TEORIE VĚDY / THEORY OF SCIENCE / XLI / 2019 / 2 ////// tematické studie / thematic articles ////////////////////// HOW TO WRITE A PROOF: PATTERNS OF JUSTIFICATION IN STRATEGIC DOCUMENTS FOR EDUCATIONAL REFORM Abstract: Writing strategic documents is a major practice of many actors striving to see their educational ideas realised in the curriculum. In these documents, arguments are systematically developed to create the legitimacy of a new educational goal and competence to make claims about it. Th rough a qualitative analysis of the writing strategies used in these texts, I show how two of the main actors in the Czech educational discourse have developed a proof that a new educational goal is needed. I draw on the connection of the relational approach in the sociology of education with Lyotard's analytical semantics of instances in the event. Th e comparison of the writing strategies in the two documents reveals diff erences in the formation of a particular pattern of justifi cation. In one case the texts function as a herald of pure reality, and in the other case as a messenger of other witnesses. Th is reveals diff erent regimens of proof, although both of them were written as prescriptive directives – normative models of the educational world. Keywords: proof; justifi cation; strategic document; Lyotard; relational sociology of education Jak napsat důkaz: vzorce ospravedlnění vzdělávacích reforem ve strategických dokumentech Abstrakt: Psaní strategických dokumentů je zásadní praxí mnoha aktérů usilujících o to, aby jejich vzdělávací ideje byly realizovány v učebních osnovách. V těchto dokumentech jsou argumenty systematicky rozvíjeny tak, aby se vytvořila jak legitimita nového vzdělávacího cíle, tak i kompetence těch, kteří tyto cíle prosazují. Na kvalitativní analýze strategií psaní použitých v textech tohoto druhu ukazuji, jak dva hlavní aktéři českého vzdělávacího diskurzu vytvořili důkaz, že je zapotřebí nový vzdělávací cíl. Studie vychází ze spojení relacionistické sociologie vzdělávání s Lyotardovou analytickou sémantikou pozic v určité události. Porovnání strategií psaní ve dvou dokumentech odhaluje rozdíly ve formování konkrétního vzorce ospravedlnění. V jednom případě text funguje jako ohlašovatel čisté reality a v druhém případě jako posel jiných svědků. Studie odhaluje různé režimy dokazování v těchto dokumentech, ačkoli oba byly psány jako preskriptivní směrnice – normativní modely vzdělávacího světa. Klíčová slova: důkaz; ospravedlnění; strategický dokument; Lyotard; relacionistická sociologie vzdělávání JITKA WIRTHOVÁ Department of Sociology, Institute of Sociological Studies Faculty of Social Sciences, Charles University U Kříže 8, 158 00 Prague 5-Jinonice email / jitka.wirthova@fsv.cuni.cz Th is work is licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. 308 Jitka Wirthová Introduction It has oft en been supposed that the legitimacy of change in an educational system is developed by unequivocal arguments and proofs posed by transparent actors and written in law-like documents. But the contemporary studies of the formation of legitimacy embedded in the sociology of educational and policy knowledge point to a rather diff erent portrayal of the landscape of maintaining legitimacy; a signifi cant body of literature, for example, deals with the coming of new non-transparent actors or networks,1 with the transnationalisation or Europeanisation of policy knowledge that surpasses local knowledge,2 and with shift s in the space/place of the formation of legitimacy in education.3 However valuable this attention to these relationships between actor, knowledge, and space/place may have been, what has not yet received much scrutiny4 is the actual way in which actors develop and use their knowledge and become competent actors in policymaking through one of their main practices – the production of a textual document. Traditionally, the issue of knowledge and symbolic forms is a matter of critical discourse analysis.5 While many valuable critical studies rest upon the division of isolated actors on the one hand and isolated discursive strategies 1 Stephen J. Ball, "New Philanthropy, New Networks and New Governance in Education," Political Studies 56, no. 4 (2008): 747–65; Sofi a Viseu and Luís Miguel Carvalho, "Th ink Tanks, Policy Networks and Education Governance: Th e Emergence of New Intra-National Spaces of Policy in Portugal," Education Policy Analysis Archives 26, no. 108 (2018): 1–26. 2 Andreas Nordin and Daniel Sundberg, Transnational Policy Flows in European Education: Th e Making and Governing of Knowledge in the Education Policy Field (Oxford: Symposium Books, 2014); Tara Fenwick, Eric Mangez, and Jenny Ozga, Governing Knowledge: Comparison, Knowledge-Based Technologies and Expertise in the Regulation of Education (Abingdon: Routledge, 2014). 3 Bob Lingard, "Reforming Education: Th e Spaces and Places of Education Policy and Learning," in Critical Analyses of Educational Reforms in an Era of Transnational Governance, eds. Elisabeth Hultqvist, Sverker Lindblad, and Th omas S. Popkewitz (Cham: Springer, 2018), 41–60. 4 Lindsay Prior, "Repositioning Documents in Social Research," Sociology 42, no. 5 (2008): 821–36. 5 Sandra Taylor, "Researching Educational Policy and Change in 'New Times': Using Critical Discourse Analysis," Journal of Education Policy 19, no. 4 (2004): 433–51. Th e research for this article was made possible by the support of the Charles University Grant Agency, GAUK no. 624218 and by the support of SVV no. 260462. Th e author would like to thank participants of Goodall's Prague seminars on sociological imagination for discussions of relational ontology, and two anonymous reviewers for inspiring critique and helpful comments. 309 How to Write a Proof or the tools used on the other,6 this paper goes beyond this division and shows how two important Czech policy documents7 do not serve as actors' straight declarations of their claims, but rather as self-evident prescriptions. In current developments of the relational approach in the sociology of education8 it is possible to focus on discourse not only from one perspective – whether that be of an actor, a particular organisation, or a particular educational programme – but from the perspectives able to see the problematisations mentioned above: non-self-evident authorship, standardisation of knowledge, hybrid spaces of possible action in the very layer of textual documents. A key to these issues is the concept of situation and event. Th ese are the situation of various relations (process of ligation) that are constituent to positions and their occupying.9 Th erefore, through the relational approach to the discourse, we can study the practice of developing proofs, a competent position for actors, the relevance of problems and claims, and the reasonability of justifi cation in the mutual relationships of these diff erent instances.10 Furthermore, we can study an occurrence of reform policy documents as events presenting these situations. Th is paper focuses on three interlinked issues. First, what writing strategies are used in the textual document in order to make an argument (a proof) that educational reform is needed and what principles or styles of reasoning11 have led them? Second, what concrete arrangements of categories in texts such as the competence of the actor, the relevance of the problems, the reasonability of the justifi cation, and the audience formed the particular 6 Gary L. Anderson and Liliana Montoro Donchik, "Privatizing Schooling and Policy Making: Th e American Legislative Exchange Council and New Political and Discursive Strategies of Educational Governance," Educational Policy 30, no. 2 (2016): 322–64. 7 Although these are only two documents among other reform educational documents published so far, and more, presenting diff erent content – these are still decisive for understanding the writing of the proof in the context of current social changes as will be argued in the section Textual Data and the Method Used for the Study. 8 Gert Biesta and Michael Tedder, "How Is Agency Possible? Towards an Ecological Understanding of Agency-as-Achievement (Working Paper 5)," Learnig Lives Project, RES139-25-0111 (Exeter, 2006). 9 Andrew Abbott, "Linked Ecologies," in Processual Sociology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016), 40. 10 Jean-François Lyotard, Th e Diff erend: Phrases in Dispute (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1988). 11 Ian Hacking, "Language, Truth, and Reason," in Historical Ontology (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 159–77; Michael A. Peters, "Kinds of Th inking, Styles of Reasoning," Educational Philosophy and Th eory 39, no. 4 (2007): 350–63. 310 proofs? And third, what diff erences are there between the two documents that are researched with regard to the previous questions? Th is paper contributes to the discussion of the relationship between ideas and action in education, inspired by neo-pragmatist philosophy, relational sociology, and several poststructuralist approaches,12 particularly the study of the ways in which diff erent ideations, styles of reasoning, and knowledge regimes in education constrain the possible actions of all the participants involved.13 To begin with, I will briefl y go through the social context of the two strategic documents that are analysed – several important events which have created the situation. Th e theoretical perspective follows: an interconnection of a sociological view on relations with Lyotard's analytical semantics, which enables us to see particular strategies for making up proof in the mutual relations of the forming of competence, relevance, reasonability, and audience. Th e subsequent sections will be devoted to the analysis of actual instances of the proofmaking in the two documents and to the patterns in which these documents diff er. I will conclude with an interpretive comparison of the two diff erent patterns of justifi cations and with the broader related issues touched on by this study. Th e Context of Czech Educational Reform and Its Events In 2004, based on long-term international and domestic criticism, the Czech Republic launched an educational reform, fi rst aft er the political revolution in 1989. Th is reform consisted mainly of the introduction of Framework Educational Programs (FEPs), which were to create a much looser framework for individual schools to develop their own direction than communist rigid curricula by defi ning only basic outputs. Th e means for fulfi lling these outputs were left up to each individual school. It meant that every school had 12 Jitka Wirthová, "Třetí vlna sociologie vzdělávání: Kritický přístup pro globalizovaný i partikularizovaný svět," Sociální studia 16, no. 1 (2019): 165–84. 13 Th omas S. Popkewitz, Jennifer Diaz, and Christopher Kirchgasler, A Political Sociology of Educational Knowledge: Studies of Exclusions and Diff erence (New York: Routledge, 2017); Petter Aasen, Tine Sophie Prøitz, and Nina Sandberg, "Knowledge Regimes and Contradictions in Education Reforms," Educational Policy 28, no. 5 (2014): 718–38; Christina Mølstad et al., "Comparative Educational Knowledge and Knowledge Production: A Technology of Appearance: Interactional Acts of Education," in ECER 2018 (EERA, 2018); Peters, "Kinds of Th inking, Styles of Reasoning." Jitka Wirthová 311 to write its own "School Educational Programme" (SEP) on the basis of the national mandatory FEPs. Th rough this reform, the Czech Republic aligned itself with the almost worldwide trend of deregulation and decentralisation of public policies.14 However, this reform was never fully accepted by teachers, parents, heads of schools, and the wider public (except some alternatively thinking individual teachers or schools).15 Th e SEPs were oft en written superfi cially, oft en by rewriting old communist curricula, and therefore the criticism from diff erent and divergent sides increased.16 Aft er some minor changes to the FEP, consisting mainly of adding some new educational content (new goals: ethics education, multicultural education, education for national pride, education for fi nancial literacy, etc.), which were problematic and contradictory in themselves, a signifi cant call for a fundamental reassessment of the system of education arise and since 2016, a general debate about "the revision of Czech educational curricula" has been taking place. Th is debate is by no means closed and preparations are underway at governmental level for the new Education 2030+ strategy paper. Th e Czech pre-election period in 2017 was a rather unusual period with regard to debates about education since it was the fi rst time aft er the general curricular reform in 2004 that such an extensive public debating about education had taken place. On the one hand, the main topic of these discussions respected the trajectory of specifi c Czech debates about education – the issue of the urgent need to revise the elementary school curricula – as the 2004 reform was generally deemed to have been unsuccessful. On the other hand, the newly opened space of legitimisation has attracted new actors and kinds of knowledge which up to that time had been used occasionally in general public debates (mainly transnational comparisons).17 Many traditional but 14 Stanislav Štech, "Velká regrese? Proměny vzdělávání mezi hlasy politiků, expertů a rodičů," in Vzdělání a dnešek, eds. Martin Strouhal and Stanislav Štech (Praha: Karolinum, 2016), 179–201. 15 Stanislav Štech, "Když je kurikulární reforma evidence-Less," Pedagogická Orientace 23, no. 5 (2013): 615–33; Jana Straková, "Postoje Českých učitelů k hlavním prioritám vzdělávací politiky," in Učitel v současné škole, eds. Růžena Váňová and Hana Krykorková (Praha: Filozofi cká fakulta Univerzity Karlovy, 2010), 167–75. 16 From Non-governmental sphere it was mainly the document: SKAV, Zdeněk Slejška, and Lucie Slejšková, Kdy a jak měnit kurikulum (Praha: SKAV, 2010). 17 It must be stressed that in Czech policymaking since 1989 the transnational organisations and their data have played an important, yet specifi c, role, but in relation to public debates this infl uence was not so visible. How to Write a Proof 312 also relatively new actors (politicians, inter-ministerial working groups, industry and employers' representatives, teachers' unions, NGOs) tried to take part in these debates and to promote their own educational claims, which took the form of very divergent desired curriculum content, such as inclusive education, lifelong learning, multicultural education, education for national pride, civil defence education, fi nancial literacy, manual work and gardening education, and many others. In 2017 the situation was that many divergent educational claims coexisted and that many divergent arguments were given to prove them, which persisted simultaneously. While the call for a unitary "national vision" for education was signifi cant and was the only point of unity of many divergent actors, it was never possible for this to happen because of the very confusing reasoning justifying various notions of what the desired education meant. Such a situation posed important questions about the conceptual way of understanding it without taking this non-transparent space/place as mistakes (of policymakers, of implementation, etc.), but rather took it as a changing space of justifi cation, posing crucial questions about the ways in which the legitimisation is achieved within this space. Text – Education – Categories – and Patterns of Reasoning Th e disappointed Pythagorean carries out his ontological and political mourning: it is necessary to write, to govern through the written, to teach through the written, to concede to imitation [...], and to grant institutional status to that addressee unworthy of dialogue who is called the politikos, the reader. As a counterpoint to oral dialogical phrases, there will need to be written pedagogical ones.18 Th is section is devoted to the theoretical exposition of interlinked layers which creates the subject of this study. Th ose are the nature of textual documents in the fi eld of education – the relational anti-foundationalist approach to categories – and patterns of justifi cation and reasoning. Education is a cultural process of intentional change in personality and society; because of the pursuit of the change, the context of educational semantics is inherently ambivalent in terms of the ends: education for an 18 Lyotard, Diff erend, pt. Plato notice: Dialogue. From here on, the references to Lyotard's book will be written in the form of numbers of paragraphs (par.), or parts (pt. Plato notice, pt. Kant notice, for example), since this structure is the same in the French original and in all translations as well. Jitka Wirthová 313 individual vs education for the society. In this educational context of the desired future, many texts stand in the position of a determined guide as to what to do, not mere descriptions. Th rough these texts, people are instructed who they are and what they should do, whether in the case of curricula, educational programmes, strategic policy documents, legal regulations, and pedagogic instructions and documentation, educational research included.19 Yet these textual documents are not only intact products, entities apart from practice – they signifi cantly inscribe their cultural logics (systems of reason) in the practice of education.20 Th ese documents constrain the possible courses of action of possible actors; they present and prescribe models of the world.21 According to Prior,22 a document is an agent which cannot be treated as a mere neutral source of evidence in research. A textual document creates its own space of reasoning, and especially in the case of educational policy documents it creates a specifi c normative model of the world to be followed.23 In exploring what the proof can mean in diff erent texts, it is the study of the space of reasoning in which these proofs are embedded that is of great importance. In one contemporary strand of the sociology of education, the social constitution of normativity in education is a signifi cant issue.24 Whether it is the elucidation of justifi catory sagas,25 knowledge regimes, 26 styles of reasoning,27 or systems of reason,28 for all of these accounts, the logics and the reasonings (and the proofs within them) are social in the sense that they have both social embeddedness (origin) and consequences. Th is 19 Th omas S. Popkewitz, "Social Epistemology, the Reason of 'Reason' and the Curriculum Studies," Education Policy Analysis Archives 22, no. 21–25 (2014): 1–18; Th omas S. Popkewitz, "Th e Denial of Change in Educational Change: Systems of Ideas in the Construction of National Policy and Evaluation," Educational Researcher 29, no. 1 (2000): 17–29. 20 Popkewitz, Diaz, and Kirchgasler, Political Sociology. 21 Bradley A. U. Levinson, Margaret Sutton, and Teresa Winstead, "Education Policy as a Practice of Power: Th eoretical Tools, Ethnographic Methods, Democratic Options," Educational Policy 23, no. 6 (2009): 767–95. 22 Prior, "Repositioning Documents in Social Research." 23 Popkewitz, Diaz, and Kirchgasler, Political Sociology. 24 Wirthová, "Třetí vlna sociologie vzdělávání." 25 Ingolfur Asgeir Johannesson, Gudrun Geirsdottir, and Gunnar E. Finnbogason, "Modern Educational Sagas: Legitimation of Ideas and Practices in Icelandic Education," Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research 46, no. 3 (2002): 265–82. 26 Aasen, Prøitz, and Sandberg, "Knowledge Regimes." 27 Peters, "Kinds of Th inking, Styles of Reasoning." 28 Popkewitz, Diaz, and Kirchgasler, Political Sociology. How to Write a Proof 314 approach derives from post-analytical philosophy, anti-foundationalism, and the relational approach to categories and agency. Against the tendency to think of writing as linear moves on the part of the evident (apparent) author, which is usual in many critical discourse analyses that point to a "guilty party," oft en with the conclusion of neoliberal hegemony,29 I have pursued a relational understanding of writing a document in education that focuses on the question of how legitimacy is achieved in concrete settings and under particular arrangements of categories.30 Th is understanding admits various shapes of justifi cation, various types of proofs, and various ways to establish them, which creates a very non-transparent space of divergent educational demands. To understand the particular, actual, and concrete formation of justifi cation in particular writing strategies of making up a proof one has to pay attention to relations which are constitutive for any instances (such as the competent actor, relevant problem, reasonable justifi cation, and existing audience).31 Affi rming that these instances are not self-evident and are possible only in particularly arranged categories and situations,32 through the process of writing, raises an important question: in which way is one to perceive the writing strategies in terms of text and discourse, and thus in the connection of sociology and linguistics? For that reason, I have interlink ed the sociological relationalism with Lyotard's relational ontology and linguistics of instances of phrase universe. Although Lyotard is predominantly well known for his Postmodern Condition, here I follow his ontology of event33 from his Le Diff érend because it is 29 Michael W. Apple, "What Is Present and Absent in Critical Analyses of Neoliberalism in Education," Peabody Journal of Education 92, no. 1 (2017): 148–53. 30 Sverre Tveit and Christian Lundahl, "New Modes of Policy Legitimation in Education: (Mis) Using Comparative Data to Eff ectuate Assessment Reform," European Educational Research Journal 17, no. 5 (2017): 631–55; Lindsay Prior, Using Documents in Social Research (London: SAGE, 2003). 31 Biesta and Tedder, "How Is Agency Possible?"; Andrew Abbott, Processual Sociology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016); Mark Priestley and Stavroula Philippou, "Curriculum Making as Social Practice: Complex Webs of Enactment," Curriculum Journal 29, no. 2 (2018): 151–58; Luís Miguel Carvalho, "Th e Fabrications and Travels of a KnowledgePolicy Instrument," European Educational Research Journal 11, no. 2 (2012): 172–88; Lyotard, Diff erend. 32 Luc Boltanski and Laurent Th évenot, "Th e Reality of Moral Expectations: A Sociology of Situated Judgement," Philosophical Explorations 3, no. 3 (2000): 208–31. 33 Ashley Woodward, "Jean-François Lyotard (1924–1998)," Th e Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, accessed July 6, 2017, https://www.iep.utm.edu/lyotard/; Michael A. Peters, Jitka Wirthová 315 attentive to the formation of instances from inside the event of utterance.34 Since, in his account, it is impossible to see the proof as an isolated item that can be torn out of the text (of the space of reasoning) – the question is how a proof is embedded in the situation (which itself is constituted via the settlement of instances) – so not only the "referent," but also other instances, which give the meaning, the principles to a proof – the possibility of being formed into a particular shape. Th is approach sees "proof" as an emergent phenomenon of the relational condition in the text through which it is enacted. Th erefore, in order to reveal the variety of diff erent ways in which proof is constructed within normative educational documents, I draw on Lyotard's non-essentialist analytical instances: the addressee, the referent, the sense, and the addressor, which are embodied and constructed in the texts as the actor's competence, the relevance and temporality of the claim, the reasonability of justifi cation and knowledge, and the (dis)qualifi cation of the audience. A particular way of proving the need for educational reform is created in the constellation of these instances. Textual Data and the Method Used for the Study When trying to understand the proofmaking in the contemporary policy environment characterised by "hybrid" actors35 or non-transparent networks of actors,36 it is useful to employ a theoretical division of actors developed in the anthropology of educational policy and organisation.37 Th is division makes it possible to scrutinise a confusing educational "policyscape"38 without any reduction of the materials on formal policy competences and responsibilities that are studied. For that reason, there are distinguished authorised actors (AA), directly delegated to create, assess, correct, or administer curricular documents (execution), and non-authorised actors (NAA), not directly delegated but somehow infl uencing, changing, and assessing curricular documents (infl uence). Both of these types of actors create a binding curriculum "Wittgenstein and Post-Analytic Philosophy of Education: Rorty or Lyotard?," Educational Philosophy and Th eory 29, no. 2 (1997): 1–32. 34 Lyotard, Diff erend. 35 Prior, "Repositioning Documents in Social Research." 36 Ball, "New Philanthropy." 37 Levinson, Sutton, and Winstead, "Education Policy as a Practice of Power"; Dorothy E. Smith, "Texts and the Ontology of Organizations and Institutions," Studies in Cultures, Organizations & Societies 7, no. 2 (2001): 159–98. 38 Lingard, "Reforming Education." How to Write a Proof 316 with consequences for the actions of all the other actors in the educational environment, themselves included. Th e corpus for this study consists of two main strategic texts, which were created to provide a "justifi catory story" of the need to reform the education system in the Czech Republic. Both of them were published in the summer before the parliamentary elections in the autumn in 2017 and the authors were the two main actors in the Czech educational reform debate. Although these documents, of course, diff er in their purpose and, therefore, in their language, content, and address these diff erences are fundamental to this study. Th eir comparability lies in the fact, that they both have the same purpose in the Lyotardian understanding of the discursive genre, which in this case is pedagogical, persuasive.39 Th ey present a model of the world that "should be"; their purpose is to change, transform the context of what is considered normal and desirable and what is to be done. Although they are not legal documents, they are normative and link the dimension of evidence with that of administration.40 Th e fi rst one to be published was a document produced by an authorised actor (NÚV – the National Institute for Education), which released a special issue of its periodic newsletter called Why to Revise Curricular Documents?41 Th e second was published by a very infl uential group of various non-authorised actors (particularly non-government organisation EDUin and an initiative Education pre-eminently).42 Th ose two were not strategic documents in a strict and narrow policy or legal sense.43 Nevertheless, the documents chosen for the study are, in their aim and scope and design technology, much more illustrative of diff erent patterns of proving the need for educational change. Additionally, these documents had a specifi c position in the "educational space and place"44 of the period because not only were they the main sources of justifi cation active in the public arena but also, they were framed by their 39 As was indicated by the quotation in the theoretical section 40 Richard Freeman and Jo Maybin, "Documents, Practices and Policy," Evidence and Policy 7, no. 2 (2011): 155–70. 41 NÚV Národní ústav pro vzdělávání, Zpravodaj Oborové skupiny: Proč revidovat kurikulární dokumenty? (Praha: NÚV, 2017). 42 EDUin and Vzdělávání přede-vším, Problémy českého vzdělávání a návrhy jeho řešení (Praha: EDUin, 2017). 43 In the Czech legal context, the document Strategy for the Education Policy of the Czech Republic until 2020, published by the Ministry of Education in 2014, possesses such a strategic character. 44 Lingard, "Reforming Education." Jitka Wirthová 317 authors (organisations) as the most important texts providing the reasons for the desired changes in the Czech education system. NÚV – 2017 – Why to Revise Curricular Documents? – was issued for the wider public to explain the reasons for, and progress of, the revision of reform (aft er some criticism that this revision was not transparent and was chaotic, mainly from the side of EDUin). Th is material was distributed in a formal way to authorised actors and was presented on the NÚV's website in the position of the main document explaining the aims of the reform work of the Institute in the section "conception of revision of RVP" (until May 201845). Since it was the only material issued in that period that articulated publicly the aims of the revision being prepared, it was widely used as the only source of clear information about the NÚV's intentions. EDUin and Education pre-eminently 2017 – Problems of Czech Education and Suggestions for its Solution – this material was created before the parliamentary election and distributed online, or personally, to the leaders of political parties responsible for that part of their election programme concerning education. Th e leaders were asked whether they had read this document or had any acquaintance with the information and data cited in it. Th is document is now presented on the website of EDUin as "our strategic document." Both of these texts were relatively short (four pages in the case of AA, and seven in the case of NAA). Both of them included signifi cant visual design, pictures, tables, diagrams, and colour, and they were visually structured. Although their representativeness for a broad comparison is weak, their value in relation to the argued contribution, which is to understand how diff erent writings can model the relations between ideas and action, is high.46 45 In May 2018, this text was transferred to the "Related Articles" section, and at its previous position stood three "Infographics" and other information derived mainly from the ideas of this special issue. At present (October 2019) it is no longer among the underlying curriculum revision materials, but among the other National Institute for Education periodic newsletter. Th e Infographics were replaced by the "Background Analytical Studies," "Personnel Preparation of Materials," and "Other Background Materials" (http://www.nuv.cz/t/rrvp). 46 Although the representativity of only two documents among many other strategic educational papers published so far is low for a broad comparative longitudinal study, they were essential for this particular debate and for the epistemological and ontological approach selected. Relational approach using detailed micro analysis of lineages that constitutively connect various elements and instances that create forms of proof and models of educational worlds is better conducted on limited events and in particular situation. Th ese events were the two documents and this situation was the pre-election debate in 2017. How to Write a Proof 318 Method: In this study, I analysed these documents through qualitative interpretive text analysis using the conceptual view presented in the theoretical section above.47 I traced the constituting and emerging of the Addressor (destinateur), Sense (sense), Addressee (destinataire), and Referent (référent) as embedded in the text and their actual content in several iterative stages. First, I coded the segments with open and structural coding. Th is stage of the analysis brought in the categories of competence, relevance, reasonability, knowledge – its kind and the way it was recorded (a technology of appearance48), and audience. In the next stage the actual content of these categories was compared both inside the documents and across the documents with regard to "neutralisations." Th e synthesis consisted of the patterning of the actual justifi catory stories.49 See the table of the fourth stage of the interpretation in the Comparison section. Messengers and Heralds Considering the conceptual approach described above, a particular form of proof lies in the category of referent (relevance) while simultaneously entangled in relation to other instances (categories). A form of proof is developed in the course of linking the phrases, statements, utterances, and pictures. Th e proof is the inherent (explicit or implicit) answer to the question "why?" while the actual content of proof depends on the (implicit or explicit) answers to other questions: how, by whom, and for whom? Th is paper off ers two diff erent patterns of a justifi catory story – it explores what the proof can mean in diff erent texts.50 Th e study revealed that the texts function in one case as a messenger, and in the other case as a herald. In the following sections, I will provide basic characteristics of these diff erent types of "proof-expertise" stemming from the specifi c relational compositions of categories (competence, relevance, reasonability, knowledge – its kind and the way it was recorded in the text (a technology of appearance), and audience). 47 Prior, Using Documents in Social Research. 48 Mølstad et al., "Comparative Educational Knowledge." 49 Johnny Saldana, Th e Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers (London: SAGE, 2009). 50 It does not consider the proofs true or false, and neither does it search for mistakes in policy designs. Jitka Wirthová 319 Th e Justifi catory Pattern of Authorised Actors – Gathering Witnesses Semantic Regime – a Passive Apologetics What pattern of justifi catory story is given by AA? Since they are an authorised organisation directly delegated to revise curricular documents, it is not surprising that they refer to government documents and decisions and derive part of their competence from these sources. Nevertheless, the degree to which they explicitly cited other human or non-human actors or "authorities" in the educational environment was considerable. Th ere were many "subjects" in the text that demanded the educational change: the society, competitiveness, constant change, and others. All these subjects required something, and it was the role of AA to answer, to justify what will be done to rectify Czech education. In this text, the organisation was not in the role of an active voice of the demands. Th e regime of its justifi cation rested in answering questions which were asked by somebody else, not by it. Additionally, in the case of the reason for writing such a document, the motive was delimited at the very beginning: the original principles of curricular reform (what was meant by that was the reform from 2004) had not been fulfi lled – these past events (previous criticism directed toward the organisation) impelled the organisation to answer. In the document the organisation itself did not determine the reason for the change; instead, it developed an apologetic concerning what to do about it now. On the other hand, turning to many authorities was not the only way to propose the change. Th e voice of the document was confi ned to a kind of noncommittal designing. "Main features of the design of the conception of revisions"51 were proposed, rather than there being a straightforward proposal. Th is cautious proposal involving several stages (design-conceptionrevision) touches the rhetorical fi gure of mimesis,52 which, in the addressor, 51 NÚV Národní ústav pro vzdělávání, Zpravodaj Oborové skupiny, 2. 52 Lyotard, Th e Diff erend: Phrases in Dispute, pt. Plato notice. Here Lyotard is drawing on the work of Gérard Genette, Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980) and Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: Th e Representation of Reality in Western Literature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003). But his understanding of mimesis goes beyond literary theory toward a philosophical elaboration of the diff erend between two parties, in which it is not possible for one of them to be in the position of an addressor. Th is issue of category and possible action has been taken up by many contemporary sociologists of education (mainly Popkewitz, Diaz, and Kirchgasler, Political Sociology) and diff ers particularly from the narrative analysis inspired by Ricoeur (such as, for example, in Martin Hájek, Martin Havlík, and Jiří Nekvapil, "Narativní analýza v sociologickém výzkumu: přístupy a jednotící rámec," Czech Sociological Review 48, no. 2 (2012): 199–223). How to Write a Proof 320 presupposes: "a dissimulation, an occultation, the apocrypt (it's not me, it's the gods or the heroes who are phrased through my mouth [...]." 53 A proposition using such a fi gure does not expect that the audience should take the fl oor, that it should debate, or even that it should judge.54 We will see later how this proposition regime is linked to the form of the competence and audience of AA in its document and how it diff ers in the NAA document. Indeed, such several-stages mimesis (design-conception-revision) avoids judging about its purposefulness or purposelessness or reasoning about the correctness or incorrectness of the educational goal. It corresponds with Popkewitz's insight of the irony of reform making – these reforms are about motion and activity, and not change.55 Th e Technology of Appearance – We Cite Witnesses As mentioned above, in this text, there were many "authorities" worthy of being cited in an authorised document. As we will see in the section about the justifi catory pattern of NAA, there is a diff erence between citing "authorities" and citing "data which speaks for itself." Th e function of "authorities" (human and non-human), such as, for example, a high-ranking offi cial from a foreign authorised educational organisation, or an author of a popular book,56 "a number of developed countries," or "changes in the outside world"57 was the testimony; these "authorities" were witnesses to the need to revise the Czech curricula. Aft er the citation of a high-ranking offi cial (the head of the curriculum development department of the Finnish Government Education Committee), which took up one third of the fi rst page, there followed this sentence: "We are also aware of the need to adapt the curriculum constantly to the contemporary world, the constant characteristic of which is change and where learning never ends."58 Th is "we are also" refers to the cumulating of the witnesses, while the justifi cation points to the past – "we" do something because others also did so. Such a justifi cation regime is passive. 53 Lyotard, Diff erend, pt. Plato notice. 54 Ibid. 55 Popkewitz, Diaz, and Kirchgasler, Political Sociology, 4. 56 Robert J. Marzano and Tammy Hefl ebower, Teaching and Assessing 21st Century Skills: Th e Classroom Strategies Series (Bloomington: Marzano Research, 2011). 57 NÚV Národní ústav pro vzdělávání, Zpravodaj Oborové skupiny, 1. 58 Ibid. Jitka Wirthová 321 Relevance – Why? ... for Adaptation With regard to many authorities demanding something, the relevance – the answer to "why" – took the form of adaptation. It was the adaptation to past or present events – not only to non-specifi ed changes in the world but also because the principles of the original curricular reform were not fulfi lled. Th e very second sentence in this text reads thus: "Not all intentions have yet to be 'tightened', and not all intentions have been put into practice as intended."59 Th ese were the "praxis which required the introduction of educational outcome standards,"60 the changes in the world, and the fact that the previous documents were unintelligible which were the reasons why. Th ese things are not something to debate about; we have to adapt to them. Furthermore, the very nature of these changes is that we are not able to do anything about them: to adapt to it. We have to understand the world so that we can live well in it. Schools help pupils to understand the contemporary world better. Th e learning process can and should be fun. Of course, it has to react to changes in the outside world. Th e school should strengthen the identity of pupils and increase their ability to learn. Th e basic value is the uniqueness of each pupil.61 In this quotation of the Finnish offi cial, there were considerations that it is not in human power to change the changes, that the only reasonable thing to do is to adapt to them (with the fun). Th e values proposed as "autonomous personality," "responsible citizen," "lifelong learning individual," and "creative innovator"62 are valuable for the degree of adaptation to changes, not for changing them. Audience – the Presence of Other Actors To whom did the AA document speak? Just as there were many who made demands, so there were also many who could listen to the "designs of conceptions" of proposals and follow them. Th e role of the audience of this document was delimited in the text by stating the "basic functions of curricular documents" which were "normative," "diagnostic and evaluative," 59 Ibid. 60 Ibid. 61 Ibid. 62 Ibid., 3. How to Write a Proof 322 and "informative." Th e informative function was the space where the audience was established. Th e KD serves not only to inform schools and teachers about the requirements of the State for the teaching and learning outcomes of pupils, but also to inform parents, pupils, employers, and other subjects involved.63 Nevertheless, these many audiences did not join in immediately with their voices for particular activities such as debating, judging, or questioning. Since one of the functions of a curricular document was articulated in terms of being properly informed, the audience's position was not compatible with the debate about the information provided in these curricular documents. On the other hand, there was one active audience role that was specifi ed: the teachers – as soon as they were adequately informed about the state's requirements, they could be good evaluators of pupils' learning outcomes, and they could adequately verify the learning achieved. Although many audiences were discerned, the text did not draw hierarchical lines among them, which is in contrast to the NAA document. Moreover, a call, at the bottom of page 3:64 "What is your opinion? Send responses to [...],"65 was oriented toward the general public, which was in that sense provided with the opportunity to react. Messengers of Witnesses Despite the passive usage of kn owledge as messages of others' needs, the organisation's position as an authorised actor rests in some formal responsibilities – still, the organisation must perform some action in educational 63 Ibid., 2. 64 "1) What is your opinion on the intention to refi ne the expected outputs – or learning outcomes so that they are usable as evaluation standards? 2) What is your opinion on the meaning and importance of the accompanying methodological materials that should develop the expected learning outcomes in terms of: methodology (examples of pupils' learning activities) ways of verifying results and evaluating pupils reference tasks specifying the expected learning outcomes 3) What is your opinion on the possibility of seeking and expressing a binding "core" of education in general education? 4) What is your view on maintaining a two-step curriculum (FEP – SEP)? 5) What are your suggestions for simplifying administration in creating the SEP? What is our opinion? Send responses to [...]," Ibid., 3. 65 Ibid. Jitka Wirthová 323 change. Since it was "others" who were demanding such a change, the competent position of this organisation, embedded in its text, was that of a non-responsible evaluator. Indeed, one of the main objectives to be achieved through the revision of curricular documents was the "transfer of responsibility for learning to pupils."66 Such discourse of pupils' responsibility for outcomes is well-known not only in the Czech context but in many countries; rather, this kind of allocation of responsibility is connected to the Europeanisation and transnationalisation of educational policies in many documents and programmes.67 Nevertheless, we can turn our attention to the peculiar links of such responsibility to a demand for control and monitoring. Th e curricular documents can be a signifi cant tool for infl uencing the quality of teaching and learning, only on the condition that they formulate the basic requirements in the form of the expected results of the pupil's learning [...], the utilisation of learning outcomes also enables an eff ective way of verifying them to be designed.68 While the pupils were responsible for outcomes, defi ned as clearly expressed desired results, which, as we have seen above, were demanded by "others", the role of the authorised organisation was to evaluate and monitor their achievement (with the help of teachers). In the document under analysis, the subject which was able t o assure appropriately expressed results was located in the revised curricular documents. Th e assurance of adaptation expressed in these curricular documents was the primary location of the organisation's activity. Th e Justifi catory Pattern of the NAA – Disappearance of Mediators Semantic Regime – an Active Denunciation In the case of the NGO's text, in order to detect the pattern of proof, it is relevant to start with the knowledge – its kind and the way of its recording. Th is NA actor used prevailingly the kind of knowledge which they framed as "expert" – by which was meant mainly comparative statistical data (they cited the OECD's international education indicators, PISA reports, 66 Ibid., 1, 4. 67 Martin Lawn, "Standardizing the European Education Policy Space," European Educational Research Journal 10, no. 2 (2011): 259–72. 68 NÚV Národní ústav pro vzdělávání, Zpravodaj Oborové skupiny, 2. How to Write a Proof 324 semi-academic centres' comparisons, governmental statistical reports, and so forth). In their text, this expert knowledge itself denounced the state of aff airs the NAA was not waiting for other witnesses in order to propose a change in education, as in the case of AA. Th e expertise provided by the NAA text was in the position of a non-mediated proposition. Although it is well known in the sociology of comparative educational knowledge that this data does not merely represent the state of aff airs, but plays a considerable role in shaping it,69 in this document, this particular knowledge was present not as a mere "re-presentation" of reality in the meaning of "againpresenting," but a direct presentation – immediate reality.70 Th rough a direct and active proposal, "our strategy of change has three pivotal points," "our strategy has three visions,"71 the text actively states the problematic reality. Th e Technology of Appearance – Data Cites Itself Th e demonstration of non-mediated reality in the text was achieved in several ways. On the one hand, this was done visually by displaying short cuts from a variety of analyses or reports in pictures of speech bubbles, featuring brief information in bold together with a brief interpretation and citation of the source. Th e speech bubbles were "speaking to" another picture: a scheme of the geographical borders of the Czech Republic. Th e data spoke itself to the Czech Republic itself, as if in a lecture; it was not recorded in the text as citations but as a manifestation. On the other hand, it was achieved discursively, in that this "speaking data" did not manifest mere neutral information, but highlighted problem information which awaited remedy (for example: "the world is changing very fast, and the Czech educational system is increasingly lagging behind.");72 this speaking data became the carrier of problematic reality. Th ese pieces of information denoted the problems of education themselves and consequently, themselves, also determined solutions (for example: "the Czech Republic invests the lowest share of GDP in basic and secondary education 69 Fenwick, Mangez, and Ozga, Governing Knowledge; Radhika Gorur, "Producing Calculable Worlds: Education at a Glance," Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 36, no. 4 (2015): 578–95; Sverker Lindblad, Daniel Pettersson, and Th omas S. Popkewitz, eds., Education by the Numbers and the Making of Society: Th e Expertise of International Assessments (New York: Routledge, 2018). 70 Lyotard, Diff erend, pt. Kant notice I. 71 EDUin and Vzdělávání přede-vším, Problémy českého vzdělávání, 3 (both headlines). 72 Ibid., 2. Jitka Wirthová 325 compared to all the OECD countries.").73 Such a statement implies the only possible solution very clearly. In the bubbles, the data was not cited – the data itself cited the reality. Such knowledge refers immediately to reality without mimetic mediation – it is introduced as the referent itself. It diff ered from the AA document, where many authorities bore witness, and the mediation was admitted, while in this NAA document, the mediation was displaced. Th is displacement is a case of more than "perfect mimesis: recognisable by the writer's eff acement."74 Th is is a rejection of mimesis, imitation, re-presentation, it is the non-mediate presentation. Relevance – Why? ... for Modernisation With regard to much of the data delimiting the problematic reality, the relevance – the answer to the "why" – took the form of modernisation. Modernisation for a better future: A new generation of parents has grown up in Czech society, and the topic of education is becoming a societal priority. In the following expert document, we describe the current state and propose possible solutions. Th e vision of Czechia as a state with a modern educational system has the potential to solve many fundamental aspects of our future simultaneously, and thus become the key point in the voting programme.75 In this citation, a tightly complex argument is established by actual linkages among competence to speak (we describe) to an audience (promoters of voting programmes, parents) by reasonable means (in an expert document) to prove the relevance of problems (modern vision) – Th ese linkages expose the relational nature of a proof – a cultural argument, which can have many shapes, forms, and contents. Such arrangements fi tted the relevance of the demands: they will solve future problems, not past criticism (as in the case of AA), and they will, according to the present problematic reality manifested by data, lead to conscious systematised expert changes. Since in the document, the problems were framed as "lagging behind," the answer to "why" took the form of systematised, knowledgeable, and planned modernisation in terms of more (more eff ectiveness, more personal 73 Ibid. 74 Lyotard, Diff erend, pt. Plato notice: Selection. 75 EDUin and Vzdělávání přede-vším, Problémy českého vzdělávání, 1. How to Write a Proof 326 skills, more fl exibility, more analysis, more data, more openness, more diversity, more responsibility, a stronger relationship to democratic values, more stress on quality, etc.). We can see that although democratic values and freedom were stressed – "Open the school to the world: we need to breathe freely!"76 – the notions which could refer to the content of such modernisation couched in economic and managerial vocabulary.77 Audience – Someone First Not only in the complex argument (who, what, how, and to whom) cited above, where the document addressed the voting programmes' creators as a possible audience, but also in other parts of the document, the possible audience was hierarchically diff erentiated around its importance for educational modernisation. In section "Vision 1.": "Th e basis of a good system is a triangle: 'directorteacher-quality,'" it was the director who was more important. Although the subsection of this Vision ("What needs to be done") contains a demand for an increase in the salaries of directors as well as teachers, the importance of an increase in directors' salaries was justifi ed by: Director is a key person in the modernisation and transformation of the school. A quality school is always ensured by a quality director. We need professionals on these positions – a combination of good pedagogue and managerial skills.78 While the importance of an increase in teachers' salaries was only: "It brings new people to education, and the good ones will not leave."79 In these statements, we can see the hierarchical roles of diverse actors in education and policymaking. In the document, they were primarily the experts (NAA) and the stakeholders who were decisive for education policymaking and, together with school directors, decisive in the modernisation of the education system. It was not as if the teachers would not be present 76 Ibid., 5. 77 Precisely such a mixture of liberal ideas with managerial vocabulary is explained by many studies in educational discourse as neoliberal ideology, pointing to the neoliberal political economy, and on the level of writing strategies and discourse regime to ideology. Nevertheless, the current criticism of the critique of neoliberalism should not be forgotten: Ema Rowe et al., "Exploring Alternatives to the 'Neoliberalism' Critique: New Language for Contemporary Global Reform," Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education 40, no. 2 (2019): 147–49. 78 EDUin and Vzdělávání přede-vším, Problémy českého vzdělávání, 4. 79 Ibid. Jitka Wirthová 327 in the audience, but the nature of their role did not include an agency in the desired changes – the modernisation of the education system. Teachers were not agents of change but tools – in terms of quality and eff ective teaching. Despite the diff erent importance, and someone fi rst roles, the discursively privileged audience (parents, politicians, directors) were not in the position of dialogical partners. Since the demonstrators of the problematic reality were the data, there was nothing to debate about and nobody to debate with. Despite the somewhat passive role of the audience in both of the documents that were researched, the NAA document diff ered from the audience created in the AA document (the turn to many non-hierarchical audiences). Here, in the NAA document, the turn to the audience was not achieved through a direct call, but through data statements and in relation to the form of the organisation's expert competence. "We are ready to help by our professional expertise."80 Heralds of Reality Th e specifi c technology of appearance of the knowledge and the specifi cally defi ned knowledge, together with the temporality of the relevance of the organisation's claim to educational change, were in close relation to the making up of the NAA's competence. Th rough the explicit assertion that the authors of the text were the experts, the substance of their expertise lay in systematised knowledgeability. "Vision 3." reads thus: Th e changes of the systems are conscious, aimed, and informed. What is specifi cally needed to do is to analyse carefully the impact of accepted changes and laws on real life at schools. If the data shows that an arrangement has missed the target, it is necessary to respond fl exibly by making it more eff ective, remedying it, or abrogating it.81 Indeed, the competence of the NAA document to propose rested in the eff acement of authorship. In this document, the expertise was the agent who says what the problem is and what to do, not "other authorities" as in the case of AA. Th e NAA knew the data, and they were able to hear it speaking; the authors of the document only showed what data itself manifests. In the document the competence was connected with the ability to hear the data speaking, but did not necessarily go together with the authorship of this 80 Ibid., 7. 81 Ibid., 6. How to Write a Proof 328 data – this data did not have an author – it was the referent itself. Th e authors of the documents were not necessarily present – they were heralds of reality. Th e manner of justifi cation, therefore, lay in the absence of human authorship of the denunciat ions. Authorship does not lie within the authors of the document, for the data was itself the author. Nevertheless, the authors of the NAA document were active – in conveying this disinterested and objective data – they were the actors who are experts, "ready to help with their expert expertise." We can conclude that the expertise, in this case, means actively presenting pure reality, which has no author since it is reality itself. Expertise in this way is a kind of knowledge which must be produced somehow ("to analyse the impact carefully"), but not showing any other produced knowledge (as in the case of the several-stages mimesis of AA), for expertise shows only reality. Such expertise inherently refutes imitation (mimesis). Comparison – Two Ways of Connecting to Reality To begin the comparison, let us fi rst specify the common features among the documents under scrutiny. One of them lay in the absence of the writers' own authorship of their proof and the second in the restricted roles of the audience. We have seen above that the proof of the need for educational change can be attached to many mediators, or only one. In both cases, the addressor of the proof was not the same as the author of the text. It does not mean that the authors of the document were not present, only that their voice was indirect, in one case as a non-responsible messenger and evaluator (AA), in the second as an expert herald of direct reality. Th ese two relationally patterned assemblages of justifi cation, with their specifi c knowledge regimes, the specifi c meaning of expertise, specifi c answers to the question of why to make a change to the educational system present, aft er all, diff erent ways of connecting with reality, whether directly – "expertly," or non-directly – "adaptively." Th is means, at least in the context of this paper, that not all policy documents are of the same nature and that the way they prescribe something, regardless of the content of the prescription, could involve divergent systems of reasoning – which could generate the diffi culty of achieving a united vision of education. In the case of the second common feature, the present interpretation allows us to state, together with Lyotard,82 that these two documents were 82 Lyotard, Diff erend, pt. Plato notice: Strong and weak; Impiety. Jitka Wirthová 329 written in a pious genre of discourse in the sense that they "remain committed to the gods."83 Th ey did not allow the gods to be talked about and did not admit debate about them. In one case the document brought many gods' messages (human and non-human authorities), in the second the god (reality) speaks for itself. Th e role of the audience in both cases was listening and following appropriately, although in the case of AA at least a channel for dialogue were present. Th ese common features pose an important question about the nature and role of a policy document in contemporary societies, which have received many names, "postmodern" among many. In modern policy ideas, these were the matters of fact, which replaced the role of gods, and which were not subjected to debate. In any case, policy documents, since the origin of the writing of legal texts (although policy documents are not of that mandatory nature) have not been stages in a dialogue; they were not written in the sense of an argumentative transaction among partners, and their role was not a dialogical debate over desired education. As the modern strategy of the planning of the "great project" states, they are prescriptions, but the problem is whether such modern prescriptions are capable of prescribing something in societies which are described as "refl exive," "pluralistic," and "postmodern," what could currently be prescribed and by whom? However, this issue must be left to another study. Th e documents studied in this paper were related to modern policy design in many features, but in many features, they transgress this role – by imposing the responsibility on others (AA) and by particular kinds of evading authorship of the justifi cation, of proof – as being somebody else's prescriptions (the authorities – AA, data – NAA). Although many actors today call for the truly dialogical debate over desired education, in the limited case of the documents under interpretation, the actors did not present a model of the world within which such a dialogue would be possible. Nevertheless, the interesting fi ndings lay primarily in the ways in which the documents diff ered – there were many variations between them and the proofs written within them. Below is a table (see Table 1) illustrating the fourth stage of interpretation, which summarises the diff erences as described in the analytical sections above. 83 Ibid. How to Write a Proof 330 Categories Legitimisation AA NAA Competence Disqualifi cation – they – the Ministry's decision Institutional (authorised) legitimacy Non-responsible evaluators Passive Qualifi cation – we, the authors of this expert document Non-mediated propositions Active Reasonability Pertinence – human knowledge (extensive citations) – we are, too, aware of the same as others Apologetics Justifi cation with reference to the adaptation to the changing world Expressible in curricular documents Pertinence – Transcendental knowledge – expert data says what the problem is Denunciation, propositions Justifi cation with reference to (non-)eff ectivity, (in-)fl exibility Expressible in the vocabulary of fl exibility, eff ectivity, and quality Audience Qualifi cation, voices of other actors (your opinion) You Disqualifi cation – some fi rst (experts – politicians – directors – teachers – parents) Stakeholders Relevance Past – present – answering previous question, functions not fulfi lled Adaptation Because everybody (society) ... Present – future – stating problems, not lagging behind Modernisation Because data ... Proof We, like others (competence dependent on others – the Ministry, Finland, society, the world), are redesigning the revision of reform = impossibility of objection We (competence of experts) are showing what the data says (circular reasoning) = impossibility of objection Table 1. 4th level of interpretation – patterns of justifi cation in the two strategic documents Jitka Wirthová 331 Conclusion In this paper, I have tried through the relational approach to writing strategies to present two diff erent ways of constructing a non-arbitrary need for educational change. I have analysed two popularising policy documents which I have chosen according to their relevance in the pre-election educational debate in 2017. In these documents, the non-arbitrariness was developed with diff erent kinds of proof. Proof could be located in the past or the future; proof can rest in transcendental data or authoritative pretexts. Proof can be written by other people, by the world, or by data. However, both of them were "pedagogical" writings with their purpose being to state what must be done and why, but one wanted to write a guideline but did not want to be responsible, whereas the second refuted the mimesis of reality and wanted to address "more important audiences." Th e contribution of this study, which lies in the detailed characterisation of ways of proving and knowledge usage,84 dwells in two linked layers. Th e study shows what possible forms of competence, knowledge, expertise, and proof can appear in the educational debate in the Czech Republic; but also shows some new linkages among categories, which appeared to transcendent traditional modern policy project, and which could be followed when studying the knowledge in our contemporary societies. It suggests being sensitive to transfers of authorship, to ways of activeness and the layers of this activeness, to presuppositions of conveying reality (mirroring nature in a Rortyian sense), to the ways in which knowledge is aggregated and produced, and, last but not least, to the constitution of the audience and the characteristics of its competence to be part of the proposition about education and in which sense, because these various ways of justifi cation structure the meaning of relevant problems, possible solutions, competent authority, reasonable knowledge, and therefore possible action. It shows that sociological tracing of such categories (instances of event universe) connects with the traditional ethical claim to give those with no voice the chance to speak. In social sciences specifi cally, this means to fi nd the layers of the diff erend, which commonly remain unpronounceable, unpresentable. 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