“Whole language” and moral panic in Australia

Abstract

This paper examines the media and political landscapes within which “whole language” is currently constituted in Australia. Through surveying the themes and rhetoric deployed in media texts over recent years, we consider how “whole language” has been taken up as part of a wider media campaign around education generally. We consider how this campaign has been instrumental in constructing a moral panic around literacy education in particular. We begin with an overview of how the literacy standards of Australia's young people compare on international measures with young people elsewhere. We consider how the media has bundled these with populist concerns about literacy pedagogy and other educational issues to create a sense of national crisis about education. We argue that the sociological concept of "moral panic" provides a useful and systematic theoretical framework for reading these discursive tactics of the media. Finally, we examine how a National Inquiry into literacy responded to this panic by reinscribing a familiar – and unhelpful - binary between “whole language” and phonics-based instruction. In the title and in the body of the paper we keep “whole language” in quotation marks to remind the readers that use of the term in the media texts that are analysed differs widely from its usage by literacy specialists

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56. Donnelly, K. (2004b, May 3). Ideology at public expense. The Australian.
57. Donnelly, K. (2004c, October 18). Unified approach works against choice, flexibility. The Australian.
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59. Donnelly, K. (2005b, February 5). Fads no substitute for teaching. The Australian.
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106. The OECD (Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development) is an international
107. organisation established in the 1960s with 30 core member countries including most
108. European countries, as well as Canada, USA, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Japan and
109. Korea. Member countries are characterised by their commitment to democratic governance
110. and market economics and provide a stable base for comparative international research on
111. social and economic indicators of national wellbeing amongst member countries and beyond.
112. The OECD conducts research across a range of areas but the most interesting to educators
113. has been PISA. This program began a three year cycle of testing of 15 year olds in 2000 and
114. continued in 2003 and 2006 with between 4,500 and 10,000 students tested in each
115. participating country using equivalent test instruments. The number of countries involved has
116. expanded with each round of testing with fifty-seven countries in the most recent round.
117. Rather than being embroiled in the local politics of curriculum instruction and assessment,
118. PISA measures the extent to which young people have mastered literacies in reading,
119. mathematical and scientific domains of knowledge by this point in their schooling and how
120. well they can apply these literacies to the real world. PISA also collects a vast array of
121. information about student backgrounds.
122. ii Public school education is largely controlled and funded by the states in Australia, who
123. manage most elements of curriculum, assessment and reporting. However the federal
124. (national) government has considerable and increasing control via its capacity to allocate
125. additional special purpose grants to schools and its more general funding of the states.
126. Schools in the rapidly expanding private sector receive direct funding from the federal
127. government (Ryan and Watson, 2004). Universities, and thus teacher education, have always
128. been funded and directly controlled across the nation by the federal government, though
129. recent policies are increasingly forcing “public” universities to depend on private sources of
130. income. In the period 2004-2006, while nationally a conservative Liberal Party government
131. was in power, every state government in the nation was under Labor Party control. Education
132. has thus been one of several sites of skirmishes between these levels of government in recent years.
133. iii For an analysis of the actual announcement of the Reading Inquiry and a discussion of the
134. motivation behind the crisis rhetoric, see Cambourne, 2006a and 2006b.
135. iv It is important to note that the signatories were – and signed themselves as – clinical
136. hospital-based psychologists or neuropsychologists (4), academic psychologists (13), clinical
137. speech therapists (3), general academic researchers (1), special education academics (4),
138. medical researchers (1). Half of the number came from three universities. Thus, none
139. appeared to be, or at least none signed themselves as, academics associated with mainstream
140. schooling. The Macquarie University psychologists, Kevin Wheldall and Max Coltheart,
141. were named by Minister Nelson (2004d) as the key authors of the letter.
142. v With a well-known Sydney-based “shock-jock” and frequent Liberal party advocate.
143. vi For a discussion of the role of “evidence-based” research in literacy teaching, see Delandshere, 2006.
144. vii For example, though now a regular opinion writer in The Australian, Kevin Donnelly was a
145. staffer for another Minister in the current federal government until 2004 when he published
146. the book Why our schools are failing, for the conservative think tank, the Menzies Research
147. Centre. He recently released a companion volume Dumbing down. Outcomes based and
148. politically correct: The impact of the Culture Wars on our schools.
149. viii In the discussion which follows, some of the attacks on “whole language” are made by the
150. article authors and others are simply the relevant journalists quoting the opinions of others.
151. Direct advocates against “whole language” include Albrechtsen, de Lemos, Donnelly and
152. Hempenstall. deLemos and Hempenstall were academic signatories to the Nelson letter,
153. Albrechtsen and Donnelly are neoconservative commentators and Albrechtsen is an
154. Australian journalist. In this section of the paper, extended lists of citations to media articles
155. and press releases have been truncated in the text and shifted to Endnotes for easier reading.
156. ix Also de Lemos, 2004; Donnelly, 2005d, 2005e, 2006f; Ferrari, 2006a, 2006b; Kolker, 2006;
157. Maiden, 2004b, 2004c; Roberts, 2004; Yaman, 2004.
158. x Also Cooper, 2004b; Donnelly, 2004a, 2005b, 2005c, 2005d, 2005e, 2006b, 2006e; Ferrari,
159. a, 2006b; Hempenstall, 2004; Illing, 2004; Kolker, 2006; Lane, 2005b; Maiden, 2004b,
160. a, 2005c; Maiden and Warne-Smith, 2004; McDonald, 2004; Pearson, 2004; Roberts,
161. ; West, 2005; Yaman, 2004.
162. xi This 30% figure surfaces often in attacks on Australian education. It is largely based on a
163. national survey conducted as part of the Longitudinal surveys of Australian youth
164. (LSAY). In 1997, the Australian Council for Educational Research published a study of
165. reading comprehension and numeracy among (largely) 14 year-olds based on a comparison of
166. four large and four small sets of data gathered between 1975 and 1995. The tests were based
167. on "mastery", defined as the "competence... necessary for active participation in society". The
168. percentage of correct items that represented mastery on these tests was approximately 80%.
169. Thus, in 1995, 70% of 14-year-olds gained 80% or better on tests of reading comprehension
170. and, given that this result remained static since 1975, as the Australian population became
171. composed of far more NESB students, it ought to be seen as a net improvement over similar
172. results in 1975.That would seem to be the most accurate interpretation of the levels of reading
173. among Australian school students over that 20 year period, as represented by this research.
174. Readers are left to decide for themselves to what extent this constituted a "crisis". cf Sawyer, 1999.
175. xii Also implied in Albrechtsen, 2004b; deLemos, 2004; Donnelly, 2004a, 2005b, 2005c, 2006b.
176. xiii In one rather odd argument, the lack of interest in a national spelling bee was regarded as
177. “ominous” and indicative of Australians valuing education less than Americans (again,
178. despite the relative PISA results) (Roberts, 2004). The same article did reveal, however, that
179. the alleged “lack” of interest was due to “only” 25,000 students entering a national spelling
180. bee, while 800 students entered a state-based spelling bee at the same time.
181. xiv Also implied in Albrechtsen, 2004b; Buckingham, 2004b, 2004c; Donnelly, 2004a;
182. Maiden, 2005b, 2005c; McDonald, 2004; Roberts, 2004
183. xv Nelson called for mandatory literacy testing of trainee teachers on both entry and
184. graduation (Maiden, 2005a, 2005c) and Donnelly (2005e) added that they should also be
185. tested on knowledge of methods for teaching reading - teachers who had not been taught to
186. teach reading, nor experienced proper teaching of literacy themselves, were having to “make
187. it up as they go along” (Maiden 2004b)
188. xvi Also Donnelly, 2004a, 2005e, 2006c; Editorial 2005b, 2005c Hempenstall, 2004; Maiden,
189. b, 2005a; Maiden et al, 2005; Ritchie, 2004.
190. xvii Also Donnelly 2006f; Farrelly, 2005; Editorial, 2006.
191. xviii Also Donnelly 2006e, 2006f; Farrelly 2005; Slattery, 2005.
192. xix Also Donnelly 2006a, 2006f; Editorial, 2006; Slattery, 2005.
193. xx Green himself, Cambourne, Luke and Sawyer , amongst other educationalists, have been
194. repeatedly named in media articles in ways that might be considered as attempts to construct 'folk devils'.
195. xxi An example of the ideologically loaded and bizarre nature of these attacks can be seen in
196. one particular article (Bockman, 2006), which slams Australian teachers for daring to suggest
197. that Cuba had a high literacy rate. No argument is put forward to deny the claims – it is
198. apparently enough to deserve criticism to suggest that a communist nation might be
199. Australia, the education system doesn't serve you as well as it does in a number of other
200. countries, countries that we'd like to think we're similar to…The biggest problem is perhaps
201. the extent to which we are now depending on private investment in education. If you look at
202. the proportion of national wealth, of GDP spent on education Australia ranks 18th in the
203. OECD, if you look at the proportion spent from private sources, we rank 3rd …so we're
204. shifting balance of expenditure towards private capacity which I think reinforces the capacity
205. of people who are socially advantaged to care better for their own children" (Broadcast ABC
206. RN, 8.15am, Nov 20th).
207. xxv We surveyed submissions from individuals and teacher education faculties at: the
208. Australian Catholic University, University of Technology Sydney, University of New
209. England, University of Ballarat, Deakin University, Curtin University, Monash University,
210. Finders University, Sydney University, Charles Sturt University and Macquarie University
211. (where the Education faculty made a separate submission to that provided by the
212. psychologists associated with the Nelson letter). Most of the 453 submissions are available
213. online at: http://www.dest.gov.au/nitl/submission_index.htm