Reform Happens

What needs to comes first - the desire to advance educationally or the mechanisms (pathways) by which one can do so?

Those who subscribe to the "desire" perspective seem to rely heavily on the argument that success is dependent on how hard you try -- that agency is a function of how badly you want to reach your goal.

Those who subscribe to the pathways perspective - the structure side of things - tend to argue that the barriers are in part what constrain action (and desire).

I find the either/or nature of this issue problematic -- especially in getting students to broaden their understanding of educational attainment issues. I admit, I tend to focus on the structural side of things, but with an important exception -- I (like others) insist that people (we) create structures...we give them meaning and we derive meaning from their properties and histories. As such, as we exercise agency we draw from cultural resources and tools (many of which include the structures in and through which we lead our everyday lives - language, organizations, policies, etc.) in order to act in ways that reinforce, resist or transform our situation and/or surroundings.

It seems that cultural resources and individual "desire" are inextricably interrelated. Thus, the notion that one has to want something for which a sensible pathway toward its achievement (beginning with a vocabulary!) does not exist begs the question, what is leadership for anyway?