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ERIC Number: EJ933566
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2011
Pages: 12
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1359-866X
EISSN: N/A
My School? Critiquing the Abstraction and Quantification of Education
Hardy, Ian; Boyle, Christopher
Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, v39 n3 p211-222 2011
This paper draws upon and critiques the Australian federal government's website "My School" as an archetypal example of the current tendency to abstract and quantify educational practice. Arguing in favour of a moral philosophical account of educational practice, the paper reveals how the "My School" website reduces complex educational practices to simple, supposedly objective, measures of student attainment, reflecting the broader "audit" society/culture within which it is located. By revealing just how extensively the "My School" website reduces educational practices to numbers, the paper argues that we are in danger of losing sight of the "internal" goods of Education which cannot be readily and simply codified, and that the teacher learning encouraged by the site marginalises more active and collective approaches. While having the potential to serve some beneficial diagnostic purposes, the "My School" website reinforces a view of teachers as passive consumers of information generated beyond their everyday practice.
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 325 Chestnut Street Suite 800, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Fax: 215-625-2940; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Australia
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A