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16 - The Displacement of Ethics in Education through Educational Standardization

from Part II - Ethics and Education in Practice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 March 2024

By
Austin Pickup
Edited by
Sheron Fraser-Burgess ,
Jessica Heybach  and
Dini Metro-Roland
Sheron Fraser-Burgess
Affiliation:
Ball State University, Indiana
Jessica Heybach
Affiliation:
Florida International University
Dini Metro-Roland
Affiliation:
Western Michigan University
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Summary

This chapter examines how ethical frameworks for education have been displaced through processes of standardization both historically and contemporarily. Before turning to current examples, the chapter begins with an analysis of twentieth-century movements in philosophy of education and curriculum to illustrate how processes of standardization and educational “narrowing” emerged as the dominant educational vision for American schooling, corresponding with the push for accountability and neoliberal reform in the last few decades of the twentieth century. How this narrowing exists in today’s K-12 and higher education environment, as well as its impact on historically marginalized groups, is then explored. The chapter then turns to how the contemporary emphasis on educational technology, datafication, and digitalization reinforces educational standardization to the detriment of ethical educational possibilities. The chapter concludes with considerations of how ethical educational visions might be revived in our current era.

Keywords

ethicsstandardizationmeasurementdataficationdigitization
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Ethics and Education , pp. 330 - 351
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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