Open AccessThe Sixth "P" – Politics
Author(s) -
Dean Fink
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
journal of invitational theory and practice
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1060-6041
DOI - 10.26522/jitp.v19i.3742
Subject(s) - contradiction , politics , political science , political process , sociology , pedagogy , mathematics education , public administration , gender studies , psychology , law , epistemology , philosophy
Invitational theory presents the concept of invitations as related to five factors: people, places, policies,programs, and processes (Purkey & Schmidt, 1990). In this article, I propose the addition of a sixth "P," politics.The assumption is that without addressing the political aspect of schools and school systems, success of theinvitational model with the other five dimensions is undermined or negated at best.In spite of reform movements of past and recent years the "deep structures of schooling," as Cuban (1990)described them, are unchanged. Schools remain characterized by balkanized divisions or departments (Hargreaves,1989). Students are taught subjects, failed and retained in grades, or passed and graduated with little empiricalsupport for either process. Likewise, students are "labelled, libeled, sorted and grouped" in contradiction to thefindings of educational research (Purkey & Novak, 1984). Why, in spite of a plethora of change efforts over theyears, are schools fundamentally the same as they used to be?