JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN SCIENCE TEACHING VOL. 35, NO. 4, PP.

423–425 (1998)

Mechanisms of Differentiation: A Response to Roth and McGinn

Michael W. Apple
Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Wisconsin, Madison,
225 North Mills Street, Madison, Wisconsin 53706

At the outset of this brief response, let me simply stipulate a set of general points for which
there is now ample documentation. Education is deeply implicated in processes of social and
cultural differentiation. The policies and practices in curriculum, teaching, and evaluation par-
ticipate in these processes (e.g., Halsey, Lauder, Brown, & Wells, 1997; Apple, 1990, 1993).
How this goes on is extremely complex and cannot be understood without employing theoreti-
cal and empirical tools developed within critical structural and poststructural analysis. The as-
sumption that we can solve educational dilemmas through the application of increasingly so-
phisticated psychological theories is not warranted. Only by examining education as a fully
social process in which power operates in multiple ways and at multiple levels can we begin to
make sense of what is possible in educational reform.
Such a critical sociocultural perspective is not as well developed in science education as it
has been in other areas. It requires a dual sensitivity: one based on the principles of what has
been called “relational” analysis, in which any object or act is known through its sets of con-
nections to other objects and acts, and one that is close to Bourdieu’s dictum that “trespassing”
is a prerequisite to advance (Bourdieu, 1994, 1996). Roth and McGinn (1998) embody both of
these principles. They connect taken-for-granted activities to the micropolitics of differentiation
in institutions such as schools, and they do so by employing theoretical traditions taken from
cultural studies of science and from philosophies that are not often found within the science ed-
ucation community.
While I have elsewhere cautioned critical researchers about overemphasizing poststructur-
al approaches to the extent that they ignore a number of gains in our understanding made by
structurally oriented models (Apple, 1996), there is no doubt in my mind that such poststruc-
tural theories illuminate things of immense importance to anyone interested in what education
does socially. This is demonstrated in Roth and McGinn’s insightful use of a combination of La-
tour and Foucault in their analysis of the mechanisms (inscriptions, boundary objects, and ac-
tor networks) through which grading works as a technology of differentiation and “normaliza-
tion.” These insights can provide one of the foundations for more socially and culturally critical
research in science education.
Let me suggest a few of the many areas where some of this further critical research on dif-
ferentiating mechanisms might usefully go.

1. The more general issue of the use of these technologies needs to be complemented by
further detailed investigations of the specific patterns of differentiation by, say, gender,

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424 APPLE

class, and race. We should not assume that these mechanisms work in the same ways
with all people or that all actors interpret them in the same ways (Weis & Fine, 1993).
2. Given this, we should also engage in detailed critical analyses of the complex mean-
ings attached to grading by the subjects of such technologies of differentiation. As well,
we should not assume that teachers or students are totally unaware of what is happen-
ing. How do they understand these things? How do they possibly find the holes in these
discourses and mechanisms in creative ways so as to allow for spaces of resistance?
This is crucial, since we need to remember that the discourses and practices of nor-
malization and differentiation—even for Foucault—necessarily imply resistance. Not
to do this gives us a very static analysis with no room for agency and social transfor-
mation. This clearly will require more qualitative research on the interpretive process-
es of teachers and students, one which connects these interpretations to the formation
of ideologies and social identities (e.g., Casey, 1993; Weinstein, 1995).
3. Historical investigations of the development of such differentiating policies and prac-
tices specific to science education—similar to what Foucault himself did in his schol-
arship on the development of prisons, hospitals, and schools—would also be useful
here. This would need to be sensitive to complexity and contradiction. All social prac-
tices in schools are the results of conflicts, alliances, and compromises among groups
with competing psychological, social, and epistemological positions (Apple, 1996).
Grading practices are no exception to this. A history of the growth of and debates over
the formation and institutionalization of such differentiating practices and of the in-
scriptions, boundary objects, and actor networks that support them would provide a
sense of the actual historical constitution of the technologies that Roth and McGinn fo-
cus upon.
4. Finally, at the level of theory, it would be important for critical researchers to closely
examine the debates over Latour and Foucault within the fields where they originated
or where they have already had an influence. Although Roth and McGinn have made
insightful use of these theories, all too often when trespassing occurs and new ap-
proaches are brought into a field such as education, they are pulled out of the context
of debate they have engendered. This can lead to uncritical acceptance and the appro-
priation of relatively surface versions of more elegant and sophisticated theories. Giv-
en the importance I attach to efforts such as Roth and McGinn’s intervention, it is cru-
cial that those who wish to follow its lead in science education delve deeply into the
debates surrounding Latour and Foucault and between poststructural and other critical
approaches.

Of course, these are not the only areas in need of such research, nor do they encompass the
total universe of methods and theoretical and political agendas of varied structural and post-
structural approaches. Roth and McGinn open a door more widely than had previously been the
case. Let us hope that it and other doors open even more widely in the future.

References
Apple, M.W. (1990). Ideology and curriculum. New York: Routledge.
Apple, M.W. (1993). Official knowledge. New York: Routledge.
Apple, M.W. (1996). Cultural politics and education. New York: Teachers College Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Bourdieu, P. (1996) The state nobility. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Casey, K. (1993). I answer with my life. New York: Routledge.
Halsey, A.H., Lauder, H., Brown, P., & Wells, A.S. (Eds.). (1997). Education: Culture, econ-
omy and society. New York: Oxford University Press.
 MECHANISMS OF DIFFERENTIATION 425

Roth, W.-M., & McGinn, M.K. (1998). .unDELETE science education:/lives/work/voices.

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Weinstein, M. (1995). Robot world: A study of science, reality, and the struggle for mean-
ing. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Weis, L. & Fine, M. (Eds.). (1993). Beyond silenced voices. Albany: State University of
New York Press.