The Formation of Educational Reform as a Social Field in Iceland and the Social Strategies of Educationists, 1966-1991

Abstract

This study concerns a reform in elementary education in Iceland, beginning in the late 1960s. The reform has been presented as one of the key links in a chain of projects toward modernizing Iceland, and the educationists who were involved in the reform (reformers) typically argue for the reform on this basis. This view encompasses a belief in historical progress as well as a belief that scientific knowledge about democratic, child-centered, often social-progressive concerns can lead to a more just society. The thesis examines how a discussion based on human capital theories, developmental cognitivism, and child-centered perspectives collided with other educational discourses and practices in a "historical conjuncture," unique to the place and time (Iceland, 1966-1991). To account for the involvement of individuals (reformers) in the reform conjuncture of ideas and practices, a conceptual framework attributed to the French sociologist and anthropologist Pierre Bourdieu was adopted. This framework directs attention to individuals and their assumptions as parts of a relationally constructed social field which enables an objectification of individuals' involvement, viewing them as epistemic individuals who employ the discursive themes of the reform as social strategies to gain symbolic capital in social and political struggles. This framework suggests that people's simultaneous conscious and unconscious employment of social strategies towards gaining or maintaining status has contributed to the formation of the field of educational reform. The argument is about social change within the conjuncture: the story of how the reform discourse has "expanded" and assumed legitimacy over time, the social strategies of reformers to gain symbolic capital, and the changing patterns of relations within the field of educational reform in the last 25 years. This study focuses on the relationship between what goes without saying in the discourse on education in Iceland -- that is, the professionalization of progress and educational expertise. Thus the thesis challenges the perspective that the reform is ultimately as progressive as some proponents like to think and certainly not subversive as traditionalist and neo-conservative critics state.