Michael+Apple+Summary


 * Apple, Michael. (1986/2004). Controlling the work of teachers. Ch 18 in Flinders, David & Thornton, Stephen. (Eds.) The curriculum studies reader, 2nd ed New York: Routledge.**

Author’s background / School of thought: Michael Apple comes from both a Marxist feminist and a labour theoretical school of thought. He believes in socialist feminism and in a greater understanding of how class and gender roles continue to play a part in education. He believes that, as a group of workers, women teachers straddle two classes (the petty bourgeoisie and the working class). He has published books and articles on this subject and this chapter comes originally from a book written in 1986, during a major time of recession and labour-related difficulty in the U.S. He is currently a professor of Curriculum at the University of Wisconsin and more information can be found at http://eps.education.wisc.edu/faculty/apple.asp

Summary: Teachers are doing more, due to state and industrial managerial controls over curriculum and skill development. Rather than see this as a form of control that is class and gender based, many teachers (primarily those studied are from the elementary system in America) rationalize the ‘intensification’ of their jobs as a move towards greater professionalism. Apple sees this response as contradictory at best and argues that teachers (most of whom are female) need to understand the complexity of the relationship between a historically patriarchal form of managerial control and curricular development and their own positions of power. He suggests a great deal more reflection be put into how past events have come to shape the role of teaching. In this way, he posits (according to Pinar) a greater emphasis on looking at the regressive and the analytical aspects of the relationship between the individual and the curriculum (as developed by 'the state').

Apple (2004) believes that the majority of teachers do not understand/see the enormity of the relationship between gender and class on their work in both the classroom and in furthering curriculum development (Mp, 185). Apple sees the historical foundations of education as one based on a female workforce made to toil under a male academic body of ‘experts’ in concert with ‘capital’ corporations (p. 186). His main points: 1. HISTORICAL CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT HAS RESULTED IN INCREASED PROLETARIANIZATION OF A(N) (ALMOST ALL) FEMALE WORKFORCE Proletarianization occurred historically when the state and the (what we now call) corporation worked to sponsor changes in curriculum. These changes come under the rationale of • More money for technological advancement if curriculum changes (legitimates content, gets schools state/capital money), • More responsibility to parents by streamlining and creating generic outcomes (legitimates content, get schools parental support/money), • More expertise in the areas of development for teachers (legitimates belief that teachers –most of whom are women- aren’t sophisticated enough). 2. RESISTANCE TO THE CLASS/GENDER BASED PROLETARIANIZATION HAS BEEN CONTRADICTORY BECAUSE OF TEACHER’S RESPONSES TO CURRICULAR ‘INTENSIFICATION.’ How teachers (mainly females) historically, Apple argues, have responded to this proletarianization has been complex, contradictory, and, at times, counter-productive. The methods used in America to increase control over teachers has been to generalize content, increase teaching hours, give more state testing, provide more evaluations etc. (p. 190). There have been three main streams of responses to this curricular change: acceptance, obvious resistance, and what Apple argues might be termed ‘unconscious’ or ‘subtle’ resistance (p. 194). A. Teacher’s acceptance What was contradictory in teacher’s understandings of ‘why’ curriculum was changing and why increased pressure was put on them to conform is that many saw it as a state-based and corporation-based call for increased professionalism (p. 190). Rather than actively resisting the change, some teachers bought in to the new ideas. Some teachers saw the increased responsibility they had and thought it was beneficial and Apple points out the external paradox of the situation as, on the one hand, it being that historically increased responsibility was the goal of feminists and social equality and so increased responsibility was a win and that, on the other hand, working on one’s sense of ‘professionalism’ was an honourable thing (p. 191). On the internal side, there were also reasons to employ a more ‘professional’ and organized attitude towards teaching: parents were happy to actually see ‘results,’ from their student’s learning and students also seemed to work well in routines (pp. 191-192). B. Teacher’s militant/political resistance Other teacher’s responses to this intensification, according to certain published studies have also been: • Some teachers changed objectives because they didn’t seem important, • Some teachers tried to make sure not all day was spent on state-derived outcomes, • Some teachers made sure students had time to just be “relaxed,” and • Some teachers actually stopped using the required apparatus (p. 190). C. Teacher’s subtle/unconscious resistance But Apple argues that even in resistance some teachers are merely parroting old regimes of patriarchy and class-dominance. He quotes two teachers who argue that the curricular programs are too difficult and that children should be allowed to “feel good” about themselves (p. 192). He argues that this perspective can be detrimental to teachers because 1. It places the educator in a care-taking role and thus emphasizes a gendered division of labour 2. It places them below those who created the curriculum and turns them into just delivery people for information and skills. 3. It places women in a less autonomous role, one that implies even greater division between female workers and male managers 4. It may also infiltrate a woman’s household because she has to add more work to her day causing tension (p. 193).

Apple believes that unless teachers come to understand their professional connections between work and class and gender they can’t properly respond to the historical and current state and industries attempts at proletarianizing their workplace. He also believes that understanding what ‘curriculum’ is historically requires an understanding of the role of state/labour processes/ and patriarchy in education (p. 186). Coming from a Marxist/Feminist viewpoint, Apple hopes that resistances will form, as they need to according to different class/gender issues, and that teachers will eventually come to understand “the utter import of the way management and the state have approached teaching and curricular control” and that this approach is inherently gender and class based (p. 194).

Quotes:

"...I shall want to claim that unless we see the connections between these two dynamics -- class and gender -- we cannot understand the history of and current attempts at rationalizing education or the roots and effects of proletarianization on teaching itself" (Michael Apple, 2004: 184).

"Since schools are state apparatuses, we should expect them to be under intense pressure to act in certain ways, especially in times of both fiscal and ideological crises. Even so, this does not mean that people employed in them are passive followers of policies laid down from above" (Michael Apple, 2004: 187).

"The process of control, the increasing technicization and intensification of the teaching act, the proletarianization of their work -- all of this was an absent presence. It was misrecognized as a symbol of their increased //professionalism//" (Michael Apple, 2004: 190).

Glossary of Terms:

Proletarianization: “Proletarianization is a concept in Marxism and Marxist sociology. It refers to the social process whereby people move from being either an employer, or self-employed, to being employed as wage labor by an employer. In Marxist theory, proletarianisation is the most important form of downward social mobility” from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proletarianization. Autonomy: self-control. While Apple sees early educators as having a great deal of control over ‘what happens behind the classroom door,’ more and more ‘state’ control over “management systems, reductive behaviorally based curricula, pre-specified teaching ‘competencies’ and procedures and student responses, and pre- and post-testing…” (p. 183). Deskilling/skilling: Deskilling appears when workers must spend increased time on technological aspects of their job (skilling) but thus have less time to spend on creativity and, most importantly, on increasing their current understanding of their chosen field. This decreases their autonomy (See above). Petty bourgeoisie: Apple defines this in terms of educational roles. That being “those people in technical and middle management positions” (p. 185). Capital: Apple uses this Marxist term, from Das Kapital (1867) to refer to capitalism in all its forms. Today we commonly think of “the corporation” and use the term in a similar way. Apple argues that in education today, the impact of capital on teachers is more effective than patriarchy historically has been. Intensification: “one of the most tangible ways in which the work privileges of educational workers are eroded” (p. 188). Intensification is piling on more and more work on educators so there is little time for either leisure/self-direction or skill-building or keeping up with the educator’s field of study (pp. 188,189). Other results are the sense of isolation, the destruction of sociability, and cutting corners that thereby reduce the quality of the work being done (p. 189). Professionalism: Becoming more adept at doing one’s job, increasing skills required to carry out one’s job. For Apple, he argues that those teacher’s who saw the results of ‘intensification’ as one of ‘professionalization,’ was damaging because it reinforced gender and class inequalities (p. 190).

Discussion Questions:

1. Like our reading this week from Lensmire, Apple discusses how attempts at care-taking in education can be seen as controversial. What is the role of care-taking in our curriculums? At what point does curriculum find its limits? 2. As 'intensification' increases, teacher's autonomy decreases. Is this inevitable/true? 3. What should the role of the state (in our case the federal/provincial governments) be in the development of curriculum? 4. How could such an analysis as Apple's become part of your //currere//? Is //currere// the practical side to Apple's theory?

Links: Current statistics (2009) on numbers of male and female teachers (inclusive of types) in Canada: http://www42.statcan.ca/smr08/smr08_131-eng.htm (you need to scroll down a bit). See http://books.google.ca/books?id=eBV4v_7SUWoC&pg=PA201&lpg=PA201&dq=statistics+canada+percentage+of+women+teachers&source=bl&ots=nr81pQR9JU&sig=Jw9TgPIU3McH_4EVdy7SOXhvuDg&hl=en&ei=CfW4SviLMYzTlAfpyZTMDg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5#v=onepage&q=statistics%20canada%20percentage%20of%20women%20teachers&f=false for 1995 percentages by institution type.

Biography, Interview, Summary of views: http://www.perfectfit.org/CT/apple1.html

ESSAY REVIEW: A Marxist Critique of Michael Apple’s Neo-Marxist Approach to Educational Reform: http://www.jceps.com/index.php?pageID=article&articleID=24