{"id":38,"date":"2014-03-07T10:50:03","date_gmt":"2014-03-07T10:50:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/loproject\/?p=38"},"modified":"2025-02-26T13:24:00","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T13:24:00","slug":"neoliblos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/loproject\/2014\/03\/07\/neoliblos\/","title":{"rendered":"Neoliberal (economically) focused HE: why it reinforces performative learning outcomes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Dove\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In a tweet<\/a> last week I asked whether we should be focused on ‘learning outcomes’ or ‘outcomes for learners’. This was after I had read an interesting paper by William Buhrman (2011)<\/a>\u00a0who argued that ‘learning outcomes’ should be reframed as ‘outcomes for learners’.\u00a0 This\u00a0latter phrasing, he suggested,\u00a0goes beyond ‘what we want students to know about’<\/em> (p.57) and indicates instead ‘a focus on the development of students as persons’<\/em> (p.57) and ‘what the learner will become as a result of their learning’<\/em> (p.59).\u00a0 As such, ‘outcomes for learners’ (or OfL) escapes what some see as\u00a0the more performative, or academic capitalist<\/a>, notions of ‘learning outcomes’ where the focus is on an end product of learning that is observable and measurable.<\/p>\n

Since reading the Buhrman paper and tweeting my comment, I’ve come across a couple of documents showing, from government perspectives, a focus on OfL in schools<\/a> and FE<\/a>.\u00a0 I’m immediately struck by the question of why OfL hasn’t been making waves yet in HE (or if it has and I’ve missed it please tell me).\u00a0 Of all places, HE seems most connected to the goal of developing the individual (and society) to its fullest.\u00a0 Isn’t one of the main arguments against the neoliberalism of HE that it ignores these broader individual and societal purposes of HE and focuses instead on entrenching HE solely within an economic agenda? (See latest piece from Henry Giroux <\/a>regarding this).<\/p>\n

Could it be that OfL has not yet been applied to HE because HE comes under the Department for Business, Innovation\u00a0& Skills (BIS), which itself says is the ‘department for economic growth’<\/em> <\/a>that ‘invests in skills and education\u00a0to promote trade, boost innovation and help people to start and grow a business’<\/em>.\u00a0 I’m not saying that any of those intentions are bad or out of place.\u00a0 But they\u00a0convey only one economically-focused purpose of HE?\u00a0 I have to admit, I’ve never felt comfortable with HE being in a government department that doesn’t even have education in its title – only ‘skills’.\u00a0 Are we then starting to see why what might be viewed as performatively focused\u00a0‘learning outcomes’ are still dominant in HE rather than OfL?\u00a0 Is it because the purpose of HE is currently viewed (by government at least) as ‘produc[ing] highly skilled <\/em>graduates’<\/em><\/a>\u00a0to promote economic growth.<\/p>\n

My question now would be:\u00a0can ever get to a more broadened (less performative) view of learning outcomes whilst HE is, in policy terms, connected largely to skills-based economic growth?<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a tweet last week I asked whether we should be focused on ‘learning outcomes’ or ‘outcomes for learners’. This was after I had read an interesting paper by William Buhrman (2011)\u00a0who argued that ‘learning outcomes’ should be reframed as ‘outcomes for learners’.\u00a0 This\u00a0latter phrasing, he suggested,\u00a0goes beyond ‘what we want students to know about’ […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":147,"featured_media":45,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,6],"tags":[14,20,21,18],"class_list":["post-38","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lodebates","category-losinhe","tag-extendinglos","tag-government","tag-neoliberalism","tag-purposes-of-he"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/loproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/loproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/loproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/loproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/147"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/loproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/loproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/loproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38\/revisions\/46"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/loproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/loproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/loproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staffblogs.le.ac.uk\/loproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}