitable basis to the majority of children in the system, the political will has not been strong enough to progress all provisions within policy. Thus, their inclusion into the mainstream is fraught as the system is based on the neuromajority and was never re-designed for the neurominority. This failure to commence these core provisions – regarding resources, appeal processes, and individual education plans – has resulted in an inability to “guarantee an effective and inclusive education accessible, available and adaptable to every child” (Arduin 2013, p. 106). The failure of Ireland to enact key legal provision draws into question the publicness of education for children with disabilities. Biesta has questioned the importance of who should have a say in matters related to education. He underlined the importance, in education policy, for a full, free, and open normative debate among all those with a stake in education (Biesta 2007, p. 18). In 2018, the Education (Admission to Schools) Act was implemented to create statutory footing for access to schools, including being able to instruct schools to open special classes with the aim of accommodating applicants with requirements for an adapted educational experience due to

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Autism. This was enacted against the wishes of teachers and principals who “felt they had not the requisite skills to teach students with Autism” (National Council for Special Education (NCSE) 2015). This lack of competence was also refected in a national report by (Hick et al. 2018) which found that teachers in Ireland felt ill prepared to teach children with SEN and did not know the “how” of inclusion. The legislative background is important in terms of situating discussions around the publicness of education and the move by the Department of Education to take a top down authoritarian approach to policy. It brings into sharp focus issues of democracy and the ethical structures underpinning the approaches to policy decision making processes. Autism classes in mainstream schools have been established at a growing rate in the education system. Over 85% of special classes in Ireland are now designated for students with Autism Spectrum Condition (Shevlin & Bank 2021). Many children in specialist provision in mainstream schools do not get the chance to be included with mainstream classes and remain as a special class for most if not all of the school day (National Council for Special Education 2015), remaining as a separate group across school years (Kenny et al. 2020). Kenny et al. (2020) also report that a signifcant number of schools are operating unoffcial special classes, which are not offcially sanctioned and are typically set up by school management through the pooling of special education teaching hours or other resources. Thomas (2013) emphasised that the enactment of inclusion through special classes in mainstream schools serves to protect the professional identity of mainstream teachers’ roles of delivering curricular objectives to mainstream children, while special education takes place within segregated classes. As a result of the enactment of this policy, children with SEN are often being taught by teachers who have not been trained to teach children with autism (Finlay et al. 2022). Ensuring educators are consulted, before policy for children with SEN is enacted, is paramount in guaranteeing a public education that works for them, in terms of highlighting the training or resourcing requirements that are required before such policy is rolled out. Thus, to achieve publicness of education for children with SEN, there must be a willingness to listen to all stakeholders with regards to the living realities, barriers, and challenges that exist for children with SEN. School inclusion refers to the social justice principle that all students, including students with disabilities, belong to the school community and are entitled to share in all the social and academic opportunities a school has to offer (Fleisher & Zames 2001). As outlined previously many children attending special classes in mainstream remain in the class everyday all day for all of their school years. Therefore, these classes are problematic as they are creating a divide been abled and disabled children. Divisions will be perpetuated, and perceptions of difference confrmed, where school cultures maintain stereotypical knowledge of disabled people and their impairments, where there are limited cooperative learning arrangements, and where there is insuffcient support to facilitate social interaction and group participation (Avramidis 2013). Teachers purport that their autistic students who are attending these specifc classes are unhappy and socially excluded (McGillicuddy & O’Donnell 2014). Children

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with autism are far more likely to be bullied (Hebron et al. 2015), more likely to feel isolated in school (Locke et al. 2010), experience high levels of rejection (Symes & Humphrey 2010) and experience poor mental health outcomes (Hebron & Humphrey 2014). Furthermore, research on the social participation of students with autism highlighted that children’s well-being and mental health were affected by having little or no friends and ‘bad’ teachers who were unsupportive, offered little interaction, did not seem to care, were not fexible, and lacked understanding (Horgan et al. 2022). Thus, the transformation of schools into inclusive educational settings is being diminished in the mainstream system by top-down policy, a lack of skilled teachers, and school cultures. The attempts to achieve inclusive schools have merely resulted in integrative schools that rely on a diagnosis to segregate students. Children in mainstream classrooms are the ‘norm’ while children who remain in special classes for the most part of the school day are ‘other.’ This positioning of the child outside of the public of the school community stands in direct contrast to ‘a sense of belonging,’ which is central to inclusion (Prince & Hadwin 2013). If children with SEN are to remain as a completely separate group across school years, the positioning of children with SEN is maintained as ‘other’ and such approaches are only serving to entrench ongoing segregation of children with SEN. Consequently, while those who occupied the margins of the education system have been integrated into the mainstream, there have been many examples of maintaining practices that exclude them, resulting in internal exclusion (Young 2000), as against the aforementioned external exclusion they suffered in earlier times. Public education, in Ireland, is “dominated by the values of self-interest, individualism, competition and comparisons; in general, there is a will to be before the other rather than to be for the other” (Säfström & Månsson 2021, p. 8). With education in Ireland coming to be more closely linked to economic growth and global competitiveness, there is an increasing emphasis on standardisation and outcomes-based education, test-based accountability as well as corporate forms of school management (Skerritt 2019). Research which sought to capture the voice of children with autism reported that the demands of meeting the academic targets of the mainstream curriculum were a source of stress and anxiety for many students leading to feelings of exhaustion and isolation (Horgan et al. 2022). Thus, the tensions produced by the clash of conficting philosophies that underpin inclusion and competitive marketplace reform means that while education is meant to be for the common good, education is increasingly becoming a commodity, a private good in a competitive marketplace. Neoliberal policy discourses shift the focus of teachers’ care away from the student with SEN, and performative pressures on teachers and students are contributing to rather than ameliorating ‘segregation’ of pupils (Wilkins 2015) and stratifcation of schools (Cahill 2021) in Irish society. This is refected in the fact that there is an over-representation of students with special education needs and students from lower socio-economic backgrounds, attending Education and Training Board schools in comparison to other schools within some communities in Ireland, and subsequently, the students attending these schools

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risk becoming ‘ghettoised’ (McCormack et al. 2020). As a consequence of neoliberalism and competition between schools in the education marketplace, a school can become positioned in terms of school choice processes whereby it becomes a school of diversity and special education provision, thus “lifting the burden from allegedly more academic middle-class schools,” and this was found to be particularly the case with schools that carry the disadvantaged label (Cahill 2021, p. 15). “Schools with higher numbers of children with special educational needs can be wrongly positioned as less academic and for less able students, which in itself means the school becomes more diverse than many other schools in the community” (Cahill 2021, p. 15) but helps maintain the status quo of the privileged, wealthy, and high achieving schools. This is far removed from the United Nations Educational, Scientifc and Cultural Organizations’ (UNESCO) defnition of inclusive education as “a dynamic approach of responding positively to pupil diversity and of seeing individual differences not as problems, but as opportunities for enriching learning” (UNESCO 2017, p. 13). Resistance to the conceptualisation of education as an individualistic private endeavour is necessary (Säfström 2021) so that schools are considered “for all” and value children with disabilities. Otherwise, public education is at risk of functioning as a system of social reproduction (Biesta 2012). Rather than trying to be before the other, society has a responsibility to be for each other and thus resist values of individualiszation, self-interest, competition and comparison, (which endorse disability as a problem), thus helping to disrupt patterns of stratifcation and help create a more equitable public mainstream system. Attempts to include children in the three decades after 1990 were based largely on the placement of children against a backdrop of ‘normalisation’ Including children into the mainstream became an exercise to ensure conformity to a predetermined norm of behaviour. An invisible centre or a homogenous norm is pre-supposed in inclusive education (O’Donnell 2015). This notion of a homogenous norm has been implicit in the narrative of inclusion whereby children with SEN were expected to assimilate into an education system that was established for children who did not have SEN, and which was never substantively re-imagined. Special needs assistants were employed without any qualifcations, and their role has never been professionalised. Class teachers were not trained in specialist provision nor was statutory continuous professional development considered for teachers struggling to meet the needs of diverse learners in the classroom. Disability awareness campaigns were minimal in schools, and there currently exists minor representations of disability within the curriculum. Furthermore, neoliberalism has compounded their exclusion, within a pressurised system, as it has morally endorsed forms of competitive self-interest and removed the language of care from education (Lynch 2022). An unintended outcome of including children with SEN into mainstream schools that were never re-imagined has served to maintain their exclusion via “internal exclusion.” Thus, to ‘be included’ in Ireland means to be homogenised into a status quo reproducing old injustices in new ways. A future public mainstream education will ensure that those who are vulnerable in the system are not excluded from

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or within the system. Such future public education will require a concerted effort to expand the public by extending what “is generally available to mainstream schools to a wider range of learners” (Florian 2019) in a more equitable system based on love, care, and solidarity (Lynch 2022).

Special education at a juncture A full-inclusion model of provision was incited (NCSE 2019) after Ireland was the last country in Europe to ratify the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD 2016), 11 years after it emerged. The UNCRPD is the frst legally binding international agreement that provides a comprehensive portfolio of disability rights, and it expresses the right to inclusive education from early childhood up to further and higher education. Article 24 confers a series of obligations such as ensuring equal access to education and providing accessible educational tools and individualised support that address the specifc needs of each student. It requires educational institutions to adapt to the needs of children with disabilities and accommodate their different learning requirements. Ireland, as demonstrated previously, is still grappling with the challenges of fnding ways to include children with SEN into the mainstream. While a move to full inclusion has the potential for broadening and expanding mainstream education to ‘include’ more children with SEN, the right of children with SEN to access quality education is currently a right that is being diminished. This is in direct contrast to UNESCO’s most recent conceptualisation of inclusion as a “process of strengthening the capacity of the education system to reach out to all learners” (UNESCO 2017, p. 7). Ireland’s full-inclusion policy roll-out is premature in light of its continuing failure to implement key legal provisions and without frst demonstrating the effects of inclusion for children with SEN in the mainstream school (Horgan et al. 2022). Part of the impetus to introduce a full-inclusion model (NCSE 2019) was borne out of a response to fear of litigation, as Ireland is potentially in breach of the UN convention by segregating up to 16,000 children with SEN (Murphy et al. 2022). The ideological perspective of inclusive education proposed in international policy threatens the existence of special schools (Hornby 2015, Kauffman & Hornby 2020). The movement towards inclusive education has been perceived as a threat to traditional systems of special education. Intensifed by negative discourses surrounding inclusive education, this threat has generated a strong special school lobby which campaigns for the preservation of specialist provision in special schools. Parents and caregivers are resistant to give up special schools and special classes, especially when some of them were fought for (Shevlin & Banks 2021). Ireland’s National Autism Charity continues to advise “special classes or special school, depending on the person’s needs, might be more suitable for providing the necessary level of support required” (ASIAM 2020). Calls for the elimination of special education have prompted intense debate about how best to educate children with SEN. Inclusive education is regarded as appropriate for many children with disabilities, but not all of them, refecting the belief that education in the mainstream

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school is not limitless (Kauffman & Hornby 2020). This was echoed in a study on parental perspectives to inclusion (Murphy et al. 2022), which found that a fully inclusive educational model is not always perceived as appropriate or realistic, and several parents expressed the view that some children with disabilities will not beneft from being educated in a mainstream classroom setting, regardless of the support systems in place. Moreover, certain participants articulated that parental choice should take precedence over the goal of inclusion. Thus, the policy move towards full inclusion has been met with a resurgence of interest in the value and role of special education and special schools (particularly when based in the child’s local community) and the need for fexibility within the system to cater for difference. Merrigan and Senior (2022) have recently suggested that it is a basic human right for children to have equal opportunity and access to learning and education, regardless of the educational setting where this occurs and that special schools are imperative as an inclusive option along a continuum of placement provision. There is the acknowledgement that there are extraordinary circumstances which make inclusion in the mainstream diffcult, consequently, maintaining debates on how best to advance the education of children with SEN who are availing of specialist provision in special schools and in mainstream schools. Thus, Ireland is now at a juncture in terms of choosing between full inclusion or maintaining special schools as a viable option of schooling for children with SEN. Given this current context within the Irish educational system, it is likely that Ireland will continue to operate a dual track system of provision for the moment. Doubt is cast over whether general education can be reformed or transformed into a social project that makes special education irrelevant or unnecessary (Hornby & Kaufman 2021). This conjures a fear that the full-inclusion model could subsume the needs of those who are different to such an extent that they are not recognised within the system anymore. However, the reality is that most education systems, like Ireland, promote the idea of educational inclusion while retaining a traditional special education which still relies on some form of identifcation and assessment to illuminate the specialist provision required (Florian 2019). Presently, due to Ireland’s parallel system of provision, there is both a need to allow for the ‘most inclusion’ as is possible in general education settings and a need to allow for specialist provision for children with unique needs. Whether this specialist provision occurs in a special school or in a special class in a mainstream setting remains to be seen. Most certainly, in the meantime, however, public education, rather than focus on the inclusion and the placement of children into mainstream, must treat the defnition of inclusive education as the process of bolstering both specialist provision within mainstream schools if they are to value children with SEN as being part of the public.

Discussion: The new publicness of education Despite Ireland’s moves towards a more inclusive public education for all, there are still many residuals of the medical model of disability which continue to act as a barrier to becoming a valued member of the public. The system still relies

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on assessment and identifcation of needs to an extent “to guide provision of specialist support and resource allocation” as without it, many children with SEN “would be denied an opportunity for meaningful participation in the activities that typify everyday life, because impairment by defnition, is something that limits functioning, unless it is mediated in some way” (Florian 2019, p. 701, emphasis in original). Biesta et al. (2021 p. 1) state, “Public education is not just a way to organise and fund education. It is also the expression of a particular ideal about education and of a particular way to conceive of the relationship between education and society.” An inclusive school refects a democratic philosophy whereby all students are valued, educators normalise difference, and a school culture refects an ethic of caring and community (Baglieri & Knopf 2004). In moving towards inclusive schools for children with SEN, the response to special education requires more than just knowledge, skills, and inclusive policy approaches. As Higgins et al. (2011, p. 380) state Public schools, whatever their future forms and substance, are unique spaces where educational possibility and relation afford us the opportunity to create such common worlds. Across difference we bring children together to share resources and aspirations in the name of our common fates and converging interests. We enact the tensions of public life, face its impossibilities, and create possible openings for public work and public learning now and in the future. If public education is also the expression of a particular way to conceive of the relationship between children with SEN and society, then education must address the defcit disability discourses which permeate the organisational practices of our public schools. What is needed is a willingness to examine attitudes and to challenge the status quo. Inclusion does not only mean “equal educational opportunities for all but also the strategies structures and operating procedures that guarantee” an inclusive education for children, (Hallinen & Jarvinen, 2008, p.77). Schein (2004) suggests that school cultures are about the deeper levels of basic assumptions and beliefs that are shared by members of an organisation, operating unconsciously to defne how they view themselves and their working contexts. In order to expand public education for children with SEN, society must disrupt biases, predjudices and preconceived ideas of disability which infuence school organisational practices. Founded by autistic self-advocators, the neurodiversity movement has the potential to contribute to the feld of special education in Ireland with the propensity to mobilise disability discourse from one of stigma to acceptance of difference. Children are empowered through neuroaffrmative approaches, which accept and celebrate differences in thinking, feeling, and communicating rather than making them ‘ft in’ or shape them into meeting ‘neuromajority’ norms. The neurodiverse model underlies a strengths-based approach as opposed to the defcitbased approaches of the medical model of disability. Honouring and accepting each individual’s neurological condition as a natural and necessary form of

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human diversity are central to the neurodiverse model (Rosqvist et al. 2020), thus shifting the focus away from defcit constructions that position children as having inherently pathological neurological conditions. Rooted in biodiversity and cultural diversity, the neurodiverse model recognises that different children need different support and that society and school has a role to play in how ‘disabling’ a child’s impairments are. Neurodiversity placed within a framework of a value neutral model of disability (Chapman 2020) considers the interaction between the well-being of the child with SEN and the external environment as a way of neutralising the need to categorise children to guide provision. The framework accepts that diffculties can sometimes be located in the person’s well-being which can be dependent on a person’s social contexts. Neurodiversity has the potential to re-imagine pathologised and dehumanised kinds in a more humane and compassionate way that is less hostile to such kinds. In this domain, education is an essential catalyst for achieving change, and representation of disability must be at the heart of transforming integrative approaches to more inclusive ones. There is no more powerful transformative force than education to build a better future for all (Baglieri & Knopf 2004). With the mobilisation of a neurodiverse model of disability, which is a radically different model of practice and antidote to the medical model of disability, comes the possibility of disrupting the public of the current system to expand it, creating social change for children with SEN, so that they can occupy it as valued members. Children with SEN have always occupied a position on the margins of public education, be it through exclusion or internal exclusion practices borne out of incongruence between international rights-based policy and national policy and practice, adherence to market forces which perpetuate stratifcation, defcit based views of disability, lack of resources and the lack of democratic processes within the system to capture the voice of educators, families and children with SEN so that they can impact policy decisions affecting their daily lives. Ireland’s mainstream schools have not been re-imagined enough in order to recognise the needs of the neurominority and, thus, still privilege the neuromajority. Until such time that the mainstream system of education has demonstrated its effectiveness to value and include children with SEN, any move towards a full-inclusion model is premature. While moves to an ideological model of full-inclusion has the potential for the most profound change for children with SEN, at the moment, there is fear that it could pose a risk of subsuming the needs of children with disabilities. Currently, however, Ireland is making very positive steps towards a new public education with the piloting of a school inclusion model, a review of initial teacher training programmes and curricular reform. If Ireland is going address disabilist attitudes, then it must do so by mobilising neurodiversity discourse to decentre the ‘neuromajority public,’ to create real social change so that the publics that matter in education are not just the neuromajority but the neurominority too. In re-imagining pathologised and dehumanised kinds in a more humane and compassionate way, education can fnd ways of recognising that different children need different support

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without risk of a stigma. Thus, public inclusive mainstream education will no longer be seen as a hosting frame for those who are different. Rather, public eduucation will be expanded and transformed in such a way that children with SEN will form a natural part of the public. Most certainly, in the meantime however, as Ireland operates a dual track system, public education must treat the defnition of inclusive education as the process of bolstering both specialist provision and mainstream provision if they are to value children with SEN as being part of the public.

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New modes of marginalisation Teachers’ ways of knowing themselves Suzanne O’Keeffe

Introduction High-performing education systems regularly attest teachers to be the most powerful determinants of pupil achievement and place signifcant emphasis upon effective teaching and teachers (OECD 2018; TALIS 2018). Upon closer investigation, however, it appears that something more complex and contradictory is at play between teachers and the education system and between the education system and its intentions. This is refected in the fact that the education system faces signifcant challenges in relation to teacher shortages and the unequal distribution of teachers across Europe (Darling-Hammond 2017; Eurydice 2018; Flores & Niklasson 2014; O’Doherty & Harford 2018; OECD 2018) along with regular media backlash of teachers (Apple 2018; Haywood & Mac an Ghaill 2013). With so much attention being paid to the drive for ‘excellence’ in education, a worthy frst step in addressing observations of un-ease is to establish the realities of teachers’ professional lives. From there, alternative approaches and understandings of ‘excellence’ in education will be suggested in this chapter. These include nurturing teacher leadership, re-imagining the ‘value’ teachers can add to measurement and forging future collective resistance. This chapter seeks to begin the conversation by uncovering the relationships that exists within schools, such as those between teachers and publicness, between teachers and performativity, and between teachers and gender, and by suggesting what each can reveal singularly and collectively. This means understanding education through relations, and appreciating it as a social act of action and reaction, rather than a static interpretation of education as something fxed that can be measured and controlled. This chapter is guided by the time-honoured bodies of scholarship on the infuences of neoliberalism on teaching (Apple 1996, 2006; Ball 2007, 2017; Ozga 2019, 2020), on gender in teaching (Connell & Pearse 2015; Haywood & Mac an Ghaill 2013), and on the relationship that exists between the two (Apple 2018; Lolich et al. 2018). A sense of urgency is placed on the need to investigate the lived experiences of teachers’ daily experiences, to value teachers’ embodied knowledge and the unique positions that teachers hold within the education system. Considering a broader role for teacher leadership opens the

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possibilities for the new publicness of education to be a more critical, democratic, and inclusive space.

Conceptual clarifcations: Publicness, performativity, and gender In order to arrive at an understanding of the ‘new publicness of education,’ this chapter considers the school as a workplace and not just as a place of output. Taking into consideration the interactive relational worlds of work, Apple (2018) states, can lead us to think about outcomes that are currently preventable due to the resilience of dominant systems – systems that can resist innovations and feedback through self-repair. Placing the spotlight on relational patterns also enables one to track and trace emerging themes that can guide future action. This section details three key concepts and how they interact with the lived realities of teachers that underpin the direction that the new publicness of education might take.

The publicness of education: How does it impact upon teachers? There is good reason to begin this section by questioning the concept of ‘learning’ and education – a change of register that synonymises education to learning. Ushered in under the infuence of the ‘knowledge economy’ and the economic developments of the 1980s and 1990s, it prompted new thinking in education and what some termed, such as Biesta, the ‘learnifcation’ of educational discourse and practice (see Biesta 2010, 2017). The nineties and noughties were driven by the concept of life-long learning, evident in the titles of policy documents such as A Strategy for Lifelong Learning (DES 1996), the European Union’s declaration of A Year of Lifelong Learning (European Commission 1996), and Learning for Life: White Paper on Adult Education (DES 2000). It was a period of unprecedented analysis, appraisal, and consultation on education policy and practice, frmly placing ‘learning’ on the education agenda. Popular societal opinion considered that the provision and quality of education at all levels should play a central role in policy and public discourse (for more, see Coolahan 2017). The changing usage of language within education policy documents, which appears seemingly inoffensive, signalled a vast shift in thinking about what education should do, who it should be for, and how it should be conducted. The ramifcations of this for teachers have been a change in perception of what teaching is, and what the teacher’s role really is, captured by Biesta (2013) when stated that a ‘certain embarrassment’ exists among teachers “about the very idea of teaching and about their identity as teachers” (p. 46). This is in stark contrast to what Irish education historian John Coolahan (1981) wrote three decades previously when describing teachers to be held “in high regard by their local communities,” considered to be “heirs to a distinguished tradition,” and utterly committed and dedicated to the profession of teaching by stating that teachers tended “to make teaching their sole career for life”

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(pp. 230–231). The difference in the two descriptions, three decades apart, is that over the past 30 years beliefs once held about teachers and the teaching profession are being replaced by an attitude that is driven by competition, effciency, excellence, external demands, and performance. This culminates in an environment that effectively corrodes any sense of mutual care, community, or solidarity among teachers. It does this by eroding teacher motivation and the ability to act, to respond, and to oppose transforming the identities of all those within the school. It separates teachers from an authentic educational environment that is underpinned by connections, relationships, and ease.

Neoliberalism: What does it mean for teachers? Following on from the previous section, a commonly held belief is that when schools act in a more effcient manner, teachers perform more effciently, which in turn produces a more competitive workforce. The neoliberal drive towards value for money via measurement and management orientates understandings of education towards terms such as ‘excellence,’ ‘effectiveness,’ ‘leadership,’ and ‘quality’ instead of the more authentic understandings of education that include social justice, inclusivity, and democracy. Education policy develops into a site of competition, competitiveness, and comparison between and across borders. Hegemonic rhetoric used most explicitly in policy documents such as ‘we,’ ‘all,’ and ‘us’ promotes a progressive sounding ideal of ‘sameness,’ ‘oneness,’ and ‘us’ that negatively impacts on teachers’ ability to act, on their ways of being and on their professional relationships. This is refected by Ball (2017) who reminds us that language brings ‘practices’ into play, such as discipline, management, and inspection. Language is both the carrier and the creator of a culture’s code as it organises collective thought and experience and creates conditions for policy approval and performance. According to American methodologist Patti Lather (1991), language, written and verbal, infuences ‘our conceptual boundaries’ and creates ‘areas of silence’ as language organises meaning in terms of pre-established categories (p. 111). Furthermore, Jackson and Mazzei (2012) note that language as a social practice both disrupts and/or sustains relations. It does not refect the intention of the individual; it refects instead the interests of those who control societal language. Language produces possibilities and plays an important role in creating reality and supporting credibility. This overhaul in language within policy documents illustrates “the neoliberal and neoconservative reconstructions of our institutions, of our common sense, of the meanings associated with democracy, and of our very identities” (Apple 2013, p. 128). Global networks and visions for education transform the conduct of schools and the identities of those within the school (Ozga 2017). This is evident in evolving relationships and identities in schools such as client – consumer; manager – managed, and client need – professional judgement. Power is now located on a global scale; national bodies need to be free to adapt to this arrangement and in doing so must favour teaching contracts that are temporary and promote cultures that are driven by performance and monitoring. Teachers must enthusiastically adopt

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these fuctuations for fear of being considered against progress, unprofessional, or passé. Pedagogical relations are fragmented and individualised. This places doubt on teachers’ own abilities, their professionalism, judgement, and purpose. Education policy in this form impacts teachers’ daily lives as “the affective components of daily life . . . emotional capital” have been minimised and ignored in education (Apple 2013, p. 15). Together, this encourages binary modes of thinking that totally rewrites relationships among teachers, corroding any sense of mutual care, community, or solidarity among teachers. It does this by eroding teacher motivation and ability to act, to respond, and to oppose. It creates a culture whereby teachers feel under attack, mentally, physically, and emotionally.

Gender: How does it inform teachers’ professional lives? In response to today’s fast-paced and interconnected worlds, gender is understood as a useful analytic tool for understanding the relationship between teachers, schools, and society. Connell (1995) considers gender as a social practice that “constantly refers to bodies and what bodies do’ but is not a ‘social practice reduced to the body” (p. 71). The starting point of this defnition is that social practices interact with historical situations and are not the result of individual actions. Connell (1995, p. 72) terms this understanding as gender projects or the “processes of confguring practice through time, which transform their starting point in gender structures.” A gendered reading of teachers and teaching unveils the inherent masculine modes of macro-structures governing globalisation. For instance, increasing bureaucracy, competition, marketisation, regulation, and surveillance can be understood as masculine traits that orientate education away from social policy issues towards the needs of the market. This can be read in relation to Acker’s (1994) outline of the underlying gendered assumptions about teachers and teaching. Acker (1994, p. 80) describes a ‘defcit model’ of women that leads to a blame-the-victim approach that is at odds with the accepted norm of the male experience. There are so many women in teaching that this defcit model is placed, by association, on the entire teaching profession. Acker (1994) terms this the male-as-norm bias. This results in frequently blaming teachers for the low status of the teaching profession and for their own low status, which ensures that teachers are negotiating from a position of weakness. Teachers’ concerns, solidarity, reciprocity, and mutual care, traditionally understood as feminine values, are devalued (Lynch et al. 2009). The new publicness of education confronts this bias, questions this culture, and offers a clearer understanding of the interplay of structural and institutional systems. Overall, a contribution is offered to an interruptive strategy allowing for new possibilities and perspectives for all those engaged in education to be imagined.

Gender and performativity Traditional occupational styles and loci have ensured that workplace performances, until quite recently, were key resources in the self-production of male identity. In counterpoint to, for instance, the traditional and somewhat rigid notion

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of the Irish principal teacher in the local parish school as ‘the master,’ contemporary work conditions blur the boundaries between conventional masculine and feminine ascribed traits. The changing nature of work necessitates “the cultivation of an elite masculinity that is more sensitive and refexive” (Haywood & Mac an Ghaill 2013, p. 67) than traditional understandings of men and work. This supposed cosmopolitan or ‘renaissance’ masculinity suggests a move away from the values associated with traditional conservative masculinity such as emotional indifference towards the ‘feminine traits’ of empathy, patience, and understanding. The adoption of feminine values is in response to neoliberal market competition, which implies that feminine skills and attitudes better meet the changing requirements of global capitalism (Haywood & Mac an Ghaill 2013). In education, this is increasingly viewed in terms of productive capacity and what has become known as the ‘knowledge economy,’ as detailed in the beginning of this chapter. This understanding informs what is understood as a ‘good’ teacher, which is at odds with ways that create and sustain a sense of challenge and enriching environments, and slowly seeps into local contexts.

Towards the new publicness of education Relationships provide a consistent framework for understanding and respecting alternative approaches, a new publicness of education, to what we wish to achieve. Relationships, from this perspective, refer to those between learning and education, between teachers and teaching, and between teachers and knowledge production. The recent trend to defne the purpose of education through a language of learning, as outlined in the beginning of this chapter, is an important departure point for re-imagining the purpose and the publicness of education (for more, see Biesta 2010, 2017). Biesta (2017) outlines the ambiguities associated with the word ‘learning’ in the English language, which stems from using the word to refer to both an activity and the result of an activity. In other words, learning is used as both a process and an outcome, as an activity and the result of an activity. Yet the point of teaching “is never that students ‘just’ learn” (Biesta 2017, p. 28). Education and its purposes are beyond a singular market-driven purpose and are built on relationships and reciprocity. One avenue that can propel us towards a new publicness of education is through teacher leadership. Forging original spaces and fresh possibilities for a new publicness of education rests on re-imagining the teacher as a leader, as an active agent rather than a passive implementor, and as an intellectual with conficting and complimentary insights that are worthy of informing policy production (Ball 2016; Biesta 2017). This is an urgent concern if we consider teacher retention and distribution rates across Europe at present, as well as appreciating that the lived realities for teachers are having a direct physical and emotional effect on their daily lives. This is evident through the worlds and words of a cohort of male primary teachers who detailed their daily professional lives as part of a study on masculinities and schools (O’Keeffe 2016). As I attempted to make sense of the stories the male teachers retold to me, it became

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increasingly diffcult to maintain the separateness between teachers, gender, and larger economic forces. One teacher, named Eoin, clearly illustrates that the cultural climate that teachers work in is having a direct physical and emotional effect on their daily lives. He describes how a class teacher was directly affected by the increasing demands placed on teachers Eoin: Every day she’d [Class teacher] actually stagger out of the room. It was like she had run a marathon and it was physically punishing, physically draining and absolutely unbelievable. Eoin’s description shows how neoliberalism not only affects work and the worker but also disrupts teaching and what is understood as ‘good’ teaching. Here we see how power is not only understood through the logic of dominance but also as a performative process, giving rise to discussions of boundaries and power. Examining the tensions that exist between bodies and experiences may provide an opportunity to examine current educational trends and offer explanations that go beyond market logics.

A new publicness of education: Nurturing teacher leadership One of the primary purposes of education, in a democracy, is to develop ‘a broader sense of community’ (Saul quoted in Hargreaves & Fullan 1998, p. 45). A new perspective of leadership develops this sense of community and involves a decentralised, devolved, and shared approach to leadership within the school. Fullan and Hargreaves (2016, pp. 21–22) put forward an approach whereby all teachers are encouraged to forge their own collaborative professionalism through deep learning with colleagues, students, and parents. They advocate to invest in the ‘middle,’ which are teachers and their colleagues in their school and other schools, to forge new directions, to join this global movement, and to liberate all involved. This can include teacher collaboration and professional networking that enhance supportive cultures and conditions necessary for achieving signifcant gains for all those involved in education. It includes building an internal capacity for change that offers an infrastructure to support teachers leading and learning from each other. However, there are many barriers to this solution. An enduring barrier is what Acker (1994) describes as the lack of respect, “if not outright contempt” (p. 81) for teachers’ intellectual abilities. Similarly, Ozga (2019) suggests that an uneasy relationship exists between education and research. There are some within the education research community who are not comfortable with the concept of a ‘leading intellectual,’ and leading intellectuals are not assumed to be working in education (Ozga 2019). Teachers have traditionally been understood as representatives of change rather than ‘leaders’ who enact or initiate change (Harris & Muijs 2005). As teachers have traditionally been understood as passive agents or a “secular political pastorate” (Gordon et al. quoted in Ball 2013, p. 29) rather than active agents, we need to work hard to counter inherent beliefs about teachers and future possibilities.

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This task is illustrated by Darren, another male teacher participant (O’Keeffe 2016), who looks at this issue through a gendered lens. He suggests that if there were more male teachers in the teaching profession, then teachers would have taken a more active stance on the many consequences of the knowledgecommodity-market framework, including teacher pay-cuts Darren: I don’t know. Do teachers, in general, just kind of take things on board rather than going out fghting? . . . I think if it [teaching] was a more male dominated profession it [tripartite pay-scale] mightn’t have happened as easy. It seemed to just happen overnight. Historically, teachers were ‘trained’ to be moral representatives of the state, expected to be ‘virtuous’ rather than ‘over-educated’ throughout the late nineteenth century (as cited in Ball 2013). Their role was to be state actors who would ensure the morality of the church and upholding the state. However, evolving commercial attitudes and patterns of conduct on education has meant that moral refections are no longer necessary. The nature of our societies means that there will always be contradictions and conficts, and so too in education (Apple 2018). This can be seen within the spillover of teachers, education policies, and the needs of the market, which creates contradictory outcomes of fexible needs and binary logics, global outlooks and national needs, and rationality and empathy. Other barriers include a singular approach to leadership that still dominates in education, seen through the usage of ‘head’ teachers and ‘head’ of departments in initial teacher education institutes that keeps decision-making and power to a reduced number of specifed teachers. However, teachers must come to realise their own power within their specifc contexts allowing them to identify and articulate changes for themselves. This can be achieved through nurturing teacher leadership, as described in this section, and countering feelings of frustration and powerlessness among teachers by acknowledging the unique role they can bring to research and policy design. This latter point is explored in the following section.

Future collective resistance The capitalist workplace, commonly assumed to be devoid of emotions, is quite the opposite, requiring workers to regulate a myriad of emotions, often negative. To care and educate students is often seen as beyond material value and a social obligation, particularly for women, causing emotional distress among teachers who feel undervalued and marginalised by a capitalist-inspired entrepreneurialism guiding education. Part of the success of this shift of focus has been the tension between a neoliberal emphasis on market values and a neoconservative attachment to traditional norms and values. This tension and the driving force behind it have established ‘ideological tendencies’ that have been introduced to schools such as “neoliberal marketised solutions to education problems, neoconservative intellectuals who want a ‘return’ to higher standards and a ‘common culture’ . . . accountability, measurement and management”

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(Apple 2013, p. 128). Behind this ideological agenda is “a thoroughgoing attack on teachers and especially teacher unions . . . a massive weakening of teachers’ power plays a large part here” (p. 7). This not only transforms the conduct of schools and the identities of those within the school (Ozga 2017) but also encourages binary modes of thinking. Binary thinking obscures possibilities for different interests to be negotiated, greatly weakens teacher power, and constrains the power of teacher unions (Apple 1996; Ball 2007; Ozga 2017). An emerging division within teacher unions is evident in David’s story David: [T]he thing that would irritate you about the Trade Unions is that it’s all older teachers who are involved. When these changes came in for newer teachers, who were just after getting a job, they didn’t really have representation. They were the most vulnerable. Yet, the Trade Unions didn’t do anything to protect the most vulnerable . . . because it didn’t affect them. It is kind of degrading, and it is not really incentivising us to go out and do a good day’s work either. Michael, a principal, notes the high levels of fexibility required of teachers in recent years Michael: The last 4 or 5 years, I am dealing with substitute teachers who are qualifed for 3 years, 4 years and one is even qualifed for 5 years. I think it’s terrible, very diffcult [particularly] in relation to younger teachers. I think that they have a very demoralising road ahead of them. This observation relates to Neil’s description of teaching Neil: [T]here is no support for teachers now. . . . Nobody feels like it’s their job. A ‘management by stress’ (as cited in Apple 2006, p. 7) pattern can be read in the accounts of the fve teachers throughout this chapter, particularly Neil’s and Eoin’s stories. Neil alludes to the concept of ‘management by stress’ when he referred to a lack of teacher support from managerial levels Neil: [T]hat creates a climate of fear because when you know there is no back up at the top . . . if you know there’s nothing behind you, you are done. A lot of schools, I think a lot of teachers feel that now. . . . There is bad management, they will abandon you immediately to make sure to protect themselves. . . . That creates a very bad atmosphere in schools. In a world where society is viewed more as a series of networks and less as a structure (Bauman 2007), extrinsic values such as fexibility, transparency, and performance outweigh the value that moral refections once had (Ball 2004). The “openness” of our open society means that individuals become

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simultaneously the promoters of commodities and the commodities they promote (Bauman & Lyon 2013). To counter this reality and to take a step towards the ‘new’ publicness of education requires meaning making to be constructed within a network of cultural, material, power, and social relations.

Re-imagining the ‘value’ teachers can bring to the processes and practices of measurement The specifc contribution that teachers can make must be frst recognised by those who undermine teachers and teaching: the media, who regularly engage in backlash of teachers (Apple 2018; Haywoord & Mac an Ghaill 2013) and those engaged in the political nature of knowledge production. As evidence-based research can only suggest what has worked in the past but not what will work in the future, the time is ripe to think more deeply about professional knowledge, status, and the worthy contributions that teachers could make. Teachers working within democratic research designs can forge new spaces for this to happen. Democratic research designs provide a starting point for reclaiming what the education profession is about. This calls for two important shifts to take place. Firstly, interpreting multiple sources of knowledge needs guidance from teachers who understand what works and what is useful in practical terms. Secondly, the rapid growth of knowledge sources, which are based on large data sets, coupled with the expansion of those considered educational advisors and experts, suggests a need to give considerable power to those who can advise, inform, and interpret data in meaningful ways. As multiple sources of knowledge and information are widely available, Ozga (2020) believes that the issue of interpretation is of paramount concern. This can be read in relation to Biesta et al.’s (2015) work, which reminds us of the cultural role of research as well as its technical role. The cultural role, which is no less practical than the technical role, is a role that assists teachers to acquire a different understanding of their practice and an opportunity to imagine their practice differently. The cultural role informs the technical role, and together, they should support each other. To begin to understand how teachers might be more active in developing their agency encourages a return to Freire’s (1993) theory of emancipation and specifcally to that of consciousness. The oppressed are submerged in the reality actively accepting the meanings and practices that “serve the interests of the oppressors whose image they have internalized” (Freire 1993, p. 44). For teachers, they must address the perception of themselves as active contributors to the teaching profession. Teachers’ active contribution to their profession, or teacher agency, is understood here as something that teachers do rather than something they have. Agency can be ecological, encompassing past histories, present requirements, and future directions (Biesta et al. 2015). Teacher agency is more than professional judgement; it is an essence that emerges from the interactive interplay between the person and their environment. Within this viewpoint, teachers are positioned at key points of intersection of knowledge production and practical problem-solving. This would mean that teachers would contribute signifcantly to the description

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and analysis of education research, making their experience and critique available. This perspective encourages an ability to act, laying the foundations for sustainable and long-term change. Overall, this will support the legitimacy and authority of the new publicness of education that would advance to make a real difference to the lives of teachers and the school culture in which they work.

Discussion: The new publicness of education To give energy and creativity to education, and to move towards the ‘new’ publicness of education, requires a counter-discourse to de-familiarise common-sense understandings of teachers and teaching. This chapter has presented a number of ways of doing this through unveiling relationships between teachers and publicness, between teachers and performativity, and between teachers and gender. Running parallel to this, advancing an understanding of teachers as key points of intersection in school leadership and in education policy formation also opens up the possibilities for the new publicness of education to be more critical, democratic, and inclusive. The discussion presented throughout this chapter offers one way of seeing the new publicness of education. It highlights the value in (re)conceptualising the role of the teacher, of teaching, and of working conditions through an unsettling of accepted beliefs about who teachers are and what teachers should do. This chapter recognises that leadership can no longer be simply the preserve of senior staff or an elite few and that a shift is required in the vision and values attributed to teachers, which can be realised through a shared leadership approach. It also recognises that in the context of neoliberalism, individual freedom, and choice, educational research must decentre and disrupt accepted notions of teaching and the teacher, so that the focus shifts from the individual to the structural forces at play in education. Practice-orientated research, such as action research, is increasingly gaining strength in education research circles (Groothuijsen et al. 2019) and goes some way towards addressing these concerns. Networks such as the Network for Educational Action Research in Ireland (NEARI) and the Collaborative Action Research Network (CARN) enable and sustain innovation of teaching, teaching practice, and make valuable contributions to the theory and methodology of education. The issue remains, however, that it is highly diffcult for teachers and teacher research to compete with the global measurement industry and with the wide range of actors with different vested interests working within policy. A better consideration of the power of language and the importance of relationships in education discourse and daily practices is a worthy place to start to pave a way for the new publicness of education.

References Acker, S. (1994). Gendered education. Sociological refections on women, teaching and feminism. Buckingham: Open University Press. Apple, M. W. (1996). Cultural politics and education. Buckingham: Open University Press.

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Apple, M. W. (2006). Educating the right way: Markets, standards, God, and inequality (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge. Apple, M. W. (2013). Knowledge, power, and education: The selected works of Michael W. Apple. New York: Routledge. Apple, M. W. (2018). The struggle for democracy in education lessons from social realities. New York: Routledge. Ball, S. J. (2004). Education for sale! The commodifcation of everything? King’s Annual Education Lecture 2004, University of London [Online]. Available at: https://nepc.colorado.edu/sites/default/fles/CERU-0410-253-OWI.pdf Ball, S. J. (2007). Education plc. Understanding private sector participation in public sector education. London/New York: Routledge. Ball, S. J. (2013). Foucault, power, and education. London/New York: Routledge. Ball, S. J. (2016). Neoliberal education? Confronting the slouching beast. Policy Futures in Education 14(8), 1046–1059. Ball, S. J. (2017). The education debate (3rd ed.). Bristol: Policy Press. Bauman, Z. (2007). Liquid times, living in an age of uncertainty. Cambridge: Polity Press. Bauman, Z. & Lyon, D. (2013). Liquid surveillance: A conversation. Cambridge: Polity Press. Biesta, G. (2010). Good education in an age of measurement. Ethics, politics, and democracy. London/New York: Routledge. Biesta, G. (2013). The beautiful risk of education. Boulder/London: Paradigm Publishers. Biesta, G. (2017). The rediscovery of teaching. London/New York: Routledge. Biesta, G., Priestley, M. & Robinson, S. (2015). The role of beliefs in teacher agency. Teachers and Teaching 21(6), 624–640. http://doi.org/10.1080/13540602.201 5.1044325 Connell, R. W. (1995). Masculinities. Cambridge: Polity Press. Connell, R. W. & Pearse, R. (2015). Gender: In world perspective (3rd ed.). Cambridge: Polity Press. Coolahan, J. (1981). Irish education history and structure. Dublin: Institute of Public Administration. Coolahan, J. (2017). Towards the era of lifelong learning. Dublin: Institute of Public Administration. Darling-Hammond, L. (2017). Teacher education around the world: What can we learn from international practice? European journal of teacher education 40(3), 291–309. Department of Education and Science (1996). Strategy for lifelong learning. Dublin: Department of Education. Department of Education and Science (2000). Learning for life: White paper on adult education. Dublin: Stationary Offce. European Commission (1996). Strategy for lifelong learning. Brussels/Luxembourg: Offce for Offcial Publications of the European Commission. Eurydice (2018). Teaching careers in Europe: Access, progression and support. Eurydice report. Luxembourg: Publications offce of the European Union. Flores, M. A. & Niklasson, L. (2014). Why do student teachers enrol for a teaching degree? A study of teacher recruitment in Portugal and Sweden. Journal of Education for Teaching 40(4), 328–343. Freire, P. (1993). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New, revised 20th anniversary edition. New York: Continuum.

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Fullan, M. & Hargreaves, A. (2016). Bringing the profession back in: Call to action. Oxford, OH: Learning Forward. Groothuijsen, S. E. A., Bronkhorst, L. H., Prins, G. T. & Kuiper, W. (2019). Teacher researchers’ quality concerns for practice-oriented educational research. Research Papers in Education 35(6), 766–787. http://doi.org/10.1080/02671522.2019 .1633558 Hargreaves, A. & Fullan, M. (1998). What’s worth fghting for in education? Buckingham: Open University Press. Harris, A. & Muijs, D. (2005). Improving schools through teacher leadership. Buckingham: Open University Press. Haywood, C. & Mac an Ghaill, M. (2013). Education and masculinities: Social, cultural and global transformations. London/New York: Routledge. Jackson, A. Y. & Mazzei, L. A. (2012). Thinking with theory in qualitative research. Viewing data across multiple perspectives. London/New York: Routledge. Lather, P. (1991). Getting smart. Feminist research and pedagogy with/in the postmodern. London/New York: Routledge. Lolich, L. & Lynch, K. (2018). Aligning the market and affective self: Care and student resistance to entrepreneurial subjectivities. Gender and Education 29(1), 115–132. Lynch, K., Baker, J. & Lyons, M. (2009). Affective equality. New York: Palgrave MacMillan. O’Doherty, T. & Harford, J. (2018). Teacher recruitment: Refections from Ireland on the current crisis in teacher supply. European Journal of Teacher Education 41(5), 654–669. OECD (2018). Effective teacher policies: Insights from PISA. Paris: OECD Publishing. O’Keeffe, S. (2016). Male primary teachers’ understandings of masculinities and their impact on their lives. Unpublished doctoral thesis. Available at: https://dspace. mic.ul.ie/handle/10395/2093 Ozga, J. (2017). Education and nationalism in Scotland. In K. Kantasalmi & G. Holm (Eds.), The state, schooling and identity (pp. 25–40). Singapore: Springer. Ozga J. (2019). Governing and knowledge: Theorising the relationship. In R. Langer, & T. Brüsemeister (Eds.), Handbuch educational eovernance theorien (pp. 729 – 749). Wiesbaden, Germany: Springer VS. Ozga, J. (2020). The politics of accountability. Journal of Educational Change 21, 19–35. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-019-09354-2 TALIS (2018). The OECD teaching and learning international survey. Available at: www.oecd.org/education/school/TALIS_2018_brochure_ENG.pdf (accessed 2 May 2018).

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‘Among Others’ Reinventing initial professional education with student teachers and youth workers Marianne O’Shea and Angela Rickard

Introduction In Ireland the term ‘education,’ as it relates to young people especially, is most often equated with and limited to the formal education sector. Many of the contributors to this volume, for example, aver to schools and schooling in their discussions of educational practices and present teachers as the embodiment of the educator of young people. In this chapter we will adjust the lens to encapsulate the non-formal sector as well and to include, in particular, youth workers in the defnition of public educators. Following Säfström (this volume), we adopt as a starting point a defnition of education and educating that “mean[s] not the mechanical application of knowledge, rules, and values, but the improvisation in speaking to open for other speaking beings to appear on the scene” (Säfström, this volume). Both authors work in separate departments in Maynooth University as educators of future educators: one in the preparation of teachers for the formal sector at second level (Angela) and the other in the non-formal sector, namely in Community Work and Youth Work (Marianne). Our contribution here is informed by work undertaken in recent years to bring these student cohorts together during their initial professional education under the auspices of a shared module titled ‘Among Others.’1 Our aim in this chapter is to draw out how bringing these two separate groups of future educators into critical and creative conversations with each other has helped us rethink, frstly, who is considered to be a ‘public educator.’ Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it has prompted us to ask how comingling the two professional cohorts during their initial professional education could potentially support future educators (and by extension the future of education) to respond to the increasingly complex challenges faced by young people, particularly those experiencing personal, social, and/or economic marginalisation and precarity. Finally, by placing this discussion into the wider scholarly discourse on publicness of education and linking it to the professional development of educators, we will suggest that more inclusive understandings of public education, along with a more expansive defnition of who a ‘public educator’ is or can be, could pave the way for transformative, socially just educational practice relevant to both the formal and non-formal

DOI: 10.4324/9781003289067-9

‘Among Others’ 113 sectors of education, allowing us to better, as Säfström suggests, “move forward with others in the everydayness of our shared lives” (Säfström 2022, p. 54). In Ireland, opportunities have been vanishingly rare where both sets of educators can develop together an understanding of the principles, purposes, and practices that underpin their respective professions or question the impact that shifts in the formal and non-formal education policy landscape may have by refecting on their own lived experiences of what it means to be a professional educator. While Biesta (2019, p. 658) laments the “ever narrower defnitions of what counts as education and what counts in education” (original emphasis) it is our view that the legacy of this division across formal and non-formal education (at both pre-service and in-service level) may serve to perpetuate and reinforce inequalities within education and beyond into broader society. In this chapter we consider the potential mutual enrichment and insight that can occur when more connections are made between these distinct educational professionals and how it may broaden the defnition of who counts as an educator.

Context Demographic and attitudinal changes in Irish society in recent years have necessitated a re-imagining of the professional practice of both second-level teachers and youth workers. The country’s population has grown consistently in recent decades, reaching, in the last census, a fgure of over 5 million residents (CSO 2022). This growth has brought with it greater diversity in nationality, household languages, and ethnicities, while diverse sexualities and forms of gender expression have become more visible across Irish society and among young people (McGinnity et al. 2018; McBride & Neary 2021). These demographic changes have also included signifcant numbers of returning Irish migrants thus increasing the population of residents who have lived and worked in other parts of the world (CSO 2022). Studies have shown that the attitudes of Irish-born residents to this diversity have varied signifcantly over time, with factors such as age, education, and gender, as well as the broader economic and political context, having an impact on positive or negative perspectives across society (FitzGerald 2020; King-O’Riain 2019; McGinnity et al. 2018). Beyond this, we live in times of global uncertainty with social, cultural, environmental, and political crises unfolding across the globe (De Oliveira Andreotti 2021; Sinclair & Powell 2020; Giroux 2019). In Ireland, recent constitutional and legislative changes such as marriage equality for same-sex couples, improved reproductive rights, and progressive gender recognition laws have both resulted from and contributed to social change, as new expressions of family and personhood emerge and assert a place in the public imaginary (Owens 2020; Gilmartin et al. 2019). Yet, notwithstanding these progressive changes, levels of consistent poverty in Ireland have increased over the last decade (EAPN 2018), educational attainment remains imbalanced across urban and rural regions (FitzGerald 2020; CSO 2022), and precarious employment practices have increased, disproportionately impacting young people (Bobek et al. 2021). Young people are also over-represented in the prison (Carr &

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Maycock 2019); illicit drug use among them has reportedly increased (O’Gorman et al. 2016); and members of minority ethnic communities, young and old, continue to experience racism at an individual and structural level (Michael et al. 2022). Beyond these explicit challenges, it is clear that many young people who may have successfully navigated the formal education system and been expected to meet traditional markers of success such as living independently and/ or owning their own homes have also been negatively impacted by the ongoing housing crisis in Ireland (Maycock et al. 2014; CSO 2022). In fact, it has been noted that fundamental shifts at a structural level over the last three decades have left young people in this country with substantially less control over almost all key aspects of their lives (Davies 2021; OECD 2016; Cooper et al. 2015). There are, we suggest, within this changing societal context, signifcant questions to be asked about the role of educators (both formal and informal) and the institutions within which they operate, in perpetrating existing inequalities and re-validating the status quo (Harris & Hughes 2020; Youdell 2011; Biesta 2009). De Oliveira Andreotti (2021) considers the role educators have heretofore adopted and posits a contrast between a focus on the mastery of knowledge versus a deep education, focusing on “intellectual and relational rigour” (De Oliveira Andreotti 2021, p. 145), in effect creating the conditions for us to reimagine the world around us, the structures that envelop us, and the possible responses to all of this. She argues that “a more robust conversation about our discipline’s complicity in the reproduction of unsustainability is necessary” (ibid.). Pointing to Spivak’s concept of foreclosure, “a form of socially sanctioned ignorance or denial – something we need to repress in order to justify our beliefs, hopes, desires and perceived entitlements” (De Oliveira Andreotti 2021, p. 146), she suggests that, without working through these denials, the likelihood is that we will only imagine and create possibilities that are rooted in the same old systems that already exist. Similar concerns have emerged among youth work educators, professionals, and participants, who, as the discipline has become increasingly professionalised, have asked questions about the dilution of value-led approaches to the work and the redirection of focus to the ‘fxing’ of problem young people rather than a deeper engagement with the structures that may have created the ‘problem’ (Rannala & Polda 2019; Cooper et al. 2015; Batsleer 2013). A similar discourse concerning well-being and resilience-building permeates formal education, decoupled from more critical perspectives on what young people need to build resilience against and where it is argued that an excessive focus on well-being in the curriculum may be counterproductive as it “might in fact undermine schools’ most powerful asset: their ability to cultivate meaningful relationship between teachers and students” (Farrell & Mahon 2022, p. 52). As educators, working in formal and non-formal settings, both sets of professionals play an important role in the lives of young people (Gormally et al. 2021; Locke & Getachew 2019). However, in the Irish context, very few examples exist of teachers and youth workers coming together to address issues of shared concern. Those examples that exist currently tend to focus on youth workers adopting a support role to maintain participation of young people in

‘Among Others’ 115 the formal education system (www.steppingstones.ie; www.iscoil.ie), rather than to engage in the sort of ‘social action projects’ that more typically centre the voice and views of young people and seek to address or engage with broader societal issues (Coburn & Gormally 2015; Epstein 2013).

Who are the educators? Student teachers in Ireland and internationally are a culturally homogeneous group (Burns 2018; Keane & Heinz 2015); they are very often the so-called high-achievers for whom progression through the formal education system has been unproblematic and unproblematised. Yet recent studies suggest that this is changing to some extent with the expansion of concurrent education programmes (Quirke-Bolt & Purcell 2021). Student teachers are, nonetheless, generally challenged to understand or even identify the insidious structural, cultural, and personal barriers to success for diverse groups of students as they progress (Keane et al. 2018). In contrast, while there has been relatively little research on youth worker identity to date, data gathered from student youth workers in this university suggest that they often enter professional education at undergraduate third level as mature students or having completed further education qualifcations in order to matriculate, with many being frst-generation university students (DAPPSS 2019, 2020). It is often the case that these students have not excelled within or enjoyed or, in some cases, completed formal education at second level. Moreover, in many cases, it is this sense of exclusion from formal educational settings that has led them towards informal youth work settings, both as participants and as providers (DAPPSS 2020; O’Donovan et al. 2020). Teacher education across countries follows a relatively recognisable pathway (The Teacher Education Group 2016; OECD 2019). As Cooper (2018) notes, most adults have had some sort of engagement, for better or worse, with the formal education system, and with this engagement comes a tacit understanding of the role of the teacher, as well as often unspoken but immediately recognisable expectations about who may occupy that role (Burns et al. 2023). In contrast, youth work students are, in many ways, entering an emerging profession that is not fully understood by many outside of the feld (Bainborough & Ord 2021). In Ireland, education pathways have been in place for almost four decades but with relatively small numbers of programmes and graduates. In the wider European context, pathways to becoming a professional youth worker vary with a range of degree and some master’s level qualifcations available in some countries. Many pathways remain vocational in nature, and in general scant attention has been paid to the identities of aspiring and qualifed youth workers (O’Donovan et al. 2020).

Critical pedagogy Speaking about the role of youth work educators in a higher education context, Williamson (2019) proposes that they are well placed to “shed new light on old issues,

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and old light on new ones” (Williamson 2019, p. 19). The same could be said about teacher educators. Indeed, there has been a growing call over the last two decades, requesting teachers and those who prepare them for teaching to reassert their professional autonomy and to begin to question the status quo and their role in maintaining it (Cochran-Smith et al. 2018; Zeichner 2020). Sachs (2016) suggests that teachers should become activists, Andreotti (2016) questions the integrity of some of the underpinning premises shaping their work, while Todd (2009) asks for courage to be shown in articulating, and then perhaps addressing, confict in the formal education realm. Such work is already taking place in some places, and there is a growing literature documenting this. It is in this milieu that the current chapter seeks to situate its contribution. In line with the efforts of Locke and Getachew (2019), we seek to work with educators “to build their critical literacy around history, power, privilege, access, and opportunity, and challenge dominant and uninformed ideology” (Locke & Getachew 2019, p. 129). We do not claim that this is easy as the historical context of the privileging of particular identities requires careful, and challenging, refection (Sinclair & Powell 2020). However, as De Oliveira Andreotti (2021) asserts, “creating and imagining change from a space of socially sanctioned denials tend to reproduce harmful cognitive, affective and relational patterns that are rooted in the same old violent and unsustainable system” (De Oliveira Andreotti 2021, p. 146). Or as Audre Lorde in her now classic admonishment to a feminist conference in 1979 put it: “[t]he master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” It is therefore imperative to seek to engage with this challenge in a manner that allows for the emergence of new ways of thinking, learning, knowing, and doing. For the module under discussion in this chapter and mirroring the approach of much community-based practice, this amounted to recognising that the deliberate development of opportunities for cultural and social boundarycrossing helps to promote a deep level of educational engagement by helping people to see things from different perspectives, and to question their prejudices and presumptions of each other and how they have come to identify or present themselves to others in a particular way. (Coburn & Gormally 2015, p. 74) In most cases, the history of youth work education is frmly embedded in the tradition of critical pedagogy and transformational education informed by the critical pedagogical approach suggested by Freire which, while rightly critiqued,2 remains richly relevant for the feld of youth work and other social professions (Smith & Seal 2021; Gormally et al. 2021; Boone et al. 2019). As Cooper et al. (2015) clarify, critical pedagogy “is an approach that recognizes a deeper understanding of knowledge creation, one that acknowledges feelings and experiences as well as intellectual reasoning” (Cooper et al. 2015, p. 53). In a recent contribution exploring how critical pedagogy can inform the teaching of informal educators in higher education, Smith and Seal (2021) suggest that this

‘Among Others’ 117 pedagogical approach allows us to examine what they call, citing Biesta, the “fundamental questions of what education is about, who it is for and how it is done” (Smith & Seal 2021, p. 476). They claim that critical pedagogy offers educators a way of reconnecting with themselves, in understanding their own positions in society and within our institutions, contextualising and mediating the forces modern academics are subject to. (ibid) In a framework informed by critical pedagogy then the point of departure for any analysis is not to look for the one correct response to an issue but “to approach questions differently, not to argue pro or con a specifc position, but to inquire into the terms of reference within which an issue is cast” (Bacchi 2012, p. 1). This approach echoes that of McIntosh (2012) who after more than 30 years remains “convinced that work against racism cannot be effective without an understanding of its up-side, white privilege” (McIntosh 2012, p. 195) challenging us to examine deeply rooted phenomena from multiple angles. Neither, we suggest, can attempts to address other forms of oppression be successful without identifying, understanding, and challenging the privilege they sustain and those of us who are sustained by them (Cabrera 2017).

Youth work as an emerging profession Other contributions to this volume have traced the historical context for and evolution of educational policy in Ireland. Their focus is mainly on, to use Kemmis’ term, “schooling,” namely the kind of education that is contained within “the formal settings of educational institutions” rather than on the broader term of “education” which he describes as “a practice that goes on in formal, nonformal and informal settings” (Kemmis 2012, p. 46), and which features less frequently in publications about educational policy and practice such as the current volume. In this section then, we will provide an extended focus on what happens outside of the formal school setting, looking to the informal and nonformal aspects of education, and we will describe some of the distinctive aspects of the historical and current context of youth work in Ireland. The roots of youth work in Ireland, not unlike those of the primary and post primary school sector, are entwined with a discourse of ‘good citizenship’ that emerged after the country gained independence from British rule. It was suffused with the ambition to deliver a particular type of society with particular physical and moral attributes (Walsh, chapter 2 this volume), and was carefully overseen by the involvement of religious organisations such as the Catholic Young Men’s Society (Hurley 1992). This dual locus of control by church and state over youth engagement was prominent throughout the last century. The establishment, at the behest of Archbishop McQuaid, of Comhairle le Leas Óige (Council for the Welfare of Youth) in 1942 was a key milestone for the nascent youth

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sector in Ireland. It was followed by the emergence of a proliferation of youth organisations, including faith-based associations for girls and boys, scouting federations, the National Federation of Youth Clubs, and even a rurally focused entity, Macra na Tuaithe (Stalwarts of the land) (Devlin 2010). This abundance of voluntary organisations aiming to engage young people across the island was formally recognised towards the end of the 1960s, when the National Youth Council of Ireland (NYCI) was established as a co-ordinating and policy-making body for the major youth work organisations. It remains in place today, bestowed by now with offcial statutory recognition (Jenkinson 2013). Since 2001, policy has been shaped by the Youth Work Act (2001), which provides a clear defnition of what youth work is and, more interestingly, according to Devlin (2010), who it is that provides it. The Youth Work Act 2001 (Section 3) defnes youth work as a planned programme of education designed for the purpose of aiding and enhancing the personal and social development of young people through their voluntary involvement, and which is complementary to their formal, academic or vocational education and training and provided primarily by voluntary youth work organisations. Since the passing of the Youth Work Act, there has been a signifcant period of professionalisation of youth work in Ireland (Jenkinson 2013). This process has been accompanied by an increased focus on, and funding for, youth work which targets young people deemed as ‘disadvantaged’ or ‘at risk’ (Powell et al. 2012) and has had a signifcant impact on the nature and focus of youth work in Ireland. Alongside this, and in response to it, youth work education has become increasingly formalised with the establishment in 2006 of the North South Education and Training Standards Committee for Youth Work (NSETS), a multi-stakeholder body, funded by the state, which now endorses and monitors seven professional youth work education programmes across the island of Ireland (NSETS 2019). Just as within the realm of teaching, there have been ongoing interrogations of the concept of ‘professionalisation’ within the youth work sector (Cooper et al. 2015; de St Croix 2018). Devlin (2012), framing his own discussion of the topic, sets it out as a process of change over time, to the way in which signifcant aspects of an occupation develop and evolve, and it usually implies a concern with status, recognition and relationships with (and comparisons with) other occupations. (Devlin 2012, p. 2) There are, he observes, many people across Europe who are now paid to work with and for young people. These occupations are often named and classifed under an array of titles, and while there are evident differences in practices and

‘Among Others’ 119 traditions, there are, nonetheless, shared starting points and increasingly similarly focused pathways of education (Verschelden et al. 2009). While Irish youth work sits comfortably in this broader European milieu, it is located within the anglophone tradition and is considered to have a number of distinctive features. At a policy level it is framed as an educational and developmental process. It is, however, based on young people’s active and voluntary participation and, thus, is often defned as “non-formal education” (NYCI 2022). Youth work is deemed appropriate for all young people with a particular focus on those aged between 10 and 25 and coming from all aspects of Irish life, urban, rural, all nationalities, and social classes. While it is often claimed that youth work is diffcult to defne, given the multiplicity of practices and settings it can entail (Cooper 2018; Cooper et al. 2015; Jeffs & Smith 2010), nonetheless youth work approaches are united by a shared purpose to enable young people to develop holistically, working with them to facilitate their personal, social and educational development, to enable them to develop their voice, infuence and place in society and to reach their full potential. (Banks 2010, p. 10) At the practice level, youth work views itself as a value-led, youth-led profession (NYCI 2018). Guided to some degree, but not exclusively so, by the formal endorsement process noted earlier, professionals and providers have, in recent years, collectively agreed upon, and sought to articulate, a clear set of values that defne and guide youth work (Devlin & Gunning 2009; McMahon 2018). A core value of youth work is the empowerment of young people, achieved through respect for them, working in partnership with them and including them in decision-making processes (Jeffs & Smith 2010). As Williamson (2019) notes these values provide clarity as to the direction and scope of the work, which sets out simultaneously to win, defend and promote spaces for young people’s autonomy and expression and to provide bridges for them to move positively and purposefully to the next steps in their lives. (Williamson 2019, p. 19) As noted in a recent National Youth Council of Ireland (NCYI) publication, “youth work does not exist in a vacuum,” and it is therefore central to the purpose of youth work and workers to “be aware of, and acknowledge, any existing privileges and power structures within their setting” (NYCI 2018, p. 15). A value-led approach allows youth workers and young people themselves to challenge the premise that “young people need to change to adapt to the world, rather than the world needing to adapt to young people and their lived experience” (Cooper et al. 2015, p. 2).

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While similar values stir many teachers to notice and challenge privilege, the overall system within which they work is not defned by the same commitments to the empowerment of young people. Nor are teachers, most of whom can enjoy the security of permanent employment, faced with the unique challenges known to youth workers arising from the funding models designed to support youth work. Funding based on fnite schemes or thematic initiatives leave youth work vulnerable to the vagaries of economics. Over the past decade for example, within a broader context of austerity, youth work has been the focus of extensive ‘value for money’ and ‘better outcomes’ reviews (DCYA 2014a, 2014b). Youth work in Ireland has experienced over 30% cuts to programme funding, as well as the establishment of a yet-to-be-assessed single funding stream that has replaced a number of existing schemes (McMahon 2018, 2021; Kiely & Meade 2018). Biesta’s concerns about “good education in an age of measurement” where he says, “we are often valuing what is being measured, rather than trying to measure what we value about education” (Biesta 2019, p. 659) resonate for youth workers in Ireland as they attempt to come to terms with a new model of planning, working, and reporting that is preoccupied with quantitative targets (McMahon 2021). It is in this context for youth work – an emerging profession, solidifying and institutionalising, but within a sector in fux – that this opportunity to bring together future educators from both the formal and informal spheres to learn with, from and about each other, has emerged. While this approach is a novel one in the Irish context, attempts have already been made in other settings to bring together formal and informal educators with a view to creating spaces for critical pedagogy with students of education to support and develop their interest in and commitment to social justice within their practice (Corney 2006; Cooper 2018). Crawford-Garrett et al. (2020) have generated and documented similar attempts to create refective, critical spaces for educators to consider their own role and identities, asserting that “centring critical approaches to education can help us name and interrogate our practices in order to change them” (Crawford-Garrett et al. 2020, p. 282).

Among Others The Among Others module emerged from a collaboration between colleagues in Maynooth University Department of Applied Social Studies and Department of Education. It was catalysed by Marianne’s participation in a European Union Erasmus+ Youth Transnational Project (TCA) of the same name, which aimed to encourage cooperation and sharing of best practice across a number of countries and which she integrated into the Bachelor of Community and Youth Work before inviting the Department of Education to participate in it. The objectives set out in this cross-European project focused on introducing nonformal education and international cooperation into higher education, developing intercultural competence of future youth workers and teachers to improve the quality of youth work and education and encouraging the use of the Erasmus+

‘Among Others’ 121 Youth Programme in working with young people (Among Others Programme Team 2016). Maynooth University is one of the few Irish higher education institutions to provide initial professional education for both secondary school teachers and youth workers on the same campus. While both programmes were well versed in informal learning methodologies and, to some degree, familiar with intercultural competence, the opportunity to bring together students from the two professional programmes in a structured and systematic way had not previously presented itself. The Among Others EU project represented an ideal opportunity to move among and with other educators and see what would occur. Taking the objectives of the Among Others project as a starting point then, our aim in bringing both sets of student educators together was to open a conversation that could facilitate a shared understanding of each other’s professional practice, values, and objectives and deepen the potential for collaboration across the two professional cohorts. At one level we hoped to encourage collaborative approaches to working with young people to address inequality and enhance these future educators’ appreciation and use of culturally sensitive pedagogy. At another level the work sought to re-imagine professional development of educators, prompting each group to consider the views they hold about the other and their own entitlement to the label ‘educator.’ At yet another level these efforts are our own route into reinventing, where we can, how we educate our students for critical pedagogical practice.

Refections on the module The module has seen three iterations at the time of writing and has provided a space not only for, what we believe to be, transformational learning among students from both disciplines but also for us as the lecturers involved. It has contributed to shaping both their and our perceptions of the possibilities of and for professional education in our respective felds. Our involvement in the Centre for Public Education and Pedagogy has provided a most welcome space for discussion about the place of this work in the preparation of future educators and has given us the impetus to document our refections and explore our insights about our collaboration. The emerging ‘outcomes’ of our work (not predicted and in many ways quite surprising and unanticipated) offer a case study of one way to disrupt the established modes of working across two cognate but traditionally separate sectors. It may be worth noting that at the time of writing, the teacher education programme has emerged from a re-accreditation process that will see greater emphasis on social justice education. With it comes the potential to create the space for further cross-departmental collaboration. As educators, we cannot transform our students; they “must be driven by their own exploration and critical process” (Boone et al. 2019, p. 47). We must, however, be willing to undergo a similar process and to refect on this through dialogue with students (Boone et al. 2019, p. 476). Experiential group work processes can demonstrate the importance of dialogue, interaction, and the

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sharing of experiences in the development of “refective practitioners who can connect and work successfully with groups and individuals, promote social justice, and empower themselves through exploring their own experiences of oppression and power” (ibid.), critically and effectively engaging with institutions to become agents of change. As noted previously, the module emerged from a project which utilised the idea of developing intercultural competences to work with increasingly diverse young people and students as a tool to address emerging issues of identity, about culture, about understanding, and about communication. Once initiated, however, the conversation developed into something much more signifcant. In seeking to understand others, it became clear that the participants needed to better understand themselves (and each other) and their own and each other group’s professional identities. In short, it became a process of questioning of how educators are viewed. As this realisation emerged, the sessions evolved into an altogether more fuid space. Overcoming their initial scepticism about each other’s professions the students began to build relationships and, through these, to question their own assumptions, prejudices, and tacit understandings of the role of the other educator. Todd (2011) provides a critique of the somewhat reductionist policy framework provided by Council of Europe Intercultural Education as a basis for the promotion of diversity. She suggests that such an approach is based on an assumption that diversity is a problem to be managed and, ideally, resolved by intercultural education and proposes that, in place of “dialogue,” we should seek to create “local spaces” which are “fuid spaces of coming together, of becoming enjoined with others in processes of narrative exchange” (Todd 2011, p. 110). Here, by engaging in processes of revealing ourselves by our words and actions, we “stake our political claims” (ibid.) – we integrate our voices into an ongoing antagonistic process of developing understandings of the self, the other, and the space between. Todd’s premise is that rather than attempting to create the conditions for confict resolution or even aversion, there should instead be a space for what she calls “confict articulation” (Todd 2011, p. 111). We see resonance in this critique in what has occurred among our students each time we conducted the Among Others module. Bringing students together to explore intercultural competences morphs into a space to develop an understanding of each other’s professional purpose, practice, and values. Moreover, it has become possible to open a conversation about whether and when it is possible to learn from each other, to build relationships, and to explore ways to support each other’s work and on more equal terms than youth workers and teachers traditionally occupy. By creating the space for ‘confict articulation,’ students are able to build upon their understanding of their own professional identity and to articulate it ‘Among Others.’ This articulation underpinned the development of a ‘critical literacy,’ which, as CrawfordGarrett et al. (2020) note, allows for an emergent recognition of “how dominant discourses reproduce the status quo and reinforce longstanding disparities based on social class, race, gender, sexuality” (Crawford-Garrett et al. 2020, p. 282)

‘Among Others’ 123 and other social cleavages that impact all future educators’ professional practice if not also their own personal lives. Beyond this, in practical terms participants are invited to collaborate with each other to identify potential areas of shared interest or concern regarding the young people they work with and to develop pedagogic projects that would allow each professional grouping to work in tandem. The module culminated in the presentation of these project ideas where something of their respective approaches and values were brought to the conceptualisation and design of their proposed projects. Sinclair and Powell (2020) suggest that, more than “allies,” teachers [and other educators] need to become accomplices; that is to say: they should seek to engage in critical action that disrupts systems of oppression, acknowledging and problematising their own identity and participation in these systems and taking risks in thinking about how to respond (Sinclair & Powell 2020, p. 45). While it was made in the context of an entirely different debate, again Lorde’s words resonate here. She suggests that within the interdependence of mutual (nondominant) differences lies that security which enables us to descend into the chaos of knowledge and return with true visions of our future, along with the concomitant power to effect those changes which can bring that future into being. Difference is that raw and powerful connection from which our personal power is forged. (Lorde 1984, p. 3)

Formal and non-formal educators as professional peers The disparity between teachers and youth workers outlined earlier, in terms of their separate educational and lived experiences, can be viewed as playing out in terms of status and how each perceives the other (McGregor 2017). This pedagogical experiment set out to disrupt this by bringing together students of both professions at an early stage of their professional development. By creating this disruption, the Among Others module recognised the purposeful work required to create space for students to come together, while being formed as educators, to open understanding about the ways they can work collaboratively, paving the way for potential future in-service collaborations. This in turn created synergies of mutual respect between peer professionals, and for student teachers it fostered greater awareness among them of what the ‘real’ challenges are for young people. Traditionally, student-teacher relationships are less likely to be embedded in mutuality than those between young people and youth workers. Teachers typically seek to maintain authority, and this is mediated by the institutional roles assigned to them and to students in the school setting (Corney 2006). However, when teachers seek to defy these norms, they are well positioned to listen to students and guide them towards social action, much as youth workers do (Epstein 2013). Many teachers have little or no experience of the precarity, poverty, or exclusion that many of their students witness daily, and their failure to understand

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how this occurs and how their students navigate it has repeatedly been shown by research to reinforce that very marginalisation, such as students acting out, reacting to the compulsory nature of formal education, and so on (Reay 2017). This differentiated understanding of the diverse lives of young people was evident in the Among Others module even at the level of how the different student cohorts speak about the young people they work with. The discussion and the collaboration across our two sectors opened greater insight into these challenges for student teachers and offered greater possibility that (student) teachers ‘see’ the students they teach not as ‘kids’ but as young people with agency, imagination and individuality, and an increasingly complex ‘literacy’ in terms of sexuality and gender expression (Mayo & Blackburn 2020). Moving along with youth is much harder to do without frst developing accurate insights about them and their lives. Given the opportunity to refect on their preconceived conceptions of the other professional, participants in the module both exhibited and then articulated a certain mistrust of each other. Epstein (2013) acknowledges that an initial reluctance to engage is quite common across shared projects between youth workers and teachers. Youth workers often struggle to gain legitimacy and consequently the power to act in shared settings, while teachers are often viewed as burdened with or constrained by the bureaucracy of schools and perhaps considered as having limited knowledge in broader civic realms. She identifes this as the scripting of bifurcated roles in which teachers are framed as concerned with rigor, mandates, and discipline, and youth workers are seen as the appropriate fgures to offer a fun, social, and inquiry-based curriculum promoting student voice. (Epstein 2013, p. 503) Meanwhile, the type of engagement we have described in this chapter creates a space for youth workers to claim their space as educators alongside their teacher peers and, with this, respond to the need to engage with, challenge, and shift the broader systems and institutions that shape the lives of the young people that both cohorts are concerned with. Just as in other examples of professionals coming together it can be hoped that “moving forward, we can imagine youth workers and teachers constructing more expansive and generative roles for themselves and each other” (Epstein 2013, p. 504).

Discussion: the new publicness of education Biesta (this volume) speaks to the inner and outer erosion of education and how this can disconnect education from the publics it should serve. He suggests that “the school is generally seen as part of the ‘solution,’ that is, as the institution that will contribute to, or even will bring about individual progress, social inclusion, democratisation, prosperity, and well-being” (Biesta, this volume).

‘Among Others’ 125 Other authors in this publication have identifed how this has been the case for children with special educational needs or other marginalised groups and have sought to outline how formal education systems and institutions could seek to respond to these disconnects. However, for many, school remains a place of exclusion, not having a voice, and of failure. Schools can become irrelevant to young people, particularly in the upper-secondary years when they are living ‘increasingly adult lives’ as noted by Smyth (2016). This is particularly acute for Traveller students and other student cohorts who may have signifcant care responsibilities within their families. A dissonance is created by teachers when even the language they use positions students as children. The public that youth work serves is often the public that is excluded or marginalised from mainstream education systems and from society more generally. This can be literal exclusion, in the sense that young people who have, as a result of disciplinary actions, been expelled from formal education or been placed on reduced timetables or, young people who feel excluded due to their identity (Pavee Point 2021; Pizmony-Levy & BeLonGTo Youth Services 2019; McBride & Neary 2021). By bringing education outside of the schools or formal institutions, youth workers as educators have created alternative spaces within which to achieve similar aims. Youth work, rather than seeking to shift the content and context of formal education, has, instead, allowed for the creation of a new learning space, a new site for education, that allows for the fourishing and challenge of diverse publics – youth work has become a safe space for young people of diverse social classes, ethnicities, sexualities, and gender creative youth, beyond the formal boundaries, binaries, and other constraints of the formal school system. It has been argued that youth work connects education to the broader public, specifcally, by working with young people who have felt marginalised within, or been excluded from, formal educational processes and seeking to reconnect them with education, using non-formal methods, in settings beyond the traditional institutions (Kemmis 2009; Crawford-Garrett et al. 2020). While the attainment of formal qualifcations, re-engagement with formal educational pathways, and/or creating employment opportunities is often an aim of this sort of educational work, the critical social model of education adopted by youth work allows for education to seek to allow young people to discern and generate knowledge they see as relevant to their lives, to develop skills and confdence, and to feel able to claim a space within the broader public (Devlin 2012). This can occur by simply being seen and acknowledged or by accruing recognition, in social, cultural, or economic terms, be that through employment or other forms of participation in the public sphere (Gonzalez et al. 2020). And what then of formal education? Neuner (2012) argues that education needs a vision. It must inspire people’s minds, stir their emotions and lend wings to their actions. Such a vision must be convincing in its theoretical foundation, appeal to practitioners, motivate them and support them in their daily work. (Neuner 2012, p. 11)

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Teachers, as formal educators are poised to shape and implement this vision. Judith Sachs’ call for a move away from the “old professionalism”, imbued as it is with “that hoary chestnut of teacher privatism, isolation and individualism” (Sachs 2003, p. 15), towards a “new professionalism” remains relevant. Such a move she says is transformative and incites a disposition to working with others openly and collaboratively. We argue that this could in part be achieved by lowering the inhibitions between teachers and youth workers while they engage in their initial professional education. As has been discussed in the preceding pages, there seems to be little doubt that this work of bringing together formal and non-formal educators has a valuable contribution to offer to the new publicness of education in Ireland and beyond. In seeking to develop and deepen a shared understanding among the two professional cohorts and working with initial professional development of students in our respective departments, we aimed to facilitate the sharing of understandings of each other’s professional practice, values, and objectives. As noted, at one level we hoped to encourage collaborative approaches to working with young people to address inequality. At another level the work sought to re-imagine professional development of educators, prompting each group to consider the views they hold about other educators in the public sphere and their own entitlement to the title ‘educator’ therein. As the refection demonstrates, the module has provided a space for, what we believe is, transformational learning among students from both disciplines but also among the lecturers involved, shaping our perceptions of the possibilities for initial professional education in our respective sectors. It remains inevitable that there will be continued challenges facing both formal and non-formal educators in seeking to fulfl what they see to be the purpose of their professional practice. This is particularly the case where education is equated with ‘schooling.’ However, as this discussion has also sought to demonstrate, there are routes to re-imagining ways to meaningfully educate our students for critical pedagogical practice. By foregrounding discussions around professional identity in both professions, by as it were opening the scene for others to appear, we can begin to illuminate some of the challenges in both spheres, as well as signpost some opportunities to broaden the practical and conceptual realm of the publicness of education represented and reproduced by them.

Notes 1 The module was offered as a not-for-credit additional component in Year 1 of a 2-year professional master of education programme. For the Community and Youth Work students the course was a core module in the Year 2 of the 3-year undergraduate degree programme. The irony of the formal sector coming to it voluntarily while the future youth workers were mandated to attend was not lost on us. 2 For example, Bingham and Biesta (2010) argue that the fgure of the child in Freire’s work is psychological rather than political.

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‘Among Others’ 129 Gonzalez, L., Chapman, S. & Battle, J. (2020) Mathematic identity and achievement among black students. School Sciences and Mathematics 120(8), 456–466. Gormally, S., Coburn, A. & Beggan, E. (2021). Idealistic assertions or realistic possibilities in community and youth work education. Education Sciences 11(9), 561–575. Government of Ireland (2001). Youth work act 2001. Dublin: Irish Government Publications. Harris, C. & Hughes, I. (2020). Reimagining democracy in an era of deep transition. Irish Studies in International Affairs 31, 71–89. Hurley, L. (1992). The historical development of Irish youth work. Dublin: Irish Youth Work Centre. Jeffs, T. & Smith, M. K. (2010). Introducing youth work. In T. Jeffs & M. K. Smith (Eds.), Youth work practice (pp. 1–14). Basingstoke: Palgrave. Jenkinson, H. (2013). Youth work in Ireland: A decade on. Irish Journal of Applied Social Studies 13(1), 4–17. Keane, E. & Heinz, M. (2015). Diversity in initial teacher education in Ireland: The socio-demographic backgrounds of postgraduate post-primary entrants in 2013 and 2014. Irish Educational Studies 34(3), 281–301. Keane, E., Heinz, M. & Eaton, P. (2018). Fit(ness) to teach? Disability and initial teacher education in the republic of Ireland, International Journal of Inclusive Education 22(8), 819–838. Kemmis, S. (2009). Understanding professional practice: A synoptic framework. In B. Green (Ed.), Understanding and researching professional practice (pp. 19–38). Rotterdam/Taipei: Sense. Kemmis, S. (2012). Contemporary schooling and the struggle for education. 2012 Bob Meyenn Lecture. Albury-Wodonga, NSW: Charles Sturt University. Kiely, E. & Meade, R. (2018). Contemporary Irish youth work policy and practice: A governmental analysis. Child & Youth Services 39(1), 17–42. King-O’Riain, R. C. (2019). How the Irish became more than white: Mixed-race Irishness in historical and contemporary contexts. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 47(4), 821–837. Locke, L. A. & Getachew, E. (2019). Understanding stubborn inequities: A critical lesson in history. The International Journal of Critical Pedagogy 10(2), 127–153. Lorde, A. (1984/2007). The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. In Sister outsider: Essays and speeches (pp. 110–113). Berkeley, CA: Crossing Press. Maycock, P., Parker, S. & Murphy, A. (2014). Young people, homelessness and housing exclusion. Dublin: Focus Ireland. Mayo, C. & Blackburn, M. (2020). Queer, trans, and intersectional theory in educational practice student, teacher, and community experiences. New York: Routledge. McBride, R.-S. & Neary, A. (2021). Trans and gender diverse youth resisting cisnormativity in school. Gender and Education 33(8), 1090–1107. McGinnity, F., Grotti, R., Russell, H. & Fahey, E. (2018). Attitudes to diversity in Ireland. Dublin: ESRI/IHREC [Research Series]. McGregor, G. (2017). Counter-narratives that challenge neo-liberal discourses of schooling ‘disengagement’: Youth professionals informing the work of teachers. British Journal of Sociology of Education 38(4), 551–565. McIntosh, P. (2012). Refections and future directions for privilege studies. Journal of Social Issues 68(1), 194–206.

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10 Public parents Reclaiming publicness of education in the new tyrannies Hana Cervinkova and Lotar Rasiński

Introduction In this chapter, we explore the publicness of education from the vantage point of contemporary East/Central Europe, a geopolitical area which in 1989 experienced the liberation from Communist totalitarian state systems and Soviet colonial control. In places such as Hungary or Poland, after an initial period of embracement of liberal democracy, we are now observing the formation of new nondemocratic systems, referred to by the Hungarian philosopher Agnes Heller as tyrannies (2019). In the new tyrannies, power is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a single person who strives for limitless control by transforming all democratic and participatory processes into mechanisms that help execute his will. Contemporary tyrannies rely for their popularity and success on populism and negative ideology, which mobilises nationalist sentiments vis-à-vis external and internal “enemies,” and on mechanisms that help silence dissent and secure loyalties through oligarchical arrangements and public corruption. Public schools and universities, whose fragile post-totalitarian autonomy has been eroded by more than three decades of neoliberal restructuring and gradually also the renewed tightening of state control, are now platforms for the furthering of anti-democratic and anti-liberal agenda. After Habermas (1992, 1998), we understand public sphere as fundamental for democracy but suggest that traditional understanding of the public requires reconsideration, taking into account critiques of his original concept in light of its exclusiveness and uniformity (Fraser 1990; Tully 2012) and contemporary applicability in specifc geopolitical contexts. How can we understand publicness in the conditions where the public sphere, including public education, is appropriated by an undemocratic state power? What are the possibilities for reclaiming publicness in general and publicness of education in particular in political conditions, which undermine traditional meaning of publicness as an area outside of the state where free and unrestrained discussion concerning public good is possible (Habermas 1992, 1998)? How can we use a particular case (Wittgenstein 1965, p. 23) of a geopolitical situation to illuminate publicness’s conceptual entanglement and its possible political uses and implications? We will begin by describing three empirical examples from our research with Polish parents who adopted different strategies in the struggle for their children’s

DOI: 10.4324/9781003289067-10

Public parents 133 right of access to school education. This will lead us to a refection on schools and publicness under the political conditions of Poland as a new tyranny, focusing on the key role of language as to how publicness is understood and practised. The examples will help us centre on what we consider the tyranny’s fundamental feature – hegemonic centralisation and nationalisation by exclusion. We will discuss how the tyranny’s state-controlled public sphere instituted as it is through mechanisms of exclusions is challenged through counter-public engagement and counter-hegemonic disagreement. We will follow with a conceptual discussion on the meaning of publicness drawing on the critical democratic tradition of public philosophy in the study of the public sphere (Tully 2008, 2012; Foucault 1984, 2007), which understands publicness primarily as the diversity of practices of civic engagement. We will argue that the political conditions of new tyrannies, characterised by increasing control of the public sphere by the state which limits possibilities for free civic action, compel us to think through how we understand the relationship between the state, the public, and the private in general and publicness of education in particular.

Public parents Ela – diversifying public school community First, we did not know that Patryk had a condition. He was enrolled in a public school and the teacher called me in and kept telling me how terrible Patryk was, how everything he was doing was wrong. He just kept going and going about him. That is when I frst realized that I had to fnd a school where teachers and classmates would want to be with Patryk and where he would be safe. Now I am looking for such a place again after the school that he attended and where he was happy was closed and I won’t stop looking. (Ela, mother of an 8-year-old Patryk diagnosed with autism, Poland, 2019)

Ela is a Polish mother of an 8-year-old son diagnosed with autism. In her interview with us, she described her continuing struggle to fnd a school which would accept her son into mainstream education classes. In fact, for few years he was enrolled in a small school that followed legal regulations concerning education of national and ethnic minorities in Poland (in this case the Jewish minority) that accepted children of all faiths and none. Teachers in the school, Ela remembered, actively worked with Patryk, his parents, and other children to ensure the whole group’s successful integration. The process was not easy, Ela said, but it worked, and Patryk liked his school. After the school was closed due to fnancial pressures, Patryk’s classmates and their parents refused admittance to schools (both public and “non-public”) who agreed to accept the whole class of children but without Patryk, whose disability made him unsuitable for mainstream education in the eyes of the schools’ leadership. Ela ascribed this breathtaking act of solidarity on the part of Patryk’s classmates to the affective and relational bonds fostered by the genuinely inclusive approach within the school community. Thea

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Abu El-Haj refers to such approach, which transforms school communities through participatory and collective striving for full participation of children with special needs, as “substantive inclusion” (Abu El-Haj 2006). Eventually, however, children went their different ways, and Ela was left alone to fnd a school that would take Patryk. A well-educated parent with professional interest in educational issues, she knew her son had the right to mainstream education following Poland’s ratifcation of the European Union’s directives concerning the adoption of the UN’s Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN-CRPD). She knew that under the policy, Patryk was supposed to be guaranteed access to free primary and secondary education equal to that of any other child in Poland. She was also well aware of the substantial public fnancial subsidies that should be channelled to the school that her child with special needs would attend to support his learning. Nevertheless, in practice, the right of educational access was not being readily granted to her child. In contacts with schools – public and “non-public” – Ela’s son had been repeatedly denied admission. In humiliating interactions, school principals evaded contact with Ela all together or refused to accept Patryk “because the school was not a good ft,” “because parents of other ‘normal children’ would protest,” because “teachers refused to admit her ‘sick’ son to their class.” Ela eventually found a school that was willing to accept Patryk. Now, she works with the school, negotiating the everyday realities of her son’s belonging to the school community. She is pushing for “substantive inclusion,” a process that requires changes on the part of the school to allow for children with special needs to be able to participate fully and contribute meaningfully to all school activities (Abu El-Haj 2006). Through her work in the public-school context, Ela’s engagement challenges restrictive and exclusive hegemonic public imaginary of belonging, demanding its expansion through diversifcation.

Joanna – building “non-school” as public space under home education I do not need inclusion of this kind. . . . We had to take our son out of school and now he is at home. . . . It is not my idea, I would like normalcy for my child. Inclusion is an enormous responsibility toward another human being. My son, an eight-year old boy, is in deep depression after what happened to him at school. . . . Right now I have had enough of [formal] education. Because if education is to destroy my child, then I don’t want it. I want him to be happy so as not to destroy the enormous effort we have put into his upbringing, into making him a great and happy child that he is as long as he does not cross the threshold of a school. (Joanna, mother of an 8-year-old son with multiple disabilities, Poland, 2018)

Joanna’s 8-year-old son Eugene has a complex spectrum of impairments including autism, epilepsy, and hearing problems. She is a well-known author and activist on behalf of children with disabilities in Poland. Like Ela, she understands her child’s right to inclusive mainstream education, but despite efforts at working

Public parents 135 with public and “non-public” schools in her city to accept and create suitable conditions for her child’s participation, she was forced to take Eugene out of the school system after he had fallen into deep depression. Like Ela, Joanna did not stop in her activist work – she runs a blog, speaks, and writes publicly, trying to change how disabled children are perceived in Poland. Eventually, she and other parents opened a foundation and rented a building from the municipality, creating their own educational space, which welcomes children with and without disabilities and with and without special needs. In its mission, the foundation stresses diversity, neurodiversity, and freedom as fundamental values. The space they rent is not called a “school,” and children who attend it do so under the Polish law on home education. This law allows parents to take their children out of the public and “non-public” school system and teach them “at home.” The children still have to be assigned to a school, which draws state subsidies per each pupil, including those children who are home-schooled. In case of children with complex disabilities such as Eugene, such state subsidies are quite large, but they are very rarely channelled to the pupils whose learning they are supposed to support. Instead, it is a normal practice on the part of schools’ leadership to absorb them into the general school budget. Joanna told us how much effort it took her to fnd the only school in the large region where she lives that would cooperate with her foundation. She eventually found a partner – a “non-public” school located more than 70 km away. The school’s director agreed to support Joanna’s project and signed up all children who attend Joanna’s “non-school” in her school. The director uses all subsidies she receives for those children who are in the home-schooling track and attend Joanna’s foundation to pay for teachers and supporting staff who work with them in the site of the school/non-school 70 km away. In Joanna’s foundation, just like many other such initiatives in Poland (see Gawlicz 2020), children who are schooled under “home education” are in fact being educated in public settings. The “home” of the “home education” is very often a public space, in which children do not learn alone with their parents but together with each other and under the guidance of teachers and supporting staff (people with and without teacher certifcations). The home education funded by the state through per-pupil subsidies via public and “non-public” school system often takes the form of institutionalised arrangements whereby schools/non-schools attended by children under the domestic education label are run as non-governmental organisations with their own management boards, rules and regulations, mission statements, and fnancial management. In this context, we frame Joanna’s actions on behalf of her own son and other children as counter-public interventions that strategically engage the domestic to expand the public.

Kate – “non-public” alternative I encountered homophobia when my daughter went to preschool. There is a moment when they speak about family. . . . She came home with a form with empty places to be flled out – for the mother, the father, the

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Hana Cervinkova and Lotar Rasiński mother’s parents, and father’s parents. And nobody asked her what her family looked like; she just got the assignment to fll it in. I decided to react because I did not want her to feel like there is something wrong with her family. . . . So I went to her school, explained, and asked if I could help in supporting the school because I know it is a challenge. I do not want to go into details of the homophobic reaction that followed, but I will say that there was nobody who would want to be involved. I also encountered terrible homophobia from the parents and felt sick for the next three weeks every time when I was taking my daughter to school. It was because I realized that it was I, her mother, who puts her at the risk of exclusion because of who I was. And that there is nothing I could do to change it. (Kate, LGBTQ mother of a 9-year old daughter, Poland, 2018)

Kate’s daughter Alma does not have a psychosomatic disability, but she also experienced rejection at school because of her non-heteronormative family background. After her mother’s attempt at positive intervention in procedures that could make the school more friendly to children from LGBTQ families, she experienced pushback. But like Ela and Joanna, instead of giving in, Kate has continued her work as an educational activist and researcher and speaks on issues of school-based discrimination against minorities in Poland. Eventually she decided to take Alma out of the public school and enrolled her in a “non-public” school run by a foundation that welcomes diversity as its core value and mission. The last we spoke to Kate, she was very happy with the new school for her daughter. As opposed to Joanna’s “non-school” attended by children in the system of home education, Alma’s school is a regular school attended by children whose parents have not availed of the domestic education alternative. In critical educational research, “choice” which allows for the extraction of children from the public school system in favour of non-public sector schools is generally seen as a negative neoliberal trend that contributes to the erosion of the public and generates further inequalities (Lipman 2011; Ozga 2000; Whitty et al. 1998). While we agree with this analysis, we suggest that in the context of the newly tyrannical political conditions, Kate’s intervention – the placing of her daughter in the “non-public” school sector that welcomes difference – should be considered as expanding rather than restricting of the public sphere. In a situation when state-controlled public school system is disregarding the criteria of openness, free access, and diversity – defning characteristics of publicness – seemingly private educational initiatives thus become the spaces for the enactment of new publicness. These examples, which illustrate everyday strategies of parents who interact with the public school system in a country where publicness is increasingly shaped by exclusionary and nationalist politics, demonstrate the very public dimension of their deeply personal struggle. By interrogating the private/public dichotomy and in line with the editors of this volume (Biesta and Säfström), we want to think deeply with these concrete cases about how they can illuminate new publicness in education.

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Appropriation through exclusion: cultural intimacy of the tyranny The premise of our argument is that what our public parents are encountering in the public school system are the effects of the ongoing process of appropriation of the public sphere by the state exclusionary discourse and concrete antidemocratic legislative and administrative measures. Since 2015, the Polish state has led a series of concerted actions against the main pillars of the democratic public sphere. In the legal arena, the political leadership hijacked the Constitutional Court and severely restricted judicial independence through the reorganisation of the country’s National Council of the Judiciary and the Supreme Court. These legal reforms have allowed for the complete politicisation of the Constitutional Court. No longer independent and acting on political orders, the Court has recently instituted an almost complete ban on abortion and ruled on the supremacy of the Polish Constitution over the Lisbon Treaty, opening the way for Poland’s legal exit from the European Union. The state has also attacked civil society by limiting funds (many of them coming from the EU) for independent non-governmental organisations and by streaming them into politically controlled institutions, including those with far-right agenda. The state has also launched a centralisation of the media market in Poland. At frst, it has assumed political control over all public media, which now deliver party propaganda. Then, it took over the previously independent and locally infuential large regional media complex (the Polska Press). Most recently, there was an attempt to eliminate the largest US-based private media corporation (TVN), threatening diplomatic relations with the US. We refer to these actions by the Polish state as tyrannical because they are directed at the limiting of democratic and participatory public action, and they are motivated by and lead to the centralisation of power in the hands of a single party and its leader. In Hungary, which is the example that Agnes Heller describes in conceptualising such tyrannies (2019), this tyrannical leader is Viktor Orbán who is a prime minister and carries a political responsibility. In Poland, however, the tyrant is Jarosław Kaczyn´ski (who only recently became a member of the current government), but who directs political action from his role as a chairman of the leading political party (Law and Justice). From this position outside of the main political responsibility, he controls what happens in the state, striving for limitless control so that nothing happens against his will. Silencing of dissent and public corruption are central to both of these tyrants’ power and so is negative ideology and nationalism. Exclusionary nationalist ideology underlies all these centralising actions in the tyranny. Crucial to the tyrannical Polish state ideology has been the continuous production of homogeneity as the dominant national imaginary. Formed in the twentieth century and rooted in nativist conception of the nation, the Polish national ideology has been dominated by concepts of uniformity of national belonging and citizenship, deepened by the legacy of violent cleansings of difference primarily but not exclusively during the Nazi and Soviet occupations

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(Cervinkova 2016). In the last decade, this exclusionary ideology has been prominently exhibited for example in Poland’s (and other Visegrad states’) rejection of the EU Solidarity Mechanism in 2015, preventing refugees from worn-torn Syria, Afghanistan, and Eritrea to fnd refuge in these EU countries. In Poland and Hungary, the states also adopted discriminatory legislation and opened extensive propaganda against the rights of the members of the LGTBQ community. Furthermore, in Poland, the government with the support of the Catholic Church in addition to further restricting abortion law, launched a war on the so-called gender ideology – claiming that “gender” is a concept introduced by Western and corrupt feminists and elites and must be eliminated. This politics is an integral part of the tyrannical suppression of difference and the process whereby the public sphere is appropriated through exclusion. Centrally controlled school curricula are implementing this exclusionary ideology of homogeneity of belonging through the historical politics (polityka historyczna), which draws lines of national belonging over issues related to the Communist past and problematic moments in Polish history that potentially scar the image of the victimised Catholic Polish nation. The whitewashing of the Holocaust, for example, has been central to how curricula and texts have been rewritten by Kaczyn´ski’s political cohort, further strengthening exclusionary visions of the past and cleansing the collective imaginary of past, present, and potential Others in favour of a uniform vision of the national citizen (Rubin & Cervinkova 2020). In Poland, homogeneity emerges as a central point of what anthropologist Michael Herzfeld refers to as cultural intimacy (Herzfeld 1997). Herzfeld sees cultural intimacy as key to understanding how nation states work – instead of binary approaches that locate power with the state versus people – he says that the elites-versus-ordinary-people approaches conceal the common ground between them. He argues that “state ideologies and the rhetoric of everyday social life are revealingly similar, both in how they make their claims and in what they are used to achieve” (Herzfeld 1997, p. 2). We suggest that the dominant cultural intimacy in Poland is formed around homogeneity as an exclusionary imaginary of belonging. It is at the basis of strategic essentialism and populism of the Polish tyrannical state, who appeals to the citizens’ cultural intimacy on which people draw in the course of everyday life. The exclusionary ideology which permeates every aspect of Polish political discourse – openly racist, misogynist, ableist, homophobic, anti-EU – continuously produces and solidifes the imaginary of homogeneity as the basis of publicness. At Polish schools, this homogeneity of publicness is disrupted by the physical presence of children with diverse backgrounds and by the ongoing articulation of parents’ demands for their different children to belong. Looking from the perspective of the oppressed, the discourse and practices of homogeneity as cultural intimacy are generating an exclusionary dominant publicness. In pushing for their children’s rights for education Kate, Ela, and Joanna are challenging the pillars of cultural intimacy that lie at the basis of this offcially supported and dominant publicness. Through their counter-hegemonic practices

Public parents 139 these public parents keep democracy alive by articulating difference. They do so in different ways – transforming public school communities by pushing for substantive inclusion (Ela) or building alternative educational spaces open to those excluded from the cultural intimacy of dominant publicness (Kate and Joanna). These public parents’ struggle for social justice for their children can be seen as mechanism of civic agency and control through which democracy is upheld, and schools and education emerge as sites in which we can observe how political futures become contested and negotiated.

Public/non-public: confusions of language Before we turn to how we can conceptually rethink publicness based on the examples and discussion so far, we need to address the centrality of language to how publicness is understood and practised as a political arena where democracy can be performed and sustained. Let us take our Polish case, specifcally looking at how publicness is defned and articulated when it comes to educational institutions. Post-1989 Polish law distinguishes between two types of institutions on all levels of education – public and non-public (publiczne i niepubliczne; Ustawa 1991). The main difference is supposedly in the system of fnancing. Public schools are fully supported from public funding (state and/or local government). “Non-public” schools are mostly fnanced through private means (tuition, donations), but they also receive public funding. “Non-public” primary and secondary schools are given limited subsidies from local governments, while non-public colleges and universities are eligible for state subsidy for research and doctoral training. Furthermore, in everyday discourse, “non-public” schools are often referred to as “private” (proft seeking) or “community” schools (non-proft). While Polish law allows for “non-public” schools to be established by an individual or an organisation, an absolute majority of “non-public” schools are founded and managed by non-governmental organisations (foundations and associations – secular and religious), frequently set up for that very purpose. You may have noticed that we have consistently used quotation marks when speaking about “non-public” schools and education in this text. This is because we want to point out a fundamental contradiction when it comes to the “nonpublicness” of “non-public” education in Poland. We argue that public and “non-public” Polish educational institutions are all public in the sense that they fulfl public role and serve the public. Both public and “non-public” educational institutions are governed by the same legal regulations and fall under the jurisdiction and oversight of the corresponding governmental institutions, who control them through regulatory mechanisms, including examination system and curricular compliance. The alleged difference between “non-public” and public education is that the latter is supposedly free. However, public university education, for example, is not free – all public universities, after giving limited admission to tuition-free programs of study to applicants with the highest highschool leaving certifcate scores, offer much larger pool of tuition-based

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placements. Similarly, public primary and secondary schools are obligated to offer open access to all children. But as the cases of parents we described in this text illustrate, in practice, those pupils, whom the school does not deem suitable, are excluded based on their difference. And it is the “non-public” schools, as we showed, that open their doors to these students excluded from the homogeneous learning community of public schools, often offering free places to those in need of scholarships. In the post-1989 period, public secondary schools in Poland have been stratifed through neoliberal mechanisms of high-stakes testing and selection. Therefore, especially in large Polish cities, high-achieving public secondary schools are reserved for privileged students, functioning as gateways to full-time tuitionfree placements at prestigious public universities. Polish “non-public” tertiary educational institutions (outside of notable exceptions) are generally considered less prestigious and serve those less privileged (students from small towns and rural areas, students who did not perform well enough in centralised examinations on which entry to prestigious secondary schools is based, students whose parents did not have the funds to pay for extra grinds, mature students returning to education, and others). It is these less-privileged students who then enrol and pay tuition in “non-public” higher educational sector, while their more privileged and successful peers get a “free ride” fnanced from public sources. Paradoxically therefore, in the Polish landscape of cultural intimacy governed by homogeneous imaginaries of belonging and educational inequalities, “nonpublic” school and university sector often fulfl the role of what is properly understood as public education – free, diverse, and open to all. Our point here is to draw attention to the importance of language in how publicness is defned and how it can be manipulated. The Polish state benefts from the public/“non-public” language entanglement. The legal language of the Polish education system equates the state with what is public and relegates the “non-public,” which it cannot fully ideologically and fnancially control, to a place outside of the public realm. This helps to maintain the fallacy of ascribing the public to state institutions while denigrating non-governmental and non-state institutions as “non-public” and, by extension, proft-seeking. In stable democratic systems, in which education is relatively independent of state control ensured by such mechanisms as free elections of school principals and school councils, as well as prerogative of teachers’ autonomy in the classroom, we can imagine that such equation of the state and the public can be justifed. However, public education can serve as a dangerous instrument in the hands of tyrannical power, which seeks to appropriate everything public. The linguistic construction of public/“non-public” education, present in Poland since 1991, has enabled the state to treat public institutions as its private property, which does not require oversight from the public because linguistically, this education which the state considers its private property, is public. Public educational institutions on all levels have been affected by this sense of ownership of public education by the state. Schools are now tightly under the state’s control made possible through far-reaching organisational and

Public parents 141 curricular reforms. The superintendents (named by the state) already have increased power over what happens in schools, including overseeing how the state curriculum is implemented. The most recent projected school reform plans for superintendents to also gain the power to name school principals, control access of non-governmental organisations into schools (previously important agents of anti-discriminatory and progressive educational innovations), and carry out rulings concerning “educational crime” – a new punitive concept and mechanism designed to discipline non-compliant principals and teachers. It is in this context of the state’s appropriation of the public sphere that we understand parents’ actions, including those that take the form of choosing educational pathways framed as “non-public” as the expanding and reclaiming of publicness under the political condition of new tyranny.

Rethinking publicness from the new tyrannies We have now elucidated the conditions of publicness in Poland as an example of a new tyranny. We refected on how this type of rule (Heller 2019) centralises power in the hands of the state controlled by the will of an individual leader, relying on exclusionary ideologies of belonging. We described concrete cases from our research with parents’ encounters with public schools to show how the dominant publicness is challenged through citizens’ counter-hegemonic and counter-public disagreement and action. We also illuminated how linguistic confusions favour the tyrannical state to appropriate and manipulate the meaning of the public. We now turn to a consideration of how discussion of publicness in these particular political conditions can illuminate publicness’ conceptual entanglement and point to possible understandings of publicness beyond established dichotomies and interpretations. The concept of the public/publicness/public sphere has a long and complex history. Linguistically, the idea comes from the “great dichotomy” of the Roman law (Justinian’s Corpus iuris) (Bobbio 1989), which made a distinction between what belongs to a group or society as a whole and is subjected to public law, and that which belongs to its individual members or lesser groupings (like households) and is subjected to private law (Bobbio 1989, p. 3). The frst formulations of this dichotomy clearly indicated the supremacy of the public over the private. This superiority was frst challenged by the diffusion of Roman law and eventually overruled in modern conceptions of the state of nature and civil society/state (Locke, Hobbes), which reinforced the private over the public and introduced the inviolability of private property as one of the universal human rights (Keane 1989, p. XIII). It is in this understanding of the difference between the private and the public that the “liberal tradition,” as opposed to the so-called classical tradition, has its roots. Broadly speaking, in its more contemporaneous formulation by neoclassical economists, the distinction demarcates the difference between the “public” authority of the state and “private” individuals and their free relations in the market. On the other hand, classical tradition, whose beginnings we can

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fnd for example in Aristotle’s Politics, refers to the ancient opposition between oikos and polis. The private is recognised as oikos – inferior domestic sphere of production and reproduction occupied by women, slaves, and children. The public is referred to as polis, an area of political decision-making and action through deliberation, not necessarily limited to state institutions but restricted to free citizens of Athens (Arendt 1958; Biesta 2012). To complicate this picture, the concept of civil society in this confguration could be perceived as both private and public. It can be seen as private when juxtaposed to the state in both early theoretisations (Machiavelli) and modern concepts of civil society (Gramsci). Or it is public when it is opposed to the personal – a sphere of intimacy or family – such as in early theories of social contract or in modern feminist critiques (Squires 2018, p. 132). Habermas’s conception of the public sphere, which he introduced in The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (1962, 1992), starts a new “critical liberal tradition.” Habermas understands publicness as an arena in which public consensus is negotiated through free, unlimited, and rational discussion/ deliberation on public good, which he considers a fundamental condition of democracy (1992, 1998). For Habermas, the public sphere is distinct from the state, towards which it can be critical and consists of private individuals who come together to discuss public matters. However, the public sphere is also distinct from the private, understood as individuals pursuing private interests. At the same time, Habermas considered the public sphere distinct from offcial economy since deliberation and discussion on public matters could not be based on commodity-exchange relations. The essential element of this idea, which Habermas later developed in his theory of communicative action, was the conviction that the fundamental condition of any kind of use of language (e.g., strategic or instrumental) is communication based on mutual understanding and agreement (Habermas 1984). This hypothetical and counterfactual ideal served as a model for his understanding and critique of modern democracy. It led him to view public sphere as an open arena to which all citizens could have access, in which all inequalities and hierarchies must have been suspended, and all discussants were to be considered as peers (Habermas 1992; Fraser 1990, p. 60). Even though Habermas’ considerations were based on historical and specifc analyses of eighteenth-century bourgeois public sphere, Habermas believed that this public sphere was a rational and universal model for building and nurturing modern democracies. However, Habermas’ conceptualisation of the public ignored the possibility of the existence of counter-publics, those which are excluded from the offcial discourse and which are based on other than classical liberal bourgeois needs and demands – for example, nationalist, class, or gender publics (Fraser 1990). Habermas’ concept implies the existence of what is essentially one public sphere in which equal citizens take part in discursive deliberation and justifcation. Philosophy’s role in this tradition is to seek to theoretically reconstruct the essential features of the public sphere that are present in an unfnished variety within the multiplicity of its existing form. This elitist and unitary understanding

Public parents 143 of publicness does not consider exclusionary operations of power and does not appreciate the strength of everyday civic practices. We would argue that if applied to situations in the new tyrannies this conceptualisation of publicness places publicness in the hands of the state, leaving citizens, such as our public parents, without agency and hope. Instead, in trying to understand publicness in the context of the new tyrannies, we propose to draw on the critical democratic tradition of public philosophy in the study of the public sphere which understands publicness primarily as the diversity of practices of civic engagement (Fraser 1990; Tully 2008, 2012; Foucault 1984, 2007; Rosanvallon 2008). This understanding of publicness stresses the multiplicity (as to the types, numbers, reach, and historicity) of public spheres, which it considers as irreducible characteristics of publicness. Public sphere understood in this way is an arena of counter-hegemonic disagreement, based on probing, testing, calling into question, negotiating, or modifying different aspects of public sphere through citizens’ practices (Rosanvallon 2008). Public philosophy’s aim is not to propose normative theory of justice or equality but rather to expose historical conditions of possibility of a specifc set of practices constituting a given mode of governance and the public itself. This can be achieved by gaining critical insight into language and practices by tracing their genealogies and thus exposing their historical and contingent character. The aim of this exposition is not just clarifcation but rather transformation of the subjects’ self-understanding in order to recognise their situation of oppression, enabling them to see the possibilities of governing themselves differently (Foucault 1984; Tully 2008, pp. 15–18). In our understanding of publicness we build on two essential concepts – multiplicity and everyday language practices – both of them considered in the context of exclusionary operations of power. We refer to Wittgenstein’s refections on the multiplicity of language games and forms of life (Wittgenstein 1999, §23) and Foucault’s studies of discourse as rule-governed practice. Both Wittgenstein and Foucault share their interest in language or discourse as central points of reference for their philosophical methods. As a consequence, they both pay much attention to the connection between language and practice and to the idea of the publicness of language. Foucault sees discourse as a set of practices which form the objects of which they speak (Foucault 2002, p. 187). Discourse consists of actual statements (“discursive events”) in their multiplicity, dispersion, and natural regularity, which can be captured only by “the archaeologist.” Similarly, Wittgenstein’s both early and late philosophy is informed by the conviction that “[a]ll philosophy is the ‘critique of language’” (Wittgenstein 2002, 4.0031). Late Wittgenstein stresses that it is practice that determines the form of our language and thought. Describing language game as a form of life, a practice related to the use of words (Wittgenstein 1999, §23), Wittgenstein rejects his own earlier reifying view on language, based on the claim that words have their fxed meaning situated outside of language. In fact, his main idea of philosophical therapy is to bring words back from their metaphysical to everyday use (Wittgenstein 1999, §116).

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The idea of the centrality of language in the philosophical method and the idea of the connection of language and practice lead us to a particular understanding of publicness. According to Foucault, practices are composed of rules, which must necessarily have a public, regular, and linguistic character (May 1997; Olssen 2017). This means that the existence of practices and rules requires the existence of community in which they are established and applicable. Similarly, Wittgenstein, by analogy to game, points to the rule-governed character of language, emphasising thus the regular, conventional, and social nature of human communication (Wittgenstein 1999, §207, §208). According to Wittgenstein, following a rule is a practice, and for an expression or behaviour to be recognised as rule-following, it must have a communal context. There must be someone who will be able to recognise the activity as conforming to the rule or failing to do so. These observations exclude the possibility of understanding private language as rule-governed language since such language would fail in instituting any rules and could not have any practical consequences (Wittgenstein 1999, §268). Wittgenstein therefore sees language as an essentially public activity, a kind of site, in which the public space or the common (collective subjectivity) in the human form of life is established, formed, and expressed (Negri 2004; Gakis 2020). Wittgenstein’s refections concerning the use of “I” and critique of privacy or ownership of the inner ideas, sensations, or feelings in Philosophical Investigations (Wittgenstein 1999, §§398–411) also support the view that it is language that constitutes a space of the public. In both conceptions, language is understood as diverse and multiple practices established through and in accordance with rules, which must necessarily be public. While Wittgenstein stresses that these rules are established in the course of everyday use of language, he is not interested in possible distortions of the rules caused by extra-linguistic mechanisms. Foucault’s research into rules focuses on showing how they are produced through the workings of power and practices of exclusion, bringing attention to the different forms that discursive exclusions take – in the form of prohibition, division, and rejection, or the true/false opposition (Foucault 1981; Pezdek & Rasiński 2016). In this sense, Foucault shows how discourse is established by excluding certain practices to outside of what is public, which in this case refers to that which is sanctioned as scholarly, rational, socially/economically useful, true, and so on. Drawing on these philosophical approaches, we understand publicness not as a uniform site of agreement and free searching for the common good (Habermas) but as an open space of discursive multiplicity where practices of exclusion or oppression can be made visible and challenged. The publicness of language, and especially, the publicness of the oppressive practices involved in language, is a condition of resistance against oppressive power. As all language is essentially public, it is impossible to imagine spaces that would be deprived of publicness. This questions the traditional liberal and classical divisions between private and public. The multiplicity of language games and forms of life which shape our everyday language and rules, and which must be observed in order to engage in communication, are refected in the multiplicity of forms of publicness in

Public parents 145 which citizens take action. Therefore, as publicness is created by multiplicity of everyday practices, its complete appropriation is not possible. Public spheres are necessarily open to the interests and needs that may be traditionally considered as ‘private,’ making complete appropriation of publicness by the tyrannical state impossible.

Discussion: the new publicness of education During our last interview in April 2022, as she was explaining the fnancial and logistical challenges she faced in the day-to-day running of the educational foundation, Joanna said I am exhausted every day, [the foundation] is taking so much of my time. We struggle fnancially, and the work is also very diffcult because children who come to us are damaged from the public school system, and they require a lot of care. The work with parents is also diffcult because we insist that the education and well-being of their child requires close cooperation on their side. But I forget about the hardships when I look at Eugene. The progress he has made is unbelievable and he is a happy child again. Joanna gives all her free time to a foundation that is creating educational space for her own child but also other children excluded from the homogeneity of cultural intimacy dominant in Polish public schools. In Joanna’s narrative, we see how her deeply personal motivations to create conditions for development and happiness for her son intermingle with her public commitment. The empirical cases of public parents in Poland help us reposition their fght for their children’s rights for education from a sphere of private and “nonpublic” interest to that of counter-public intervention, which in effect reclaims the public sphere appropriated by the tyrannical state. Their counteractions articulate demands for publicness and help expose the misuse of language embedded in how the public and the “non-public” education has been defned in post-1991 Poland. They use the space of “non-public” education to create spheres of action which expand possibilities of diversifying the homogeneous cultural intimacy of belonging dominating Poland’s school communities. Publicness and public sphere become spaces of multiplicity of citizens’ actions through which relations of oppression are being made visible and are challenged. Through the prism of Wittgenstein’s and Foucault’s critiques, which stress the fundamental publicness of language and its connection to practice and power, we can move beyond the defnitions of private/public in how we analyse publicness of education. This allows us to see how the “non-public” really is public, moving beyond the fallacy of binary oppositions that mask the workings of hegemonic state power and conventional critiques of educational neoliberalism towards rethinking what the new publicness of education can be (not only) under the conditions of new tyrannies.

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References Abu El-Haj, T. (2006). Elusive justice: Wrestling with difference and educational equity in everyday practice. New York: Routledge. Arendt, H. (1958). The human condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Biesta, G. (2012). Becoming public: Public pedagogy, citizenship and the public sphere. Social & Cultural Geography 13(7), 683–697. Bobbio, N. (1989). Democracy and dictatorship. The nature and limits of state power. Translated by P. Kennealy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Cervinkova, H. (2016). Producing homogeneity as a historical tradition. Neoconservatism, precarity and citizenship education in Poland. Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies 14(3), 43–55. Foucault, M. (1981). The order of discourse. In R. Young (Ed.), Untying the text: A post-structuralist reader (pp. 51–78). Boston/London/Henley: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Foucault, M. (1984). What is enlightenment? In P. Rabinow (Ed.), The Foucault reader (pp. 31–50). New York: Pantheon. Foucault, M. (2002). The archaeology of knowledge. Translated by A. M. Sheridan Smith. London/New York: Routledge. Foucault, M. (2007). What is critique? In S. Lotringer (Ed.), The politics of truth (pp. 41–82). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Fraser, N. (1990). Rethinking the public sphere: A contribution to the critique of actually existing democracy. Social Text 25/26, 56–80. Gakis, D. (2020). Wittgenstein and Italian theory: The case of Negri and the common. Constellations 27(3), 466–481. Gawlicz, K. (2020). Szkoły demokratyczne w Polsce: Praktykowanie alternatywnej edukacji. Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Naukowe DSW (English-language review of the book, Democratic Schools in Poland, by M. Pacuszka available in Journal of Social Science Education 20(4), 203–206. Available at: www.jsse.org/index.php/jsse/ article/view/5081/4702) Habermas, J. (1984). Theory of communicative action. Volume I. Translated by Th. McCarthy. Boston: Beacon Press. Habermas, J. (1992 [1962]). The structural transformation of the public sphere: An inquiry into a category of bourgeois society. Translated by Th. Burger. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Habermas, J. (1998). Between facts and norms. Translated by W. Rehg. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Heller, A. (2019). Hungary: How liberty can be lost. Social Research 86(1), 1–22. Herzfeld, M. (1997). Cultural intimacy: Social poetics in the nation-state. New York: Routledge. Keane, J. (1989). Introduction: Democracy and the decline of the left. In N. Bobbio (Ed.), Democracy and dictatorship. The nature and limits of state power. Translated by P. Kennealy. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Lipman, P. (2011). The new political economy of urban education: Neoliberalism, race, and the right to the city. New York, NY: Routledge. May, T. (1997). Reconsidering difference: Nancy, derrida, levinas, and deleuze. Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania University Press. Negri, A. (2004). Wittgenstein and pain: Sociological consequences. Genre 37, 353–367.

Public parents 147 Olssen, M. (2017). Wittgenstein and Foucault: The limits and possibilities of constructivism. In M. Peters & J. Stickney (Eds.), A companion to Wittgenstein on education: Pedagogical investigations (pp. 305–320). London: Springer. Ozga, J. (2000). Policy research in educational settings. Buckingham: Open University Press. Pezdek, K. & Rasiński, L. (2016). Between exclusion and emancipation: Foucault’s ethics and disability. Nursing Philosophy 18(2). Rosanvallon, P. (2008). Counter-democracy: Politics in an age of distrust. Translated by A. Goldhammer. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rubin, B. C. & Cervinkova, H. (2020). Challenging silences. Democratic citizenship education and historical memory in Poland and Guatemala. Anthropology & Education Quarterly 51(2), 178–194. Squires, J. (2018). Public and private. In R. Bellamy & A. Mason (Eds.), Political concepts (pp. 131–144). Manchester: Manchester University Press. Tully, J. (2008). Public philosophy in a new key: Volume 1, Democracy and civic freedom. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tully, J. (2012). On the global multiplicity of public spheres. The democratic transformation of the public sphere? In C. Emden & D. R. Midgley (Eds.), Beyond habermas: Democracy, knowledge, and the public sphere (pp. 169–204). New York, NY: Berghahn Books. Ustawa [Bill] (1991). z dnia 7 września 1991 r. o systemie oświaty (DzU z 2004 r., Nr 256, poz. 2572, z późniejszymi zmianami). Whitty, G., Power, S. & Halpin, D. (1998). Devolution and choice in education: The school, the state and the market. Buckingham: Open University Press. Wittgenstein, L. (1965). The blue and brown books: Preliminary studies for the ‘philosophical investigations.’ New York: Harper & Row. Wittgenstein, L. (1999). Philosophical investigations. Translated by G. E. M. Anscombe. Oxford: Basil Blackwell. Wittgenstein, L. (2002). Tractatus logico-philosophicus. Translated by D. F. Pears & B. F. McGuinness. London/New York: Routledge.

11 Whose school is it anyway? On the insistence of education and the need for the emancipation of the school Gert Biesta Introduction There is a signifcant body of literature that has documented the decline of public education understood as education for the public, that is, accessible by everyone and available to anyone, funded by the public, that is, by public means, and accountable to the public through democratic structures, principles, and practices. Part of this literature has highlighted what might be called the inner erosion of public education. Here, the relentless pressure to ‘perform’ has created a situation in which alleged indicators of quality – such as student test scores or local, national, and international league table positions – are taken as defnitions of quality, which then become pursued for their own sake rather than for the sake of the good of education itself (for a sobering analysis of this development, see Ravitch 2011; see also Biesta in press[a]). Another part of the literature has focused on what might be termed “the outer erosion” of public education where the forces of marketisation, privatisation, and commercialisation (see Hogan & Thompson 2021) literally consume the school, frst and foremost by turning the school into an object for consumption (on this see Norris 2011). While both the inner and outer erosion of public education tend to disconnect education from the publics it should serve, this often happens with reference to the exact opposite, that is, the argument that education should focus on giving its publics – students, parents, communities, the economy, business, society, and so on – what they want. Yet, by focusing on what different publics want from the school rather than on what they might need (on the difference see Feinberg 2001; Biesta 2014), education ends up as a private good. It becomes a ‘thing’ utilised for the satisfaction of private desires, be they the desires of individuals, be they the desires of particular groups and groupings in society. This problem, so it seems to me, cannot be resolved that easily by constructing a different normative hegemony around the school. While educational agendas that focus on social justice, inclusivity, or equal opportunities are defnitely more benign than agendas that just want education to perform for the sake of performance, they nonetheless run the risk of contributing to the erosion of public education by laying a claim to ownership of a particular agenda for the school.

DOI: 10.4324/9781003289067-11

Whose school is it anyway? 149 The issue I wish to explore in this chapter precisely has to do with the question of whether the future for public education and, more specifcally, for a new ‘publicness’ of education after the critique of all the neoliberal agendas that try to steer public education in very particular directions, lies in fnding the right agenda for the school and in defending and pursuing such an agenda vigorously. The suggestion I wish to ponder is whether it might be the case that the very idea that education needs an agenda and should be guided by it is actually what has allowed for the erosion of public education to occur in the frst place. After all, agenda-setting always raises the question of who has the right to ‘own’ the agenda for education. But also, as long as we think of education in terms of agendas and their successful execution, the school itself is turned into an instrument for the ‘delivery’ of agendas and thus also ends up in a relationship of ownership with those who ‘hold’ the agenda (see also Biesta in press[b]). Rather, therefore, than assuming that the most urgent question to consider is what ‘we’ may want from ‘the school,’ there is at least also the question of what the school may want from us. There is, in other words, at least also the question of what the insistence of education itself is (on the idea of insistence see Caputo 2013). And rather, therefore, than assuming that the only legitimate question to consider is what kind of school society may need or want, there is at least also the question to consider what kind of society the school actually needs in order to be school and not just the executive arm of particular agendas (on the latter question see Liebau 1999). The issue at stake, in other words, is that of the emancipation of the school itself, and it is here, so I wish to suggest, that we may fnd an opening towards a ‘new publicness’ of education.

The modern school, solution, or problem? The history of public education is closely connected to the promises of social democracy and the welfare state. In this set-up the school is generally seen as part of the ‘solution,’ that is, as the institution that will contribute to, or even will bring about individual progress, social inclusion, democratisation, prosperity, and well-being. Of course, there are ongoing concerns about the degree to which the modern school is able to deliver on these ambitions (see, e.g., Hopmann 2008). But the very fact that these concerns are being expressed indicates that the particular horizon of expectations about the school is generally still in place. This is not to suggest that everything is well with the modern school. In many places around the world schools are under a relentless pressure to perform, and the standards for such performance are increasingly being set by the global education measurement industry (Biesta 2015) with OECD’s PISA ‘leading’ the way (for a critical analysis of and challenge to OECD’s ‘educational order’ see D’Agnese 2017; see also Sellar et al. 2017). All this puts pressure on schools, teachers, and students but also on policymakers and politicians, who all seem to have become caught up in a global educational rat race, often against their will. There is a discourse of panic about educational quality, which seems to drive an insatiable need for improvement,

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geared towards ever narrower defnitions of what counts as education and what counts in education. The surprising result of all this is that the modern school is increasingly seen as part of the problem rather than as part of the solution with high levels of dissatisfaction among teachers, students, politicians, the media, and the public at large, who all want something better from the school but disagree about what this ‘better’ may be or how it might be brought about. Some advocate extremely narrow agendas, for example by arguing for the need to go back to the ‘basics’ – always the three R’s, never peace and democracy – or knowledge, powerful or otherwise, and position the teacher in such endeavours as an evidence-based agent of control (or an agent of evidence-based control). Others pursue broader ambitions for the school, such as social justice, inclusion, or equal opportunities, often without asking whether such ambitions can be ‘perfectly delivered’ (on this problem see Heid 1988; see also Biesta 2020), but with a similar dissatisfaction about the lack of progress schools and education systems are making towards achieving such ambitions. One remarkable thing about the present state of education is that there is a lively and very visible debate about the quality of education. Although this may give the impression that many are concerned about the quality of education, the focus on quality is not without problems. Perhaps it is even the case that all the talk about ‘quality’ distracts us from the questions that should really be asked. One problem with the focus on quality is linguistic and has to do with the fact that the word ‘quality’ could be characterised as a ‘non-objectionable,’ that is, one of those words that it is diffcult to argue against. Who, after all, wants to be against quality? This already indicates that just to say that one aims for ‘quality’ – or even more problematic: that one aims for ‘quality education’ – is not saying very much if it is saying anything at all. There are, after all, competing defnitions of what quality is and competing views about what counts as quality, and these, in turn, have to do with competing underlying values. ‘Quality,’ after all, is a judgement about whether we consider something to be good or not. This reveals that the question of the quality of education is not a technical question but a deeply political one. This, in itself, should not surprise us. What should surprise us is that many seem to think that questions about quality, about what good education is, can be resolved by technical means, such as in the ongoing obsession with generating evidence about what apparently ‘works’ (see Biesta 2007, 2010). With regard to discussions about the quality of education, there are three common misunderstandings. The frst has to do with the mistaken idea that the quality of education has to do with matters of effectiveness and effciency. The problem here is that although effectiveness and effciency are values, they are process values. They indicate how good a particular process is at bringing about what it intends to bring about (effectiveness) and how it utilises resources for doing so (effciency). But ‘effectiveness’ and ‘effciency’ are entirely neutral with regard to what the process is supposed to bring about. The real quality question, therefore, is not whether particular educational processes and practices are effective and effcient but has to begin with asking what such processes and practices are supposed to be for.

Whose school is it anyway? 151 A second misunderstanding in the discussion about quality is the assumption that quality is a matter of giving customers what they want. Quite remarkably, this dictum is the frst ‘quality management principle’ of the ISO 9000 quality standards, which says: “The primary focus of quality management is to meet customer requirements and to strive to exceed customer expectations” (ISO 2015, p. 2). While this may sound attractive and also has entered the domain of education in the idea that educational institutions should frst of all satisfy the needs of students, that is, give them what they want, problems arise when customers want something immoral or when students want something uneducational (such as the right answers to exam questions or written guarantee that they will succeed; on these problems see, e.g., Eagle & Brennan 2007; Nixon et al. 2018). And then, as mentioned, there is the problem of ‘performativity’ (Ball 2003; Gleeson & Husbands 2001), where indicators of quality are taken as defnitions of quality so that organisations begin to defne their strategic ambitions in terms of reaching a certain position in a league table and cynically steer their performance towards the indicators that would result in such a position. In the ‘age of measurement’ (Biesta 2009), then, it seems that we are often valuing what is being measured, rather than trying to measure what we value about education, also not forgetting that not everything that is of value can or should be measured. The question about educational quality is, however, not only a question about defnitions of quality and the values that are at stake in such defnitions. There is also a political dimension, which has to do with the question of who has a legitimate voice in defning the quality of education and also who has a legitimate role in assessing the quality of education (a space flled all too quickly and all too eagerly by the global education measurement industry, precisely because there is money involved and proft to be made; see also Ball 2007, 2012). The question, in other words, is who can legitimately lay a claim on the school and its ‘agenda’ or, in more direct terms, the question is who actually owns the school or can lay a legitimate claim to such ownership. The suggestion I wish to make with regard to this question is that the modern school actually comes out of two different and in a sense competing histories, one in which there is a clear case for ownership and one where the whole question of ownership is precisely ‘out of order.’

The double history of the modern school In the frst and in a sense most common history of the modern school, it is argued that the modern school emerged as a result of the modernisation of society and, more specifcally, as part of the differentiation of societal felds and functions that is a central characteristic of the modernisation of society (see Parsons 1951; Mollenhauer 1973). In a society in which life and work are closely interwoven, such as in agricultural societies, the new generation will probably ‘pick up’ everything they need to know by just ‘hanging around.’ But

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when work moves to factories and offces and thus becomes separated from the everyday life of the new generation, this is no longer possible. As a result of functional differentiation, society thus begins to lose its educative ‘power,’ and this raises the need for special institutions where children are being prepared for their future participation in society. The modern school is the key institution emerging from this development, tasked with preparing children for their future life in society (see also Mollenhauer 2013). In this history the modern school emerges as a function of and a function for society. In more everyday language we can say that in this history the school emerges as the institution that has an important ‘job’ to do for society. This does not just mean that the school needs to do this job well. It also means that society has legitimate expectations towards the school. This history of the modern school not only gives society a strong voice in deciding what the school should do – we might say that in this history the school is ‘owned’ by society – but also gives society the legitimate right to check whether the school is indeed giving society what it wants from it, that is, whether it is doing its job well. Contemporary concerns about educational quality ft well into this history, and the global education measurement industry is in a sense just the logical next step in it. One could even argue that as long as the school is just a ‘performing function,’ as long as the only ‘job’ for the school is to serve society, it doesn’t really matter whether this function is performed by public institutions or private companies, as long as the job is done (which helps to explain why not everyone is concerned by the growing privatisation of public education; see Sellar & Hogan 2019). If this were all there is to say about the modern school and its relation to society, we could well stop here or just turn to technical questions about fnetuning the ways in which the school can become a more ‘perfect’ instrument for society – which is, of course, exactly where the global education measurement industry has positioned itself. I wish to suggest, however, that there is another history to be told about the school; an older, more hidden, and perhaps almost forgotten history. In this history, the school is not a function of and for society but a rather curious place halfway in between ‘home’ and the ‘street,’ halfway in between the private life of the family and the productive life of society. In this history, the school is a kind of ‘halfway house’ that is neither ‘home’ nor ‘work’ but a place and space for practising, for trying things out. In this history, as Hannah Arendt has suggested, the school is by no means the world and must not pretend to be; it is rather the institution that we interpose between the private domain of home and the world in order to make the transition from the family to the world possible at all. (Arendt 1977, pp. 188–189; see also Mollenhauer 2013) This history of the school connects well with the Greek meaning of the word ‘schole’ as free time, that is, as time not yet claimed or determined by society and its agendas (see Prange 2006). In this history the school is not there to

Whose school is it anyway? 153 keep the new generation away from society but rather has a key role to play in providing the new generation with the time, the space, and the resources to try to fgure out what it might mean for them to try to be ‘at home in the world,’ to use another phrase from Arendt (1994; see also Biesta 2019a). And the ‘fguring out’ is an important phrase here because this is not a matter of critical thinking or ‘just’ achieving autonomy but is a far more messy process of fnding forms for trying to exist in and with the world, as subject of one’s own life, not object of what others may want from you.

On the school and society Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Emile, or On Education (1762) is one of the frst texts – and perhaps even the frst text in the history of modern education – that has put this insight explicitly on the educational agenda. In the book, Rousseau argues that part of the work of the educator is to protect Emile from too strong infuences from the outside world. This is indicated in the famous opening sentence of the book: “Everything is good as it leaves the hands of the Author of things; everything degenerates in the hands of man” (Rousseau 1979, p. 37). Rousseau also shows in much detail, however, what the educator should try to do in order to make sure that Emile is not overwhelmed by forces from the ‘inside’ – the ‘passions,’ as Rousseau calls them. Unlike popular belief, Rousseau is therefore not advocating a romantic version of child-centred education in which the world is seen as ‘bad’ and the child is seen as ‘good’ (on this see also Böhm 2016). Rather, what is at stake in Rousseau’s ‘project’ is the possibility for the child to exist as subject of its own life in the world and with the world, so to speak, and the work of the educator is aimed at safeguarding the ‘space’ within and the conditions under which the child’s existing-as-subject can become a possibility. In the frst history, society has a legitimate claim on the school, and the school has a duty to ‘perform,’ that is, to meet this claim and to be entirely transparent to society about how it is performing. Whereas in this frst history there is a need for the school to be ‘open’ towards society, the second history suggests the opposite, that is, a need for the school to be protected and shielded off from the demands of society, precisely in order to give the new generation the time to encounter the world and encounter themselves in relation to the world and try to fgure out what this all means for them and asks from them. What the double history of the modern school thus helps to see is that there is a structural tension at the very heart of the modern school: a tension between the demand to do what society wants from it and the demand to keep society at a distance, a tension between the demand to ‘perform’ and the demand for ‘free play.’ Most teachers know this tension well and generally also know how to deal with it. They know that they sometimes need to be strict and demanding and that sometimes they need to let go and need to give their students time and space. The problem is not that the tension is not known or understood or that teachers lack the capacity for navigating the tension. But if what emerges out

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of this double history is the image of the school as a ‘servant of two masters,’ the problem with the school in our time is that the voice of one master – the master who says to the school: Perform! Give society what it needs! Be functional! Be useful! – has become much louder than the other voice, the voice that understands that the constant pressure to perform ultimately ends up as a form of terror (Ball 2003). It is not, then, that there is a legitimate and an illegitimate voice – in which case there’s a danger that we would replace a too functionalist conception of the school with a too romantic one. The main problem is that the situation is out of balance and needs a kind of system ‘reset.’ The problems surrounding contemporary education seem to stem from a rather one-sided view of the relationship between school and society, one in which it is assumed that the only legitimate and, for some, the only possible question to ask about this relationship is the question of what kind of school society needs and that the only legitimate and only possible relationship between school and society is one where society claims ownership over the school, precisely because the school has a job to do for society (and society is providing the money for doing the job – to put it crudely). In this set-up we can clearly see the infuence of the frst history of the modern school: a history in which society asks and the school serves. Yet there is another question that can be asked about the relationship between school and society, a question that is intimately connected with the second history of the modern school. This is the question of what kind of society the school actually needs and, more specifcally, what kind of society the school needs in order to be school – the time we free up for the new generation – and not just a more or less perfectly ‘performing function.’ With this question, suggested by Eckart Liebau (1999, p. 5), we can turn the spotlight away from the school and its alleged ‘problems’ – which are, after all, only problems within a particular framing of the relationship between school and society – and look instead in the direction of society. After all, rather than assuming that the school has problems and society is just ‘fne’ is by no means the only way in which we can make sense of what is going on.

The rise of the impulse society A compelling and in my view highly relevant analysis of contemporary society which I wish to introduce at this point in the discussion centres around the claim put forward by Paul Roberts that contemporary society has to a large degree become an ‘impulse society’ (Roberts 2014). The rhetorical question that is posed in the subtitle of the British edition of his book – “What is wrong with getting what we want?” – already reveals where the problem may lie, although the subtitle of the American edition – “America in the age of instant gratifcation” – summarises the diagnosis Roberts gives with even more urgency and accuracy. A central distinction in Roberts’s analysis is that between ‘needs’ and ‘wants.’ Roberts shows that about 70% of the US economy focuses on ‘discretionary consumption,’ that is on the things we don’t really need but nonetheless want. And this creates problems, not just because of the fact that “an economy

Whose school is it anyway? 155 reoriented to give us what we want . . . isn’t the best for delivering what we need” (Roberts 2014, p. 8; emphasis in original) but also because it may be quite diffcult to “cope with an economic system that is almost too good at giving us what we want” (ibid., p. 2) – think, for example, of obesity as one of the ‘outcomes’ of such a set-up but also all the environmental problems created by ‘fast fashion.’ This does raise the question of where our wants actually come from, which has something to do with the dynamics of contemporary capitalism. One of the problems with capitalism is that it needs to grow in order to sustain itself. For a long time, capitalism could do this through expansion in space, that is, through constantly opening up new markets. This strategy which, in a sense, started in the age of colonialism reached its limits when the economy literally became global and, in a sense, ran out of space. At that point global capitalism discovered a different way to grow by making money out of time, mainly through the logic of the stock market. As long as one could stay (just) ahead of others with buying and selling on this market, it was possible to make money out of time – giving the old idea that ‘time is money,’ an altogether new meaning. But with ever faster computer algorithms, this enterprise reached its limits as well. This was one of the main reasons behind the fnancial crisis of 2008 where capitalism literally ran out of time. There was, however, one ‘register’ left, and this has become the defning focus of contemporary capitalism. The best example of what has emerged here is probably Apple, once we see that Apple doesn’t so much sell mobile phones as that it sells the desire for a new mobile phone. It sells this desire for free, but once it has arrived ‘inside’ us, we often fnd ourselves more than willing to exchange our hard-earned cash for the latest model. Contemporary capitalism, so we might say, is in the business of selling desires. “Bit by bit,” Roberts concludes, “the consumer marketplace has effectively moved inside the self” (ibid., p. 6; emphasis in original), and what is genius about this ‘turn’ is that it seems to allow for growth without limits, as “only the bottomless appetites of the self [can] contain all the output of a maturing industrial capitalist economy which can never stop growing” (ibid., p. 7). In his book, Roberts shows that the logic of instant gratifcation has not just become the defning quality of contemporary capitalism but has affected all dimensions of contemporary society. That is why we are not just suffering from an impulse economy but from an impulse society. And what is new in the impulse society is not that we have desires and that some of our desires are selfsh but “that the selfsh refexes of individuals have become the refexes of an entire society” (ibid., p. 4; emphasis added). What is also worrying, and this is an important aspect of Roberts’s analysis as well, is that “the very institutions that once helped to temper the individual pursuit of quick, self-serving rewards” – and here Roberts mentions “government, the media, academia, and especially business” but has surprisingly little to say about education – “are themselves increasingly engaged in the same pursuit” (ibid.). This is how we can understand the recent rise of populist politics, where the main message from populist politicians seems to be that if people vote for them,

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they will give them everything they desire (without spending too much time outlining the complexities of doing so or even the sheer impossibility of giving everyone everything they desire). More importantly for the discussion in this chapter, this is also how we can understand the predicament in which contemporary education fnds itself, that is, caught up in the desires of an impatient society that wants the school to become ‘perfect,’ and that fnds it increasingly diffcult not to succumb to the logic of giving its ‘customers’ what they desire rather than asking the diffcult but important question whether what students, their parents, or society says that they desire is what, on refection, they should actually be desiring or should want to desire.

The urgency of education It is exactly here, however, that we fnd the ‘urgency’ of the work of education (for the phrase see Meirieu 2007, pp. 53–58), which is not just the urgency of the educational work of education, so to speak, but also the urgency of the democratic work of education. The educational point is made quite well by Meirieu who argues that the wish to simply pursue one’s ‘own’ desires is a normal phase of the child’s development (see ibid.). Whether we call this phase ‘initial narcissism’ or ‘infantile egoism’ doesn’t matter that much, according to Meirieu. The main point, so Meirieu argues, is that children, caught up in their own desires and not yet able to name and identify them and make them a meaningful part of their encounter with the world, are tempted to spur into action – instant gratifcation – and do not yet understand that not everything they desire can be achieved or realised. The (slow) work of the educator – and hence the (slow) work of education – is to accompany children on this journey, encouraging them to go on the journey and helping them to gain insight in their desires, to gain a perspective on their desires, to come into a relationship with their desires, so as to fnd out which desires are going to help with living one’s life well in the world with others and which desires are going to hinder in this task. Rather than supporting the child’s ‘development’ or facilitating the child’s learning – to use two popular but hugely problematic phrases – education’s main task here is that of interrupting the child’s desires by offering resistance to them – hence Meirieu’s claim that education has a duty to resist (‘le devoir de resister’ – Meirieu 2007) – so that children can come into a relationship with their desires, that is, exist as subject, rather than that they remain determined by their desires, that is, exist as object. This is the challenge of trying to exist in the world in a ‘grown-up’ way (for this term see Biesta 2017, chapter 1) – trying to be ‘at home in the world’ (Arendt 1994) – rather than in what we might term an ‘infantile’ way. We should be mindful, however, that this is not simply a matter of age. It is not that young people are unable to be in a relationship with their desires where older people are. On the contrary, we can see many examples of older people who are entirely consumed by their desires, just as we can see many

Whose school is it anyway? 157 examples of younger people who are in a relationship with their desires and are able to achieve a degree of sovereignty vis-à-vis their desires. In this regard, then, the question of who ‘the children’ actually are becomes a more interesting, a more complex and also a more urgent and more political question, than just assuming that this is a matter of age. As Meirieu puts it, the ‘infantile’ actually haunts us throughout our lives (Meirieu 2007, p. 54). The desire just to pursue our desires without asking ‘diffcult questions’ is never permanently resolved. There is always the temptation, Meirieu writes, to destroy the other and see ourselves, even for a short moment, as the sole ruler of the universe (see ibid.). This is also why Meirieu argues that it is quite diffcult to escape from our desires on our own. He argues that we rather need social confgurations where we help each other to come into a relationship with our desires, to gain a perspective on our desires, to fgure out which desires we should desire, and which desires we should leave behind. The school, not as performing function but as ‘schole,’ as free or emancipated time, not yet completely claimed and determined by society’s demands, is precisely such a social confguration. And the real question for contemporary education and for contemporary society is whether such a social confguration is still a possibility.

Can the school still be school? When we put this next to Roberts’s analysis of the impulse society, two rather shocking conclusions follow. The frst is that the impulse society actually doesn’t want us to question our desires but just wants everyone to desire more. The impulse society doesn’t want us to grow up or try to exist in a grown-up way precisely because it makes so much money out of us staying (or becoming) ‘infantile,’ that is, coinciding with our desires rather than being in a relationship with them. The impulse society, to put it differently, is not interested in our existence as subjects because its ‘business model’ relies on the ongoing objectifcation of everyone. And the more this can be done through ‘self-objectifcation,’ where we become the managers or regulators of our own ‘object-ness,’ the easier things become for the impulse society and its economy. The second conclusion is that the impulse society has to a large degree eroded the very institutions that used to be able to help us – or put differently: where we could help each other – to rise ‘above’ our desires, to have desires rather than be (our) desires. It is here that democracy enters the discussion because one could argue that the whole point of democracy – unlike populism – is precisely to consider all the desires articulated by individuals and groups in order then to fgure out which of those desires can be ‘carried’ by society as a whole and which of those desires cannot be carried, for example because they put pressure on or run the risk of undermining the key democratic values of liberty and equality. Unlike the (false) promise of populism, the very point of democracy is that you cannot always get what you want (see Biesta 2014), which is not just the reason why democracy is diffcult, but why it is becoming increasingly

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unpopular in an age in which we are being told again and again that there are ‘no limits.’ If the preceding refections and observations make sense, they begin to raise an important question for contemporary society, namely whether in such a society the school can still be school or, to put it more precisely, whether the school can still be ‘schole,’ the halfway house in between ‘home’ and ‘the street.’ Rather than thinking of such a view of the school as romantic or outdated, I have tried to suggest that we need such a space or place in order to give the new generation an opportunity to meet the world and themselves and, most importantly, to meet their desires vis-à-vis the world and themselves, and to be given the time to ‘work through’ what they meet there. And this is important so that they can begin to come into a relationship with their desires rather than be determined by them, which is another way to articulate what it means to try to be ‘at home’ in the world (Arendt). This is the school as place and space but perhaps frst and foremost the school as time – as the time we give to the new generation to try, to fail, to try again, and to fail better, as Samuel Beckett once put it. This, so I wish to suggest, is not another agenda over which someone can claim ownership. It rather is the question we encounter in the face of ‘natality,’ in the face of the arrival of new human beings into the world or, with a stronger term, the ‘imperative’ (for this term see Lingis 1998) we encounter as educators, as the current generation meeting the new generation. It is, perhaps, the very insistence of education itself. What kind of society does such a school need, then? Obviously not an impulse society that just wants the school to ‘perform and deliver’ but rather a democratic society that still understands that not everything that is desired or emerges as a desire can and should be pursued. Whether such a school, a school that comes out of the second history of the modern school, is still possible is therefore not just an educational matter but ultimately a test of the democratic quality of society itself. For this we do not just need a society that is able to come into a relationship with its impulses rather than being driven by them. We also need a school that understands that it stands in a double history where, on the one hand, it needs to serve society but where, on the other hand, it also needs to offer resistance and be obstinate (Biesta 2019b), precisely in order to show that not everything that society desires from it is desirable – for the school, but ultimately also for society itself. Ironically, then, offering such resistance, being obstinate in precisely this way is perhaps the most important way in which the school can ‘serve’ society if, that is, society becomes interested once more in its democratic and grown-up future.

Discussion: The new publicness of education This chapter can be read as a refection on the relationship between ‘school’ and ‘society.’ In it, I have tried to respond to the erosion of public education, using the distinction between the ‘inner’ erosion of public education which has to do with the ongoing narrowing of what supposedly matters in education and

Whose school is it anyway? 159 the ‘outer’ erosion of public education which has to do with the ongoing privatisation and commercialisation of education. The critique of the impact of neoliberalism on education has provided much detail about what is going on here, and I tend to think that ‘erosion’ is the right concept to capture what has been going on. After all, there has been no neoliberal revolution, no radical and immediate ‘turn around,’ but rather a slow movement where many little steps, once added up, have fundamentally altered the educational landscape. Key in the critique of the impact of neoliberalism has been the analysis of marketisation where the school – and the education ‘sector’ more generally – has been repositioned as a commodity that is ‘for sale’ on the education market. Once the school is ‘there’ – and the school ends up there when it is being told that students are customers, that parents should be served, and that the school should be useful for society – it quickly becomes an object for the pursuit of private interests, that is, the particular interests of particular ‘interest groups.’ Along these lines the school becomes more and more disconnected from an orientation on the public good, that is, a good that always goes ‘beyond’ the desires of particular individuals or groups. The critique of the impact of neoliberalism depicts these developments as losses, particularly the loss of worthy, more encompassing, more democratic and more public agendas for education. This is correct, but the issue I have tried to bring into view in this chapter is that an effective response to this predicament cannot consist in a struggle for different and better agendas for education. While UNESCO may have more laudable ambitions than the OECD, and while ‘social justice’ and ‘equal opportunities’ may sound more attractive than ‘global competitiveness’ and the ‘knowledge economy,’ the struggle over the ‘right’ agenda for education still runs the risk of seeing education as a commodity in need of an agenda. It still runs the risk of seeing the relationship between ‘school’ and ‘society’ as one where the school is an instrument for what ‘society’ (or any particular individual or group or social confguration) wants from it. The suggestion I have tried to make in this chapter is that while the critique of the impact of neoliberalism on education and, more specifcally, on the public quality of education is valid, the ‘solution’ so to speak is not to be found in the struggle for the re-establishment of a public agenda for education. What it rather needs is the interruption of the very idea that education is a matter of agenda-setting and the successful (or as some may wish to argue: effective and effcient) ‘delivery’ of such an agenda. The ‘intervention’ I have tried to make with this chapter is to ‘turn’ to a different question. This is not the question of what ‘we,’ or society, or whoever, may want from ‘the school’ but what it is that ‘the school’ is actually asking of us. I have referred to this question as the insistence of education, and it is central to my case for the emancipation of education itself, that is, setting education free from all the agendas that always want to claim ownership over education. (Such a gesture, by the way, is a profoundly educational gesture, precisely because education can never be about ownership of children, students, or the next generation more generally.)

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We may have become quite unfamiliar with the idea that ‘the school’ might be asking something from us, or that education can insist upon something, as the modern experience has been very much one where we are seen as those who give meaning to and make sense of the world around us and also bring our values to that world. But the idea that the world itself is just a silent partner in all this is not just the lie upon which neoliberalism has been able to fourish. It is also the root cause of the environmental crisis in which the world, for too long, has just been approached as an object of our desires, without much appreciation for the limits and limitations we encounter in this. And the same can be said about the current crisis of democracy. In some way, then, the publicness of education may be reclaimed, regained, or renewed if we are able to give place to and come to terms with the ‘integrity’ of education itself (on this notion see also Biesta 2022), as any attempt at just reclaiming a public ‘agenda’ for education may too quickly get stuck in the very neoliberal ‘logic’ it seeks to counter.

References Arendt, H. (1977). Between past and future: Eight exercises in political though. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Arendt, H. (1994). Understanding and politics (the diffculties of understanding). In J. Kohn (Ed.), Essays in understanding 1930–1954 (pp. 203–327). New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company. Ball, S. J. (2003). The teacher’s soul and the terrors of performativity. Journal of Education Policy 18(2), 215–228. Ball, S. J. (2007). Education Plc. Understanding private sector participation in public sector education. London/New York: Routledge. Ball, S. J. (2012). Global education Inc. New policy networks and the neo-liberal imaginary. London/New York: Routledge. Biesta, G. (2007). Why ‘what works’ won’t work. Evidence-based practice and the democratic defcit of educational research. Educational Theory 57(1), 1–22. Biesta, G. (2009). Good education in an age of measurement: On the need to reconnect with the question of purpose in education. Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability 21(1), 33–46. Biesta, G. (2010). Why ‘what works’ still won’t work. From evidence-based education to value-based education. Studies in Philosophy and Education 29(5), 491–503. Biesta, G. (2014). You can’t always get what you want: An an-archic view on education, democracy and civic learning. In I. Braendholt Lundegaard & J. Thorek Jensen (Eds.), Museums: Knowledge, democracy, transformation (pp. 110–119). Copenhagen: Danish Agency for Culture. Biesta, G. (2015). Resisting the seduction of the global education measurement industry: Motes on the social psychology of PISA. Ethics and education 10(3), 348–360. Biesta, G. (2017). The rediscovery of teaching. New York/London: Routledge. Biesta, G. (2019a). Obstinate education: Reconnecting school and society. Leiden: Brill|Sense.

Whose school is it anyway? 161 Biesta, G. (2019b). Trying to be at home in the world: New parameters for art education. Artlink 39(3), 10–17. Biesta, G. (2020). Perfect education, but not for everyone: On society’s need for inequality and the rise of surrogate education. Zeitschrift für Pädagogik 66(1), 8–14. Biesta, G. (2022). Why the form of teaching matters: Defending the integrity of education and of the work of teachers beyond agendas and good intentions. Revista de Educación 395, 13–33. Biesta, G. (in press[a]). On being a teacher: How to respond to the global construction of teachers and their teaching? In M. Proyer, S. Krause & G. Kremsner (Eds.), The making of teachers in the age of migration. London/New York: Bloomsbury. Biesta, G. J. J. (in press[b]). School-as-institution of school-as-instrument? How to overcome instrumentalism without giving up on democracy. Educational Theory. Böhm, W. (2016). Die pädagogische Placebo-Effekt. Zur Wirksamkeit der Erziehung. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh. Caputo, J. D. (2013). The insistence of god: A theology of the perhaps. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. D’Agnese, V. (2017). Reclaiming education in an age of PISA. Challenging OECD’s educational order. London/New York: Routledge. Eagle, L. & Brennan, R. (2007). Are students customers? TQM and marketing perspectives. Quality Assurance in Education 15(1), 44–60. Feinberg, W. (2001). Choice, autonomy, need-defnition and educational reform. Studies in Philosophy and Education 20(5), 402–409. Gleeson, D. & Husbands, C. (Eds.) (2001). The performing school: Managing, teaching and learning in a performance culture. London: RoutledgeFalmer. Heid, H. (1988). Zur Paradoxie der bildungspolitischen Forderung nach Chancengleichheit. Zeitschrift für Pädagogik 34(1), 1–17. Hogan, A. & Thompson, G. (2021). Introduction: The ‘publicness’ of schooling. In A. Hogan & G. Thompson (Eds.), Privatisation and commercialisation in public education. How the public nature of schooling is changing (pp. 1–18). London/New York: Routledge. Hopmann, S. (2008). No child, no school, no state left behind: Schooling in the age of accountability. Journal of Curriculum Studies 40(4), 417–456. ISO (2015). Quality management principles. Geneva: ISO. Liebau, E. (1999). Erfahrung und Verantwortung. Werteerziehung als Pädagogik der Teilhabe. Weinheim, München: Juventa Verlag. Lingis, A. (1998). The imperative. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Meirieu, Ph. (2007). Pédagogie: Le devoir de résister [Education: The duty to resist]. Issy-les-Moulineaux: ESF Éditeur. Mollenhauer, K. (1973). Erziehung und Emanzipation. 6. Aufage [Education and emancipation (6th ed.)]. München: Juventa. Mollenhauer, K. (2013). Forgotten connections: On culture and upbringing. London/ New York: Routledge. Nixon, E., Scullion, R. & Hearn, R. (2018). Her majesty the student: Marketised higher education and the narcissistic (dis)satisfactions of the student-consumer. Studies in Higher Education 43(6), 927–943. Norris, T. (2011). Consuming schools. Commercialism and the end of politics. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

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Parsons, T. (1951). The social system. New York: The Free Press. Prange, K. (2006). Zeig mir, was du meinst! In D. Gaus & R. Uhle (Eds.), Wie verstehen Pädagogen? Begriff und Methode des Verstehens in der Erziehungswissenschaft (pp. 141–154). Wiesbaden: Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften. Ravitch, D. (2011). The death and life of the great American school system. New York: Basic Books. Roberts, P. (2014). The impulse society. What is wrong with getting what we want? London: Bloomsbury. Rousseau, J.-J. (1979). Emile, or on education. New York: Basic Books. Sellar, S. & Hogan, A. (2019). Pearson 2025. Transforming teaching and privatising education data. Brussels: Education International. Sellar, S., Thompson, G. & Rutkowski, D. (2017). The global education race: Taking the measure of PISA and educational testing. Edmonton: Brush Education.

12 Expanding the publicness of education Worlding the world in a time of climate emergency Sharon Todd Introduction We live in unprecedented and perilous times. Times where the futurability of many forms of life, including our own species, is put into question. As I wrote the initial draft for this chapter, COP26 had just concluded and I was left wondering what planet many people think we inhabit and for how long. The enormity of the problem wrought so clearly by the meeting compels us to question how we think about the purpose of education, how we are underpinning it conceptually, and how we enact it through practice. This is not to suggest that education is any position to ‘solve’ the planetary crisis but to take seriously the question, how is it to respond? In relation to this volume’s emphasis on the ‘new publicness’ of education, it is urgent to ask how publicness can or ought to inform education at this critical juncture. This chapter explores the claim that a more expanded vision of publicness is necessary for facing up to the challenges posed by living in the time of climate emergency while keeping sight of the specifcally educational aspects of these challenges. To do this, I make a number of moves, each of which builds towards an understanding of how a new conception of publicness based on ‘worldedness’ might help us as educators to live with, in, and for each other and the Earth differently. My frst move is to take issue with the idea of ‘the public’ itself, at least insofar as it has been identifed as part of a political ontology inherited from within a “modernist/colonialist” (Machado de Oliveira 2021; Mignolo & Walsh 2018) exclusionary history. This means moving away from traditional Eurocentric and anthropocentric conceptions of the public which are founded on separation and independence from the so-called natural world (Plumwood 1993). Secondly, I aim to show that the very view of the public-subject is caught up in a nature/culture divide that has created a ‘world’ which, following the phrase of Bruno Latour, actually prevents us from ‘landing on Earth’ and dealing with climate emergency. Instead, I propose that the idea of subjectivity as a sympoietic relation not only offers us another ground from which to situate our notions of publicness, as well as our educational efforts, but depicts the very process of this coming into being or ‘worlding’ (Haraway 2017) as an educational one. Hence the third move explores how ‘worlding’ can be itself

DOI: 10.4324/9781003289067-12

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educational. That is, we continually engage in educational encounters with other life forms as well as with inanimate elements of the environment (such as rocks, air, water, and iPads, books, maps) through which students and teachers come into being. Following the work of Maori educational theorist, Carl Mika, I address how such an understanding of worlding as education also enables a different understanding of the public – not as something separate from nature but as co-constituted with/in/through the environment. In conclusion, I discuss how education is about making publicnesss more expansive by considering it as process of interconnection that can inform our responses to the climate emergency on different terms. In what follows I argue that the potential for a sustainable life with others urgently requires a reformation of the purpose of education as not one that serves a public but as one that can generate a new, more expansive publicness through its very practices of educational encounter. The two guiding questions here are these: What is the relation between publicness and education to look like if we are going to face the conditions of living in and with the climate emergency? How will the necessarily political dimension of education redefne itself beyond the tropes of modernity, including notions of the public itself?

The ‘public’ and its exclusionary, dualistic logic The public, as with other familiar political ontological commitments (democracy, emancipation, solidarity), emerged out of the same forces of coloniality (Plumwood 1993) that have also brought us to this critical juncture in relation to the planet. The complicated nature of this past invites a questioning of the extent to which these ideas can continue to inform what it is we do in the present, particularly in education. More specifcally, I seek to question here the harmful dualisms with which the modern project of education is still deeply connected. In terms of institutionalised systems, so-called public education was born out of the industrialisation of the nineteenth century in many western countries, a time rife with Empire and colonial expansion, with many states in the subsequent century (particularly after World War II) linking public access to education to projects of democratisation and post-coloniality. While the historical trajectories of the establishment of public education in each country take on particular infexions (see Walsh, this volume, for a discussion in the Irish context), for my purposes it is the defnition of what counts as ‘public’ and how it functions to consolidate certain forms of exclusion that is key here. These modern understandings of public education sought to stabilise ‘the public’ as a national political category and saw education as a system to be funded by states that was ostensibly ‘open to all.’ In their article, ‘What makes a public school public?’ Chris Higgins and Kathleen Knight Abowitz (2011) observe, however, that public schooling is often defned by what it is not. They claim that it has somehow become a “negative space” whereby substantive values of public schooling are much less discussed than what should be excluded from public schooling – for example, “religion and other comprehensive conceptions

Expanding the publicness of education 165 of the good” (Higgins & Abowitz 2011, p. 365). Thus, for them what is ‘public’ about schooling (not necessarily ‘education’) is frequently mired in discussions about what ought to be excluded as opposed to what should become part of a common project. To my mind, this is refective of a more insidious tendency to think of the public itself as indeed a means of exclusion, whereby not only elements traditionally held as belonging to the ‘private’ sphere are not welcome but also certain groups of people – and sometimes entire populations – are simply not seen to be part of the public at all (e.g., the poor; Travellers and Roma; asylum seekers and refugees; indigenous peoples; Black Americans; and, traditionally, women). The public, both as an imaginary ideal and in actual political life, serves to defne who gets to count in society and who gets to live their lives as though they mattered to all. While the democratic ideal informing public education has largely been to see politics as an expression of public voice and common interest, that voice and interest also form a site of continual struggle. Indeed, democracy is not the result of or expression of the public but a struggle to assert oneself as part of ‘the public’ in the frst place. From this point of view, the public can be seen a porous entity that functions as a form of self-identity with the larger society or state and as such is open to seemingly infnite renewal and expansion. Schools ‘for all’ that are publicly funded by states can, from this vantage point, become more inclusive of diverse communities and individual needs. However, if we examine the assumptions operating on a conceptual level (assumptions which, nonetheless, have ‘real life’ effects), we can see how the public has conceptually operated within legacies of exclusion and separation, hierarchies and dualisms. Indeed, it is these conceptual legacies which have created the demand for more ‘inclusion’ in the frst place. The public is not an ‘innocent’ entity that is automatically inclusive of everyone. For this reason, it cannot simply be ‘expanded’ in an additive fashion, incorporating into the body of the public more and more people, since it will always be wanting in terms of who it excludes. Instead, ‘expanding publicness’ means having to change our very understanding of what a public is and what it does beyond such dualistic and exclusionary logics. As ecofeminist Val Plumwood (1993) articulates it, the idea of the public is part of larger western intellectual landscape that has had powerful effects on the ways ‘we’ humans live with others on this planet. It is not that the story of modern public education in the west was conceived by people seeking to emulate Plato, Descartes or Kant; rather, Plumwood’s point is that certain modes of thought form the groundwork for what is possible to think and act within western culture, despite the many differences within what we call the ‘west’ itself. She explores how different dualisms (culture/nature; mind/body; reason/ nature; male/female; public/private) together form a complex web: “one passes over into the other linked to it by well-travelled pathways of conventional or philosophical assumption” (Plumwood 1993, pp. 45–46). A key element of dualisms is not simply the privileging of one side over the other (culture, reason, mind, male, and public over their respective ‘contrast terms’), but far more

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insidiously dualisms seek to accomplish a policing of thought itself. Dualisms function so as to make equality and mutuality literally unthinkable. Dualism is a relation of separation and domination inscribed and naturalised in culture and characterised by radical exclusion, distancing and opposition between orders constructed as systematically higher and lower, as inferior and superior, as ruler and ruled, which treats the division as part of the natures of beings construed not merely as different but as belonging to radically different orders or kinds, and hence as not open to change. (Plumwood 1993, pp. 47–48) One of the ways in which dualisms accomplish this policing of thought is through the movement of ‘hyperseparation.’1 Thus, the public is not simply distinguished from what is considered ‘private,’ but the very meaning of the public is dependent upon a negative relationship with it. Moreover, and importantly for my purposes here, Plumwood illustrates that the public/private dualism is connected to the overarching western divide that is made between human (culture) and nature. Through her readings of Plato and Descartes, Plumwood demonstrates how the power to dominate is evinced through their attempts to hive off human (cultural) feats from the so-called natural world, thus setting up a way of thinking about ‘nature’ that has two repercussions: Firstly, it fails to recognise that what is called ‘nature’ has diverse needs of its own, independent of human life (Plumwood 1993, p. 21); and secondly, that ‘nature’ becomes connected to a host of associations that act as counterparts to the master, male, human, public, reason, and culture (Plumwood 1993, p. 107). In other words, ‘nature’ through various dualistic pairings is always on the losing side of the divide, so to speak. In this way, ‘public’ becomes hyperseparated not only from its conventional counterpart, the private sphere, but from ‘nature’ as well. Importantly, Plumwood does not simply equalise various dualisms; for her, the point is not that these dualisms themselves have remained the same since Plato or indeed that new ones haven’t emerged. Instead, her emphasis is on the exclusionary logic of power and the mastery and oppressions that are enacted through such dualisms which continue to inform modes of thought in the present: “Culture thus accumulates a store of such conceptual weapons, which can be mined, refned and redeployed for new uses. So old oppressions stored as dualisms facilitate and break the path for new ones” (Plumwood 1993, p. 23). Thus, even though public education is a fairly recent social invention, it has functioned as a (unavoidable) part of a western dualistic legacy. This can be seen relatively simply, as I mentioned earlier, in the kinds of institutional moves that have excluded certain groups, individuals, and communities for which inclusion (usually as assimilation) has become a major focus in terms of access to education – and this is the case both historically through civil rights, feminist, and workers movements and currently through LGTBQ, Travellers, neurodiverse, and disability movements. However, less obviously perhaps, there is also

Expanding the publicness of education 167 the way dualisms have operated to construct the very ways of speaking, thinking and acting found in educational theory, pedagogy, and curriculum. Routinely, education is talked about as helping students develop a relation to the natural world or to come into the world as though that world were a separate entity altogether from the student herself. This is not to condemn the spirit with which such utterances are made, particularly as many are about seeking relationships to nature in order to promote awareness and care for the environment (see, e.g., Bonnett 2007). Many of us, myself included, can fall into this language of separation quite easily. My point is to question how exclusionary logics of mastery can lurk in the shadows of conventional thought. So long as publicness is on the side of mastery, it risks reproducing dualistic forms of thinking, ones that set in motion certain relations to the world that refect a common set of assumptions about how ‘we’ are to be and act vis-à-vis others, other life forms, and to the Earth itself. Indeed, systems of public education have had a central role to play in normalising the separation between nature and culture (Latour 2017) and the generation of social hierarchies upon which these exclusions rely. That is, who counts as part of the ‘public’ (and who does not) is made possible largely through a denial of our interdependence with both each other and the environment itself (Machado de Oliveira 2021, Todd 2023). How might we construct the publicness of education in a way that faces these exclusions, separations, and dualisms, while seeking new forms of affrmation (Braidotti 2019) that allow us to live well, or at least better, as the entangled creatures that we are? In the next section I explore how the nature/culture divide supports a vision of both subjectivity and the public that is outmoded and ill-suited to developing a properly educational response to the environmental emergency and propose an entangled view of subjectivity that shifts our understanding of what publicness can be.

The nature/culture divide and the public-subject Feminist scholars, particularly since the appearance of Carolyn Merchant’s groundbreaking volume the Death of Nature in 1980 and Genevieve Lloyd’s The Man of Reason in 1984, have cogently argued not only how onto-epistemological distinctions between nature and culture have been coded by gender but also how the very disconnect itself has enshrined a particular social order, normalising the hierarchical rendering of culture over nature and its correlates within patriarchy. Indeed, these dichotomies also fnd expression in, on the one side, the idea of (white) man who participates in the public sphere and is aligned with the ‘public’ itself and, on the other, the domestic and natural private space which is home to ‘women’ of all colours (albeit unequally). As Plumwood (1993) also notes, the nature/culture dualism is “based on ‘denials of dependency’ which do not simply reveal a masculine subject but the ‘identity of the master’ defned by these multiple exclusions which lie at the heart of western culture” (Plumwood 1993, p. 42). Decolonial and indigenous scholars have

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powerfully pointed to how the divide creates a fgure of the modern subject that sees itself as untangled, rational, and autonomous, who is again on the side of culture and the public. For all these scholars the idea of ‘white man as subject’ in this sense is largely formed through othering practices, which require regulating entire colonised populations to the ‘natural’ realm. Signifcantly, not only does the nature/culture divide separate humans from the relations they have with/in/through the environment but it does so by defning ‘humans’ precisely through that separation, cutting them off from (and in many cases destroying) the very elements of the environment upon which, paradoxically, humans depend for life. Achille Mbembe’s (2003) notion of necropolitics as that enactment of the power to decide who lives and dies is quite appropriate here. The human subject cast within this separation is necessarily one who commits its own self-destruction and does so according to dualistic modes of thought that position some people’s (and other living beings’) lives as being more worthy of living than others. Moreover, in light of modernity’s own knotted history with practices of colonialism, there are defnite political aims and consequences to this onto-epistemological act of severing nature from culture and humans from their relations with the environment – ones which reach deep into what constitutes reality, truth, and values. This cut creates a wound from which it has become increasingly diffcult to heal as the growing list of environmental-related disasters, forced migrations, and extinctions attests to. The relation of the ‘public’ to the nature/culture divide is not merely a tangential one but central, I think, to understanding the place of subjectivity (i.e., the ‘public subject’) within educational thought and practice. Importantly, the divide that modernity/coloniality created does not only separate us from ‘the environment,’ but according to a wide variety of theorists, such as Rosi Braidotti, Donna Haraway, and Bruno Latour, it actively disavows the interrelationality and interdependency upon which all life depends. This disavowal constitutes quite literally a different ‘world’ – a different plane upon which existence was (and continues to be) understood – from one that is seen to be interdependent. To rehearse what is probably quite familiar to many of us, the human subject becomes a discrete entity with the world (the environment, things, and other life forms) located outside the boundaries of the subject. This is not simply another ‘view’ of the world but constitutes the very idea of ‘world’ itself. Thus, “the expression ‘relation to the world’ itself demonstrates the extent to which we are, so to speak, alienated” (Latour 2017, p. 24). Thus, it is common in English (and many other European languages) to say we have a relation to the world as if that world were an entity wholly external to the living subject itself. In fact, we regularly speak of education as creating new relations to the world, introducing students to objects of study, such as maps, books, and ideas in the hope that they will see the world anew. However, when survival on the Earth itself is at stake for many species, including our own, do we need to see the world differently or do we need to, as Bruno Latour suggests, ‘land on the Earth’ and create a different world altogether? And what kind of ‘public’ education would this entail?

Expanding the publicness of education 169 To my mind, the task of landing on Earth suggests that our educational frames of reference can no longer be about making better relations to the world through more inclusive public access to education that simply widens participation to what already is. It requires instead a bolder commitment to what education does, through its practices, to create a more expansive publicness based not on inclusion but interdependency – an interdependency without which no living thing can survive. ‘Expanding’ here does not equal ‘inclusion’; it does not mean increasing the number of people who are accepted into already prescribed fold or order – even one that purportedly claims to represent ‘a’ or ‘the’ public. Instead, it refects a broadening outward, an expansiveness, that reveals our connectedness to living beings as well as to the matter (rock, earth, water, air) that sustains us. The view of subjectivity underpinning this view is not a human subject defned by one side of the divide (e.g., master, male, reason) but is a subject of its environment, in the full meaning of that preposition, one that emerges from the complex relationalities that constitute any given context (Todd 2023). Thus, life forms, including humans, have been conceived variously as ‘symbiotic assemblages,’ ‘holobionts,’ and ‘consortia’ (see Margulis 1998; Haraway 2016, 2017; Braidotti 2019). The subject is therefore an embodied one – not simply a category of mind or reason but a feshed-out living being. That is, subjectivity itself is not ‘abstracted’ from its bodily constitution but part of a landscape of living breathing matter. And like all living matter, it is an event of symbiotic constitution or, as Haraway and Braidotti name, a ‘sympoiesis.’ For Haraway “critters [including humans] do not precede their relating; they make each other through semiotic material involution, out of the beings of previous such entanglements” (Haraway 2017, loc 3436). For Braidotti, while the recognition of sympoietic constitution on the biological level is part of the necessary move towards recognising our constitution as not unlike that of other beings on this planet, it is nonetheless essential to formulate and re-imagine a politics where subjects of sympoiesis offer “relational and affective accounts of ways of being human” that can address the “genders, class, race and age-oriented analyses” of power relations that continue to exist (Braidotti 2019, p. 72). Thus, this framing of the subject as sympoiesis, as becoming with/in/through our relations to elements of the environment, offers the theoretical opportunity for exploring publicness as acts or events of constitution where subjects relationally generate new forms of being together. As such, the public is not simply defned in and against either the private sphere or the natural one. Instead, the public-subject shifts from being the solid ‘man of action’ to a relational subject with the capacity to effect and be affected by its encounters with elements in the environment. This relational emergence is an instance of ‘worlding’ – of highlighting the coming into being as a necessarily shared occurrence. As Haraway puts it, “[s]ympoiesis is a word proper to complex, dynamic, responsive, situated, historical systems. It is a word for worlding” (Haraway 2017, loc 3432). This act of ‘making’ public is, I want to suggest, not simply an exercise in making something common between us but entails a host of relationships through which subjects come into being as subjects of the world with others.

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Making public: An educational event of worlding Maori educational philosopher Carl Mika writes of the alignment within indigenous thought between education and one’s becoming through the necessary relations one has to all things that form us. In Indigenous thought, ‘things’ are not merely matter but also include ‘presence’ and ‘being’ such that mountains and rivers as much as animals and plants are imbued with life. Bringing together the ‘metaphysics of presence’ (of Derrida, Heidegger, and Novalis) with ‘indigenous metaphysics,’ Mika argues that they both “propose something about things (and hence we relate to things on the basis of those propositions), and to that extent they both propose how things form us. They therefore educate us” (Mika 2017, p. 3). For Mika, “they therefore educate us” is not a reductionist statement that views education merely in terms of ‘formation’ as though ‘things’ merely impinge upon us and we are consequently ‘produced’ as subjects. I think it is necessary to hear this with different ears; for it is not formation as socialisation he is discussing but the ‘sympoietic’ constitution of the subject itself. For Mika, “that things in the world constitute other things is a form of education deserving to be thought in its own right” (Mika 2017, p. 6). Thus, on this account, education becomes a relationship with things, including human and other beings. This is echoed in Cash Ahenakew et al.’s claim that education ‘happens’ within “a grammar of interdependence” (Ahenakew et al. 2014, p. 224), which acknowledges the co-constructed realities of things, including human subjects. For Mika, who draws on their ideas, this also marks an understanding of education as an exchange with the world – that is, we not only are formed by it but also form it. Education is thus a relationship that moves back and forth between subject and world. He writes: “We act within and as constituted by the world whilst proclaiming something about it. One is educated as the world; one simultaneously educates the world” (Mika 2017, p. 7). Thus, on this view, education is not something that is done to you but is something you participate in as a co-constitutive element of worlding practices. The world is therefore not something that is fxed or that we ‘come into’ as if we lived outside of it. Nor is it something to be ‘studied’ as entirely separate from the one who studies it. This does not mean I am the same as it, or that things are not distinct from me, but they do not exist on a different plane from my own existence and through our encounters each comes into its own existence relationally. For Mika, ‘education’ names these co-emergings; it fundamentally depicts a process of ‘worlding’ the world, of bringing the world into being as it simultaneously brings us into being with it. Mika writes: “Broadly, I mean by worlding and its variations worlded and worldedness the following: one thing is never alone, and all things actively construct and compose it” (Mika 2017, p. 4). This signals that coming into being for a subject is not a solo act of reason or agency independent of relationships. Dualistic modes of thought have little purchase in this conception. To think beyond the public/private and nature/culture divides means having to dispense with conventional (at least in western terms) hyperseparations that

Expanding the publicness of education 171 posit human subjectivity outside of life itself, and it also means having to embrace a more counter-intuitive (again in western terms) approach to conceiving of our relations as being of the world rather than to the world. Worlding is therefore an expansive notion. It accounts for how all things, or elements in a given environment, are related and give rise to new relations and things. (Even colonisation, Mika notes, is a worlded entity, and thus the relationality it gives rise to needs to be contended with and cannot be easily dismissed as not mattering.) Think of educational settings through which ideas, numbers, books, and maps are encountered. All of these things are constituted by past and present relations with other things, including the teachers and students who come into contact with them, studying, discussing, trying on, and adapting them to their current situation and in that process becoming a (new) subject with the things thereby being carried forward into different futures. On such a view, a student who grows a plant from seed is not merely in a relation to the plant but becomes the carer and grower the plant needs if it is to survive while the plant becomes a source of oxygen that journeys through the breath into the body of the student. Seen in this way, education is less about teaching youth, for instance, how to care for something (although such a skill is surely learned) and more about designing and curating an encounter that addresses this interdependency directly. This is an act of worlding that can itself educate us about interconnection in ways that do not separate the world we live in and the world we live from (Latour 2017). What worlding means for expanding the publicness of education are two things: Firstly, the constitution of ‘public’ is itself an educational event or happening – it is part of the fow of processes that leads to a specifc relational formation we give the name ‘public.’ As such, it allows us to take some responsibility for the relations that we engage in under its name, vigilant against the exclusionary and dualistic logic that haunts our conventional uses of the term. Thus, rather than see that to move beyond the term’s dualistic tendencies it merely has to incorporate aspects of the private sphere, worlding instead enables us to think altogether unconventionally, viewing it as something that is emergent, as something that teaches us something about the world and ourselves together. As Higgins and Abowitz (2011) put it, the term ‘public’ should be treated as a verb, not a substantive. It is an act of coming together, of sharing a place, such as a classroom that acknowledges the infnite relations that are mutually constituting of that place. Secondly, such acknowledgement means that publicness is not just about making something external to us common (e.g., that we have a common, shared interest in something such as ‘the environment’), but rather publicness requires recognising our interconnectedness with the world is what is common between us. This interconnectedness, moreover, makes us and is fundamentally a part of our own understanding of self as a relation of the world. In this sense, we are always already implicated and entangled with the world as a condition of being ‘in’ it, to use conventional phrasing. And it is from this ‘place,’ teeming with ever-present co-relations, that we come together.

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Thus, worlding challenges the idea of a public as simply representing a group of people who are defned by a category (e.g., national or social identity) or by a notion of the subject (as master, masculine, human) that is severed from its environment. While other activist notions of the public, such as ‘counter-publics,’ are offered by theorists such as Micheal Warner and Nancy Fraser, they remain tied to social identities (Warner) and to including aspects of the private sphere (Fraser) in ways that do not fully challenge the dualistic logic I have discussed here; such moves end up representing different relations to the world rather than of it. The view of the public that is made possible here is a processual and educational one – that is, it is about the active relational constitution of a ‘new’ entity where subjects’ becoming and their ability to live lives well with things/ beings of the Earth are made possible. That is, it is based neither on the autonomous fgure of public man nor on the hyperseparation between nature and culture but on the generative capacities to make ‘new’ relations, while living with the histories and legacies of those relations in the present. Not only are we never alone, as Mika notes, but we are never context-less since our becoming is always worlded.

Discussion: The new publicness of education What I have been arguing here is that if education is going to have a proper response to the climate emergency (that is, beyond any instrumentalist function), it needs to consider publicness in a different light, and with it, the relationality that constitutes subjectivity as that which emerges out of a complex matrix of interpenetrating worldly connections. What I have attempted to do is think alongside the indigenous idea of worlding to suggest that education is about this entangled becoming and as such is central in the constitution of the public itself. These moves suggest a reframing of education, not as a means through which we can better ‘grasp’ nature as though we are outside of it but as a process through which we (students and teachers alike) make sense of the various ways we are interconnected with the world as we name it and live it. Expanding publics means giving wide berth to the various elements in the environment that constitute life, moving away from human(ist)-centred notions of public life, to include the relations of mutual implication that we have as subjects who live with/in/through elements of the environment. I do not mean to suggest that we can simply ‘include’ other forms of life into our conventional notion of ‘public’ – although the idea of publics consisting of animals, plants, insects, trees, and other living matter would offer some respite from human-centred relations to the world, the risk remains that ‘inclusion’ does not necessarily challenge the exclusionary dynamics of establishing ‘who’ counts or not as part of this public. More to the point, it is to move from public as a noun to one of dynamic interrelationality. This suggests that an educational response to the climate emergency takes as it starting point the idea that publicness is worlded and that it is not separate from the environments with which humans live and with which they are in relations of interdependency.

Expanding the publicness of education 173 Thus, in summary the new publicness I am discussing here requires the following: 1

2

3

4

Moving beyond the dualisms and exclusions which have constituted the formation of publics. This means detaching notions of the ‘public’ from nations, states, or identities and also not seeing inclusion as a remedy for addressing these legacies. Expanding our understanding of what we think the public is as an entity or even what is ‘common’ between us. Seen from the point of view of the profound interconnections that constitute our worlds, publicness is conceived as a relational enactment rather than a state or condition to achieve. Embracing worlding practices or sympoiesis as a reformulation of publicness in ways that acknowledge the co-constitution of ourselves through/in/with elements of our environments. Thus, the expansion of publicness can include consideration of all that goes into those co-constitutive relations, including trees, animals, water, and air. Understanding publicness itself as part of an educational process. This means viewing the ways we come to make worlds with elements of our environment as exchanges of transformation and becoming. Publicness is thereby an activity, something that is alive and in constant renewal.

Considered together, the new publicness of education means framing the purposes of education both in terms of a subject who can live well with the many elements that go into making a world and in terms of an Earth who can begin to be seen as a living entity in her own right. Educationally speaking, the challenge for us who teach and who care about planet is to fnd ways of giving scope for worlding: for naming, living, and becoming with others. This reframing takes us into the deeply educational space of becoming subjects capable of healing wounds of division in order to land on Earth.

Note 1 Plumwood identifes fve features of dualism in relation to the subsumed term: backgrounding (or margninalisation), radical exclusion (hyperseparation), incorporation, instrumentalism, homogenisation (or stereotyping) (Plumwood 1993, p. 48).

References Ahenakew, C., Andreotti, V. D. O., Cooper, G., & Hireme, H. (2014). Beyond epistemic provincialism: De-provincializing indigenous resistance. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples 10(3), 216–231. Bonnett, M. (2007). Environmental education and the issue of nature. Journal of Curriculum Studies 39(6), 707–721. Braidotti, R. (2019). Posthuman knowledge (Kindle ed.). Medford, MA: Polity. Haraway, D. (2016). Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the chthulucene. Durham: Duke University Press.

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Haraway, D. (2017). Symbiogenesis, sympoiesis, and art science activisms for staying with the trouble. In A. Lowenhaupt Tsing, N. Bubandt, E. Gan & H. A. Swanson (Eds.), Arts of living on a damaged planet: Ghosts and monsters of the Anthropocene (loc 3418–3859, Kindle ed.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Higgins, C. & Abowitz, K. (2011). What makes a public school public? A framework for evaluating the civic substance of schooling. Educational Theory 61(4), 365–380. Latour, B. (2017). Facing Gaia: Eight lectures on the new climatic regime. Cambridge: Polity Press. Machado de Oliveira, V. (2021). Hospicing modernity: Facing humanity’s wrongs and the implications for social activism. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books. Margulis, L. (1998). Symbiotic planet. New York: Basic Books. Mbembe, A. (2003). Necropolitics. Durham: Duke University Press. Mignolo, W. & Walsh, C. E. (2018). On decoloniality: Concepts, analytics, praxis. Durham: Duke University Press. Mika, C. (2017). Indigenous education and the metaphysics of presence: A worlded philosophy (Kindle ed.). London: Routledge. Plumwood, V. (1993). Feminism and the mastery of nature. New York: Routledge. Todd, S. (2023). The touch of the present: Educational encounters, aesthetics and the politics of the senses. Albany: SUNY Press.

13 Conclusions The new publicness of education Carl Anders Säfström and Gert Biesta

After neoliberalism and its critique We started this book asking what educational thought and practice may look like ‘after’ neoliberalism where the ‘after’ not just refers to the situation in which the discourse of neoliberalism has become hegemonic as the way to make sense of education but where the logic of neoliberalism has also become engrained in the very confguration of education. We wanted to be thinking ‘beyond’ this state of affairs by starting from somewhere else, that is, in assuming the possibility of public education beyond the critique of neoliberalism and as other than being reduced to a tool for fxing things that are broken. Our very starting point was that educational thought is not on par with neoliberalism and that if we stop short in only critiquing neoliberalism, we may be risking moving education further away from its proper aim and function rather than moving on from within education itself. Education, we assume, is in itself an expression of democracy, in that it, as democracy does, operates in the world, a world which is plural and in which living well with others is a condition for its existence. Education is existential in a direct way; it touches souls and therefore the sensible organisation of life as we know it. All the signs of neoliberal ideology, as aggression, competition, hyper-individualism, market-value and more, are in direct opposition to education as such, which rather focuses on emancipation, on the freedom of the other, on relations of shared responsibility for living well with others, under the conditions given to us ‘on this earth,’ as Todd writes in her chapter. As the chapters have shown, it is a question of not only expanding the very idea of ‘publicness’ but also fnding new forms and confgurations that actively embrace such a change of worldview. To imagine education anew – or maybe better: again – beyond neoliberalism and beyond the critique of neoliberalism, is necessary if we do not want to get stuck in a repetition of its premises. As Biesta show in his chapter, neoliberal schooling simply isn’t about education but rather about the reproduction of a certain sociopolitical status quo that is based in market-capitalism. Not only is education often misread, leading to a school in the service of whoever has the power to infuse their desires, but it often seems to be the only possible question to ask, that is, how school is to

DOI: 10.4324/9781003289067-13

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serve the demands and desires of society. Biesta turns such taken-for-granted assumptions around and asks, instead, what kind of society the school actually needs, thereby fundamentally rupturing the taken for granted idea that education is in the service of the state, rather than in the service of humanity and its existence as such. Such a move implies that we cannot simply argue for reinstating public education and even less so to conceive of the new publicness of education in terms of giving the public even more of what it wants or desires because this will simply return the situation to the neoliberal hegemony, without asking fundamental questions about the conditions under which education can regain its publicness. Todd in her chapter not only asks what society school needs to serve humanity rather than implementing the desires of the state but also expands the very idea of public itself. To meet the world, to be ‘wordling,’ as she calls it, is to be paying attention to the performativity of public education in which the public concerns and signify a dynamic interrelationality in a world not restricted by ‘humanism’ but a world in which trees, animals, water, and air exists as well. Todd argues not only for expanding the understanding of education but also to expand what and who the public speaks to. That is, the languages we adopt, and use to make sense of our world, also in themselves organise the world in specifc ways. To speak in a language of a new publicness of education then can also mean, ironically, as Säfström’s chapter suggests, to be looking back to the very invention of education. In his chapter Säfström suggests a language of public education on the basis of the sophists’ language of education, since such language is already at its core an expression of plurality, equality, and the expansion of relations across difference, resisting and transforming the inequalities inscribed in a neoliberal world order. It resists being an instrument for inequality in which the inequality is made into nature, into ontological reality.

Histories, policies, and practices O’Keeffe, in claiming the need for a new language of education as well, is arguing for such a language in the context of Irish education, albeit with relevance well beyond this context, by suggesting a counter-discourse centring on the role of the teacher in such new publicness, the performativity of teaching, and the necessarily gendered character of such a counter-discourse. O’Keeffe suggests that we need to start in daily practices when considering how we are to be moving beyond the ‘violence’ of neoliberalism. On this line of thought, Oyler challenges the idea that the notion of ‘public’ in public education always is to be thought of as opposite to what is private. While ‘private’ is most often understood in relation to ‘ownership,’ economy, and capital and, as such, in opposition to the ‘common good’ of the public, Oyler rather highlights the way in which the idea of the ‘private’ has to do with the personal instead. He reminds us that ‘thinking’ is always already ‘public’ and that our inner lives and the ways in which we are relating to others are also including ourselves as other.

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There is a certain way in which we are accountable to ourselves which already implies the possibility of agency and freedom contributing to the common good. Working with this book, through seminars and ongoing conversations among all the authors, we worked with the idea of ‘beyond’ in a particular context, namely that of Irish society. As a result, our aspirations were, in a sense, ‘corrected’ by this particular historical and political situation. Irish society is largely in a transitional stage in which new freedoms are won through the activities of social movements rather than the political establishment. This means, among other things, educational systems and structures in Ireland are to a large extent still infuenced by conservative forces, even when those are dressed as new inventions forming new curricula and regulations. Therefore, they can hardly be characterised as being beyond neoliberal values and convictions but rather are at a pair with such ideologies and convictions. Dempsey in her chapter argues for understanding the very project of ‘curriculum’ as a grand public project, which in different historical periods has had more or less infuence on actual policies. She argues that in order to move forward on the new publicness through curriculum discourse, we need to be considering the teacher as the most signifcant actor, as O’Keeffe argues as well, not as the one ‘delivering’ a curriculum made elsewhere but actually as the one making the curriculum in interaction with others, in concrete classrooms, thus opening up such classrooms for newness to enter, and for the possibility of moving beyond the political situation at hand, which tends to restrict curriculum as a public project rather than enhancing it. On this point Walsh raises the important questions whether public education in Ireland has ever been public. Starting from a common defnition of public education as publicly funded, democratically controlled, and accessible to all, he shows that Ireland has never developed such a settlement but rather has been having a patronage school system, fnancially ‘aided’ by the state, but ideologically dominated by the church. He also shows how this situation is generating a series of problems today with a shifting population and shifting expectations about the school and about society. O’Shea and Rickard remind us that education not only takes place in schools by discussing a project in which student teachers meet student youth workers in a joint course. They show how inequality of the existing social order can be concretely challenged and transformed. Critical pedagogy, rather than reinforcing the inequality inscribed in ‘schooling,’ and upheld by a certain discourse situating those professional groups and their experiences as both separated and hierarchically organised and therefore enforcing inequality, is challenged to its core in a concrete situation of a joint course. The practical and conceptual representation of the publicness of education through the course performs such publicness differently, making it possible for others than the established ‘identities’ to appear on the social scene, thus expanding the public as such as well. Bringing new ideas and existing realities ‘in conversation’ highlights that the topics and themes of the chapters in this book are evolving as tracks, lines of thought, and investigations – paths to walk, so to speak – rather than that they

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are sites already arrived at. Some important steps are taken in rethinking the current situation of public education in Ireland and elsewhere, but the chapters also push back at the very use of particular confgurations of public education in the ‘new tyrannies,’ as an instrument for ideals and values that has nothing to do with education. Cervinkova and Rasiński in their chapter show, through an empirical case, that when the state, as guarantee for public education, turns ‘tyrannic,’ that is, violently imposing an exclusionary agenda, parents mobilising education from a private, non-public position actually do reclaim the public. They do so by forming a counter-discourse that expands and diversifes a ‘homogenous cultural intimacy.’ They thereby show how the non-public, in this case, really is the public. In order to move beyond neoliberalism in education, and its shifting consequences in different historical political situations, it seems to be necessary not only to defend educational thought against its non-educational use but also literally to defend people who are subjected to the violence it produces and the authoritarian capitalism it feeds. On this theme Forde, in her chapter, argues for establishing a counter-discourse which can re-imagine a new public while decentring ‘the neuromajority public.’ The Irish school system tends to systematically exclude a neurominority, enforcing the violence in pathologising and dehumanising children belonging to a neurominority. A counter-discourse, so Forde argues, needs to be recognising difference and plurality – that is, recognising what is central for education as such – in order to be responding to a diverse public and, through this, both expanding who belongs to the public as pushing for a new publicness informing schooling in Ireland. Such a responding in practice cannot only be, as O’Toole, Dowling, and McElheron discuss in their chapter about early childhood education and care in Ireland, about ‘consulting’ children, parents, and educators but requires ‘considering’ them too. They emphasise not only the importance of making children, as well as parents and early childhood educators visible in the construction of educational systems for early childhood and care, but also that in which they are considered from the point of interest of the common good. Children in themselves infuse newness if they are listened to, but in order for newness to take place the conditions in which they can be valued ‘in their own right’ need to be in place.

Public education and the state A common problem addressed by several chapters seems to be that public education is incorporated and performed by a state which, in itself, has incorporated the violence of an ‘unregulated’ capitalism marking neoliberalism, thus narrowing who and what belongs to the public. In order to be arguing for a new publicness, it seems, therefore, that we cannot really and automatically trust ‘the state’ in supporting such a move. Rather the newness needs to be based on people themselves in forming counter-discourses, as such discourses change the very language of public education – speaking a new reality into being, which

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better responds to the current situation in Ireland and elsewhere. It is to adopt an educational language in which the public is liberated from being a point of domination orchestrated from outside of education to forming counter-discourses informed by a new publicness instead. The chapters in this book show several ways in which public education is or can be both a battlefeld of forces other than educational and the place where new possibilities emerge, hence the importance of moving beyond the feld itself in order to move beyond the anti-educational premises imposed on education. It is therefore not neoliberalism per se that needs to be deconstructed, even if that would be helpful, but the way in which we talk education into being and therefore how education enables and enacts emancipation and democratisation. Public education is not only or not at all given through state-funded and stateregulated systems of schooling but dependent on certain ways in which the plurality of people is present as such in education. This means that public/ private is far more ambiguous than what is often assumed in political and economic theory as in educational policies and theories. The private is public, as the public is private, that is, personal and conditional for freedom to appear.

Towards a new publicness for education The seven areas we identifed in the introduction to this book as a result of our ongoing conversations that have informed the individual chapters – old and new publicness; customer satisfaction and the common good; the voice of the people and progressive populism; instrumentalisation and the integrity of education; the question of inclusion; the school and society; curriculum and pedagogy: publicness from inside out – are, as such, components of a discourse in and through which the newness of public education may appear. Together they suggest a cluster of counter-discourses moving public education beyond the critique of neoliberalism, in order for freedom to appear, as a realisation of education. In addition to the question asked by Walsh whether Ireland has ever had a form of public education, we can, in light of the chapters brought together in this book, add the bigger question: to what extent we actually have had or may be having education at all. The newness asked for, fnally, is for a public education in which freedom may appear as a consequence of its constant unfolding in the real world in which we live with other people who are different from us, as well as in an environment conditional for our very existence.

Index

ableism 85, 138 abortion 137–138 Afghanistan 138 agency 170, 177; children’s 79–80; civic 139; parents’ 143; students’ 44–48, 64, 70, 75; teachers’ 46–47, 61–65, 108; young people’s 124 Among Others module 112–126 Anthropocene 29 Apple 155 apprenticeships 45 Arendt, Hannah 49, 55–61, 66, 66n2, 66n4, 66n6, 152–153, 156, 158 Aristotle 26–27, 30–32, 34–5, 37n7, 37n8, 142; Politics 142 assessment 40, 42–46, 88, 93–94 assimilation 10, 91, 166 Association of Secondary Teachers in Ireland (ASTI) 43–44 autism 89–90, 133–134; spectrum condition 89 autonomy 32, 59; local 21; professional 116; schools’ 132; teachers’ 59, 140; young people’s 119, 153 Beckett, Samuel 158 Biesta, Gert 1–6, 55–57, 59–61, 64–66, 66n1, 66n3, 66n5, 68–72, 76–77, 79–81, 84, 88, 94, 101, 104, 108, 113, 117, 120, 124, 126n2, 148– 160, 175–179 Bildung, concept of 39, 47–48, 50 biodiversity 95 Britain 85; see also England; United Kingdom (UK) British rule 117 capitalism 3, 37n7, 155; authoritarian 178; global 104, 155; late 27; market 175; ‘unregulated’ 178

Cartesian angst 29 Cassin, B. 31–34 Catholic children 10, 14; see also Hedge Schools Catholic Church 12, 14, 16–17, 21, 71–72, 138 Catholicism 14 Catholic social doctrine 15–17 Catholic Young Men’s Society 117 ‘Celtic Tiger’ 71 centralisation 137; hegemonic 133 children: agency of 79–80; with disabilities 85–88, 92–93, 134; as ‘human beings’ vs ‘human becomings’ 69; rights of 16, 19–20, 22n2, 72, 75, 138, 145; see also Catholic children; children with special educational needs (SEN); UN Convention on the Rights of the Child children with special educational needs (SEN) 86, 125; public education for 84–96 Christianity 34 churches 10–13, 16 citizens 14, 34, 45, 68, 70, 79–80, 86, 138, 141–143, 145; ‘good’ 55–56; see also citizenship citizenship 55, 69, 75, 80, 137; global 26; ‘good’ 117 civic engagement 133, 143 civil rights movements 166 civil society 137, 141–142 classroom 39–42, 46–50, 63–64, 70, 91, 140, 171, 177; mainstream 90, 93; as public space 49 climate change 42; see also climate emergency climate emergency 163–173 Collaborative Action Research Network (CARN) 109

Index 181 collective resistance 100, 106–108 colonialisation 3; see also colonialism; coloniality colonialism 168; age of 155 coloniality 164, 168; post- 164 Comhairle le Leas Óige (Council for the Welfare of Youth) 117–118 commercialisation 1, 148, 159 common good 1, 4–5, 15, 19, 21, 27–28, 71, 79, 87, 90, 144, 176–179 common public good 4; see also common good Community Work and Youth Work 112 concurrent education programmes 115 confict articulation 122 consumerism 41 consumer satisfaction 2; see also customer satisfaction consumption 148; discretionary 154–155 COP26 163 Council of Europe Intercultural Education 122 counter-publics 41, 43, 142, 172 critical pedagogy 65, 115–117, 120, 177 critical race theory 40 Cullen (Cardinal) 12 cultural diversity 26, 95; socio- 50 cultural intimacy 140; homogeneity as 138, 145, 178; of the tyranny 137–139 culturally responsive teaching 40 culture 39, 69, 86, 102–103, 122, 165–168; common 106; of measurement 69; nature/culture divide 163, 165, 167–168, 170, 172; of peace and non-violence 26; popular 56, 66n1; school 40, 89–90, 94, 109; supportive 105; ‘teaching to the test’ 47; western 165, 167; see also cultural diversity; cultural intimacy curation 63–64 curriculum 1, 39–50, 61, 63–64, 71, 74, 76, 80, 91, 114, 167, 177, 179; development 11, 39, 42; development in Ireland 41–46, 50n2; enacted 41, 48–49; inquiry-based 124; integrated 22; mainstream 87, 90; and pedagogy 6, 40–41, 46–48, 179; prescribed 63–64; as public project 39–42, 45; standardised 41; state 141; studentcentred 39; studies 39–40; text 42, 45–46, 48

customers 1, 151, 156, 159; educational 2 customer satisfaction 4, 179 defcit model 69, 103 democracy 1, 4–5, 19, 28, , 32, 34–36, 41, 70–71, 77–78, 89, 102, 105, 132, 139, 142, 149–150, 157, 160, 164–165, 175; individualisation of 39; social 149; see also liberal democracy democratic governance 1 democratic personality 27 democratic values 1, 157 democratisation 124, 149, 164, 179; of education 13; and public education 1, 27–28 Derrida 170 Descartes 165–166 Dewey, J. 5, 29–30, 36n4, 45 Didaktik tradition 48 digital strategy 45, 50 disability(ies) 26, 75, 84–89, 91–95, 133–135; awareness campaigns 91; children with 85–88, 92–93, 134; inclusiveness 26; movements 166; neurodiverse model of 84; psychosomatic 136; rights 87–88, 92; see also neurodiverse movements; neurodiversity movement; UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN-CRPD) disablism 85 disruptions 57, 59–61, 63, 66, 123 dissent 132, 137 diversity 19, 26, 91, 95, 113, 122, 133, 135–136, 143; bio- 95; ethnic 26; ethnocultural 26; linguistic 26; pupil 91; religious 26; sociocultural 50; see also cultural diversity; neurodiversity Divini Illius Magistri (On the Christian Education of Youth) 16 documentality, theory of 79 dualisms 164–166, 173, 173n1 Durkheim 37n6 early childhood care see early childhood education and care (ECEC) early childhood education see early childhood education and care (ECEC) early childhood education and care (ECEC) 178; Aistear, the Early

182

Index

Childhood Curriculum Framework 72, 75; children in 79; community in 80–81; ‘Core Funding’ 73–74; dominant discourses of 74–77; educators and educational settings in 79–80; history of, in Ireland 71–73; in Ireland 68–81; ‘new publicness’ of 77–81; parents/families in 80; publicly funded 73–74; Síolta, Quality Framework for Early Childhood Education 72 ecological justice 5 education: access to 71, 88, 92, 134, 164, 169; authoritarian confgurations of 4; charity-response model of 86; child-centred 78, 153; deep 114; defnition 112–113, 117; democratic work of 156; of democratic citizenry 1; as discursive space 39; domestic 135–136; educational work of 156; formal 90, 71, 112–116, 124–125; general 93; home 135–136; impact of neoliberalism on 159; inclusive 84, 88, 90–94, 95–96; insistence of 148– 160; integrity of 5, 179; mainstream 84, 86–87, 91–92, 95–96, 133–134; mainstream system of 95, 125; marketisation of 2; new publicness for 179; new publicness of 2–4, 20–22, 36, 40, 50, 65–66, 81, 93–96, 101, 103–109, 124–126, 145, 158–160, 172–173, 175–179; non-formal 112–113, 119; outcomes-based 90; and perfection of nature’s work 31–33; Platonian/Aristotelian 26–27, 30–32, 35, 37n7; and politics 56, 70, 87; private 20, 136; as private commodity 2; privately funded 1; provision of 9–22; ‘for the public’ 4, 68–69, 84, 148; ‘in the interests of the public’ 68, 70–71, 76–81; ‘of the public’ 4, 68–70; as public concern 2; public university 139; publicness of 1–6, 9, 28, 84, 88–89, 101–102, 112, 126, 132–133, 145, 160, 163–173, 177; purpose of 46, 60–62, 104, 163; quality of 19, 72, 101, 150–151, 159; vs schooling 126; secondary 134; second-level in Ireland 41, 43, 113; segregation in 1, 86, 90; as self-cultivation 39; senior cycle 39, 44, 50; special

84–87, 89–96; as tool of cultural/ political assimilation 10; urgency of 156–157; youth work 116, 118; see also early childhood education and care (ECEC); “educational crime”; educational quality; educational theory; educational thought and practice; education for all; education policy; educators; higher education; primary education; professional education; public education; teachers “educational crime” 141 educational quality 2, 149, 151–152 educational theory 26, 28, 167 educational thought and practice 168; ‘after’ neoliberalism 175–176 education for all 1, 5, 84–85, 93 education policy 9, 12, 17–19, 21, 86, 88, 101–103, 109, 113 educators 68–70, 73, 76, 78–81, 89, 94–95, 112–117, 120–126, 153, 156, 158, 163, 178; early childhood 74, 79–81, 178; formal 120, 123–124, 126; informal 116, 120; non-formal 123–124, 126; “primary and natural” 15; as professional peers 123–124; professional development of 112, 121, 126; public 112; teacher 116; youth work 115–116 Eichmann, Adolf 64–65, 66n6, 66n7 emancipation 69, 164, 175, 179; of the school 148–160; theory of 108 England 10 environmental awareness 26 epilepsy 134 equality 1–2, 27, 32, 34–36, 40, 69, 143, 157, 166, 176; educational 88; see also gender equality; inequality(ies); marriage equality Eritrea 138 essentialism 138 eugenics 85 Europe 8, 27, 73, 76, 85, 92, 100, 104, 118, 132 European Union (EU) 26, 101, 134, 137–138; see also European Union Erasmus+ European Union Erasmus+: Youth Transnational Project (TCA) 120; Youth Programme 120 EU Solidarity Mechanism 138 exclusion 12, 14, 85–86, 88, 91, 95, 115, 123, 125, 133, 136–138,

Index 183 141, 143–144, 163–167, 171–173, 173n1, 178; external 90; “internal” 90–91, 95 far-right 27–28, 36n1; agenda 137; movements 1–2; populism 3 fascism 27, 37n6, 70 feminine values 103–104 feminism 65, 116, 138, 142, 166–167; anti- 27; eco- 165 feminist movements 166 fnancial crisis of 2008 155 foreclosure 114 Foucault, M. 143–145 foundationalism 29 Framework for Junior Cycle 43–44 free access 136 Freire, P. 108, 116, 126n2 functionalism 6, 69, 154 Gaelic (language) 86 gender 26, 45, 71, 113; -creative youth 125; equality 26; expression 113, 124; ideology 138; and performativity 103–104; recognition laws 113; as social practice 103; structures 103; and teachers’ professional lives 100, 103, 109; see also gender equality gender equality 26 Germany 85 global education measurement industry 2, 149, 151–152 Gramsci 142 Habermas 132, 142, 144 hearing problems 134 Hedge Schools 10, 13, 22n1 Heidegger 170 Heller, Agnes 132, 137 higher education 92, 115–116, 120– 121, 140 Hobbes, T. 141 Holocaust 66n7, 138 home-schooling 135 homogeneity 137–138, 145; threat of 58 homophobia 27, 135–136, 138 hope 26–27, 29–30, 33–34, 36, 36n3, 37n7, 114, 143; concept of 26, 29–30 “Horizon Europe 2021–2022” 26, 28, 34 humanism 176

human rights 93; inviolability of private property 141; universal 141; see also rights Hungary 132, 137–138 ‘hyperseparation’ 166, 170, 172, 173n1 identity(ies) 1–2, 47, 49, 63, 102, 107, 116, 120, 173, 177; ‘of the master’ 167; national 14, 41, 55, 172; professional 46, 89, 122, 126; social 172; teachers’ 89; of youth workers 115 ideology(ies) 177; of belonging 141; Catholic 9; exclusionary 141; exclusionary nationalist 137; fascist 37n6; gender 138; of homogeneity of belonging 138; negative 132, 137; political 28; right-wing 70; state 137–138; xenophobic 70 imaginary(ies) 165; of belonging 138, 140; collective 138; exclusionary 138; of homogeneity 138; homogeneous 140; national 137; public 113, 134 impulse economy 155 impulse society 154–157 inclusion 40, 45, 50n2, 72, 84, 92–94, 134, 150, 165–166, 169, 172–173; educational 84, 87, 93; full-inclusion model 84, 92–93, 95; movement in Ireland 87–92; question of 5, 179; school 89, 95; social 74, 95, 124, 149; “substantive” 134, 139 inclusiveness: disability 26 individualism 90, 126; hyper- 28, 175 industrialisation 85, 164 inequality(ies) 1–2, 26–27, 30, 32, 34–35, 113–114, 121, 126, 136, 142, 176–177; educational 1, 94, 140; social 85 instant gratifcation 154–156 instrumentalisation 5, 179 instrumentalism 36n4, 172, 173n1 interdependence 47–49, 66, 123, 167, 170 inter-subjectivity 66 Ireland, Republic of: 1922 Constitution 14–15; 1937 Constitution 14–16; Constitution of the Irish Free State (Saorstát Éireann) Act 13; Constitution/Bunreacht na hÉireann 1937 and education 14–17; curriculum development in

184

Index

41–46; Democratic Programme 13; Department of Education (DES) 13, 16, 18–19, 42, 72, 86, 120; Department of Health 86–87; early childhood education and care (ECEC) in 68–81; Education (Admission to Schools) Act (2018) 20, 23n3, 88; Education (Welfare) Act (2000) 23n3, 87; Education Act (1998) 18–20, 87; Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs (EPSEN) Act (2004) 23n3, 88; educational provision in independent Ireland 13–20; educational provisions in the colonial era 10–13; educational structures in 1920s 13–14; Employment Equality Act (1977) 71; Equal Status Act (2000) 87; Equal Status Acts (2000–2015) 23n3; family size 71; First Five policy 76; Green Paper on Education (1992) 18–19; High Court 87; housing crisis in 76, 114; independence 9, 13–14, 18, 21, 72, 86, 117; involvement of religious denominations in education system 8–9, 12, 15–16; Irish Council Bill (1907) 12; ‘marriage bar’ 71; Maternity Act (1981) 71; McPherson Education Bill (1919) 12; Minister for Education 13, 43–44; Ministers and Secretaries Act (1924) 13; National Board 11–13; National Economic and Social Council (NESC) 72; national education system 10–11: national school system 71–72; origins of public education 10; Partnership for the Public Good 73–74; policy and legislative developments from 1990s 18–19; primary education 8–22; public education 1831–1921 11–13; revolution 13; Royal Commission of Inquiry into Primary Education (1870) 12; Stanley Letter, The 9–11; structural changes in primary education from 1970s 17–18; White Paper on Education (1995) 18; women in workforce 71; Youth Work Act (2001) 118; see also early childhood education and care (ECEC); Irish Free State; Irish society Irish Free State 13, 86; Constitution of the Irish Free State (Saorstát Éireann)

Act 13; independence 9, 13–14, 18, 21, 72, 86, 117 Irish society 19, 79–80, 85, 90, 113, 177 ISO 9000 quality standards 151 Italy: Emilia Romagna area (Reggio Emilia) 70, 79–80 Junior Cycle Science 44 Kaczynski, Jarosław 137–138 Kant, E. 31–32, 34–35, 165; “On Education” 31; radical evil 31 Klafki, W. 46, 48 knowledge economy 42, 101, 104, 159 Lacan 33 language 143–144; of care 91; of the economy 45; of education 176; of education policy 9; games 143–144; of learning 104; legal 140; of a new publicness of education 176; private 144; of public education 26–36, 176, 178; rule-governed 144; of selfinterest 27 Latour, Bruno 163, 168 law: public 141; private 141; see also Roman law learning outcomes 44–45 LGBTQ families 136 LGTBQ community 138 LGTBQ movements 166 liberal democracy 132 liberal elite 2 liberty 1–2, 157 Lisbon Strategy 45 Lisbon Treaty 137 literacy and numeracy 44, 50 Locke, J. 141 logic of business 76, 78 logic of private interests 76, 78 logic of the market 70, 75–76, 78 logos 27, 33, 36; and pedagogy 33–35 Lorde, Audre 116, 123 Machiavelli 142 Macra na Tuaithe (Stalwarts of the land) 118 ‘Magdalene laundries’ 75 marginalisation 8, 72, 100–109, 112, 124–125 marriage equality: for same-sex couples 113

Index 185 Marxism 65 mastery of knowledge: vs deep education 114 Maynooth University 112, 120–121 McQuaid, Archbishop 16, 117 measurement 75, 100, 102, 106; age of 120, 151; culture of 69; ‘value’ of teachers 108–109; see also global education measurement industry metaphysics: ‘indigenous 170; ‘of presence’ 170 Mika, Carl 164, 170–172 misogyny 138 modern school 153–154, 158; double history of 151–153; solution or problem? 149–151 moral conscience 58–59, 61–63; and judgement 59, 64 National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA) 42–45 National Education Convention 18–19 National Federation of Youth Clubs 118 National Forum on Patronage and Pluralism 22 nationalisation 86; by exclusion 134 nationalism 9, 14, 86, 132, 136–137, 142 National Parents’ Council 20 National Youth Council of Ireland (NYCI) 118–119 nationhood 14 nation states 138 ‘nature’ 37n8, 166 nature/culture divide 163, 167–170 neoclassical economists 141 neoconservatives 28, 102, 106 neoliberal governance 2 neoliberal governing 2 neoliberalism 4, 9, 21, 41, 75, 77, 91, 109, 159–160, 178–179; ‘after’ 175– 176, 178; critique of 2–4, 175, 179; educational 145; impact on education 2, 9, 41, 69, 159; impact on teachers 102–103; impact on teaching 100; impact on work 105; logic of 175; and public education 1–2; rise of 1–2; ‘violence’ of 176, 178 Network for Educational Action Research in Ireland (NEARI) 109 neurodiverse model 84, 94–95 neurodiverse movements 166

neurodiversity 94–95, 135 neurodiversity movement 94–95 new managerialism 9, 21 new public management 1 new publicness 3–4, 20–22, 179; for early childhood education and care (ECEC) 77–81; for education 179; of education 2–4, 20–22, 36, 40, 50, 65–66, 81, 93–96, 101, 103–109, 124–126, 145, 158–160, 172–173, 175–179 new tyrannies 132–145, 178 non-heteronormative family 136 North South Education and Training Standards Committee for Youth Work (NSETS) 118 Novalis 170 old publicness 4, 179 openness 35, 107, 126, 136 Orbán, Viktor 137 Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) 9, 18, 21, 42, 149, 159; PISA 149 original sin 75 other, the 3, 90–91, 122, 138, 157, 175 othering 168 otherness 29 outcomes-based: approach 45; discourse 75; education 90 paideia 3 parental supremacy 15–17 parents 2, 10–11, 13–17, 19–22, 43, 69–71, 73, 76–78, 80–81, 88, 92–93, 105, 148, 156, 159, 178; rights of 15–16, 87; role of 17, 70; see also public parents patriarchy 74–75, 167 patronage system 12, 17, 20, 22, 177 pedagogical thinking 60; ‘publicness’ in 55–66 pedagogues 56–57, 60–61, 65; public 62, 64 pedagogy(ies) 6, 27, 36, 40–41, 46, 49, 59, 66n1, 68–69, 75–76, 80, 121, 167; of becoming public 57, 60, 64; critical 65, 115–117, 120, 177; curriculum and 6, 40–41, 46–48, 179; for and of 59–60, 64–65; of learning 57; and logos 33–35; of play 79; public 55–58, 62, 64, 78–79;

186

Index

‘for the public’ 55–56; ‘of the public’ 56; publicness in 64–65; quality 78; questions of 62–64; relational 79–80; school-based 57; of teaching 57; see also pedagogy of Reggio pedagogy of Reggio/‘Pedagogy of Listening’ 70–71, 79–80 Penal Laws 10, 22n1 people/persons with disabilities 85–87; institutionalisation of 75, 86–87; parental litigation cases 87; segregation of 85–86, 90; sterilisation of 85; see also children; UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN-CRPD) performativity 35, 100–101, 109, 151, 176; gender and 103–104 personhood 113 Piaget, J. 45–46 PISA 45, 149 Pius XI, Pope 16 places/spaces: fuid 122; local 122; private 167; public 40–41, 49–50, 56, 58, 66n1, 79, 134–135, 144; shared 36; of solitude 58, 66 Plato 26–27, 30–32, 34–35, 37n7, 165–166; Republic 30 Plumwood, Val 165–167, 173n1 pluralism 32, 34–35, 78; see also plurality plurality 2, 56–60, 65, 68, 70–71, 77–78, 176, 178–179 Poland 132–141, 145; Constitution 137; Constitutional Court 137; Law and Justice Party 137; National Council of the Judiciary 137; national imaginary 137; Nazi occupation 137; Polska Press 137; Soviet occupation 137; Supreme Court 137 political activism 3 political sphere 59 politics 26–30, 33–35, 39, 56, 70, 77, 87, 138, 165, 169; of anti-feminism 27; exclusionary 136; historical 138; of homophobia 27; nationalist 136; necro- 168; populist 155–156; of presence 35; of racism 27; sophist 26 populism 70, 132, 138, 155, 157; farright 3, 28; ‘left’ 5; in politics 155; progressive 4–5, 179 post-coloniality 164 poverty 113, 123 precarious employment 113

precariousness 27 precarity 112, 123; see also precariousness price-quality ratio 2 primary education 80; ‘publicness’ of Irish 8–22; structural changes from 1970s in Ireland 17–18 primary schools 8–9, 14, 16–17, 20–21; post- 42, 117 private interests 5, 75–76, 78, 142, 159 private sphere 165–166, 169, 171–172 privatisation 1–2, 74, 77, 148, 152, 159 professional education: initial 112–126 Protagoras 33 ‘public’ 8, 55, 68, 70, 73–74, 85, 168, 171–173, 176; exclusionary, dualistic logic of 164–167 public corruption 132, 137 public education 4–5, 8–9, 20, 68, 112, 132, 139–140, 148–149, 152, 158– 159, 164–167, 175–179; for children with special educational needs (SEN) 84–96; commercialisation of 148; core characteristics of 8; defnition 2; democratisation 1; erosion of 3–4, 74, 148–149, 158–159; inner erosion of 124, 148, 158; in Ireland 10–13, 20, 85–92; language of 26–36; marketisation of 148; outer erosion of 124, 148, 159; philosophy of 76; privatisation of 148, 152; as project of democratisation 27; and rise of neoliberalism 1–2; and the state 178–179; system 42, 84, 86–87 public funding 73, 75–76, 79–80, 139 public good 4, 15, 73–74, 76–77, 80–81, 142, 159 public interests 5, 12 public life 28, 35, 49, 94, 172; privatisation of 2 publicness: concept of 55; from inside out 6, 179; in pedagogical thinking 55–66; in pedagogies 64–65; of primary education in Ireland 8–22; of the public 32, 36; reclaiming 132–145; of special educational needs (SEN) in Ireland 84–96; see also new publicness; old publicness; publicness of education publicness of education 1–6, 9, 28, 84, 88–89, 112, 126, 132–145, 160, 163–173, 177; impact upon teachers 101–102; see also new publicness

Index 187 public/non-public: confusions of language 139–141 public parents 132–145; appropriation through exclusion 137–139; building “non-school” as public space under home education 134–135; diversifying public school community 133–134; “non-public” alternative 135–136 public philosophy 133, 143 publics 3–6, 41, 43, 66, 95–96, 124–125, 142, 148, 172–173; see also counter-publics public schooling 10, 84, 164–165 public schools 10, 21, 39–40, 84, 86, 94, 132–137, 139–141, 145, 164 public sphere 2, 55, 58, 61, 125, 132– 133, 136–138, 141–143, 145, 167 public-subject 163, 167–169 pupils 2, 87, 90, 135, 140 quality management principles 151 racism 27, 114, 117, 138 ranking scores: globalisation of 40 Rawls, J. 35 refugees 138, 165 Regional Education Councils 18 reifcation 26–30, 35 relationality 48, 66, 171–172; inter- 66, 168, 172, 176 relativism 28 religious denominations: involvement in education system 8–9, 12, 15–16 religious freedom 22 religious instruction 10 Report of the Commission of Inquiry on Mental Handicap (1965) 86 reproductive rights 113 research designs: democratic 108 rights 8, 35; -based policy 95; children’s 16, 19–20, 22n2, 72, 75, 138, 145; constitutional 15–16, 19, 22; disability 92; individuals 15; LGTBQ 138; of patrons 19; parental/parents’ 15–17, 20; of persons with disabilities 87–88; reproductive 113; statutory 88; see also civil rights movements; UN Convention on the Rights of the Child; UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN-CRPD) Roberts, Paul 154–155, 157

Roma 165 Roman law (Justinian’s Corpus iuris) 141; “great dichotomy” of 141 Rorty, R. 28–29, 32 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 153; Emile, or On Education 153 Säfström, Carl Anders 1–6, 26–36, 69, 75, 112–113, 136, 175–179 school: community 89–90, 133–134; culture 40, 109; day 89; formal system 125; governance 18; inclusion 89, 95; Irish system 178; leadership 109; national system 71–72; nonpublic 135; patronage system 177; primary system 20, 43; public system 21, 39, 135–137, 145; readiness 68–70, 76; reform 40, 141; setting 123; system 135; see also school, the; school choice; schooling; schools school, the 6, 11, 14, 18–20, 22, 42, 50, 61–64, 86, 91, 101–102, 105, 107, 124–125, 133–136, 140, 176– 177, 179; emancipation of 148–160; future of 157–158; as ‘halfway house’ 152–153; and society 5–6, 153–154, 179; system 135; see also schools school choice 1, 91; choice-rhetoric 28 schooling 5–6, 9–10, 12–13, 21, 27, 36n1, 36n2, 41, 49, 71–72, 93, 112, 117, 126, 165, 177–179; vs education 126; neoliberal 175; primary 20–22; state-funded and state-regulated systems of 179; see also education; home-schooling; public schooling; schools schools: Bardic 10; charter 10; church-managed 18; “community” (non-proft) 139; common 1; community national 22; day special 86; denominational 16, 21–22; Educate Together 22; Education and Training Board 90; ‘for all’ 165; impairment-specifc residential 85; inclusive 90, 94; integrative 90; Irish 20; Irish-medium 22; mainstream 84, 86, 89, 91–93, 95; monastery 10; multidenominational 17, 22; “National” 21; non-denominational 17, 22; non-public 133–136, 139–141, 145, 178; philanthropic 10; “private” (proft seeking) 139; privately owned and managed 21;

188

Index

residential special 86; secondary 121, 139–140; special 86, 92–93; statesponsored 10; tertiary 140; see also Hedge Schools; modern school; primary schools; public schools; school, the; second-level (postprimary) school system in Ireland scientifcation: of educational thought 26 secular instruction 10, 14 sexuality 42, 122, 124 social and emotional learning 40 socialisation 37n6, 60, 170 social justice 5, 40, 56, 65, 89, 102, 120–121, 139, 148, 150, 159 social movements 3, 177 social order 28–30, 32, 34–35, 167, 177 social relationships 49, 70–71 social services 9 society: and the school 5–6, 179 Socrates 58 solidarity 1–2, 26, 47–48, 78, 92, 102–103, 133, 138, 164 sophists 29–30, 32–36, 176 special education in Ireland 84–96; Education for Persons with Special Educational Needs (EPSEN) Act (2004) 23n3, 88; Equal Status Act (2000) 87; future 92–93; history 85–87; inclusion movement 87–92; Special Education Review Committee 87 spheres see private sphere; public sphere standardisation 90 state-church binary 21 State Examinations Commission (SEC) 44 state power 78, 132, 145 state subsidiarity 15, 17 STEM 44–45, 50 student agency 44–46, 48 students 2, 6, 16, 19, 26, 40–50, 61, 63–65, 81, 89–91, 94, 104–106, 114–115, 120–126, 126n1, 140, 148–151, 153, 156, 159, 164, 167–168, 171–172; relationships with teachers 114; see also pupils student teachers 112–126, 177 subjectivity 46, 163, 167–169, 171– 172; collective 144; democratic 72; inter- 66 subsidiarity 18; see also state subsidiarity sustainability 40, 44–45, 74, 76, 78, 114

Sweden 36n1, 36n2 sympoiesis 169, 173 Syria 138 teacher agency 46–47, 108 teachers 2, 6, 10–11, 13–14, 16–17, 19, 21, 26, 29, 40–50, 57, 61–63, 80, 88–91, 133–135, 140–141, 149–150, 153, 164, 171–172, 177; agency of 46–47, 61–65, 108; autonomy of 59, 140; as curriculum makers 40, 46, 50; effects of neoliberalism on 102–103; effects of publicness of education on 101–102; and gender 103; leadership 100, 104–106; as pedagogical decisionmakers 46; primary 104; professional lives of 103; relationships with students 114; secondary 44; secondlevel 113; value of, in measurement 108–109; ways of self-knowing 100–109; see also student teachers; teacher agency; teacher unions/ unionization teacher unions/unionization 9, 21, 43–44, 107 ‘teaching to the test’ 46–47 test-based accountability 90 thinking 58–60; democratic 70; non57–58, 64; see also pedagogical thinking Travellers 165; movements 166 tyranny(ies) 133; cultural intimacy of 137–139; rethinking publicness from the new 141–145; see also new tyrannies Ultramontanism 12 UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UN-CRPD) 92, 134 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child 48 United Kingdom (UK) 73 United Nations Educational, Scientifc and Cultural Organizations (UNESCO) 91–92, 159 United States (US) 27, 42, 137, 154 Vatican II 17 Visegrad states 138 voice of the people 2, 4–5, 179 Vygotsky, L. 45

Index 189 welfare state 149 Wittgenstein, L. 143–145 workers movements 166 ‘worldedness’ 163, 170 worlding 163–164, 169–173; the world 163–173 World War II 27, 70, 164 young people 45, 47, 49–50, 112–115, 118–126, 156

Your Education System (YES) 19 youth work 112, 114–120, 125, 126n1; education 116; as emerging profession 117–120; ‘professionalisation’ of 118; Youth Work Act (2001) 118; see also youth workers youth workers 112–126, 126n1, 177 Zeus 33