Introducing the Academic Critique of the Second Generation Discourse

I'm BAAAAAACK! 

In the last posts, I presented a very brief overview of the 1st and 2nd generation discourses on LLL. Today I will introduce the academic critique that has been aimed at the second generation. In subsequent postings, I will describe different aspects of the critique in more detail.

Between the first and second generation discourses of LLL, “there is a semiotic struggle to inscribe certain practices with particular meanings” (Usher & Edwards, 2007, p. 106).  What I describe in the coming paragraphs is not necessarily a critique of LLL per se, but rather the criticisms that have been levelled against forms and meanings of LLL that are seen to be constructed by the dominant discourse.  There has been a great deal of critique in the scholarly literature: some of it directed at specific organizations, policies or papers, but much of it directed at the general trends running through documents and organizations that I referred to earlier. It appears to me that much of the critique is particularly antagonistic, placing the first and second generation orientations not only on opposite ends of a conceptual continuum, but also on opposite ends of an ethical continuum. Bagnall (2000) offers some good examples of this flavour when he says that contemporary discourse is “seriously regressive, counter-ethical and non-liberatory” (p. 20) and when he claims that any discussion of progressive aims in the discourse has “been captured, domesticated, exploited, reduced and bleached until it no longer is a reflection or an expression of progressive features of the sentiment” (p. 28).  He calls reference to social concerns gloss and  “a sham… at best a misunderstanding of the progressive nature of those qualities. At worst they are a deliberate distortion and misrepresentation of them” (p. 29). In the sections that follow, I present some of the critiques of the dominant discourse, divided into related and overlapping themes.

The Problem and the Solution

            According to Cargren and Marten (2000, p. 25)  we face “…a future we know less of but have to know more about” (O&P, 2008).  Although unknown and unpredictable, the future is believed to threaten prosperity and social cohesion (Fejes, 2008) based on “mythic codes” (Usher & Edwards, 2007, p. 11) such as globalization and economic competition. 

            Jarvis (2007) describes the relationships between the globalization, economic competition, change, education and the state in terms of substructure and superstructures of the global society.  I have described this in other postings but will summarize again here. 

             The substructure is a core made up of international organizations such as the WB, EU and OECD and international corporations which control major aspects of technology and capital.  It also includes The European Round Table of Industrialists which has heavily influenced the EU LLL policy (Sultana; Rubenson).  The substructure runs through and greatly influences all of the superstructures which include nation states and their public institutions such as education.  Controlling capital, and technology, particularly media, the substructure is exceptionally powerful and is seen to threaten (or at least reduce) the power of the state to govern.  Therefore, the interests of the core substructure permeate social superstructures and institutions.  Jarvis sees this as a threat to democracy:  “Major corporations with their unelected directors and supranational organizations with interests far removed from the level of daily and private life exercise as much and maybe even more power over people than do elected governments" (p. 24).  He explains that internal competition in the substructure creates a rate of change at the core that the superstructure cannot keep up with. It is this rapid change that is constructed as the threat to prosperity and social cohesion 

LLL is positioned as the solution:  “Social and economic conditions are laid at the door of education and training as a first port of call…” (Edwards, 2006, p. 75) (Usher & Edwards, 2007).  This isn’t to suggest that LLL does not have a role in supporting economic and social concerns. However, one might question if it should be left as the only solution and one might question the  assumptions and forms of LLL that are being recruited for the mission. Usher & Edwards (2007) recommend that we question “…the myth in which this signification is embedded … that of the benevolent market where market-like structures—coded as flexibility in relation to labour markets, financial markets etc.—are seen as the only possible response to the challenges of economic, social and cultural change”(p. 46).  The form of LLL that is being constructed shouldn’t be accepted as an unmitigated good simply because it is being framed as an economic survival response (Wain, 2008). Bailey (1988) suggests instead that we either resist change or at least, critically judge change (Wain, 2008).  The role of LLL and the assumptions behind it should be explored critically.  

Tomorrow I will post a continuation of this discussion by describing the critique that economic determinism and rationality are key drivers of the dominant discourse in LLL.