Abstracts
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Gordon O. Ade-Ojo
Department of Professional Learning and Development, University of Greenwich, UK
Do teachers trust policy and policy makers? Between the rhetoric of policy and the reality of implementation in UK literacy policy since 2001
There is abundant evidence of the significance of trust as a factor in various types of relationship in education. Many of these studies have focused on the relationship between several aspects of trust like benevolence, reliability, competence, integrity, openness and respect, as well as school performance and student outcomes (Daly and Chrispeels 2004), application of trust factors as they affect our understanding of, - and practice in, educational organizations (Samier and Schmidt 2010) and the link between leadership, trust and performance of followers (Casimir, Waldman, Bartram, and Yang (2006).
What has, however, not been extensively explored is the extent to which educational practitioners trust the policies that direct their practice and, in effect, the extent to which they trust policy-makers. This study explores such a relationship. It reports the perceptions of literacy practitioners on the extent to which they trust the promise embedded in the various policies that have affected their practice since 2001. As a means of exploring the element of trust from the viewpoint of practitioners, the study employed a questionnaire which sought the views of participants on the degree of convergence between the promise of policies and the realities of practice. Data collected from the questionnaires were analysed using content analysis with preliminary conclusions subsequently drawn.
The study found that practitioners have little trust in policies and policy makers to deliver what they promise. They also revealed that the divergence between the rhetoric of policy and the reality of implementation impacts negatively on their commitment to, and level of satisfaction with, their practice.
Patrick Ainley – University of Greenwich, UK and Martin Allen - Alperton Community School, UK
Lost Generation? The class of 2009
Undergraduate students are often reluctant to discuss sociological concerns with class that they may not share with their lecturers. This is strange since social class is so clearly reflected in the competing hierarchy of Higher Education Institutions in England today. We draw upon evidence and argument presented in our new book Lost Generation? New strategies for youth and education (Continuum March 2010) to show how institutionalised education and training has both reacted to and in part shaped an ongoing process of class reformation. The national obsession with education and examination results – shown most recently in the rush for HE places last year and this – has also become a way of talking about social class after its official demise. In particular, the 'old mole' of the working class has been recast in a new form as divisions of knowledge and labour in the post-war class pyramid have been eroded by the applications of new technology and the growth of services since the collapse of heavy industry and its associated apprenticeships.
Rather than a new diamond shaped model with an expanding middle, such as New Labour's widening participation to higher education aimed to create, or its opposite in what has been called 'an hour glass society', we argue that 'the class structure has gone pear-shaped'. These different models are applied to undergraduate students to determine which class or classes they and their contemporary non-students belong to and to explain how they see themselves as 'individuals in a mistrustful world'.
Patricia Alexander and Heather Mendick
Goldsmiths, University of London, UK
Alienation or mistrust? An African Caribbean teacher's lived experience of being a role model
In this paper we will explore the multiple and fragmentary identity positions that ethnic minority teachers navigate in England. We will do this by analysing an interview with Linda, an African Caribbean female secondary mathematics teacher working in a London comprehensive school. This interview is drawn from an ongoing research study being carried out by Patricia Alexander addressing the question: how do ethnic minority teachers understand their position as role model in relation to pupils from the same background?
Theoretically we will draw on post-structural and cultural studies approaches to identity understanding this as subjectivity, whereby the individual is positioned by and positions themselves within a constellation of discourses. We will look at the tensions within Linda's self perception as a role model and 'good teacher': as someone who works hard for her pupils and knows them as individuals. In particular, we will focus on the strategies she uses to maintain her membership of these categories in the face of experiences of abuse from some of her pupils. We will argue that her experiences can be understood as religious alienation, as a Black woman working in a predominantly Muslim school.
David Armes
British Sociological Association Sociology of Mental Health Study Group, Survivor Researcher Network, Survivor History Group
The effects of community care policy on the service-user and survivor movement
The first half of this presentation relates to the methodology within Dr Armes' doctoral research (Armes, 2006) concerning the effects of community care policy on the service-user and survivor movement. In this study he began work on a theoretical synthesis of experiential knowledge, drawing on the Feminist Standpoint theorist Sandra Harding (1986; 1991; 2004/93) with Michel Foucault's theory, insights, and genealogical methodology into service-user and survivor experiences (1989/61; 1989/69; 1990/76). This methodological work is used to further illuminate the experiential insights of service-user and survivor respondents, aiming to provide theoretical insights which can be practically employed to further service-user and survivor inclusion and liberation. A major conclusion is that service-users and survivors live in a reality determined by dominant mental health discourses. Armes asserts that these discourses are fundamentally underpinned by the Foucauldian insight that Enlightenment thinking places such a high value on the capacity to reason that the knowledge of service-users and survivors is discounted as meaningless (Foucault, 1989/61: 116).
The second half of this presentation argues that identification and reification of dominant discourses is a possible reason for 'thought disorders'. This is because the person who experiences them cannot be what they want to be (or are expected to be in a world of fragmented identities) due to their own thoughts which they identify as their 'self'. Armes also shows how this theoretical work has influenced his appreciation of psychiatric 'recovery'. (Armes, 2009).
Liz Atkins
Nottingham Trent University, UK
Smoke and Mirrors: Opportunity and Aspiration in 14-19 Education
The policy discourse around those young people who are the focus of the 14-19 agenda is one of negativity which, in its use of language such as non-academic, disaffected, disadvantaged places young people firmly within a deficit model. This model frames these young people as low achievers with low aspirations, routinely dismisses them as non-academic yet claims to offer opportunities in the form of a vocational education which, according to the rhetoric, will lead to a lifelong (nirvana?) of high skill, high paid work, personal satisfaction and opportunity (providing they continue to engage in lifelong learning), something which many young people take on trust.
Drawing on original empirical research, and working within a framework informed by Marxist and social justice concepts, this paper contests the assumption that these young people have low aspirations, arguing that falling within a deficit model, constrained by discourses of negativity, powerless to change a system which militates against them and lacking the agency for change their chances of achieving those aspirations are almost non-existent.
The paper poses a number of questions: What are 'high' and 'low' aspirations? What is 'non – academic'? Why, every year, are nearly half of all young people characterized in this way? What is, or is not, an 'opportunity'? It argues that notions of opportunity are, in fact, smoke and mirrors, a massive deception which enables the channelling of these young people into the low pay, low skill work market in readiness to fulfil government demands for cheap labour as and when it is needed.
Finally, it concludes with proposals for change in the 14-19 and PCET systems which could provide a more equitable and effective framework for young people to achieve their hopes and dreams.
James Avis
University of Huddersfield, UK
Workplace learning and social justice: leftist illusions?
The paper explores conceptualisations of work-based learning, knowledge and practice. It sets the discussion in its socio-economic context; one in which knowledge is seen as the route not only to societal competitiveness but also to well being. Such arguments emphasise the turbulent environment in which work is set as well as the fluidity and rapidity in the transformation of knowledge. The paper examines the varying ways in which knowledge is conceptualised within these debates, arguing that transformation is frequently set on a capitalist terrain rather than being tied to a radical political project.
Safia Awad, Dean Garratt and Gill Forrester
Faculty of Education, Community and Leisure, Liverpool John Moores University, UK
Matters of faith: an ethnographic study of two primary schools
This paper draws on an ethnographic study of two primary schools situated in the north west of England, to examine the impact of faith-based education on learning in schools. In recent years, the role of faith in education has been gaining momentum both in policy and practice. Yet still relatively little is known about its impact in the context of primary education, suggesting that critical analysis is long overdue. We analyse the inter-relationship between formal education and religion to expose its complexity and the tensions manifested in schools as repositories of value, cultural difference and diversity. Data is drawn from two schools: one Church of England school and one county school with an Islamic ethos.
This contrast is intended to expose the nature and role of faith in the process of recognising difference. At the same time, we challenge the perceived value of faith as a positive influence on school ethos and core values, in order to question whether faith schools actually benefit pupils, embrace diversity and ease or exacerbate religious tension? With reference to observations of practice and individual and focus group interviews, we show the multiple ways in which faith is manifested in practice. Our interpretation draws on the work of Bourdieu (1984) and critical race theory (Yosso, 2005; Taylor et al 2009), to explore the concept of 'faith-capital' in relation to teacher and pupil beliefs, children's emotions and their dispositions to act in the classroom.
Matt Badcock and Joyce Canaan
School of Social Sciences, Birmingham City University, UK
Rebuilding Trust in the University: The Case for Public Sociology
Few can doubt that trust in the university is breaking down. One aspect of this breakdown is the erosion of the student/lecturer relationship as students are increasingly encouraged to consider themselves 'customers' or 'consumers' of a service lecturers 'deliver' as 'service providers'. Students and lecturers are consequently more wary and distant in their inter-relationships whilst multiple factors encourage both parties' greater instrumentality with regard to learning and teaching. In addition, the relationship between the university and the world of work is being re-imagined as the university is considered a preparatory stepping stone for entry into the 'knowledge economy'.
We are troubled by this breakdown of trust in the university and have initiated a response by creating (autumn 2009), a new Sociology 'routeway' at BCU. We seek to develop a progressive alternative to the neoliberalising of HE as one strand of resistance 'in and against' the neoliberal university. The proposed paper seeks to explore students' and our own positive responses to our efforts to break the neoliberal mould. We explore how we are reworking Burawoy's understandings of Public Sociology by using critical pedagogy to guide teaching and students' transformative praxis in and outside the university. Using data collected from module evaluations, student focus groups and recorded classroom sessions in autumn 2009-2010, we examine how changing module content and learning/teaching practices are reconfiguring the student/lecturer relationship and students' understandings of and engagements with the world of work as they prepare for second term projects with campaigning and community support groups.
Andrew Barbour
University of Huddersfield, UK
Questioning and managing obligation to others: situational ethics and critical research
This paper reflects on the 'breaks and jagged edges' (Lather, 1997: 300) of an educational ethnography and offers an exchange with ethics that challenges and disturbs the understanding of its rules and expectations. It aims to consider 'what cannot be spoken in the face of power' (Scott, 1990: xii) and the point at which we may need to (re)define the limits of ethics, our relationships with gatekeepers and the ritual that we must do no harm to others as we invoke ethical boundaries.
If we observe unethical misinterpretations of power, those actions that appear damaging to others and only surface behind closed doors, how do we respond in witnessing such acts? Do we record them as data, or bracket them away? Do we risk modifying our status and approach those individuals to try and understand the situation? Or, do we shame ourselves and carry the politics of guilt deep within us by acknowledging the rigid ethics that we carry into the field? Those perpetrators may even be just as much victims of education, formed by its politics and expectations, perhaps demonstrating through a misguided minor language (Deleuze and Guatarri, 1987): one of resistance. These thoughts can be haunting, as to turn away and fail to respond can be just as much a hostile act (Scheper-Hughes, 1992). Caputo (1993) approaches ethics and offers an alternative: obligation. But how do we manage our obligations? These are the questions that are considered and which intrude into where we situate our discomfort and our ethics.
Agnieszka Bates
School of Education, Roehampton University, UK
The paradox of 'earned trust': bringing professional trust and autonomy out of the shadow of New Labour's remodelling of the teaching profession
The seminal speech by the former Education Secretary, Estelle Morris (2001), promised a bright new future for teachers predicated on 'earned' trust. Her remodelling of teaching as a modern profession rested on three pillars: efficiency, excellence and accountability. More recently, a new phrase has entered the discourse of New Labour's education policy, 'transformation of British education'. Despite the rhetoric of change, teaching professionals still work in the shadow of centralised control and power, under pressure to comply with 'rituals of verification' (Power, 1997). The impulse to control has found its manifestation in the ubiquitous technical-rationalist approach to professionalism, which splits cognitive and moral spaces (Bauman, 1993), suppressing the ethics of care. Audit culture gives rise to careerist professionals who promote managerialism, individualism and isolation (Groundwater-Smith and Sachs, 2002).
This paper examines the paradoxical notions of 'earned trust' and 'evidence based' autonomy and their consequences: transactional professional relationships and the new language game of impact. The argument that both trust and autonomy need to be reconceptualised is presented through the lens of complexity theory, with a particular focus on the concept of interdependence. A more radical interpretation of this concept abandons the notion of individuals as independent and autonomous in favour of perceiving them as fundamentally interdependent. This reflects a philosophical position which views human agents as simultaneously forming and being formed by social relations (Stacey, 2007). This premise foregrounds agency and diversity as essential for both educational transformation and the emergence of new power relations. It also allows for the concept of trust to be returned to its roots in the acceptance of the many phenomena beyond our control.
Richard D. Benson II
Educational Studies Program Faculty, Spelman College, Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Student/Community Radicalism and Black Power Educational Institutions 1968-1975: A CRT Retrospective Analysis of Interlocking Relationships
This work provides a Critical Race Theory (CRT) analysis of community and campus relationships that existed as the result of the phenomenon of Black Power in the United States. Unbeknownst to many educational historians and practitioners is the materialization of educational institutions, radical study groups, Black book stores and Pan-Africanist Movement student organizations that emerged to provide counterhegemonic information and educational services (Beckles, 1996). The products of this aforementioned era are in concert with the foundations of CRT and should not be divorced from the establishment of the theoretical construct. More importantly, the activities of this historical period are opulent with the examples that distinguish CRT in education from other theoretical constructs. Those examples are constant reminders that CRT as educational protest is a call to work (Stovall, 2005).
Praxis is essential to comprehending the underpinnings of CRT. Due to this connection it is critical to understand the responsibility of praxis as action and reflection in the world in order to change it. Therefore, it behooves us to recognize the processes that did and did not work in the face of hegemonic forces. Drawing from archival data and the work of critical theorists, this presentation seeks to identify the historical underpinnings of CRT. This will be accomplished by examining the activities of the following student/community educational institutions that existed from 1968-1975: The Communiversity of Chicago, Illinois; Malcolm X Liberation University of Greensboro, North Carolina; and Drum and Spear Bookstore of Washington, D.C.
Jon Berry
School of Education, University of Hertfordshire, UK
Have school teachers become timid – and, if so, will they ever be brave again?
Teachers fiercely guard the notion of themselves as autonomous professionals and would be properly insulted at the thought of being characterised as timid. Yet, paradoxically, they recognise that the constraints under which they operate, in a culture of close scrutiny and control, frequently prevent them from doing what they believe to be the right thing by their students. This paper traces the changing notions of different teacher professionalisms, taking Callaghan's Ruskin speech of 1976 as a starting point, and examines the way in which the hegemony of the market, fully enshrined by the provisions of the Education Reform Act of 1988, has impacted upon the very detail of the teachers' daily practice right up to the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century. The paper challenges the notion that quiet compliance by teachers has now become normalised and goes on to suggest that at the very time when the dominance of the market is shown to be open to question , the opportunities for resistance – and the establishment of a true professional autonomy - have never been greater.
Jana Binon
Faculty of Theology, KUL, Belgium
The Interplay of Trust and Power in Pastoral Care
Pastors are often confronted with the immediate trust that pastoral care receivers render them – even in our detraditionalised and pluralistic western society - be it because of their person, their function, their institute or the projected image of the care receiver. This trust that is 'entrusted' to the pastor opens new vistas for a meaningful, intense and open pastoral conversation, in a trusting relationship between them; which is the instrument for a successful pastorate. But this trust may also be abused. The asymmetrical relationship between pastoral care giver and pastoral care receiver, already evokes how pastoral power may sneak in to the scene.
Power often remains invisible in pastoral care, and meets a lot of resistance. Therefore, we would like to unfold the 'power-play' in pastoral care, in a threefold way. Firstly, Foucault's notion of pastoral power (1999), makes us aware of the presence of power within pastoral care. Secondly, a broadening of the concept of power is developed by Gärtner (2009), at the level of the individual, situation and tradition. Thirdly, Störtz (1993) shows us different forms of power in the context of pastoral care: 'power over', 'power with' and 'power within'.
Clea Bourne
Leeds Business School, Leeds Metropolitan University, UK
Trust as discursive and material practice in financial systems: A communicative perspective
The interplay of discourse, power and resistance has perhaps been most clearly illustrated in the recent and ongoing financial crisis. In this context, the communication of institutions struggling to retain trust among consumers, investors and government is paramount to their survival. The public relations function, as the driver of communication activity, has been recognised as ‘trust manager’ as well as a process that generates discourses for organisational and societal purposes. We have seen from the global financial crisis and credit crunch, that the financial system is prone to ‘booms and busts’ of trust. Financial services is ‘the business of trust’, (Knights et al, 2001) but this particular form of trust is one that is deliberately and strategically produced to cut costs and increase profits. Known as ‘system trust’, it does not apply to the reputation of individuals or even single institutions (Giddens, 1994). System trust is the faceless, impersonal form of trust we place in money, and increasingly in expert systems of technical, educational or scientific knowledge. My paper will examine trust production in financial services as it relates to discourse, power and resistance. I hypothesise five trust practices – the act of protecting, the act of guaranteeing, the act of opening up or making transparent, the act of aligning with other trust systems and finally the act of simplifying, this latter being most closely associated with public relations. I hope to offer insights on how trust and mistrust discourses proliferate as flows of power and resistance in complex, modern systems.
Laurette Bristol
The University of Trinidad and Tobago
"I'm so angry, I'm shaking and I want to cry!" Researcher anxieties vs Participant challenges
Who has the ultimate responsibility to ensure that the relationships which occur in research are actually ethical: the institution, the supervisor, the researcher, the participant or some conglomeration of the above? This paper tells the story of a perceived loss of trust and a sense of betrayal from the perspective of the participant. It emerges out of the experience of a clash between the anxieties of the researcher and the institutional challenges that the participant faces. In making sense of this personal experience I reflect upon a paper that I had co-authored titled: 'Resisting the Unethical in Formalised Ethics: Perspectives and Experiences". This reflection is also shaped by a consideration of what can be understood to be "culturally ethical research" (Bristol 2008) a concept that I had begun to think through in my PhD research. The aim of this paper is not to assign blame to any person or system but rather to consider the ethical malaise that is educational research and the ways in which we as researchers/ participants can negotiate the inter –relationships which exist to accommodate or block the development of the research.
Charmaine Brown
School of Education and Training, University of Greenwich, UK
Policy initiatives and practice in Initial Teacher Training – the issue of trust This paper examines the narratives of two teacher trainers in the lifelong learning sector. It is based on a preliminary investigation as part of an Education Doctorate research and includes feedback from 15 teacher educators in the lifelong learning sector. The main thrust of the research is on policy initiatives in Initial Teacher Training which have been implemented since the Further and Higher Education Act 1992. The paper examines the relationship between policy and practice in the Sector. It also focuses on the potential barriers faced between participants that may arise as a result of trust issues between policy makers and implementers. The research identifies several layers of conflict that may be analysed in line with Habermas’s (1971) critical theory. This includes tensions between government policies and institutions which deliver ITT, between the initial teacher educators and the institution where they work and the relationship between teacher educators and the trainees (who sometimes fail to see the relevance of what is being taught). The paper draws on mixed methods research, including questionnaires, semi-structured interviews and narrative inquiry. The data collated supports the findings of Shain and Gleeson (1999) in terms of the coping strategies adopted by FE teachers in the light of government reforms. It also illustrates the participants’ views that the increased marketisation of the lifelong learning sector has de-professionalised teachers’ existing values and practice (Robson, 2006).
Heather Brunskell-Evans
School of Education and Training, University of Greenwich, UK
Faith, Belief and Truth
Academic faith that philosophy – its theories, epistemologies and research methodologies – can provide the evaluative criteria for critically examining governmental policy-making has been challenged by poststructuralist theory in the past twenty years in the UK. Poststructuralist theory, particularly that branch which is influenced by the work of French philosopher Michel Foucault, points to the inevitable imbrications of the researcher/theorist, his or her methodologies, and the political relations his or her research seeks to examine and to challenge. It is an approach which asks us to withhold trust not only of our politicians but also of any research/theory whose epistemic foundations claim to be exempt from power relations.
With regard to educational research and theory (of pre-school right through to Higher Education), this philosophical perspective, in comparison to critical analyses which align themselves with Truth and which claim a direct relationship between producing Truth and the furtherance of democratic education, can seem depressing. It appears to leave no recourse other than, at best, honing conceptual tools to deconstruct educational policy and practice (and the knowledges on which they are based), or, at worst, fostering cynicism and undermining the ethical foundations of research grounded in shared humanist values. With the specific example of contemporary changes to Higher Education and New Managerialism, my paper addresses this negative view of poststructuralist theory. I argue that poststructuralism, in positing an inseparable relationship between power and knowledge, does not further the social context out of which mistrust in educational policy-making and in academic management has arisen. In contrast, I argue poststructuralism both provides the criteria to assess the costs and benefits of the New Managerialism and the opportunity to take responsibility for the ways we are governed through Higher Education in order to effect genuine change.
Anna Carlile
Goldsmiths, University of London, UK
Youth Voice: Stakeholder participation or the governance of the soul?
This paper will describe and evaluate 'Illuminate', an inclusive project which trains young people to undertake research in their own schools. The project was designed to discover how we can introduce rigorous research practices into schools in a constructive, collaborative way and how we can embed a meaningful youth voice strategy into this process. In developing it, I addressed issues which could be seen to undermine the freedom of academic research: funding; the requirements of OfSTED recommendations and the school improvement plan; and the senior management team's understanding of what was important. This lead to compromise, and misgivings began to bubble under the surface: I started to mistrust the ethics of my own research model. Is 'Illuminate' a model in youth voice; an immersion in a democratic practice central to stakeholder participation? Or are we diving headlong into an audit culture, and promoting the Foucauldian internalisation of normative administrative power- what Rose (1999) calls 'governing the soul'?Namita Chakrabarty
University of East London, UK
See Lorna Roberts et al
Shaun Chen
Department of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Canada
Through the lens of critical race theory: The debate over Canada’s first Africentric school
The racialized realities faced by Black students provide an impetus to examine the controversy over Canada’s first Africentric Alternative School, approved on January 29, 2008 by the Toronto District School Board. Newspaper articles, editorials and letters to the editor, as well as speeches by delegations and trustees, provide a rich snapshot of the arguments put forth in the heated political debate on how to address a 40% dropout rate among Black students. Critical race theory suggests there is a collective “voice” (Delgado, 1990, p. 98) spoken by people of colour from racialized experiences (Tate, 1997). In this poster presentation, I look at how the educational realities faced by Black students help to frame analysis and understanding of the diverse and divergent stances taken by both proponents and opponents of the school. A conceptual framework of hidden and public transcripts (Scott, 1990) is used to distinguish arguments that reflect on the lived experiences of Black students from those that reiterate the dominant discourses of liberal democratic societies. The findings emerge as three opposing sets of themes that reveal a transcript reflective of the ongoing salience of racism within ostensibly liberal claims to racial equality.
Kuang-Hsu Chiang
University of Edinburgh, UK
Trust and Atmosphere in the Research Environment of UK Higher Education: From RAE to REF
This paper aims to examine trust and research atmosphere in UK higher education based on a conceptual framework developed by Hallén and Sandström (1991) and the Simmelian idea of trust. It agues that the current research policy environment created by the UK government risks making the HE research atmosphere move away from trustful to opportunist. Through analysing different types of scientific research and its links with creativity, it is found that a trustful atmosphere is better than an opportunist atmosphere for the advancement of knowledge and development of scientific research. By scrutinising the recent changes in governmental research initiatives, such as the research excellence framework (REF) and research councils' funding policies, it seems that an evaluative approach with short term vision and the stress of immediate effect was adopted by the government. This approach unfortunately damages the trustful atmosphere between the government and the scientific community. The possible way to restore the trust in the atmosphere is discussed. The Simmelian idea of 'suspension' (Möllering, 2001) in the nature of trust is emphasised in order to enable the 'leap' of trust.
Miranda Christou
University of Cyprus
Other people's pain as a pedagogical frontier
My purpose in this presentation is to explore the availability of the pain spectacle in the news media and to examine how it becomes another territory for marking difference. I argue that, as moving and humanizing as representations of pain and suffering may be, they constitute pedagogical forces of embodied difference and inequality. Images of bodies in pain in the news media are becoming increasingly more 'real', unprocessed and immediate. Viewers are exposed to bodies that are tortured, bodies that have been burnt, crushed, broken. There are images of blood and bodies in positions that seem 'unnatural' or painful; bodies in abject conditions. How do these images function as evidence of another human being's pain? How does this excessive visibility function to humanize or de-humanize the exposed bodies?
In this paper, I use a variety of visual examples from major western media outlets to point out how the image of 'other people's pain' serves both as a form of 'excessive witnessing' and as a culturally alienating factor. I analyze how some people's pain is spectacularized in ways that dehumanizes the very subject it sets out to humanize; I show that some people's bodies in pain are more available as a spectacle both in their lives and in their deaths, and that some people's pain is presented as overwhelming and incoherent whereas others' can be celebrated and rendered meaningful. I point out how these discrepancies are not simply representations of 'reality' but productions of cultural difference and constructions of humanity or inhumanity.
Sara Clethero
London College of Music, Thames Valley University, UK
Singing and Being
This paper offers an existential analysis of the experience of running a singing training group of men with autism. This is refracted through a the use of the Interactive Teaching Method (ITM) Alexander Technique, which is a minutely detailed way of working with singers which demands that the student trust themselves to take radical responsibility for their physical poise and everything which arises from that. All singers face these issues of self trust and the questions of the use of the self which are involved. It is argued that the experience of this group can cast light on these issues in a way which is helpful to all of us. This is, at this stage, a theoretical enquiry, and is supported by experience but not with data analysis. The task is to explore relevant published work and to analyse how it can help to illuminate the singing process. Although there has been much work published about the psychology and sociology of music performance, there is remarkably little on the wider perspective; ie, what we think we are doing when we perform, why we do it, and why it is important. These are philosophical questions, and need much more thorough examination than they have been given in the past, if we are to do justice to them. This paper will argue that existential philosophy, with its subsequent refinements, and taking into account its origins in Hegel and Kierkegaard and even earlier, can do much to elucidate the question of the importance of music and performance for the human project, both individually and socially for us. To illustrate this, the above project will be described and the lessons for our philosophical understanding of performance examined
Alan Cottey
School of Chemistry, University of East Anglia, UK
Trustworthy and Trusted Science: what are the requisite social conditions? Workshop
Trust is central to the practice of science. For 'organized skepticism' (part of the ethos of science, according to Robert K Merton) is a simplified ideal. If everyone were required to bring radical scepticism to every part of every scientific truth claim, nothing of the great edifice of scientific knowledge would remain.
The trustworthiness of this system is hard-won and trust is not casually accorded to it. The basis of a scientific truth claim should be open to all who wish to inspect it. Access should not be restricted by gatekeepers. The open inspection should not be impeded by secrecy, prohibitive fees, bureaucracy, taboos or any other extra-scientific interests.
This model of science, while less idealised than the 'radical scepticism' model, is still highly idealised. The current practice of science does not live up entirely to this ideal but it does generally encourage inspection of truth claims. Science earns and is accorded discriminate trust.
In this workshop I will facilitate a discussion of 'trustworthy and trusted science' and of the requisite social conditions. Participants are invited to offer what they will to the workshop, but especially
- direct experiences of cases illustrating trustworthy, untrustworthy, trusted and mistrusted science
- observations on the social conditions considered to be especially relevant to those cases
- ideas on the development of social conditions which will enhance the production of trustworthy, trusted scientific knowledge.
[Note: I propose a policy of respect for the wishes of speakers who request that (parts of) their contributions be confined to the workshop; otherwise the default is openness.]
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