Education is determined by free-will and value judgment of an individual as social constructionism demands vigilance to the taken-for-granted knowledge. That of the former at least applies to a minimum of higher education other than primary schooling. The latter challenges people to observe the world at mere observation level without bias opinions that can deter the opportunity to discover new knowledge or question existing ones. However, with education being inclined to relative worthwhile activities for every participant, broadening gender classifications to include homosexuals in social studies would not be enforced. This is because the boundary that such endeavor to actually happening is uninteresting to the majority especially those people who considers themselves as pure male and female while individuals who are beyond the normal classification are constrained either personally or externally.
As figured out, popular interests of knowing bodies of knowledge, at least on the quantity aspect, is a major impediment for social constructionists in their pursuit to install a universal and unbiased view of the world. It would connote social disorder if people can finally regard themselves under three sexual classifications. Although isolated instances might suffice the idea, this are limited cases that could be favoring short-term exhibition of third sexes’ inherent right to society. As social order is one of the goals of education, however, this radical vision could not be formally installed as to substantially satisfy the features of social constructionism.
This is in accordance with psychological critique of social constructionists in the knowledge-limiting attribute of unique personality and identity of individuals. This can be illustrated in two cases. The first case is the participation of group A and group B in learning how to write and read. In the second case, group A is interested in knowing how to fly an airplane while group B is highly curious about William Shakespeare’s inspiration in Romero and Juliet. In the first case, probably due to the Universal Human Rights of 1948 on compulsory education, group A and B education would likely upset the limitation of individuality. However, as they transcend to higher learning in case two, more complex knowledge involves higher level of motivation (money, prestige, family satisfaction) that consequently operates the limitation.
On the other hand, the presence of government-funded scholarships and affluent economy can somehow affect the decisions of the participants and resolve their inherent limitation to identify and contemplate incidences that are happening in the society although in isolated situations. These events would then require awareness, study and research because of its relevance to the society. Without these stages, knowledge is depleted while the society is contended to obtain social order and forgo distortion and adverse impacts on isolated cases. Oftentimes, these are considered radical and abnormal cases which is not worthy of attention. As in the case of admitting and operating in our professional lives the existence of third gender, this bottleneck continues to be a concrete example of educational limitation due to popular and individual reasoning that further closes our eyes to social constructionism.
Second, social construction suggests that knowledge created in interaction of people is not objective, therefore, requires critical realism. On the other hand, the stand of education is that socialization is a vital part of obtaining knowledge since it will be used for social cohesion purposes. The view of social constructionism is that knowledge must be in raw and pure form without hindrance from cultural imperialism. This brings to the fore the fact that the West should learn the culture of the East, although not with total objectivity, there would exist criticality in absorbing knowledge from host culture. However, in reality, education solves the problem of non-existing norms of one culture from the other. Americans would unlikely participate in martial arts studies because of their relative indulgence to technology. As a result, educational institutions adjust to national environments and cultural context existing therein.
Education, through established curricula, minimizes the need to be critical of foreign and diverse knowledge existing and operating in the different parts of the world. This gives way for interaction to be a possible in gaining knowledge, even as one of the purposes of education. As it serves as pre-condition for future employment, interaction is necessary while in an institution because the dynamic working place and technological development requires adaptation. With the lack of communication skills rather individual criticality, collaboration would not be possible that can result to inefficient labor force. However, with the pursuit to segregate and adapt to a certain culture the necessary knowledge for a particular group that can be both effective and efficient for their existence, social constructionism has been undermined again favoring the social order in social cohesion including its simplicity and popularity features in the society.
This fact is supported by heuristic approach to learning that states that probability-based reasoning and automatism, which requires minimal effort for a person to arrive at an answer or solution, would likely to be used under recurring conditions. As a result, criticality of defining and discovering knowledge within a specific culture declines for a member of the group but likely to accelerate when the person is from another culture. Curiosity can be the driving force that would transform social constructionism into necessary condition to learning. However, without infiltration to another culture, a person that belongs to the group would likely be non-critical to its own culture’s approach to knowledge. Aside from this, even though curiosity can be a helpful aspect in resolving social constructionism demand, difficult and time constraint situations in heuristic approach also suggests that this could result to skipping processes (lessening criticality) partly because of physical and mental limitations of the person. In effect, the advent of inter-cultural exposure cannot guarantee sufficient resolution to social constructionism unless the person has both the intent and capability to do so. This fact hardens by Hamm’s argument that learning is an activity wherein specific purpose is attached to realize certain standards. It is also pointed out that learning without intention is not learning and there is no such thing as incidental learning.
Also, critically in education can disrupt the quality of relationship that teachers brought to their students which is said to be measurement of teacher’s effectiveness. The aim of teachers of aiding the growth of the class is to become productive in the larger society can be hindered by too much analysis of thinking what knowledge should be taught and what is relevant. However, it can also bring the educational relationship away from objectivity that is replaced by behavioral influences. As a result, measuring the competency with corresponding grade could be irrelevant as to determine the quality of the imparted and absorbed knowledge in the advent that teaching becomes loose and informal. In effect, the hope of institutions for students to retain and use the knowledge supposedly obtained in educational system would sob-optimally met. Education is less conservative to this happening but basically protects the image of teachers and set standards of student relationship through their institution’s respective Code of Conduct. This is an admission that education relies on dynamic interaction of school’s actors and there not exist singular universal standard of interaction, hence, this results to learning across different cultures.
Third, knowledge in education is relatively stagnant than social constructionism view of dynamic knowledge in response to ever-changing world. This historical framework of education can be illustrated by Peter’s dispute that one cannot educate himself through self-discovery. Hence, his discovery must be first published in a book before education, which involves teaching and learning, can take place. However, from the time the book is published, it can be considered already history being made and a past that would be supplanted in its present state as times pass by. This evolution and dynamism is what social constructionism disagreed not to be taken into consideration by conventional education. It implies that education should reflect the present situation of the world. Again, the unbiased position about understanding surfaces in the lens of time. However, researches and findings demanded by the academia about new situations like the occurrence of new sexual objects in the virtual world has to be conducted first before it can be taught in educational institutions. As a result, the concentration of learning would still evolve in the limited scope of print pornography undermining the effects of it for an online person.
Further, historical loopholes in education can be justified by the difference between the dynamic world and the teacher’s present knowledge of the world. Since the teacher’s task is to remedy the deficiencies of the learner by imparting “something” to the latter, the task is bounded as it is limited to historical information gathered in the course of study. As a result, it is of the teacher’s burden to continuously update its knowledge of the world which would not pass to education’s moral tenet in transmission. Apparently, consensus to this teacher’s concern is lightly advanced by student and their families due to the protection of their own welfare. If a teacher will change curriculum time and time again, say in a monthly basis, students would be faced with difficult lectures while effective and retrievable knowledge would be covered to limited number of students due to capacity boundaries.
Another, it can also be explained by the slack time the individual needs or discoveries will finally be instituted and accepted in the social context or vice versa. As a result, educationally worthwhile and valuable knowledge will require realization period in order to be enforced in the established system. Its failure to affect individual/ social needs at least on the time being will dictate its timeliness and observance of social constructionism. For the meantime, learning would evolve in the existing and historical schema until individual/ social needs, at least the majority of the population, are determined. In this view, knowledge being stagnant but proven and accepted to be true by the majority is helpful to fill the evolution period to continue education. As it cannot perfectly define the present situation of the world and the relevant knowledge therein, it protects learning for idleness until it adapts to social constructionism although not in absolute timeframe due to dynamism limitation of the above processes.
Fourth and lastly, in connection to worthwhile and valuable knowledge as prerequisite in education, the language limitation of learning in the conventional education is criticized by social constructionism. Since language is a pre-condition of thought, there is no cognition when one is unfamiliar with the language used to deliver and impart the knowledge. This unfamiliarity does not highlight differences in cultural languages as Japanese to English instead the context and meaning of the same language to the heterogeneous people within a society. Due to this, social constructionism reconciles disparity from conventional education that adheres to discursive psychology. Discursive psychology finds its one of the most successful impacts in the field of legal system. The testimonies of witnesses and opposing parties have undergone psychological maps through language analysis. In effect, ambiguous statements have tended to stand for their own meanings broadening the understanding of the court to take appropriate action. The question, however, is how many educational institutions have established this filtering device as to mitigate language barriers to learning? Is it workable?
In view of internationally known universities scattered all over the world, teachers are exposed to different nationalities. As a result, discursive psychology is deemed crucial towards effective management of knowledge medium facility. As education should be morally acceptable, the absence of the filtering device would transform information to immoral knowledge. This is cited to be generally true to some Catholic schools wherein religion seems a necessary bridge to facilitate the system. However, according to Barrow and Woods, indoctrination that intentionally implants undisputed beliefs regardless of ready evidence is an immoral means to encourage learning. In effect, the basic ideology of pure science to explain the world is undermined due to religious bias. In this respect, social constructionism has proved its relevance particularly to enhance the extent of learning available in the open world. It implies the superiority of non-barred learning due to cultural and religious factors against inferiority of being reactive and adaptive to a specific aspect of life and world.
On the other hand, it is a choice/ balance between affectability and adaptability levels of the educational institution with reference to teachers and students’ background. With this, language barriers (not the inter-cultural but contextual problems) can be mitigated but not thoroughly safeguarded by discursive psychology partly due to the mission of the institution in question with efficient education at hand. As a result, student-teacher communication and relationship is considered a vital key to surmount language obstacle. For example, the professor in social science has cited a research that proved high criminality in a certain country in which one student belongs and has delivered the issue in a provocative way for the latter. The limitation of one language to express its pure contextual meaning when translated to another can be said an apparent condition to spark gap between professor and students and can isolate certain number from the latter. However, with sound relationship build around the classroom, the need for discursive psychology can be approached in rather informal but objective manner to bring the learning in a consensus manner.
The Future of Educational System: Structure and Agency Dualism
Structure (the government) and agency (educational system) are the macro- and micro factors that are capable to minimize, maintain or aggravate the differences of conventional education and social constructionism. In Gillborn’s article, it is cited that Educational Reform Act of 1988 (the influence of government) was sparked by ethnographical lobbying power (the influence of agency between teachers and students) that established educational and planning integration in the country. As a result, the cultural and social interaction flaws of conventional education are somehow polished by the passing of such law. The integration managed to reflect the national educational system’s manner of admissions, enclosure of responsible persons, religious pronouncement and other necessary provisions that formalized the diverse scope of the system making it more responsive to the composition of the enrollees and national policies.
The flaw of the educational integration is that the system is still historical relative, exposed in language disparity and criticality questionable while taken-for-granted knowledge and limiting feature of individual value judgment are hard to believe reflected in the law. The first three can be argued to be mitigated but the last two issues greatly depends on the agency relationship awareness of their emphasis to learning. As a result, the limitation still abounds to the initiative and capability of the structure to respond to the chunks of agency conditions in a national scale and vice versa (although structure is more of a whole). This would in turn create a new platform to discuss the nature of structure and agency interaction to affect the outcome of conventional education and social constructionism disparity. Who is the stronger link that can be a reliable source of initiative to bring closer resemblance to such outcome? Would it be necessary to pass a law in order for conventional education to surpass boundaries of cultural hindrance to learning? Then, at first instance, the agency is a stronger link because it made the structure shake. On the second thought, however, the fact that it requires government intervention before obtaining its upheaval ends suggests its insufficiency and reliance to the existing structure.
Such discussion is of utmost importance as to know how these two drivers of conventional education aspire to resemble useful features of social constructionism towards effective and adaptive learning and how far can they go of so doing. To explain this, there is a need to evaluate Robert Willmott’s article about the necessity of analytical dualism in the study of education. Truly, the macro- and micro-factors are both essential stimulants in improving the educational system of a certain society. The capitalist thinker would explain that the government will provide the capital and management capabilities while the citizenry will provide the labor to work and develop the system. Relating this to the basic tenet of education which is to impart knowledge and further digging to the discussions earlier wherein the imparted knowledge should be beneficial to society and obtain social order, this system becomes more and more relevant. In this respect, quality of education, in view of its ability to reflect the present world in both substance and depth, serve as the core objective of the system. This claim can be more appreciating in a situation when obsolete knowledge tries to depict the modern situation through its known laws, science, politics, business, etc. which is limited and incompatible in aspect.
The dispute, however, arises in assessing the performance of the two and their contribution to attain such end. Economics explains that the most efficient market is the free-market wherein the principle of invisible hand commands the interaction of the economy. The privatization of public corporations in today’s trend, especially in Japan, supports this idea. The micro-actors in educational system have their own concern and unique resolutions, at least to a certain extent. There could be the need to study the critical role of virtual pornography on the lives of the vulnerable third world population especially in schools located within and near metropolitan areas. This subject can possibly be discussed in the classroom primarily because of certain exceptions of the existing curriculum regarding dynamic dialogues of minimal kinds. This could hardly obtain much of government attention due to its isolated incidences. Another, there are a little number of extreme and recurring unique situations in the third world country due to cultural homogeneity and technological apathy .
On the other hand, the need to streamline dynamic discussions into the whole educational system becomes a requirement in multi-culturally segregated and advanced countries. In this case, there are more complex attitudes defining present meaning in the environment while technology is continuously upgrading to reflect their needs. The educational system could be faced with critical and ideal students pressuring an adaptation of its very foundation. There are already developed plagiarism restrictions in research assignments while digital presentation of thesis, and indeed primary education, are a common view in contemporary modern schools.
As observed in the two cases, the implications to government’s actions/ responses also vary with the state of development and cultural diversity in the society. In relatively undeveloped countries, macro-forces are less required to participate within micro-interactions due to minimal problems it caused or potentially could cause. However, within developed countries, the government has a crucial task in stabilizing the system due to significant pressures applied into it. The essential criteria apparently should not be related to economic affluence perse but largely according to cultural and technological factors. This is because there are a number of modern countries like Japan that remained relatively homogenous in culture despite of technological advancements.
In this veil, Willmott’s criticism of Giddens for the latter conceiving government as independent to educational system can be held on the appropriate footing as our illustration suggests. The latter impliedly sustain the argument that government is the vacuum cleaner that can easily swallow the system. However, when applied in purely state role in making policy not on imploring its general political ideologies such as authoritarian/ communism regime, the governments is still a reactive part of the macro-system to act in behalf of the majority. On the other hand, Willmott’s criticism on Shilling for the latter admonition that hierarchical levels built in the relationship of structure and agency is unhelpful in conceptualizing change in social life, from our discussion, can also be accepted. Their distinction can be mutually beneficial in determining (agency) and enforcing (structure) change in the educational system. There is a division of labor where they provide necessary factors of production, herein referred to as educational system. As a result, efficiency can result from the capitalism including management and security given by the government and labor including its research and interaction outcomes from the teacher-student relationships within the educational system.
As argued and implied by Willmott, structure and agency are working as dependent and hierarchy-bounded relationships. There is collaboration between these actors that cause the educational system to move, not strictly towards the standards of social constructionism, rather in the direction of the majority and persistence of the minority. May it be back from the educational system of the early centuries or to the standards of the post-modern era, the relations of them, its subsequent contribution/ adverse effects to the existing view of knowledge and reaction to its environment will ultimately direct the future of its course.***
References: An Introduction to the Study of Education, David Matheson 2004/ An Introduction to Educational Studies, Stephen Bartlett, Diana Burton & Nick Peim 2001/ Social Constructionism, Vivien Burr 2003/ Education Reform Act of 1988 http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts1988/Ukpga_19880040_en_1.htm/ The Micro-Politics of Macro Reform, D. Gillborn 1994/ Structure, Agency and the Sociology of Education: Rescuing Analytical Dualism, Robert Willmott 1999
http://paulofreireinstitute.org/Documents/structure_agency_and_sociology_of_education.pdf
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