Exploring issues in international context (3): Applying frameworks

Chapter 7. Applying frameworks to analyze educational issues

1. Hofstede's cross-cultural framework (a psychosociological critique of the purposes of schooling) p. 268

• power distance: the degree to which citizens tolerate social inequalities and can be described as a situation in whcih those with less power accept the power imbalances and view them as a normal part of society
  
• uncertainty avoidance: the degree to which a cultural group tends to become nervous about unpredictable and complex situations and tries to avoid them through the maintenance of strict behavior codes and faith in absolute truth
  
• social principledness: a strong inclination on the part of a culture to acquiesce, without question, to authority, thereby accepting the society's conventional values and norms
• locus of control: a set of generalized beliefs or expectancies about how positive and negative reinforcements are obtained
  

2. Harvey & Knight's framework for examining educational policy discourse (a critique of educational access and opportunity) - five notions of quality (normative vision), p. 269-272

• Exceptionality: the more traditional view whereby quality is seen as distinctive and exceeding a set of germane standards that are, by definition, "unattainable by most people" (implication: many schools will not attain educational quality)
  
• Consistency: focus on producing a predictable defect-free result, doing so as a matter of routine and reaching this goal on the first attempt as often as possible (criticism: intangible educational results; does not fit well with the idea of discovery learning)
• Fitness for purpose: emphasizes the end point more completely by considering how a process or service suits specific aims (ambiguities in definition of customer)
• Value for money: educational effectiveness must be maintained but with greater efficiency (evidence of returns on investment)
  
• Transformation: the most consequential benefits for students derive from the enhancement of their skills and from their empowerment through participation in self-evaluation and instructional evaluation as well (quality viewed in terms of change).
  

3. Frank's framework for examining accountability-authority relationships

• Policy effectiveness: the feasibility of a policy or program (government support, political voice; financial concerns; implementation time; parents and business community)
  
• Theoretical adequacy: the evidence for a compelling linkage between the targeted or desired outcomes and the strategies the proposal envisions for accomplishing them
  
• Empirical validity: the evidence that pairs a program's assertion with its strategies (assessing a policy)
• The missing element - ethical merit
  

4. Thomas's political framework (a critique of teacher professionalism) - symbiotics of ed-pol: education is influenced by politics in at least three ways

• the support provided to schools
• the content and procedures allowed in schools
• the latitude of social and political action permitted the people who inhabit school