I am not a Marxist

I gave it a good go, though. Since my political leanings are towards socialism, an international education conference run by radical Marxists seemed like a good idea to see whether this would be my intellectual ‘home’. Although the conference was a relatively good experience, it confirmed for me that no, I was not a Marxist!

The main issue was what I felt was the narrowness of societal critique. Although the emphasis on the harm caused by inequality was something I could relate to, the analysis was almost entirely economic. Agreed that such analysis is a traditional Marxist approach; but I had thought maybe in a modern world, more intersectionality would have crept in. Despite a little bit of race/culture and gender analysis, the intersectionality was predominantly absent. The discourse was centred on fixing the system, and not so much on supporting human rights and addressing people’s attitudes and biases. For me, this is an incomplete picture.

There was new language to learn, too. I found that this conference was run by Revolutionary Marxists, who believe that equality cannot be achieved without radically changing our whole economic situation. Some speakers were very clear “capitalism is the enemy”. Looking back on an old blog post, Apple Brand Activism, I see that Russell Brand encapsulates a revolutionary Marxist viewpoint. He refuses to vote, for example, because that would be participating in (and therefore condoning) a system he disagrees with. In contrast, Michael Apple represents the Reformist Marxists, who advocate for changes within the system. Karl Popper would call this ‘piecemeal social change’, where incremental changes are made and evaluated. Incremental changes are much easier to evaluate, as opposed to radical overhauls. A classic example is the New Zealand switch to neoliberalism – twenty five years later the National government was still telling us that this switch would pay off, if only we give it enough time. Apparently when the economy grows, and everyone, even the poorest people, will benefit from the ‘trickle down’ effect, despite the evidence of the past quarter century.

I think I will stick with incremental change, reformist Marxists, and sociological analyses that incorporate wider diversity and inclusion lenses.

‘What’s the Problem Represented to Be?’ A policy analysis tool designed by Carol Bacchi and some recent applications in the area of early childhood education policy

Ipu Kererū

Dr Suzanne Manning, Whitireia NZ / University of Auckland

Many ‘problems’ seem resistant to change, despite a plethora of policy. Carol Bacchi insists that this is because of the way that ‘problems’ are represented in policy. She says that to create real change, the representation of policy ‘problems’ needs to change.  Her policy analysis tool, called “What’s the problem represented to be?” (WPR) provides a guide for examining and disrupting problem representations. This tool could be useful for educational policy researchers yet is relatively unknown in Aotearoa New Zealand. This post introduces the WPR tool and gives some examples of its use in relation to early childhood education policy.

Emeritus Professor Carol Bacchi, originally from Canada, taught and researched in the area of feminist political theory for many years at the University of Adelaide before retiring in 2009. She has written three books explaining her ‘What’s the…

View original post 1,355 more words