Educational potential, underachievement, and cultural pluralism

The term 'underachievement' is widespread in modern educational discourse, invoked most frequently in relation to a perceived failure to reach 'potential'. In this paper, it is suggested that such terms, though widely used, are highly problematic, masking ideological assumptions which concern socially constructed, culturally sensitive, subjective, and relative matters. In fact, underachievement is most often used to mean low academic attainment and the paper argues that this is already better understood in terms of well-known factors such as prior attainment, socioeconomic disadvantage, and systemic biases. This paper also suggests that there is a danger of pathologising the low attainer when in fact it may be the system which is failing the learner. Further, the paper argues that the monologic focus on individual academic attainment as the sole measure of 'achievement' fails to take account of alternative cultural values and risks the charge of cultural imperialism

Review of Mike Cole: Marxism and educational theory - origins and issues

This is a review of 'Marxism and educational theory: origins and issues' by Mike Cole

Selecting applications for funding: why random choice is better than peer review

A widely-used method of research funding is through competitive grants, where the selection of which of the applications to fund is made using anonymous peer review.  The aim of the present paper is to argue that the system would work more efficiently if the selection were made by random choice rather than peer review.  The peer review system has defects which have been revealed by recent criticisms, and the paper gives one such criticism due to the Nobel prize winner Sir James Black.  It is then shown, in support of Sir James' position, that the use of anonymous peer review leads to a systemic bias in favour of mainstream research programmes and against minority research programmes.  This in turn leads to the stifling of new ideas and of innovation.  This thesis is illustrated by the example of the recent discovery of the cause of cervical cancer – a discovery which has generated substantial profits for pharmaceutical companies.  It is then shown that selection by random choice eliminates this systemic bias, and consequently would encourage new ideas and innovatio

Mechanisms and the Evidence Hierarchy

Evidence-based medicine (EBM) makes use of explicit procedures for grading evidence for causal claims. Normally, these procedures categorise evidence of correlation produced by statistical trials as better evidence for a causal claim than evidence of mechanisms produced by other methods. We argue, in contrast, that evidence of mechanisms needs to be viewed as complementary to, rather than inferior to, evidence of correlation. In this paper we first set out the case for treating evidence of mechanisms alongside evidence of correlation in explicit protocols for evaluating evidence. Next we provide case studies which exemplify the ways in which evidence of mechanisms complements evidence of correlation in practice. Finally, we put forward some general considerations as to how the two sorts of evidence can be more closely integrated by EBM

Why do scientific revolutions begin?

This paper is concerned with the problem of why scientific revolutions begin. It considers first Kuhn's view that a revolution is started by a build-up of anomalies in the old paradigm. This view is criticized on historical grounds by considering the examples of the Einsteinian revolution and the Copernican revolution. It is argued that there was no significant build-up of anomalies in the old paradigm just before the beginning of these revolutions. An alternative view is then put forward that the start of a revolution has to be explained in terms of technology and practical problems (or tech for short). There are two patterns: (i) tech first in which technological advances lead to new discoveries and these lead to the onset of the revolution, and (ii) tech last in which the need to solve an urgent practical problem produces a challenge to the old paradigm. If this challenge is successful, the new paradigm leads to a solution of the practical problem and so to technological advance. The tech first pattern is illustrated by the example of the chemical revolution, and the tech last pattern by the example of the development of the germ theory of disease. It is then argued that scientific revolutions can exhibit a combination of tech first and tech last, and this is illustrated by the Copernican revolution. In the final section of the paper, it is shown that the 'tech first/tech last' theory explains why the Copernican revolution occurred in Europe in the 16 th and 17 th centuries, and not in the ancient Greek world (with Aristarchus), or in China in the 16 th and 17 th centuries

Educational potential, underachievement, and cultural pluralism

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Human Capital, Education, and Sustainability

Human capital theory remains a powerful influence in modern economics and withineducational discourse. In this paper, the theory and its prevalence across Europeanstate education policy is explored and critiqued in a number of ways includingits implication in an ethos which aims at maximising returns from resources. Assuch, the theory and its practical manifestations are inimical to the concerns ofsustainability. The paper suggests that while the concept of “natural capital”, in itsfocus on the need to preserve profitable natural resources for future benefit, doescoalesce with sustainability discourse at points, more fruitful potential for thegoals of sustainability lies in redirecting the aims of state education, away from ahuman capital theory orientation, towards a renewal of the social aims inherent inthe original democratic ideals of liberal education