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EDITED PROCEEDINGS 43rd PESA Conference 2013 Measuring Up in Education Co-Edited by R. Scott Webster and Steven A. Stolz Edited Proceeding of the 43rd PESA International Conference – 2013 Website address: http://education.unimelb.edu.au/pesaconference2013/program © 2013, Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia (PESA) ISBN: 978-0-646-90419-1 Copyright Copyright 2013, PESA and individual authors. Copyright in each of the papers printed herein is retained by the respective authors. This work is copyright. Apart from any use permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without written permission from the copyright holders. Disclaimer The papers published in this document have been blind reviewed by independent and qualified experts. The Co- Editors wish to make it clear that whilst the strict peer review process has been applied to all published papers, due to the multi-disciplinary and International nature of the conference, the Co-Editors have accepted a variety of International styles such as reference structure and spellings. Author acknowledgements are based on the information provided at the time of submission. Cover & layout design by Rozanna Maria Surma-Kurzyk CONFERENCE THEME The 43rd Annual Conference of the Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia (PESA) was held in Melbourne, Australia from the 6th to 9th of December 2013. The PESA conference provides a supportive environment for the presentation and discussion of scholarly work in education. Presenters come from many different parts of the world and draw on a wide range of philosophical traditions and perspectives. Postgraduate students and others new to educational philosophy and theory are warmly encouraged to participate. The theme of the conference was: MEASURING UP IN EDUCATION We live and work in a time when the issues facing education, many of which have been with us for a considerable period, are being approached primarily through measurement – classroom assessment, research methods, standardised testing, international comparisons. Yet we do not often stop to consider what counts – and alternatively, what doesn’t count – in a climate where measuring up to a standard is the name of the game. At a deeper level, we rarely raise questions about measurement itself. What is measurement? What is a standard? How does measurement of education articulate with the purposes and potential of education? Questions such as these are sometimes expressed, but seemingly never heard in the discourses which dominate. The aim of this conference is to create a space for such questioning by inviting an exchange of views around the issues pertaining to measurement as this influences the various discourse of education. Format for citing papers Author surname, initial(s). (2013). Title of paper. In R. S. Webster & S. Stolz (Eds.) Measuring Up: Proceedings of the 43rd PESA Annual Conference, (pp. xx–xx). Melbourne, December 6-9, 2013. © 2013, Philosophy of Education Society (PESA) 1 LIST OF REVIEWERS The conference organisers would like to express their gratitude for the contribution made by the following reviewers of papers reproduced in these proceedings. David Beckett Leon Benade Jennifer Bleazby Nesta Devine Peters Fitzsimons Andrew Gibbons Richard Heraud Ruyu Hung Morimichi Kato Duck-Joo Kwak Kirsten Locke John Quay Peter Roberts Georgina Stewart Steven Stolz Marek Tesar Christoph Teschers Maurizio Toscano Scott Webster Editorial It is with pleasure that we present the reviewed papers of the 43rd Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia (PESA) annual conference. The theme for this year’s conference is Measuring Up and the papers included here provide an important contribution to understanding the roles that measurement, assessment and evaluation have for the practices of education and schooling. This theme of Measuring Up is especially important at this time when there is increasing emphasis being given to benchmark standards such as is promoted through The Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). There is correspondingly a great deal of political attention being given to education practices as a result of the performance results on PISA tests. In order to bring balance to much of the political debates promoting greater measures of accountability and scientific management of education work, there needs to be thoughtful, well- informed and critical contributions such as found in the papers presented here. It is through such contributions that wise judgements can be made in policy development and school practices. Indeed one of the dominant themes to emerge from these papers is that the aspects which educators value such as the virtues of wisdom, phronesis, critical thinking and happiness, do not lend themselves to measurement. And so one of the tensions that is recognised throughout the majority of papers is a conflict between educational values and the pressures and expectations to perform well in standardised tests such as administered by PISA. The authors of these papers, being familiar with educational philosophy, argue their concerns about education in this age of performativity. As Heidegger’s notion of Enframing indicates, the whole ‘shape’ of curricula and what becomes valued through them, is revealed through how they structure and organise knowledge, subjects and capabilities – which currently tend to conform ultimately to measurable practices. Hence there is a raising of critical concerns in some papers regarding standards, technology, evidence and indeed the whole discourse of metrics itself as these have the power to shape the work that occurs in schools and potentially can work against education. Dewey has identified that one of the concerning characteristics of the discourse of metrics is that it tends to segregate and separate behaviours which can then be measured. This tendency to segregate from relations of wholeness and complexity is challenged by several papers which identify the value of some silent, thoughtful, complex and slow behaviours which are not readily promoted in high-stakes performance environments. Such insights and arguments offer different and valuable ways that education work can be Enframed. Consequently we consider these papers to offer a valuable variety of stimulating and thought-provoking material which challenge many of the ideas and practices relating to the discourse of measurement. They make an important contribution to both education and the philosophy of education and we highly recommend this collection to bring much needed balance to the discussions involving educational practice. SCOTT WEBSTER & STEVE STOLZ On behalf of the PESA Annual Conference Organising Committee © 2013, Philosophy of Education Society (PESA) 3 Contents A Critical Exploration of the Relation between Silence, Education and Assessment ............... 6 EVA ALERBY & SUSANNE WESTMAN School Evaluation or Disciplinary Subjection? A consideration of the ‘complementary’ evaluation of New Zealand’s Education Review Office .......................................................... 13 LEON BENADE Permanently Performing Learning Subjects: The assessment of ‘learning dispositions’ in early education ......................................................................................................................... 22 EMMA BUCHANAN How Far Have We Really Come? Advancing the notion of an ‘ethics of care’ in the generation of inclusive quality education in post-apartheid South Africa ............................... 31 JYOTHI ARJUN CHABILALL Multiliteracies and The Critical Thinker: Philosophical Engagement with Mass Media in The Classroom ................................................................................................................................ 41 LAURA D’OLIMPIO Starting Strong III: Unpacking the Metaphor .......................................................................... 49 SANDY FARQUHAR & PETER FITZSIMONS Reading the im/possibility of ethics in pre-service teacher professional experiences ............. 56 DANIELLA FORSTER Critical Thinking in Education: Reflections on its perceived levels, method and point .......... 64 ARISTIDES GALATIS ‘People love metrics’: A super sad true love story .................................................................. 75 ANDREW GIBBONS Epistemic Responsibility and Constructivism: A virtue-based way of knowing for constructivist teaching and learning environments .................................................................. 84 YU-MING STANLEY GOH Parental Partiality and the Educational Arms Race ................................................................. 91 DANIEL HALLIDAY Environmental Education, Heidegger and the Significance of Poetics ................................. 102 RUTH IRWIN Rational Altruism and Global Citizenship Education ............................................................ 113 LIZ JACKSON The Way to Happiness: Caring Education and Dao De ......................................................... 120 ZHUMEI LAN Cultivating Political Morality and Public Reason for Deliberative Citizens – Rawls and Callan revisited ...................................................................................................................... 129 CHEUK-HANG LEUNG A Complex Question by Any Measure: Issues of justice in the education of disabled children and young people ................................................................................................................... 141 TRISH MCMENAMIN Measuring Up