Bureaucracy, Ethical Responsibility, and the Purpose of Public Education

• In Event: Millennium Hotel Roundtable Session 5
  In Roundtable Session: Re-making kinds of selves rationality, bureaucracy, morality

Abstract

Historically, bureaucracy and education is interpreted predominately from economic perspectives. This paper examines bureaucracy, instead, as a political concept, which provides insights into the ways that bureaucratization undermines ethical consciousness. To understand the gravity and pervasiveness of this undermining process, I draw from Weber’s concept of rational bureaucracy and Arendt’s insights into bureaucracy as a form of governance, or “rule by Nobody.” For Arendt, bureaucracy is the most tyrannical rule given that there is tyranny without a tyrant. As such, ethical responsibility falls by the wayside since no one can answer for what is being done. The effectiveness of this process is interrogated by examining the bureaucratization of the school curriculum and how bureaucratization influences the purpose of public education.

Author

• Hannah Spector, Pennsylvania State University - Harrisburg