Naming and Classifying: Theory, Evidence, and Equity in Education

Lucas, Samuel R.; Beresford, Lauren

doi:10.3102/0091732x09353578

Cited by 44 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 169 publications

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“…Rose sees this as hiding the technical work that goes into the creation of numbers for policy, but there is also important semiotic production that goes into the creation of categories that are central to both policy as numbers and evidence-based policy (Lucas and Beresford 2010). In drawing on Durkheim's description of sociological method as treating social facts as things, Desrosieres (1998) in writing about the politics of large numbers also talks of how the categories in data are simultaneously conventions, but also really exist.…”

Section: Concluding Commentmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…The argument also demonstrates how the changed political and economic conditions, which have catalysed these new modes of governance, including flows of people associated with globalisation, also complexify the nation state's capacity to establish stable and meaningful categories around which data and numbers can be constructed and used. Naming and classifying are central to the policy as numbers move and to policy approaches using evidence to address equity issues in relation to education (Lucas & Beresford 2010), as the two cases will demonstrate.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Education policy as numbers: data categories and two Australian cases of misrecognition

Lingard

Creagh

Vass

2012

Journal of Education Policy

111

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While numbers, data and statistics have been part of the bureaucracy since the emergence of the nation state, the paper argues that the governance turn has seen the enhancement of the significance of numbers in policy. The policy as numbers phenomenon is exemplified through two Australian cases in education policy, linked to the national schooling reform agenda. The first case deals with the category of students called Language Backgrounds Other than English (LBOTE) in Australian schooling policy -students with LBOTE. The second deals with the 'closing the gap' approach to Indigenous schooling. The LBOTE case demonstrates an attempt at recognition, but one that fails to create a category useful for policy-makers and teachers in relation to the language needs of Australian students. The Indigenous case of policy misrecognition confirms Gillborn's analysis of gap talk and its effects; a focus on closing the gap, as with the new politics of recognition, elides structural inequalities and the historical effects of colonisation. With this case, there is a misrecognition that denies Indigenous knowledges, epistemologies and cultural rights. The contribution of the paper to policy sociology is twofold: first in showing how ostensive politics of recognition can work as misrecognition with the potential to deny redistribution and secondly that we need to be aware of the socially constructed nature of categories that underpin contemporary policy as numbers and evidence-based policy.

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Section: Concluding Commentmentioning

confidence: 98%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Education policy as numbers: data categories and two Australian cases of misrecognition

Lingard

Creagh

Vass

2012

Journal of Education Policy

111

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“…The implementation of NCLB in the USA-like its UK and, now quite similarly, Australian counterparts-has raised technical issues of sociodemographic classification and the definition of target populations (Lucas and Beresford 2010), construct definition (Rochex 2006), measurement validity and reliability (Moss et al 2006;Stobart 2008). Nonetheless, post-NCLB data points to two problem scenarios.…”

Section: Autonomous and Ideological Models Of Literacymentioning

confidence: 94%

Comprehension and content: planning literacy in low socioeconomic and culturally diverse schools

2011

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This article defines comprehension as a pragmatic social and intellectual practice. It reviews literature on current approaches to reading instruction for linguistically and culturally diverse and low socioeconomic students, noting the current policy emphasis on the teaching of comprehension as autonomous skills and strategies. The Four Resources model (Freebody and Luke 1990) is used to frame comprehension instruction with an emphasis on student cultural and community knowledge, and substantive intellectual and sociocultural content in elementary and middle school curricula. Illustrations are drawn from research underway on the teaching of literacy in low socioeconomic schools.

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“…Researchers must also reflect on how these choices may have influenced their findings (Gaskell 1988;Hostetler 2005;Kress 2011b;Lucas and Beresford 2010). Sometimes researchers draw on the notion of a paradigm to situate their study epistemologically.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Epistemological pluralism in research synthesis methods

Suri

2013

International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education

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The purpose of research synthesis is to produce new knowledge by making explicit connections and tensions between individual study reports that were not visible before. Every effort of synthesizing research is inevitably premised on certain epistemological assumptions. It is crucial that research synthesists reflect critically on how their epistemological positioning enables them to pursue certain purposes while preventing them from pursuing other purposes. The literature on research synthesis methods is dominated by publications premised on positivist assumptions. The rhetoric of systematic reviews, best-evidence synthesis and What Works Clearinghouse privileges syntheses with positivist orientations. Contesting the hegemony of positivist research syntheses, this paper makes a case for research syntheses that are informed by diverse epistemological orientations. It illuminates how research syntheses with distinct epistemological orientations can serve complementary, equally worthwhile, purposes.

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Naming and Classifying: Theory, Evidence, and Equity in Education

Cited by 44 publications

References 169 publications

Education policy as numbers: data categories and two Australian cases of misrecognition

Education policy as numbers: data categories and two Australian cases of misrecognition

Comprehension and content: planning literacy in low socioeconomic and culturally diverse schools

Epistemological pluralism in research synthesis methods

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