STEM-ification of Public Education: A Network Governance Perspective

• In Event: 56.073 - Slowing Down the STEM Train: Questions, Critiques, and Reflections About the STEM Education Movement

Abstract

In Western developed societies, implementation of public policies is being increasingly formulated and implemented by complex, dynamic networks involving an eclectic mix of public, private and non-governmental organizations and actors. Because these kinds of networks are increasingly usurping many of the traditional roles of the government in governing the society, they have been labeled and studied as governance networks in recent years (Sorensen and Torfing, 2007). STEM initiatives offer one such good case of the growing prominent role of governance networks in development and implementation of educational policy. If one were to take the weakness of resistance as a metric of success, it would be difficult to deny that as an educational reform the STEM-ification of public education has so far proved to be remarkably successful in the United States. In this paper we conceptually analyze the STEM reform efforts, with particular reference to the state of Georgia, from a network governance perspective to highlight the undergirding rationalities that deserve to be studied for their role in making STEM reforms so successful. Following Ball’s (2012) extensive policy network analysis of transnational advocacy networks, our conceptual review is supplemented by an extensive document analysis that allow us to map the emerging network topography of STEM networks in the state of Georgia.

In governance networks the decision-making is generally assumed to be based on a reflexive rationality that emphasize the centrality of consensual decisions based on reflexive interactions, on-going negotiations and building of mutual-trust (Sorensen and Torfing, 2007). In contrast, we make the case that the success of STEM reforms can be better understood if we examine the decision-making in the governance networks behind STEM reforms as influenced by different modes of rationalities at different ontological levels. That is, in our paper we show that STEM reforms are primarily governed by substantial rationality at the metagovernance level (Sorensen and Torfing, 2007) where the state still plays the leading role in setting up the scene and creating supporting conditions, such as required material resources, and technologies of agency and performance (Dean 1999). At the institutional level where different agencies and organizations come together to form the governance network, a reflexive rationality takes over as the dominant rationality for achieving the goals of policy formation and implementation. While, at the local level, schools and teachers find themselves governed by a neoliberal economic rationality that positions them as self-governing entrepreneurial actors in pursuit of STEM-ification of public education through diverse technologies of agency and performance. Following Peters (2003), we position the use of governance networks to usher in educational reforms as indicating the hegemonic dominance of knowledge capitalism over traditional industrial age capitalism in western postindustrial societies. Finally, our analysis shows the opportunistic use of discourses other than or in addition to neoliberalism by the knowledge capitalist system to legitimize and maximize the material interests of the elite. We expect that critical analyses such as ours offer a kind of critical understanding that leads to more successful progressive strategies to counter STEM-ification of public education.

Authors

• Ajay Sharma, University of Georgia

• Cheryl Hudson, University of Georgia - Athens