Education, democracy, and Jean-Francois Lyotard's language games: Accountability and testing in Missouri's public schools

The purpose of this study was to deconstruct, using an analytical framework based on Jean-Francois Lyotard's language games, the Missouri state mandated policy (Senate Bill 380) on school district accountability through testing of students in Missouri's public schools in 2002 in light of the historical purpose of American public education. Accordingly, the policies, practices, and responsibilities of public school systems delineated by legislation should be commensurable with this historical purpose. Because both policies and practices can be viewed as discourse, Lyotard's notion of language games, first introduced by Ludwig Wittgenstein, is applicable as a framework for examining the conditions, categories, and criteria of knowledge among discourses.Two of Lyotard's six conditions of language games were central to this study. One is the relation among the addressor, addressee, referent, and context of any discursive interaction this relation determines each language game. The other is the condition in which two or more language games collide. Lyotard calls this condition a differend. In this regard, the various categories of language games form differends on the bases of their respective criteria.Lyotard emphasizes the denotative game with a true/false criterion of distinction, technical with efficient/inefficient, and prescriptive with just/unjust they each collide with the other. He argues that the differend allows for the resonation of an entirely new solution or ruse. Lyotard describes language games and the interplay between differends and ruses as "literary politics" quintessential to Western society, possessing the potential for justice.For this study, justice is defined as a state of fairness, equal access, or liberty for all, in a case by case context, pertaining to all addressors and addressees regarding any referent. This definition is emblematic of the American democratic ideal of justice expressed as the individual right of freedom of speech and thought, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Applying the framework based on Lyotard's language games, this deconstruction exposed inconsistencies between the notion of justice as an American democratic ideal and Missouri's accountability system for its public schools explicit in Senate Bill 380. This study revealed differends among the intent and effect of Missouri's accountability system.