Papers by Kathleen M Lynch
ABSTRACT The exponential expansion of the human population of the earth, together with the accele... more ABSTRACT The exponential expansion of the human population of the earth, together with the accelerating pressure that is being placed on natural resources, is of a magnitude that threatens soon to render the expression 'scarce resources' pleonastic. Too many people chasing too few goods is a reliable recipe for disaster. The problems are of such a magnitude that the search for real solutions can readily appear futile. This is especially so because the gravest problems are often not theoretical at all, but practical. They are the problems of convincing contrary human beings of the necessity of radical changes in their life styles, and in their aspirations and expectations. The first step, however, is to find the correct theories. High on the list of priorities must be an adequate theory of the morally proper distribution among people of the scarce goods and resources which they all require. Once we have such a theory, it will be time enough to worry about getting people to listen, to understand, and to act. The received opinion, in many circles, is that the current distribution of goods and resources is unjust because it is gravely unequal. For all that there is evident truth in this claim, the problem of expressing it in a clear and theoretically perspicuous manner has proved to be an intractable one. The fault lies with egalitarianism itself. In its incomplete apprehension of the nature of injustice, it has embraced a collection of half-truths with a tenacity and a fervour which have seriously impeded further progress. My primary thesis is that egalitarianism, as a theory of social justice, is false. Some of the beliefs to which egalitarians have subscribed do deserve, however, to be preserved. My secondary thesis is that this can be achieved by incorporating these insights into a properly formulated, nonegalitarian, socialist theory of justice. This theory will not be presented in detail: instead, the discussion will range over a variety of considerations which converge upon socialism, as providing the only morally acceptable theory of distribution. If the treatment is sometimes tentative, speculative, and controversial, that is because the time has passed for toying with safe and cautious approaches to these problems.
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Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2009
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Revista Internacional Interdisciplinar INTERthesis
Kathleen Lynch is Professor of Equality Studies (Emerita) at University College Dublin, UCD. She ... more Kathleen Lynch is Professor of Equality Studies (Emerita) at University College Dublin, UCD. She played a leading role in establishing the UCD Equality Studies Centre (1990) and the UCD School of Social Justice (2004/5). She has authored many books and articles on all types of equality and social justice issues, especially in education, and more recently on the relationship between care and justice. In this interview, she talks about the experiences and ideals that have shaped her work as an activist scholar: from her formative years in the West of Ireland to her collaboration opening spaces for resisting injustice, such as the Centre for Equality Studies and the School of Social Justice at University College Dublin. She also discusses some of the motivations behind her work on care and affective inequality, including her most recent book: Care and Capitalism (2022). The interview was conducted on April 2018, and was subsequently revised for clarity.
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Affective Equality, 2009
As carers are not singular in their identity, caring is done under very different conditions depe... more As carers are not singular in their identity, caring is done under very different conditions depending on the resources, abilities, power and status of both the carers and care recipients. There are deep inequalities among carers themselves that reflect and exacerbate inequalities in other social systems. While the gender inequalities in the doing of care work are well recognised in the research literature (Lewis, 1998), there is a need to explore how other differences in social class and family status intersect with gender and determine the conditions of caring.
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New Managerialism in Education
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Child & Family Social Work, 2023
Within the liberal political traditions, care is regarded as a private matter, a problem of ethic... more Within the liberal political traditions, care is regarded as a private matter, a problem of ethics rather than justice. Social justice is framed as an issue of economics (re/distribution), culture (recognition) and/or politics (representation). The pandemic challenged this liberal patriarchal paradigm; it placed the care relational lives of human beings centre stage in terms of social justice, not only in terms of who did or did not do the caring, who was and was not cared for, but who was capable of caring while balancing paid-work time with care-work time. The pandemic also challenged dominant ontological assumptions about the human condition, especially assumptions about invulnerability and autonomy that are so pervasive in a neoliberal capitalist era.
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The economy is a central context for the achievement of a more egalitarian society. So it is impo... more The economy is a central context for the achievement of a more egalitarian society. So it is important to understand the ways in which economists have approached the idea of equality and particularly the issue of a more equal distribution of income. Issues of equality and efficiency are central aspects of most economic problems, yet within the discipline of economics itself, both the theoretical literature and empirical analysis have concentrated on issues of efficiency. Our response to this imbalance is to focus on the different explanations of inequality proffered by economists, the claims they have made about the relationships between equality, efficiency and growth, and the implications for identifying paths towards a more egalitarian economy.
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Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2004
Inequality is a pervasive fact of our world. Yet in every country there is resistance to power an... more Inequality is a pervasive fact of our world. Yet in every country there is resistance to power and privilege, with people working at many levels to create more equal societies. What is equality? What would more equal societies look like? How can they be brought about? Those are the questions that have shaped this book. We treat egalitarianism as a practical project of developing new ideas, restructuring social institutions and achieving social change. We do not claim to answer all of the questions egalitarians need to ask, but we hope to show how these questions — and some of their answers — fit together within a coherent overall framework.
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Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2004
In a global society in which so many aspects of life are controlled by professional interests, it... more In a global society in which so many aspects of life are controlled by professional interests, it is important to remember that education is not confined to schools and other institutions of formal education. Human beings are creative agents and the learning they do outside of schools can be a liberating process (Freire 1998; Illich 1970; Postman and Weingartner 1969). While acknowledging the importance of such non-formal education, this chapter focuses on formal systems of education as these play a particularly important role in regulating access to a wide range of goods, as well as playing a major role in defining what is of cultural worth in most societies. Much of our attention is devoted to the compulsory sectors of education, as these are the most pervasive and formative in the lives of children and young adults.
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Palgrave Macmillan UK eBooks, 2004
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Theory and Research in Education, Jul 1, 2005
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... 4. Reviewed by Deborah P. Britzman, Stephen Frosh and Wendy Luttrell. Love's impress... more ... 4. Reviewed by Deborah P. Britzman, Stephen Frosh and Wendy Luttrell. Love's impressions: a psychoanalytic contribution But what are our selves? Everything ... 21. Perthshire, , Scotland: The Clunie Press. View all references, 312). The ...
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Defining events, 2016
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University College Dublin Press, Apr 1, 1995
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Austerity and Recovery in Ireland, 2016
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New Managerialism in Education, 2012
A continual thread that ran throughout the interviews conducted for this project concerned the in... more A continual thread that ran throughout the interviews conducted for this project concerned the influence of the media in shaping public perceptions and political pressures about education. Senior leaders in education spoke about the growing influence that media had on their work; both directly through increased pressures to market and publicize their schools, and indirectly through media-driven influence on parents and the wider community (such as league tables, media-generated moral panics about education and media analysis about the politics of education). Despite the persistent presence of media in their world, educators — and students — directly involved in the sphere often remained relatively powerless in the media sphere, lacking a means of direct access or participation in the news process. Those who worked within the education system were subject not only to the professional power and interests of those who represented them politically (such as statutory agencies and teacher unions), but also those who represented them culturally (the media).
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Affective Equality, 2009
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New Managerialism in Education, 2012
The relative absence of women from senior management posts is attributable to a host of complex p... more The relative absence of women from senior management posts is attributable to a host of complex processes, including the way power circuits operate in organizations and are masculinized in their deployment (Clegg, 1990; Halford and Leonard, 2001). It also arises from gender-based discriminations, both direct and indirect (Knights and Richards, 2003), and from the way in which inequality regimes are institutionalized and legitimated in particular educational contexts (Acker, 2000). The introduction of new public service management has played a significant role in reproducing the gendered order of control within education in the twenty-first century (Acker, 1990, 2000; Bailyn, 2003; Blackmore and Sachs; 2007, Deem, 2002; Drudy, 2005; O’Connor, 2010b; Morley, 2005) despite the fact that it may also open up opportunities for some women for promotion (Newman, 1995; Deem, 2003).
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New Managerialism in Education, 2012
There is a new relationship between the education and the state in an age of educational capitali... more There is a new relationship between the education and the state in an age of educational capitalism. Education is no longer defined as a service or a right; it is regarded as an expensive investment that must deliver ‘returns’ to capital. The State, in the form of government, has the task of ensuring high productivity in these returns. But nation-states are no longer politically autonomous in a post-Westphalian phase of history (Fraser, 2008). Neither are they autonomous economically: the global financial crisis has made visible the way global capital frames national priorities, albeit mediated through nominally ‘democratic’ institutions like national parliaments. Governments, especially in small countries like Ireland, are situated at the nexus of powerful global institutions that not only influence their economic and political policies but also their educational policies. Multilateral agencies such as the (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) OECD and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), political institutions such as the European Union (EU), and the compradors of global and local capital that operate within and without nation-state boundaries’ all exercise degrees of influence over education. Business-oriented organizations are increasingly well placed within globalized networks to dictate the priorities of national education systems.
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Affective Equality, 2009
Most research on care is taken from the perspective of the carer (Hughes et al., 2005). Within th... more Most research on care is taken from the perspective of the carer (Hughes et al., 2005). Within this work, the carer is represented as the giver, the care recipient the receiver; the care recipient has needs, the carer is less needy; the carer is strong and able bodied, the care recipient is weak and vulnerable. This understanding of care portrays it as a deeply asymmetrical relationship and leads us to expect marked power inequalities within it, with the caregiver exercising power over care recipients.
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Papers by Kathleen M Lynch
HE institutions have been assigned a key role in promoting economic growth in the competitive space of the global economy. HE is also represented as an insurance against the risk of under-employment or unemployment from a student perspective. The paper examines to what extent students ‘buy’ into this official imaginary and how it affects their decision to go to college and select a particular course. The research methodology involved a large-scale survey of three major HE institutions in Ireland. Questionnaires were completed by 4265 students. The results challenged the prevailing assumption that students’ decisions to go to college or select a particular course are driven solely by economic goals. The findings indicate that while the majority of students attributed a great deal of importance to market (employment) considerations, their employment imaginary was balanced against an affective imaginary, showing high levels of concern about care relations at an individual level. Risk is not only framed in terms of securing an economic future but also securing a relational future, the risks and opportunities for care and love relationships that particular careers or jobs entail are part of students’ imaginary. HE students, especially female students, can be conceptualised as affective consumers of risk, offering a counter-narrative to the market.
people to think and act carefully and relationally with the world,
be it with other humans, other species and/or the environment.
A new educational praxis, based on a more plural, and a more
carecentric understanding of the ontology of the human condition
is required. The recent focus of leading educationalists on the
reimagining of what democracy for education can and should
involve is welcome, especially in the context of a world of many
wars, growing economic inequalities, rising forms of authoritarian
politics, and experiencing the adverse impact of climate change.
However, when democratic education takes places in a context
where one is ranked, graded and hierarchically ordered on a daily
basis in school and college, the habitual learning of competing and
winning contradicts the formal principles of solidarity and equality
that are foundation stones of democracy. The praxis of education
teaches little about how to live out solidarity principles, and how to
be habitually (in the Bourdieusian sense) caring and attentive to the
needs of others, especially vulnerable others, vulnerable species
and the earth itself.
Because students are evaluated throughout education
in the zero-sum game of winning or losing, the habitus of intense
individualised competitiveness frames their dispositions. The
success of education is measured by the credentialised human
capitals each individual has acquired.
If the utilitarian and egocentric ways of approaching
education are to change, then the hierarchical and competitive
capitalocentrism at the heart of educational practice needs to be
challenged. This requires acts of epistemic disobedience from conventional ways of thinking about what it means to be educated,
and how assessment operates. It also involves a profound
challenge to the human capital-dominated model of education
that is ubiquitously endorsed by most nation states and powerful
multilateral bodies including the OECD [Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development] and the European Commission.
Because the relational realities of nurturing (and their counterpoint, neglect) operate as a distinct set of social practices, love, care and solidarity relations are sites of political import that need to be examined separately in social justice terms. The lack of appreciation of affective relations leads to a failure to recognise their pivotal role in generating injustices in the production of people in their humanness.
This paper outlines a framework for thinking about affective relations in structural social justice terms. In so doing, it hopes to contribute to the redistribution, recognition, representation debate about justice by making the case for a fourth dimension, relational justice.
The paper opens with a discussion of how the concept of affective equality is related to, but separate from, conceptions of social justice articulated by Honneth and Fraser. Arising from empirical studies on love, care and solidarity undertaken over the last 10 years, the paper attempts to advance on Honneth’s (1995, 2003) understanding of love and solidarity and Fraser’s (2008) three-dimensional theory of justice by proposing a fourth dimension, relational justice. The second section of the paper outlines a definition of affective equality and explains how affective injustices cannot be examined separately from structural economic, political and cultural inequalities. It presents an intersectional structural perspective on social justice that recognizes affective relations as a distinct system of nurturing social relations (albeit relations which may fail in their purpose). The paper concludes by making the case for grounding politics in the ethics of love, care and solidarity, rather than the ethics of competition and self-interest that underpin neoliberal capitalism.
Although united by its ideological re-configuration towards market-place logic, managerialism is realized differently across countries; it is shaped by the historical antecedents and the specifics of nation-state politics. Drawing on three empirical studies undertaken by the authors on the impact of managerialism across primary, secondary, further and higher education (Grummell, 2014; Lynch, Grummell & Devine, 2015; Lolich & Lynch, 2016) the chapter explores the cultural and political specifics of managerialism across the education sectors in Ireland. It also explores the resistance to market norms, the counter-hegemonic actions of educational mediators within the machinery of the state and across the community (Lynch, 1990; Fitzsimons, 2017a).
Presenting the narratives of academic women at different career stages, we claim that a focus on care sheds new light on the debate on precarity. A more complete understanding of precarity should take account not only the contractual security but also affective relational security in the lives of employees.
The intersectionality of paid work and care work lives was a dominant theme in our interviews among academic women. In a globalised academic market, premised on the carefree masculinised ideals of competitive performance, 24/7 work and geographical mobility,
women who opt out of these norms, suffer labour-led contractual precarity and are overrepresented in part-time and fixed-term positions. Women who comply with these organisational commands need to peripheralise their relational lives and experience care-led affective precarity