Political Economy of Education
Maureen W. McClure
University of Pittsburgh
School of Education
Spring Term (20164)
ADMPS 2399 (CRN: 29103)
Time:
Room:
Office:
Office phone:
Office Hours:
Email:
Tuesdays, 4:30-7:10
5700 Posvar Hall
5711 Posvar Hall
(412) 648-7114
Tuesdays, 12:00-3:00 (both in the office and online, other times by
appointment)
[email protected]
PREFACE
This syllabus is a draft because, in addition to core issues and materials, each class
brings to the seminar different expertise and experiences. This can and should
influence the choices of some online materials, or books to borrow. Students will
also be expected to contribute materials for others to read.
INTRODUCTION
We are going to track some of the most contested questions in education. Who
should pay for the education of others? Why? How?
It is a bit less difficult to see the connections between individuals who invest in their
own education, and the return they receive for that investment. All of you have
made investments not only of money, but also of time, lots of it, studying.
If we can see why individual investments in themselves may make sense (depending
on what kind of education they invest in), then why should someone allow their
hard earned income to be taxed to pay for the education of children whom they do
not know?
Much of this course rests on the problems of framing. Depending on how we
“construct” thinking about these questions, we may veer off in very different
directions. Our job is to better understand these frames and how many of them
underlie our thinking about children and education. And, as some will claim, these
frames are inherently political.
DRAFT: January 4, 2016
A few quick things. First, both the Economics of Education and the Political Economy
of Education courses in the School of Education rest on the problems of
development and security. So we need to examine how political economy debates in
education are rooted in different understandings of the world.
Second, this course is likely to raise more questions than answers. This is
intentional. Mastering good questions can be very useful. Voltaire is attributed with
saying “Judge a man by questions, not his answers.” We will build “trails of
questions” some enduring, some short-lived, which can help you, moving forward
after the course, navigate fashionable educational reform rhetoric both today and in
the futures. What types of education should be available to the next generation?
Who should decide? Who should pay? How should they pay? What are the
consequences of one generation’s choices for the next? Whose interests are served?
Why can’t smart people agree on what to do?
Why is this important? It is easy to become lost in the forests of this course in part
because it reaches across disciplines, many of them doing great work, but not easily
aligned.
Third, have you taken any economics courses before? Have you taken an economics
of education course before? If not, that’s fine. If you have, great. Just let me know
soon, so I can include supplemental materials that may be helpful. If you haven’t
taken an economics course before, why not sign up for a Massive Open Online
Course (MOOC) in microeconomics (best) or macroeconomics (if you have had
micro). These courses are online, are free, and some are very good. You can just
take the parts of the course you want, you don’t have to take the whole thing unless
you want to. I recommend the Khan Academy (basics), edX and Coursera ( a little
more detailed), and there are others. We’ll talk about it in class.
Fourth, this class will take difficult material slowly. Parts of the primary text can be
complicated. This means we will read less material, but you may need to go over it
multiple times. It works, especially for good students who were studying one area,
and then find themselves in “new territory.” Students who may already know much
of the material can move on into more specialized areas.
And finally, we will be taking advantage of free online courses to deepen our
understanding of what we are reading. The rapid development of MOOCs has
opened up new vistas for shared learning. There are also advantages to MOOC use,
including, watching videos conveniently, repeating some, skipping others, speeding
them up or slowing them down, close captioning (still pretty bad), readings, joining
in discussions with people from all over the world (unless the course is archived).
TEXTBOOKS
Peet, R. & Hartwick, E. (2015). Theories of development: Contentions, arguments,
alternatives. 3rd ed. New York: The Guildford Press. If the 3rd edition is costly for you, go
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ahead and buy an older edition (used, very good shape), and let me know.
Strunk, W., Jr. & White, E. B. (1999). The elements of style. 4th ed. London: Longman.
[ISBN: 978-0205309023] A classic.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=103140512
Others (required and recommended) online in CourseWeb. It is also expected that
students will discover and contribute related news and articles that other students
may find useful. In addition to more traditional readings, videos will be assigned.
Finally, you will be encouraged to join other online courses to tap into wonderful,
free resources you can use, not only for this course, but for later as well.
ASSIGNMENTS
The purposes of the course are simple and clear. First is to help you become more
fluent in the political and economic ideas that help shape education policy, both
domestically and internationally. Second, is to help you better understand and
explain what is important to you, compared with others who may or may not share
your interests.
How can this be accomplished?
1. One page weekly summaries of your assigned and other readings, along with
two good questions to ask the class. (20%)
2. Weekly engagement in class discussions. Class debates will give you chance
to help sort out your positions, relative to others. (20%)
3. A group map. The map will follow a “trail of questions” and answers related
to your readings. A trail of questions emerges, as questions are located as
backward, peer or forward concepts. Once others are backward and forward
mapped, each person in the class will place themself on the map and present
a three page executive briefing paper as to the map contents and why the
located self. (30%)
4. A policy briefing paper that states a problem related to the course topic,
offers solutions and then argues why the solutions you have designed are
better than others. (30%)
The course topic is “Education in a Generational Interest.” Most of the literature in
the economics and politics of education focuses on “stakeholder” interests. This
usually means the interests of institutions, groups and individuals. Given its
importance in the future of both economies and polities, one group that is rarely
included, despite its centrality to education, is the next generation (and beyond).
Children are often discussed, but more often as static rather than dynamic
stakeholders who grow up to replace us.
Under classical metaphors of resources scarcity and competition, one might expect
to see generations competing with each other for resources. If, on face value, the
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more competitive generations won over the more vulnerable ones, markets might
clear, but civilizations could end.
So while it may be good to help prepare individual children with the knowledge and
skills they need to survive in globalizing markets, this narrative could also be a
cautionary tale. Why? What if it also demonstrates the problems that can arise if
school leavers lack the knowledge and skills needed to take the reins of government
in a democracy? And what if they then vote in ways that simultaneously support
their short-term and hinder their longer-term interests? For example, rapidly
changing demographics in the US project both rapidly rising numbers of elderly and
children in poor districts. This could soon be problematic. Add to it falling numbers
of good, taxable jobs and how might all three indicators affect successful future
financing of education?
The answers to this question rest on our views of generational rights and
responsibilities. How do we “construct” the next generation? Not us?
Throughout the centuries, the answers to this question and the reasons for its
answers have changed. And they continue to change. On one level this looks like a
fairly straightforward economic question with a cost/benefit answer. Those who
should pay for education are those who should benefit from it. The only problem
with this approach is, of course, the problem of the generational interest. Young
children may be the greatest beneficiaries of education, but alas, they have no means
to invest in it. What then are the solutions to this and other problems such as
poverty, economic change, etc.?
This is where all of the trouble starts. Our technology fails. Why? One reason is
because we have so many different ways to think about children. Are they family
members first? If so, then are the greatest beneficiaries the family? And if so, then
shouldn’t families pay for their own children’s education? But what if they are
poor? Should someone else pay? But why should someone else pay? What if
someone claims that they shouldn’t have to pay for a poor person’s children because
first, it takes money away from their own children’s education; and second, why did
poor people have children they couldn’t afford in the first place? As you can see
things can become very complicated very quickly. And mean. The problem of paying
for poor children can turn ugly. These are "wicked" not "tame" problems, and must
be attended to.
SCHEDULE
January: Principles: Foxes and Hedgehogs
Peet and Hartwick. Pp. 1-118
Growth versus development
Classical and Neoclassical Economics
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Keynesian to Neoliberalism and the Washington Consensus
Berlin files
Camillus and Wicked Problem files
Khan Academy
Salman Khan opens school in Mountain View. Lots of coding.
Review of microeconomic basics
Investment and consumption (human capital)
MOOC: The Power of Microeconomics: Economic Principles in the Real World (UC
Irvine)
MOOC: Saving Schools Mini-Course 1: History and Politics of US Education
(Harvard)
Stiglitz files
Other materials on CourseWeb.
Frames for Debate
Once politics and economics in education start bumping up against each other,
trouble starts.
1. Review (Start as soon as possible)
a. What do we mean by politics? Economics? And what can we learn
when put them together? And why are these two concepts so often
discussed separately? And why is there so much disagreement?
b. Khan Academy: Introduction to basic microeconomics terms – To get
started, look at
(Khan Academy - microeconomics - supply-demand-equilibrium)
c. For a more detailed review of basic microeconomics, see
i. MIT Open Courseware
http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/economics/14-01sc-principlesof-microeconomics-fall-2011/index.htm
ii. Coursera.org is offering a free online course (that has just
started) called The Power of Microeconomics: Economic
Principles in the Real World (University of California, Irvine) –
you can sign up for the course and just watch the videos when
you have time – and repeat them if needed- (I just signed up for
it.)
d. Classical economics rests on the concept of rational choice. This
means, that, all things being equal, people are likely to make the best
decisions for themselves. The newer field of behavioral economics,
however, studies decision making that doesn’t appear to be rational,
such as “Why did those folks know better, but didn’t make the best
decision for themselves?” And what do we mean by concepts such as
“bias,” “interest” or “influence”? (The University of Toronto offers a
self-paced MOOC on Behavioral Economics in Action that you could
sign up for). Finally, many educational problems are wicked, not tame.
They are too complex for permanent standardized solutions.
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Education for generational succession is not only a wicked problem, it
is a super-wicked problem, like climate change. A super-wicked
problem means
i. Time is running out
ii. The people who are the sources of the problem are also the
sources of solutions
iii. No central authority
iv. Irrational discounting of the future
2. The political economies in education reaches across the sector and its
systems – allocating decision rights and resources
a. Basic (Primary and secondary education)
b. Postsecondary (Higher education)
c. Adult education (training, enrichment)
d. Nongovernmental (Nonprofit) education
3. Brief introduction to applied social theories: Frames (Lakoff) and Choices
(Rational, behavioral)
a. Stories and voices: The narratives of affiliation and interests to help
shape identity: Mixing moral obligation/duty with realpolitik
b. Political security and identity: Protection through solidarity
i. Family/clan/ethnicity - legacy, heritage –ways of being
ii. Religious affiliation – codes of conduct to be a good person
iii. Human rights – secular with religious roots and legal
expressions (e.g. democracies)
iv. Governments - legal systems (local, national, international)issues of protection, fairness, justice
v. Other
c. Economic security and identity: Protection through markets for
production and trade
i. Workplaces as meritocracies
ii. Markets as summed personal choices
iii. Fair and winnowing competition - Social Darwinism
iv. Cooperative trade alliances – Pluralism
d. Generational security and identity: Protection through alliances of
time
i. In the past generational relationships were often assumed
ii. Today’s complex and rapidly changing demographics may
threaten security issues across the board
4. Development and capital
a. Human capital
b. Social capital
c. Cultural capital
d. Knowledge capital
e. Technology capital
f. Moral capital
g. Other
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Who’s on first and why?
Miscommunication is common, especially when one is thinking in concrete and
literal terms, and the other is thinking more in conceptual terms.
(See famous “Who’s on first”? YouTube videos – the original by Abbott and Costello,
and the "Who's On First?": The Sequel (w/ Jimmy Fallon, Billy Crystal & Jerry
Seinfeld). Why do many Americans think this is so funny?
February: Comparative Methods and Framing
Peet & Hartwick, pp. 119-221
Khan Academy: GDP, National Income and Inequality
George Lakoff files on CourseWeb
MOOC: Configuring the World: A Critical Political Economy Approach (University of
Leiden)
 Data quality critical in social science research
 Methods to critique data quality
MOOC: Framing: Creating powerful political messages (Delft University of
Technology))
Other materials on CourseWeb
Studying political economies in education in action.
 Costs and benefit, time value of money
 Centrality of data quality…underscore….
 Methods for understanding both measurements and meanings.
 Measurement for shared understanding.
 Meaning framing to understand difference.
 Comparing domestic and international
 Comparing institutional stakeholder decisions and policies in depth through
case studies, using mixed (quantitative and qualitative) methods
 Comparing literatures through conceptual mapping
March and April: Applications
Peet & Hartwick, pp. 222-324
Berlin, I. On value pluralism (pluralism) v. monism
https://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/vl/notes/berlin.html
MOOC: Behavioral Economics in Action (University of Toronto)
MOOC: Globalization's Winners and Losers: Challenges for Developed and
Developing Countries (Georgetown University)
Other materials on Courseweb
Domestic US Context –
Private foundations and public schools
Case: Zuckerberg in Newark in The Prize
Markets in tension with national security
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International context
Concerns for economic competitiveness
21st Century skills
Daniel Pink
Global focus
International agencies: education, UNICEF and UNESCOConcern for provincialism
Human rights
Cosmopolitan, pluralistic views
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