Esther E. Gottlieb

The discursive construction of knowledge: the case of radical education discourse

This paper outlines a method for describing and analysing discursive practices in education. Discourse analysis exposes and clarifies the discursive practices by which and through which all aspects of education are carried out. An analysis of representative “classic” texts of radical educational theory was undertaken in order to study the discursive construction of knowledge. The case‐studies reveal a discursive operation of recontextualization,where a paradigm‐shift away from the functionalist discourse of education is effected. This operation involves “translating” the categories of “education” and “schooling” from their familiar discursive contexts to a new context where they enter into new relations with unfamiliar terms and categories. The radical education critique and the knowledge organized around and through it fall into a pattern which echoes the sermon genre of the jeremiad, which facilitates the construction of knowledge in terms of the gap between “full humanity” [Freire] or the Jeffersonian ...

Identity conflicts : can violence be regulated?

Social conflicts are ubiquitous and inherent in organized social life. This volume examines the origins and regulation of violent identity conflicts. It focuses on the regulation of conflict: the constraining, directing, and repression of violence through institutional rules and understandings. The core question the authors address is how violence is regulated and the social and political consequences of such regulation. The contributors provide a multidisciplinary multi-regional analysis of identity conflicts and their regulation. The chapters focus on the forging and suppression of religious and ethnic identities, problematic national identities, the recreation of identity in post-conflict peace-building efforts, and the forging of collective identities in the process of democratic state building. The instances of violent conflict treated here range across the globe from Central and South America, to Asia, to the Balkans, and to the Islamic world. One of the key findings is that conflicts involving religious, ethnic, or national identity are inherently more violence prone and require distinctive methods of regulation. Identity is a question both of power and of integrity. This means that both material and symbolic needs must be addressed in order to constrain or regulate these conflicts. Accordingly, some chapters draw on a political-economy approach that places primary emphasis on resources, organization, and interests, while others develop a cultural approach focusing on how identities are constructed, grievances defined, blame attributed, and redress articulated. This volume offers new ideas about the regulation of identity conflicts, at both the global and local level, that engage both tradition and modernization. It will be of interest to policymakers, political scientists, human rights activists, historians, and anthropologists.

The visible and invisible crises in Israeli higher education in the 90s

This study focuses on the Israeli experience of developing higher education as part of the expansion of a nation-building economic project. Educational development and the current crises are examined in the context of a particular history and a unique socioeconomic, political, and cultural experience. Nevertheless, the purpose of this research is to allow the drawing of meaningful inferences, so that researchers into other national cases might profit from the insight into the sources, both visible and less visible, for the “break in equilibrium” (Bourdieus term) in the Israeli academy. At stake is the most characteristic feature of the old Israeli academic model, namely the conflation of the missions of teaching and research. To discover the present state of the research-teaching nexus, we examined faculty perceptions as reflected in a recent (1993) survey. This survey was part of the first Carnegie International Survey of the Academic Profession, and its international scope allowed us to undertake some comparative analyses. The Israeli case-study, as well as the analysis of the International survey, shows that devotion to research and meeting teaching obligations, collaboration on research with others, obtaining funds for research, and scholarly publication have strong disciplinary relevance in the day-to-day shaping of academic life in all post-industrialized countries, Israel among them.