James Moring 09331141

A Critical Evaluation of Dale, R. (1994) The McDonaldization of

Schooling and the Street-level Bureaucrat, Curriculum Studies,
Vol.2 No.2, pp.249-262.

McDonaldization is a term which was first properly introduced by sociologist

George Ritzer in his book "The McDonaldization of Society" (1993). Ritzer's
work builds upon Weber's views on bureaucracy in modern societies, but
where Weber used the model of bureaucracy to represent the direction of the
changing society, Ritzer on the other hand, sees the fast-food restaurant as
having become a more representative theory for society as a whole. For
Ritzer (1993), the driving principles at the foundation of McDonald's are
being spread throughout society, it is argued by Ritzer that this drive towards
bureaucratization is largely motivated by profit (Haralambos and Holborn,
2004, p.958). The four main underlying principles of Ritzers McDonaldization
which are at the foundation of McDonald's success, and which have been
exported into many other areas in today's society can be defined as;
Efficiency, Calculability, Predictability and Control (Franklin, 2005).

This paper shall critically evaluate the key points raised by Dale, looking
specifically for a number of things; whether the arguments made follow from
the evidence or propositions given by Dale, whether the concepts and
theories used in the text is well founded, clear and helpful to the reader and
finally the relevance of the arguments given by Dale shall be compared to
what is going on in education today.

Within Dales' article he mentions the replacement of human by non-human

technologies on a number of occasions, this paper counted no less than 6
occurrences, despite this, he never once looks further into this and explained
either how this is taking place or what effect this itself is having on the
education system, for instance on page 254 Dale states that he wants to
emphasise that McDonaldization aims to "control of the workforce, in
particular its ambitions to replace, so far as possible, humans with non-
human technologies". Dale does not however state anything else about this

1
James Moring 09331141

subject and instead moves on instantly to discuss what is taught within

schools. There are a number of simple examples that could be used to show
how technology can not only control, but benefit teachers by being more
accurate and almost entirely remove human error, examples of this could be
the biometric systems which are used in various schools such as in lunch
programs in Pennsylvania or in a school library in Minnesota (Podio, F., L.,
2001), the introduction of such systems means there is more control over
how processes are handled. It is clear that there may be many situations
where non-human technologies may be beneficial when compared to a
human option, however, when this was described by Dale as a point he
wishes to emphasise, there is more he could have done.

Dale's then gave his views on Ritzer's book, he does agree with Ritzer on a
number of things and what Dale does is to take Ritzer's views regarding
McDonaldization and apply them more specifically to education, for instance,
Dale looked at the National Curricular as a clear attempt to increase the
predictability of the education system, the assessment measures he believes
are aimed at enhancing the calculability, Dale also discusses that efficiency
has been at the centre of all academic reforms over the past decade, and he
looks at a whole series of other reforms as a way to increase control [1], it
should be noted that despite mentioning a fair number of different "reforms",
he does fail to mention any specific reforms which could prove his point.
Saying that Dale has made it clear to the reader that there is a significant
amount of McDonaldization within the education system within the UK.

Dale next looked into the education system, and looked at the four main
aspects of McDonaldization identified by both Dale and this paper as;
Efficiency, Calculability, Predictability and Control. Dale compared these to
aspects of the English education system to show how McDonldized the
system already is. From the information he discussed it is easy to agree with
his views, that the current National Curricular increases the predictability of
the education system, assessment measures enhance the calculability, both

2
James Moring 09331141

of teachers and indeed of pupils, also that efficiency and control have been at
the centre of academic reforms over the past decade, his opinion is backed
up by Fuhrman and Elmore who both agree that new state education reforms
are "exerting strong influences on the classroom" (1990:82).

Other key areas which Dale identifies and discuses are comparing other
public sectors to education, where he has identified schools as being run
more like businesses than anything else, due to the effects of
McDonaldization, he draws on a comparison between schools and Courts,
when looking at the legal way in which courts and schools administrators
exercise their powers, Dale uses a well structured quotation from
Frankenberge to convey his opinion on this. However, Dale continues with his
comparisons and goes on to compare the education sector to a construction
company, Dale looks at Appay who carried out a study of English and French
employers and she showed that there has been an absence of traditionally
skilled workers, which has meant that they cannot ensure an effective job.
The contrast between teachers and manual labour is something which cannot
be made, each person goes through at least 10 years of schooling in
England, which means that even with the changes to more vocational
training everyone has had some experience with teaching, construction is
something that you do need more specific training in. [2]

The two core features of McDonaldization Dale believes to have a greater

impact that the others, are "franchising" and increasing the "control".
Franchising is not something previously mentioned within his article as a
main example of McDonaldization, however, he does go into depth explaining
what he means, especially when comparing it to "Kentucky Fried Schooling",
Dale defined franchising as a way of coordinating collective social
arrangements, with special regards to funding, provision and regulation of
education. However, Dale does state that this is a highly bureaucratic
method, what Dale fails to do is to explore it further, he even states that all
he has done is to define a meaning of franchising in education and outline

3
James Moring 09331141

some characteristics of it, there is no depth why he believes education has

become franchised, no mention of changes in schools financing or mention of
the changes in Governmental expectations regarding an increase in the
national level of participation in higher education as identified by Yorke
(1993).

Dale gives three general conclusions to his document, firstly he looks at the
new managerialism within schools, he argues that although McDonaldization
is a clear factor, there is more going on within schools than can be provided
by this "analogy". This conclusion he has given is very poor, there has been
very little evidence behind this and the majority of his article is written to
show how and where McDonaldization is in affect within schools, from
reading his article it is clear to see that McDonaldization is a very good
example of how schools are starting to act, even fitting each of the four main
areas of McDonaldization identified by this paper and by Dale himself, to
areas with education in England.

Dale's secondly conclusion he gives is for comparing McDonaldization within

schools to "Watneyisation" a brewing company which tried itself to maximise
their convenience, control and profit. By doing this he has missed the
comparison for what each organisation is providing, as well as comparing the
consumers, trying to show that as the Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) was
able to stop this progression in the brewery the same thing would happen
within schools is completely unfounded, and education of today's youth
should not and cannot be compared to the selling of beer.
The final conclusion given by Dale is that McDonaldization would cause
limited scope for individual discretion and an increasingly routinized and
subdued workforce, which once again is new information given to the reader
in the conclusion without merit or foundation provided, Dale also asks a
number of questions at the very end, designed to make the reader think
more about what he has written and the potential issues McDonaldization
could cause within the educational system.

4
James Moring 09331141

In general Dales' article provides an interesting look at the McDonaldization

of the schooling system here in England, there are a number of areas
identified however where he has not gone into enough detail for the reader,
or provided useful examples. In general the concepts and theories used by
Dale throughout are sound, but once again he failed to explain himself
correctly, a prime example of this would be when he was referring to
franchising in education. Finally Dales' conclusions he gave were very poor,
and they seemed unfounded based upon the rest of the article, it is the
conclusion of this paper that McDonaldization does occur within the education
system in England, however McDonalds is a multi billion pound transnational
cooperation, they have clearly come up with a very accomplished business
model, why should this not be something implemented in other businesses
and even schools.

[1] The control in question can be attained in a number of ways, one

particular method which has been introduced in 2002 was the Threshold
Assessment for measuring teachers pay, this introduction of performance
related pay and in time the introduction of a bonus culture within schools is
something which has been used as a control method, but also as a way to
improve and increase calculability, The BBC in 2009 stated that An
unwelcome bonus culture is creeping into head teachers pay, diverting funds
from the classroom, a teachers leader is warning (BBC, 2009). So the
bonus culture and indeed the performance related pay is already in place to
try to increase control and accountability.

[2] It is interesting to compare the vocational side of teaching to manual

labour as Dale has here, Teaching in general is normally thought of as a more
professional type of job, however the argument put forward by this paper

5
James Moring 09331141

would actually debate this as it is stated less training may be needed to

perform as a teach when compared to construction. David Carr (2003) states
that teaching is a more complex role, involving two key elements;
Competence in certain skills and forms of knowledge I.e. the subjects that
they teach, and a moral basis, education promotes human well being and
social justice. However by this definition if they know the subject they are to
teach and have a sound moral basis they would not need additional skills or
training, which agrees with this papers views rather than those of Dale.

6
James Moring 09331141

References

BBC (2009) Bonus secondary head suspended, BBC News, 13th May, online
at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/8047700.stm

Carr, D. (2003) Making Sense of Education: An introduction to the philosophy

and theory of education and teaching, London: RoutledgeFalmer.

Franklin, B. (2005). McJournalism: The local press and the McDonaldization

thesis. In Allan, S. (Ed.) Journalism: Critical issues. Maidenhead: Open U
Press.

Fuhrman, S., H., and Elmore, R., F., (1990) Understanding Local Control in
the Wake of State Education Reform, Educational Evaluation and Policy
Analysis, vol. 12 no. 1 82-96

Haralambos, M. & Holborn, M. (2004) Sociology: Themes and Perspectives

(6th Edition), London: HarperCollins.

Podio, F., L., (2001) Biometrics - Technologies for High Secure Personal
Authentication, ITL Bulletin, online available from http://femto-
second.com/Documents/ITL_Bulletins/05-01.pdf [accessed 20/02/13]

Ritzer, G. (1993) The McDonaldization of Society, Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine

Forge Press

Yorke, M., (1993) Quality Assurance for Higher Education Franchising, Higher
Education, Volume 26, Issue 2, pp 167-182