Education Policies, Foreign Language and (Mobile) Technology in the - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Education Policies, Foreign Language and (Mobile) Technology in the field of Critical Applied Linguistics

Cláudia Hilsdorf Rocha – Unicamp

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Critical Applied Linguistics & Policies

Critical and alternative directions embrace the notion of (local) practice and distrust the grand gestures of imperialism, language rights and globalization Pennycook (2010)

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Critical Applied Linguistics & Policies

From a Critical Applied Linguistics perspective we can orient towards a form of politics that is grounded in local language (and educational) activities and that allows us to develop more sophisticated, open, discontinued, situated geographies of linguistics happenings and, therefore, also policies

Pennycook (2010)

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Globalization & Critical Education

Globalization is disform (Capella, 2000) It is complex and not uniform or universally imposed by a colonial power upon the colonized, but rather is something that affects people and nations (as far as language, education and policies are concerned, as well) in varied and different ways

Rizvi (2000), p. 222

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The framework of judgments concerning the impacts of globalization needs to be not simply matters of whether globalization is really happening or not, but of globalization in what respects and on whose terms Burbules e Torres (2000, p. 17)

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From a more neoliberal standpoint, globalization affects educational policies, practices and institutions by imposing market approaches and rational management and by favoring meritocracy, consumerism, uniformity and homogenization

Burbules e Torres (2000) 6

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From a critical and postcolonial perspective towards language and education (Andreotti & Menezes de Souza, 2012), within the globalized and digital society, it is important to distrust technology (Selwyn, 2014), as well as every kind of authoritarian discourse, in favor of epistemic breaks (Kumaravadivelu, 2012).

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Policy as Ideology Policy is about intentions and effect, it is action-oriented and is a system of

• rganized decision making. Values (and

power) play an important part in the definition and enactment of policy. Policy is then guided by value or ideological systems

Adams (2014: 25)

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Policy as Ideology

Hélot & Laoire (2011)

Today, language policy is being reconceptualized as a complexity

• f human interactions,

negotiations and productions mediated by interrelationships in sites of competing ideologies, discourses and powers.

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Policy as Ideology

Hélot & Laoire (2011)

More recent approaches to language (and educational) policy conceptualize it as a process in which a variety of social actors struggle to achieve authoritative contextualization (Silverstein & Urban, 1996): they actively engage in planning, interpretation, modification and/or (selective) implementation of policy, in accordance with existing institutional practices, external pressures and individual differences

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Language Policy as Local Practice : Communities of Dissent

Hornberger (2006)

At the heart of post-structuralist and more post-modern approaches to language policy, one finds three crucial concepts, which help to advance our understanding, that is, agency, ideology and ecology

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Language Policy as Local Practice : Communities of Dissent

Medina (2006)

Agency is thought as discursive by nature (Medina, 2006) and, therefore, cannot be owned, but enacted within social relations (of power)

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From language education policy to a Pedagogy of the Possible (Localities)

Language and educational policies are created and lived locally within communities of dissent (Barnett, 2004, p. 64), which reveal aporetic, heteroglossic spaces (Blackledge et al 2014), that is, critical, creative and dynamic spaces of crises or dissent, from which epistemic breaks (Kumaravadivelu, 2012) and transformation can occur

Hélot & Laoire (2011)

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Importance of the interrelationship between language policies and public bodies, on the one hand, and local reality of ordinary people involved,

• n the other, so that the agency of subalternized

communities can be validated and that policies can be negotiated in a critical and creative way. Such interrelationship and negotiation should allow for more local and horizontally based actions to take place, so that there could be breaks with authoritarian policies, which either swipe or romanticize linguistic and educational rights

Quoting Canagarajah (2005, p. 418), Severo (2013, p. 469), emphasizes the: 14

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Hélot & Laoire (2011)

Education policy as an academic area of study has found its niche in the last 30 or so years. Because education seeks to better the education of individuals and groups in society and because it desires to effect social change, it is a subject of social policy and it is therefore an ideological site of struggle

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Monolingualism

There is still a lingering tendency in most language classrooms to approach the teaching and learning of languages as if monolingualism were the norm,

• verlooking diversity (whether linguistic,

cultural, ethnic or social)

Hélot & Laoire (2011)

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Monolingualism

Ricento (2006)

Language policies as they emerged in post-colonial (sociolinguistic) situations have best served the interests of the former language of colonization rather than the languages and rights of minorities.

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Monolingualism

Garcia (2009)

Even when education systems are said to be multilingual, most (linguistic and educational) models are still characterized as monoglossic and intended

• nly for the elite and

dominant languages

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Educational Technology Policy

Educational technology policy can be seen as a formalization of state intent to guide the implementation of digital technologies throughout national education systems The integration of digital technology into education systems has been a growing feature of state education policymaking over the past three decades Nowadays educational technology can be said to be a major policy concern across all nations, regardless of a country’s global prominence or relative economic wealth

Selwyn (2013)

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Policies exist in context: they have a prior history, linked to earlier policies, particular individuals and agencies

Rizvi and Lingard (2010: 15)

Educational technology policies need to be considered from a more historical and critical standpoint

Selwyn (2013: 65)

We need to consider and reflect critically upon the commodification of educational technology and its consequences for the way in which power is distributed through the material conditions of individual nations and people

Mansell (2004: 102)

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Commodification

Selwyn (2013) - Zhao et al (2006)

During the 1980’s and 1990’s policies revolved largely around provisions of computers in classroom and the development of computer literacies among teachers and students, targeting at a limited set of measurable outcomes Brazilian Proinfo Integrado Main goal: promote the use of technology within public schools Such policies reveal the unchecked fear of missing the fast ICT train to global prominence and have resulted in a (blind) global chase after e-learning and a limited focus on market rationale 21

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Nowadays infusing national education systems with digital technology still follow an essentially deterministic expectation of technological change leading to substantial educational improvement Educational technology policymaking tends to be linked to the idea of economic success in the globalized knowledge economy It could then be described as a techno-centric, utopian and economic-driven

Selwyn (2013) - Zhao et al (2006)

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Technology-based education is presented by national governments as a generic solution to common policy problems arising from the knowledge economy, information age and other recent global shifts It is tempting to see policy expressions of educational technology as forming a global hyper- narrative (Stronach, 2010), that is, a shared discursive means that nation states turn to in an attempt to normalize the economic and societal changes associated with globalization

Selwyn (2013, p. 82)

GENERALIZATION – NORMATIZATION- HOMOGENEITY

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Yet while all educational policies and practices are internationalized to some degree, their apparent similarities cannot be seen to represent a global educational culture (Spring, 2009), for what has taken place “on the ground” has proven to be very different and diverse State technology policies work like a relay between certain administrative and political practices and a diversity of local initiatives and do not have homogeneous and predictable effects, since they cannot be controlled

Selwyn (2013, p. 83) EDUCATIONAL TECNHNOLOGY POLICY AS LOCAL PRACTICE

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Selwyn (2013: 83)

While the comparative education approach may well encourage an interest in the similarities across national and global settings (Samoff, 2007, p. 49), we need to remain mindful of the many differences and discontinuities that persist within national and global borders when it comes to educational technology use and policies

We should turn our attention to the importance of “local politics, (policies), culture and tradition and the processes of interpretation and struggle involved in translating these generic solutions into practical policies and institutional practices

(Ball, 2006,p. 76) 25

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In Brazil, there have been many discussions and proposals for using the computer (and digital mobile technologies) for transforming pedagogical practice instead of just using it as another medium for knowledge production and dissemination (Castro, 2000). According to Proinfo (National Program for Computers in Education) the main condition for achieving success is the availability of good teachers, who must be qualified at two levels: as educator and trainers

Fidalgo Neto et al (2009)

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In Brazil, Casa Thomas Jefferson iPads for Access initiative set out from the start to integrate English language and digital literacy learning opportunities for socioeconomically disadvantaged youth The success of the Brazilian approach can be seen in student’s growing independence and creativity, as evidenced in the English-medium, digitally enabled work they have been empowered to produce, and which can be publicly viewed online Pegrum (2013, p. 36)

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Ipad for Access Project

Language: English Focus: Language & Digital Literacy Recipients: Students from low-income backgrounds Key partners: US Embassy/US State Dept Timeline: 2012 - ongoing

Pegrum (2014)

http://thomas.org.br/pratique-ingles/blog/?tag=mlearning#ipads-in-the-english-classroom

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Projeto Educação Digital-Política

http://www.fnde.gov.br/programas/programa-nacional-de-tecnologia-educacional-proinfo/proinfo-tablets

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Pegrum (2014: 35)

It is important to question anew in every context whether mobile technologies are being used to promote empowerment and equality rather than (merely) serving economic or corporate imperatives It is necessary to develop a critical mobile literacy, for it offers a lens through which to focus on finding a balance among competing interests and to help students open up spaces for growth amid the multiples discourses clamouring for their ( and all of our) attention in contemporary society

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Pegrum (2014: 35- 39)

Language, literacy and 21st century skills can be critically and simultaneously dealt with to great effect

To do so, we should distrust educational technology (policies and discourses)

Selwyn (2014)

We should break with “imagined” and authoritarian discourses 34

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Distrusting Policies and Discourses

Digital natives simply do not exist and research debunks the notion of a homogeneous, technically able generation Digital society faces serious problems regarding access and social inequalities – Liquid Modernity can be very heavy

Pegrum (2014)

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Tech chnolo

• logy

gy ca cannot

• t, on i

it is own, sav ave educa cati tion n or t r the worl rld d fr from inequaliti qualities, s, intoleranc tolerance, e, hat atred red an and al all sorts of v f violenc lence an and pre rejudice udice

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Living and practicing linguistic and technology educational policies, from a critical point o view, is a process of ideological becoming within the bakhtinian public sphere, which invites us to be aware of and to care about difference and about the presence of the other.

Living and practicing linguistic and educational technology policies in such a public space (Biesta, 2014) involves taking social responsibility within plurality towards policies, strategies, words, gestures, thoughts and actions of everybody around us, caring and worrying about the collectivity and acting in the interest of the public, so that such policies can become public

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É preciso (re/des)aprender a viver (políticas)

• Somos unidos pelo tempo e pelo espaço. [...] A chave é viver no

tempoespaço, no cronotopo, é reconhecer sua inseparabilidade. [...] Aprender com a vida é a chave. Nós não pulamos, de crise em crise, sem aprender como ter mais controle de nossas vidas. Nós não vivemos desatentos ao mundo ao nosso redor, conscientes somente de nossas próprias vontades e necessidades. Ao contrário, nós vivemos no mundo – atentando para como as forças passadas fizeram de nós quem somos, conscientes de que, ao longo de nossa jornada, podemos crescer, aprender e mudar, primeira e principalmente a nós mesmos e, assim, também o mundo,

• Shields (2007, p. 15),

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