Arrow” Meaning of Education, Firstly Introduced by John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) in 1867
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ANGLIA RUSKIN UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF HEALTH, SOCIAL CARE AND EDUCATION THE IMPACT OF THE ECONOMIC CRISIS IN GREECE ON THE PROFESSIONAL LIVES AND TEACHING PRACTICES OF PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS: A CRITICAL PEDAGOGY APPROACH THEOPOULA (POLINA) CHRYSOCHOU A thesis in partial fulfilment of the requirements of Anglia Ruskin University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Submitted: January 2018 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First and foremost, I would like to express my deep gratitude to my UK supervisor, Emeritus Professor Dave Hill, for his enthusiasm, motivation and precious guidance. He was the one who believed in me, gave me the opportunity to apply for and finally get the PhD studentship that made this study possible. During the years I spent as a student in a foreign country, he introduced me to precious theoretical and practical fields of academic work and has been above all a friend and a companion. I would also like to express my deep gratitude to my Greek supervisor, Professor Kostas Skordoulis, for being a mentor, a trusted friend and a constant source of inspiration. He guided me through my MA making use of our common background in physics and introduced me to Critical Pedagogy and Marxist research. Over the course of my academic life, he has guided and supported me always being available to hear my research concerns. I would like to thank my second supervisor, Dr Alpesh Maisuria for his constructive comments and suggestions. Being half-way through his doctoral thesis, he was more of a colleague who was there to offer daily practical advice. I would also like to thank Anglia Ruskin University and especially the Faculty of Health, Social Care and Education for supporting financially this study with a PhD stipend studentship during the first three years and with two more tuition-free years. I should not forget to thank all my mentors including among them Professors George Grollios and Panagiota Gounari and Assistant Professor Periklis Pavlidis. Finally, I am deeply grateful to the participating teachers. This thesis would have never been completed without them and without the precious help of my sister and my brother- in-law or without the support and understanding of precious friends. Last but not least, I would like to thank my mother for her moral and financial support throughout my studies. In loving memory of my father i ANGLIA RUSKIN UNIVERSITY ABSTRACT FACULTY OF HEALTH, SOCIAL CARE AND EDUCATION DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY THE IMPACT OF THE ECONOMIC CRISIS IN GREECE ON THE PROFESSIONAL LIVES AND TEACHING PRACTICES OF PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHERS: A CRITICAL PEDAGOGY APPROACH THEOPOULA (POLINA) CHRYSOCHOU January 2018 This study presents a discussion of the ramifications of the economic crisis ravaging Greece since 2009 on the professional lives and the teaching practices of Greek primary school teachers. Placed in the general framework of a global attempt to reform education by making it comply with neoconservative and neoliberal directions, my thesis discusses the particular case of Greece and investigates the possibility of an international educational paradigm seeking to impose a market reasoning on school culture and create a disciplined privatised educational sector in pursuit of profit. The issue is approached through the Critical Pedagogy Approach and thus, uses Marxist analytical tools and places the whole thinking within the philosophical framework of dialectical materialism. This is an attempt to fully understand and interpret the causes and nature of the crisis, along with its impact. For this reason, a holistic approach is employed based on both empirical evidence and a coherent theoretical and philosophical framework that examines schools and education in an economic, social, political and ideological context. The analysis of the data shows that all aspects relevant to the educational process have been severely affected in terms of infrastructure, relationships, personal development and quality of teaching and learning. Due to the nature of their profession, teachers proved a rich source of data regarding all aspects of the crisis and its repercussions on themselves, their students and Greek society as a whole. The findings confirmed the initial assumption that was formulated at the beginning of this thesis, that a critical and radical approach of the crisis is needed in order to fully comprehend its real causes and unmask the attempts to implement the complete neoliberal transformation of education. Key words: dialectical materialism, critical pedagogy, Greece, teachers, crisis, Marxism ii CHAPTER 1: Introduction: A Requiem for the End of Great Narratives in the Era of the Crisis .................................................................................................................... 11 1.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................... 11 1.2. Education at the point of no return ............................................................................ 12 1.3. The ‘manufactured’ crisis and educational reforms in the era of a market-driven society ............................................................................................................................... 13 1.4. Outlining the argument .............................................................................................. 16 1.4.1. Restructuring education as a consequence of the crisis or the crisis as an excuse for restructuring education? ....................................................................................... 16 1.4.2. The dark tradition of the ‘good-old recipe’: neoliberalism .............................. 17 1.4.3. Can we speak of an international educational paradigm? ................................ 23 1.5. The starting point of the debate ................................................................................. 25 1.5.1. In Greece today: a nation at risk and the educational reform .......................... 25 1.5.2. What about the teachers’ role? ......................................................................... 28 1.5.3. What about the role of the intellectuals? ......................................................... 29 1.5.3.1. Making teachers the enemy: where does it lead? ................................. 30 1.5.3.2. Reflecting on the distinction between manual and mental labour ....... 31 1.5.3.3. Uniting theory and practice .................................................................. 34 1.5.3.4. Characteristics of the revolutionary intellectual .................................. 38 1.6. Framing the study: The research problem, questions and purpose of this study ....... 40 1.7. Methodology .............................................................................................................. 41 1.7.1. The drive for this research: My research ‘lenses’ ............................................ 41 1.7.2. Reclaiming objectives ...................................................................................... 43 1.7.3. Reclaiming a research educational agenda in times of crisis: my philosophical stance ......................................................................................................................... 43 1.7.4. Rationale of my philosophical approach ......................................................... 45 1.7.5. Public education in capitalism: a Marxist perspective ..................................... 47 1.7.6. Research methods and axes ............................................................................. 48 1.7.7. Beyond education and empowerment as a social act: personal research stance ................................................................................................................................... 49 1.8. Conclusion: where do I start? .................................................................................... 50 1.9. The structure of the thesis .......................................................................................... 51 CHAPTER 2: Theoretical FrameWork ....................................................................... 54 2.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................... 54 iii 2.2. Is there a place for a theory of knowledge in education? .......................................... 54 2.3. The sociology of education: birth and evolution ....................................................... 55 2.4. Empiricism, rationalism and explanation in the human and natural sciences ........... 60 2.5. Limitations of empiricist and rationalist epistemologies ........................................... 65 2.6. Why Marxist epistemology? ...................................................................................... 74 2.7. Towards a Factual Theory of Education ................................................................... 76 2.8. Summary .................................................................................................................... 77 CHAPTER 3: Looking Beyond the Obvious and Examining Crucial Notions in the Discourse of Crisis and Capitalism .............................................................................. 78 3.1. Introduction ............................................................................................................... 78 3.2. The echoes of TINA .................................................................................................. 78 3.3. The brief challenge to capitalism