Comparative Education and the Psychology of Marketing

Just reading another paper this morning from Anderson-Levitt (2003), Local Meanings Global Schooling, and found what I thought was a very fitting quote with regards to the underlying theme of yesterday's video (Hong Kong Connection: Fewer Students, Larger Classrooms; RTHK, 2004).

"Educational reform or change is based on the prestige of the source of the loan, which interests potential clients in borrowing. The prestige of the source provides the legitimacy for the change."

The background in the study is similar to the concerns invoked in the RTHK report. The study is set in Israel where the school system was seen to be failing thus requiring a new set of measures to provide a fresh impetus. The Israeli Ministry of Education decided to look abroad to find answers. The ex-Soviet model of education especially in maths and science was seen or portrayed as a role-model and associated with excellence. As a result Russian teaching strategies were imported to Israel and Jewish Russian immigrants were encouraged to teach in Israeli schools.

The parallels that can be drawn from these two “case studies” are manifold but there are two which stand out in particular. First, comparative education, in its broad sense, is used as a means to an end by policy-makers, journalists or other stakeholders in society to promote any given agenda which often leads to a reform. Second, and most interestingly for me, is that when presenting comparative data they use psychological techniques to “sell” their policy.

In another life I studied at a business school majoring in marketing and funnily enough it was there that I first discovered Maslow and not on the benches of a teacher training institute. Yet business schools do not approach “Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs” in the same way as educators do.

Educators use this knowledge to ensure students have fulfilled all of their deficiency needs as this is the sine qua non condition that they engage in learning and become enlightened individuals. Marketers and Publicists use this knowledge of the human psyche to exploit individuals and sell them things.

The process works the same way in the sphere of politics and policy-making of which the media is a part. Two “angles” are used in “psychological marketing”: deficiency needs and “self-actualisation needs”. In layman’s terms we could define these as our “inferiority complexes” and our “aspirations”. The RTHK report played on both these veins to “sell” its message. Aspiration: we all want to be like the successful Americans. Inferiority complex: Shanghai is going to outstrip us.     

While, as a teacher, I agreed with the premise of the RTHK reporter, his use of the same techniques as those used by the establishment to pass on messages was questionable, though maybe necessary. One thing is for sure though, comparative educational data is often formatted in this manner by those who have something to sell.