| dc.description.abstract | In Chapter One I explore Berlin's concepts of positive and negative freedom to (a) show that the concept freedom, is not transparent and (b) explain how divergent conceptions of freedom give rise to divergent conceptions of authority Berlin, it would appear, prefers the concept of negative freedom because it fosters egalitarianism, whereas positive freedom promotes unequal relations between people. In Chapter Two I show that Berlin's contrasting concepts of freedom are underpinned by the two contrasting ideologies of individualism and collectivism as described by Watt. I maintain that the idea of individualism is both familiar and appealing to us, because it sees the individual as sovereign -
no outside force (authority) directs our actions. Thus, our preference for individualism reinforces our preference for Berlin's concept of negative freedom. In Chapters Three and Four I pay attention to the idea of community (human grouping). This provides a starting point for an examination of the school as a specific kind of human grouping. In Chapter Three I examine Tonnies's concepts of natural will and rational will to show that the reasons for joining and staying in human groupings influence the characteristics of a group. These groups will be either predominantly gemeinschaft or gesellschaft, or gesellschaft group displaying the same unequal relations as those
promoted by positive liberty. In Chapter Four I explore different conceptions of community as analysed by Sandel, and I show that with instrumental and sentimental conceptions of community, the community is external to the aims of the individual, whereas a constitutive conception sees the community as a mode of the individual's self-understanding, partly constitutive of the subject's identity. I conclude, using
works of Anderson and Morrow, that all communities are "imagined" (rather than naturally" glen) since a community has to conceive of itself as a community in order to in fact be one. I regard this as empowering because it provides people with choices in regard to the kinds of communities they form. This has significant implications for our understanding of a school community, as I will show in Chapters Five and Six.
In Chapter Five I re-examine the concepts of positive and negative liberty, and find that the two concepts are interrelated, and not as distinct as Berlin would have us believe. This enables us to take on board, not just the choices of negative freedom, but also the unequal relations between people that the concept of positive liberty promotes. It is precisely unequal relations between teacher and learner that are necessary for authority relationships in schools. I also examine how communities gain understanding of themselves in a social setting. I say that we do not simply identify data; we also interpret them. Our interpretation is based on our experience, i.e. on what we already know and
how we are already shaped by our society. I discuss this in terms of language and social practices, and human beings' self-understandings which are tied up in practices. I conclude that all communities are constitutive and this means that communities shape individuals while the individual's own understanding of that community is shaped by the community. In the sixth and final chapter I draw attention to the school as an imagined community, constituted by the understanding of the members of that community. Part of our understanding of what a school community is, has to do with the concepts of teaching and learning. Using work of Dunlop and Strike, I show that teaching and learning are, logically, tied in with authority. Learning can take place only if the learner accepts the authority of the teacher. Teaching can thus take place only if the teacher exercises appropriate authority. This specific understanding of a school community needs to be part of our understanding of that community. I conclude that schools cannot exist as schools, unless they retrieve an appropriate concept of authority, one which is inclusive of both of Berlin's concepts of freedom. | en_US |
