Purpose

Jake Muller

This blog will present some of my research into post-secondary education in British Columbia (BC), Canada. The post-secondary education that I'm referring to is a community college in northwestern BC. I will be analyzing how the work in this community college was organized (around 2011 to 2013) mainly to serve those who rule others or simply the ruling relations of the province and the community college (those who manage its employees). The overall argument that I will present is that the community community is organized to produce numbers of educated graduates. The emphasis is on numbers involved in programs right through to graduating. This community college is mostly concerned with numbers in its routine workings and that is why this blog is called educating numbers.


I will reveal how the everyday work of various employees, especially those that are unionized, is organized to serve the institution's purpose of generating numbers from interested local people to becoming students and graduating. These numbers are what is significant for community college senior management and the Ministry of Advanced Education of the BC provincial government.

This research is offered as a contribution to what Dorothy Smith has referred to as institutional ethnography. Readers should consult her writings such Institutional Ethnography: A Sociology for People (2005) and Institutional Ethnography as Practice (2006). Her earlier work is, Writing the Social: Critique, Theory, and Investigations (1999 reprinted 2004). Many of her students have also published excellent research material and these are listed in her books.

This blog will be organized similar to that of a book. There will be a table of contents that will be updated as I continue to write this. Then there will be a short acknowledgement blog, a brief introduction, which will be followed by numbered chapters. Each chapter will have numbered sections and subsections.

There may at times be various sizes of fonts and layout changes. I've given up trying to make them consistent using the limited commands on this blogging site.

Lastly, I am using this blog format to provide my research for free. That is, there is no book or journal to buy if you are interested in my writings on this topic. You are welcome to share this material. Please do not plagiarize any of my material (because all the information is copyrighted see below). I hope that you enjoy the free read.

Remember that this blog is meant to be read from the end to the current posting.

Jake Muller  Ⓒ 2018
Notes:
1. Variations in text size are due to the blogging software. I gave up trying to obtain consistency.
2. To read from the beginning you have to scroll down to the Purpose.

(FYI: This site is managed by me and I am the sole proprietor and owner of its contents. The moral rights of the author are asserted. Information on this site may be used according to a Fair Use agreement with credit and source to be given.)