What use is academic rigour?

Whilst I was away (don't ask: suffice to say I ended up envying Aung San Suu Kyi her house arrest) two of the main developments were Michael Gove's call to "inject greater rigour" into education and Ed Miliband's apology for Labour's immigration policy. The two are related.

I say this because rigorous academic studies - summarized by Jonathan - show that immigration from A8 countries had little effect upon natives' wages. Miliband's claim that there "was a direct effect on wages" is at best overstated and at worst plain wrong.

His attitude to immigration, then, is not greatly informed by academic rigour. In this, he is not alone. Tory attitudes to top taxes, housing benefit, "troubled families" and tax cuts are similarly uninformed.

Gove wants teachers to introduce pupils to "the best that has been thought and written". In politics, however, the "best" is ignored in favour of a pandering to the concerns of the mob.

This raises the question: if academic rigour is not a basis for policy-making, what use is it?

The benign possibility is that it is valuable in itself. It's a good thing that someone does social research even if it has no political utility - just as a study of medieval literature or Horace's odes are intrinsically good. Such a view rejects the Browne report's belief that higher education funding be directed towards "priority subjects" which have narrow and predictable economic utility.

Curiously, though, Gove hasn't said that his philosphy of education flatly contradicts Browne's.Which raises the suspicion that he wants "rigour" for another reason.Perhaps "rigour" might be just an attempt to legitimate a sharper class divide, with rich kids getting the chance to pursue academic qualifications whilst poor ones are abandoned.

And even the few poor kids who do get a chance face a cost here. Miliband says, correctly, that Labour became "disconnected from the concerns of working people." This is not just a political problem but an individual one for those of use who jumped through the Govean hoops of "rigour": we become socially isolated, geeks, weirdos and nerds. Academic success has big drawbacks.

It could, then, be that the costs of rigour outweigh the benefits.

Comments

[aragon]

Even academically rigorous studies are necessarily selective in world view, preconceptions and the choice of boundaries.

And different choices may produce different results.

Is the Lindsey Oil refinery strike not evidence to the contrary with regards to immigration.

And as for the lump of labour fallacy. If the immigrates capture all of the value of their work, and impose costs on the host society, (not to mention unquantified costs) isn't the net result a loss for the host society even though GDP may be greater!

Academic rigor is not a panacea.

And regardless of all the mathematics there is hardly a single agreed (rather than orthodox) view on the academic discipline of economics, but you want rigor in politics?

[Curt Doolittle]

The best policy reflects the demands that human nature places upon our institutions. Efficient and perhaps beneficial economics (they are different things) is limited by what is possible, while still maintaining a cooperative polity. A nation is not an administration. It is the willingness of people to tolerate that administration.

[Keith]

aragon is right, maths which may be rigorous is still used in most of economics to justify ideologically predetermined ideas rather than as a tool for scientific understanding.

Gove makes no sense. If he did introduce harder exams it will merely reduce the number of passes.
Education is about what students can do; merely failing more examination candidates does not improve education. Tory policies off course will reduce educational attainment by increasing poverty and inequality.

[Chris Purnell]

All state financed education is ideologically biased in that what is financed is what is approved of. Hence the discussion about 'faith' schools and their teaching of mumbo-jumbo. Other types of mumbo-jumbo are not approved of, hence no lessons in astrology. Outcomes are unpredictable and therefore a leap of 'ideological' faith. Some biases lead to some results but not always. Hence the 'Rise of the Humanities' has led to a population with a strong sense of entitlement: Or the benefit culture as it sometimes called.

[Daviesjpuk]

On this occasion, Gove's purpose is creditable - a desire to roll back the move to easier examinations driven by competive forces on both schools and examination boards and avoid a two-tier system split by ability to pay Yes, academic success can distance one from one's background and peers and can in that way be both a blessing and a curse; the solution should be more mobility driven by more opportunity to excel, and the regular bumper crops of top grades prevent that.

You will have noted already that the privately-educated are differentiating themselves in increasing numbers with the IB. Gove's policy is designed to prevent that and is correct.

[Account Deleted]

Gove is indulging in dog-whistle politics. The word rigour here does not connote thoroughness and accuracy (i.e. the empirical use of the word) but rather strictness and respect for the established canon. It is a synonym for school uniforms, morning prayers, homework and detention.

What exactly would the non-rigorous teaching of maths look like? 2+2=5 perhaps? Is woodwork a rigorous subject? It involves a lot of accuracy. Clearly non-rigorous means non-traditional. Thus RE (i.e. mumbo-jumbo) can be rigorous. Anything that requires independent thought rather than a Gradgrindian regurgitation of facts is suspect.

[stoicfish]

Maybe, just maybe, the dog whistle threat of an antiquated rigorous curricculum that even gove knows is not fit for purpose but is only a requirement for local government controlled schools will prove a spur that drives the remaining schools into the relative freedom of academy status... just sayin'

[Robert Allen]

The downside to academic success that you highlight could have been easily overcome by applying a similar amount of rigour to the development of your social skills.

[Andrew Fisher]

'Perhaps "rigour" might be just an attempt to legitimate a sharper class divide'

Perhaps it might.

Faux naivety usually irritates me; but in this case it made me laugh.

[Luis Enrique]

" we become socially isolated, geeks, weirdos and nerds. "

the perils of reasoning from anecdotal experience. Some of the happiest least-isolated people I know are geeks, weirdos and nerds.

besides, if you really think that acquiring rigorous habits of thought is isolating, isn't the solution to increase the quantity of such individuals so they have more like-minded friends?