Open Eduction as a Real Utopia

OPEN EDUCATIONAS A REAL UTOPIA

JAMISON R. MILLER | THE COLLEGE OF WILLIAM & [email protected] | @MILLERJAMISON

Public Domain Image: N°. 2 – Les utopies de la navigation aérienne au siècle dernier

Open education has the potential to sustainably transform existing educational institutions into more equitable and democratic forms.

Public Domain Image: The subscription room at Lloyd's of London in the early 19th century


OPEN EDUCATION IS “UNDER-THEORIZED”

Bayne, Knox, & Ross, 2015Deiman & Farrow, 2013 Edwards, 2015Knox, 2013Moe, 2015Nyberg, 1975 Peters, 2008


WHY THEORY?● Without it, open education is

vulnerable to dilution and cooptation

● Not just a lens, but also as a keel

REAL UTOPIASSociologist Erik Olin Wright has built a theoretical framework for a critical and emancipatory approach in social science most comprehensively presented in Envisioning Real Utopias (2010). “Real utopias” aims to contribute a “normatively grounded sociology of the possible, not just the actual” (2012, p. 2).

Image: DV Ltd. / Sigtryggur Ari

REAL UTOPIAS

Image: DV Ltd. / Sigtryggur Ari

A contradictory term?UTOPIAS are fantasies, morally inspired designs unconstrained by feasibilityREALists eschew such fantasies, condemning them as wasted time and effort

Wright proposes embracing the tensions between dreams and practice.What is pragmatically possible is not independent of our imaginations, but is shaped by our visions. (2010, p. 6)


WHERE THERE IS A WILL THERE IS A WAY.

Naïve optimism, perhaps, but without a will, many ways become impossible.


THE ROAD TO HELL IS PAVED WITH GOOD INTENTIONS.


PLAUSIBLE VISIONS OF RADICAL ALTERNATIVES,

WITH FIRM THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS,

ARE A CRUCIAL COMPONENT FOR EMANCIPATORY SOCIAL

CHANGE.


FOUNDATIONS1) Many forms of human suffering and many deficits in

human flourishing are the result of existing institutional and social structures.

2) Transforming existing institutional and social structures in the right way has the potential to substantially reduce human suffering and expand the possibilities for human flourishing.

(Wright, 2012, p. 2)


FOUR TASKS1) Specifying moral principles

2) Diagnosis and critique of existing institutions

3) Developing an account of viable alternatives

4) Proposing a theory of transformation


TASK ONE: Specifying moral principles

EQUALITY

DEMOCRACY

SUSTAINABILITY



EQUALITY: In a socially just society, all people would have broadly

equal access to the social and material conditions

necessary for living a flourishing life. (2012, p. 4)



DEMOCRACY:In a fully democratic society, all people would have

broadly equal access to the necessary means to

participate meaningfully in decisions about things that

affect their lives. (2012, p. 5)



SUSTAINABILITY: Future generations should have access to the social

and material conditions to live flourishing lives at least

at the same level as the present generation. (2012, p.5)


TASK TWO: Diagnosis and Critique

Dewey (1916)Freire (1970)hooks (1994)

Benkler (2006)Castells (2010; 2013)

Floridi (2011)

Giroux (2014)Slaughter & Rhoades (2004)

Newfield (2008; 2016)

Watters (whenever)McMillan-Cottom (2017)

Goldrick-Rab (2016)


TASK THREE: Alternatives

Developing an account of open education, evaluated in terms of:

Desirability- focusing ideal alone is merely utopian

Viability- unintended consequences?

Achievability- how do we move from here to there?


TASK THREE: AlternativesOpen education as an alternative institutional form of education

Open things: OER, dataOpen practices: Pedagogy, teaching, learning

ResearchOrganization and governance


TASK THREE: Alternatives

Economic empowerment Social empowerment

Educational Institutions

Educational Institutions

Adapted from Wright, 2010; 2012


TASK FOUR: Transformation

Three strategic logics towards social transformation:

Ruptural - revolution, a sharp break

Interstitial - building in niches and margins

Symbiotic - achieving social empowerment and

practical problems of dominant classes + elites

Open education has the potential to sustainably transform existing educational institutions into more equitable and democratic forms.

Public Domain Image: The subscription room at Lloyd's of London in the early 19th century

OPEN EDUCATIONAS A REAL UTOPIA

JAMISON R. MILLER | THE COLLEGE OF WILLIAM & [email protected] | @MILLERJAMISON



REFERENCES

Benkler, Y. (2006). The wealth of networks. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Castells, M. (2010). The rise of the network society. In The information age: Economy, society,

and culture (2nd ed., Vol 1). West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. Castells, M. (2013). Communication power. London, UK: Oxford University Press.Dewey, J. (1916). Democracy and education: An introduction to the philosophy of education.

New York: Macmillan.Floridi, L. (2011). The philosophy of information. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.Freire, P. (2000 [1970]). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum.Giroux, H. A. (2014). Neoliberalism's war on higher education. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books.Goldrick-Rab, S. (2016). Paying the price: College costs, financial aid, and the betrayal of the

American dream. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.


REFERENCEShooks, b. (1994). Teaching to transgress: Education as the practice of freedom. New York:

Routledge.McMillan-Cottom, T. 2017. Lower ed: The troubling rise of for-profits. New York, NY: The New

Press.Newfield, C. (2008). Unmaking the public university: The forty-year assault on the middle

class. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Newfield, C. (2016). The great mistake: How we wrecked public universities and how we can

fix them. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.Slaughter, S., & Rhoades, G. (2004). Academic capitalism and the new economy: Markets,

state, and higher education. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.Wright, E. O. (2010). Envisioning real utopias. London, UK: Verso.Wright, E. O. (2012). Transforming capitalism through real utopias. American Sociological

Review, 78(1), 1-25. doi: 10.1177/0003122412468882