tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post116577629578058281..comments2024-01-04T05:57:26.735-06:00Comments on Education Policy Blog: Hosted by the Forum on the Future of Public Education: Folk positivismCraig A. Cunninghamhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18160288758906798678noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post-23718454588435420162010-01-25T09:32:23.021-06:002010-01-25T09:32:23.021-06:00This could be something very new to everybody but ...This could be something very new to everybody but everyone believes that the folk has it's own values. Starting from the <a href="http://blackjack-casino-techniques.blogspot.com" rel="nofollow">Online Blackjack</a> Learning to any kind of other Education.James Johnsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07409021902388856793noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post-13622480668722325262009-01-08T13:35:00.000-06:002009-01-08T13:35:00.000-06:00Though, a lot of folk suggestion but still a gap.....Though, a lot of folk suggestion but still a gap...we need to cover up.<BR/><BR/>Muazzam Mehmood<BR/><A HREF="http://www.InfoFanz.com" REL="nofollow">Study Stuff Downloads for Brain Hunters</A><BR/><A HREF="http://www.forum.InfoFanz.com" REL="nofollow">Phd & MPhill Discussions over Study problems, new Ideas & Expertise</A><BR/><A HREF="http://www.muazzammehmood.blogspot.com" REL="nofollow">Tutorial: Cryptography & Linux Security</A>Robert Thompsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15188522048783908788noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post-1171057096822820652007-02-09T15:38:00.000-06:002007-02-09T15:38:00.000-06:00Sherman said, It may be my background as an histor...Sherman said, <BR/>It may be my background as an historian rather than contemporary qualitative observer, but I think you may be putting too much weight on what happens inside classrooms to assert that the dynamic inside the class are more powerful than other factors in shaping how we think about society...<BR/><BR/>But this is just what systems theorists have been saying for the past 50 years! You don't have to be a historian to notice it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post-1166103758414187352006-12-14T07:42:00.000-06:002006-12-14T07:42:00.000-06:00A uni-dimensional classroom (for Simpson and Rosen...<I>A uni-dimensional classroom (for Simpson and Rosenholtz) had the teacher in control of curriculum, organization, and timing, had public and oft-repeated grades, and had whole group instruction. The point was that ability was thus defined along a single, unitary, public, and seemingly consensus-decided criterion. So it’s not between being quantifiable and non-quantifiable. It’s between a singular and multiple basis for quantification. To put it grossly, it’s between saying “you’re either with us or against us” or saying “it depends.”</I><BR/><BR/>Dan,<BR/><BR/>Thanks for following up. As my <A HREF="http://educationpolicyblog.blogspot.com/2006/12/liberal-democracy-folk-positivism-and.html" REL="nofollow">entry yesterday</A> indicates, I'm heading in a direction more rooted in political models than in personal experiences and perspectives.<BR/><BR/>It may be my background as an historian rather than contemporary qualitative observer, but I think you may be putting too much weight on what happens inside classrooms to assert that the dynamic inside the class are more powerful than other factors in shaping how we think about society, including things such as achievement. I know there's the literature on this stretching back to Dreeben (for structural-functionalists) or Bowles and Gintis (for reproduction), let alone McLaren and others. But I suspect it's more complicated, and not just because most adults have been through a few dozen classrooms and seen a variation in styles and modes. Even the flexibility of our mental scripts (see Mary Metz's famous "Real School" book chapter) suggests that there is slippage between schooling and our mental models.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post-1165801461161549002006-12-10T19:44:00.000-06:002006-12-10T19:44:00.000-06:00Ah, Sherman, I see the confusion.A uni-dimensional...Ah, Sherman, I see the confusion.<BR/><BR/>A uni-dimensional classroom (for Simpson and Rosenholtz) had the teacher in control of curriculum, organization, and timing, had public and oft-repeated grades, and had whole group instruction. The point was that ability was thus defined along a single, unitary, public, and seemingly consensus-decided criterion. So it’s not between being quantifiable and non-quantifiable. It’s between a singular and multiple basis for quantification. To put it grossly, it’s between saying “you’re either with us or against us” or saying “it depends.” To be more formal, a uni-dimensional classroom-with its undifferentiated task structure and formal grading-forces students to rely on adult and external authority in making decisions about their sense of self-competence and ability. A multi-dimensional classroom, alternatively, allows students to form their sense of identity by using across-domain comparisons and peer group comparisons. Multiple intelligences, if you will. I think about it by thinking about how most normal people look at the IQ. If I tell you my IQ is 100 and yours is 120, not many people will say that I am smarter. Sure, they may use some folk sentiment of “street smarts”, but IQ is IQ is IQ; most people think of it as objective, stable, unitary, and internal. Just like, I should note, all psychometricians tell us it is.<BR/><BR/>Does this help??Dan W. Butinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08543447769350980289noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post-1165799566244715262006-12-10T19:12:00.000-06:002006-12-10T19:12:00.000-06:00Dan,Thanks for the suggestion. I'm trying to figu...Dan,<BR/><BR/>Thanks for the suggestion. I'm trying to figure out how unitary characteristics necessarily imply quantification. I could imagine two counterexamples: where we think there is a unitary construct—let's call it "ethics" to get it out of the cognitive realm—but where we can't quantify it. I suspect that many folks would say that someone's ethical character is unitary <EM>and</EM> unquantifiable. (We'll skip all this nasty teleological-deontological stuff for now.) <BR/><BR/>On the other hand, I can draw from history to find multidimensional constructs that people think are quantifiable, and we can turn either to phrenology or to contemporary test scores (math, reading, science), where many people have no problems seeing characteristics as multdimensional but still quantifiable.<BR/><BR/>Am I missing something obvious?Sherman Dornhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00491045214079619658noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21843852.post-1165797715192421432006-12-10T18:41:00.000-06:002006-12-10T18:41:00.000-06:00Sherman, I think this folk positivism can be easil...Sherman, <BR/><BR/>I think this folk positivism can be easily linked to how we as a culture view ourselves and our world as stable, coherent, and unitary. To bring this back to schools, I always return to the educational sociologists Carl Simpson and Susan Rosenholtz (e.g., Simpson, Carl and Susan J. Rosenholtz. 1986. Classroom Structure and the Social Construction of Ability. Pp. 113-138 in J.G. Richardson. (ed.) Handbook of Theory and Research for the Sociology of Education. New York: Greenwood Press.) who showed (very nicely, in my opinion) that classrooms that had “uni-dimensional” characteristics (versus classrooms that had “multi-dimensional” characteristics) created students who more often viewed ability as inherent and stable. And ability, as they point out in their work, is just a proxy for IQ; which brings us right back to your argument. My dissertation looked at two private elementary schools without grades and I found an immense difference in how these children assumed “success” to be. They certainly saw “winners” and “losers” (going completely against the assumptions I walked in with); e.g., they could immediately tell me who was the fastest runner, the best painter, the one with the cleanest desk, etc. But they had no clue when I asked them who was the smartest child in the room. It did not compute, if you will.Dan W. Butinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08543447769350980289noreply@blogger.com