Schools for democracy: Lyotard, dissensus and education policy

Abstract

The purpose of US public education as ‘preparation for citizenship’ is examined through a critical inquiry into the structures of modern education policy formation. The framework for the inquiry relies heavily on the work of Jean-François Lyotard, perhaps the most politically oriented of the popular contemporary French philosophers. The justification for the inquiry begins with a brief genealogy from Jefferson to the present regarding the purpose of US public education. The character of both scientific-technical and narrative knowledge are examined in light of the political nature of eight essential questions that define the character of education policy. Following Lyotard, it is argued that scientific technical knowledge assumes an intrinsic, in-and-of itself, objective structure and is privileged in Western thought. On the other hand, narrative knowledge places no a priori conditions on reality, thus recognizing the legitimacy of subjective opinion. Given the subjective nature of political controversy, it is argued that, in a democracy at least, solutions to political conflicts must not rest exclusively on a consensus of opinion, because of the hegemony of scientific-technology knowledge. The domain of possible solutions to political issues in a democracy must fully recognize and accommodate dissensus, which would allow for the possibility of narrative knowledge to justify policy. The conclusion is that, because scientific-technical knowledge characterizes the discourse of the homogenous, tightly coupled, consensus-aligned collaborative structure of present-day US public education policymaking, then this arrangement is inherently inconsistent with and potentially dangerous to US democracy.