Education, Culture and Values: Including (Values, Culture and Education Series)

Education, Culture and Values Volume III The six volumes that comprise the Education, Culture and Values series bring together contributions from experts around the world to form, for the first time, a comprehensive treatment of the current concern with values in education. The series seeks to address this concern in the context of cultural and values diversity. The first three volumes provide a wide-ranging consideration of the diversity of values in education at all levels, and thus represent a framework for the second three volumes which focus more specifically on values education (moral, religious, spiritual and political) per se. The six volumes, therefore, bring the fundamental domain of values together with the important issue of pluralism to generate new, fruitful and progressive reflection and exemplars of good practice. The series will be of huge benefit and interest to educators, policy-makers, parents, academics, researchers and student teachers. The six volumes contain: • diverse and challenging opinions about current educational concerns and reforms in values education • chapters from more than 120 contributors of international repute from 23 different countries • conceptual clarification and theoretical analysis • empirical studies, reports of practical projects and guidance for good practice. Volumes I–III: Values Diversity in Education Volume I—Systems of Education: Theories, Policies and Implicit Values is concerned with the theoretical and conceptual framework for reflecting about values, culture and education and thus provides an introduction to the series as a whole. It is concerned with state and policy level analysis across the world. Volume II—Institutional Issues: Pupils, Schools and Teacher Education considers values and culture at the institutional level. What constitutes a good ‘whole school’ approach in a particular area? There are discussions of key issues and reports of wholeschool initiatives from around the world. Several chapters focus on the vital issue of teacher education. Volume III—Classroom Issues: Practice, Pedagogy and Curriculum focuses on the classroom: pedagogy, curriculum and pupil experience. Areas of curriculum development include the relatively neglected domains of mathematics and technology, as well as the more familiar literature and drama. There is a useful section on aesthetic education. Volumes IV–VI: Values Education in Diversity Volume IV—Moral Education and Pluralism is focused on moral education and development in the context of cultural pluralism. There are highly theoretical discussions

of difficult philosophical issues about moral relativism as well as practical ideas about good practice. Volume V—Spiritual and Religious Education distinguishes religious and spiritual education and takes a multifaith approach to pedagogic, curricular and resource issues. The important issue of collective worship is also addressed. Volume VI—Politics, Education and Citizenship is concerned with political education and citizenship. Again chapters from several countries lend an international perspective to currently influential concerns and developments, including democratic education, human rights, national identity and education for citizenship.

Education, Culture and Values Volume III

Classroom Issues: Practice, Pedagogy and Curriculum Edited by

Mal Leicester, Celia Modgil and Sohan Modgil

London and New York

First published 2000 by Falmer Press 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Falmer Press, 19 Union Square West, New York, NY 10003 Falmer Press is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to http://www.ebookstore.tandf.co.uk/.“ © 2000 Selection and editorial material Mal Leicester, Celia Modgil, Sohan Modgil; individual chapters the contributors The rights of the editors and contributors to be identified as the Authors of this Work have been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Classroom issues: practice, pedagogy, and curriculum/edited by Mal Leicester, Celia Modgil, Sohan Modgil. p. cm.—(Education, culture, and values; v. 3) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Moral education. 2. Teaching. 3. Learning. 4. Curriculum planning. 5. Multicultural education. I. Leicester, Mal. II. Modgil, Celia. III. Modgil, Sohan. IV. Series. LC268.C52 1999 370.11′4–dc21 99–39368 CIP ISBN 0-203-98410-2 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-7507-1018-7 (Print Edition) (6-volume set) 0-7507-1002-0 (Print Edition) (volume I) 0-7507-1003-9 (Print Edition) (volume II) 0-7507-1004-7 (Print Edition) (volume III) 0-7507-1005-5 (Print Edition) (volume IV) 0-7507-1006-3 (Print Edition) (volume V) 0-7507-1007-1 (Print Edition) (volume VI)

Contents

List of Contributors Editors’ Foreword Mal Leicester, Celia Modgil and Sohan Modgil

Part One: Classroom Practice 1 Value Issues in Developing Children’s Thinking Michael Bennett 2 Cooperative Learning, Values, and Culturally Plural Classrooms David W.Johnson and Roger T.Johnson 3 Explicit Values in the Classroom: Is it Possible? Karen Caple 4 Growing up Today: Children Talking about Social Issues Cathie Holden 5 Discussion of Values and the Value of Discussion Graham Haydon Part Two: Pedagogy 6 The Way Tests Teach: Children’s Theories of How Much Testing is Fair in School Theresa A.Thorkildsen 7 Cultural Diversity: Concept and Ideology as a Pedagogical Resource? Karsten Douglas 8 Motivating Students to Succeed: The Work of Birmingham Compact 1988– 94 Stephen Bigger 9 Mapping Schooling Types and Pedagogies within Different Values Frameworks

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2 18 37 53 72 82

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Frameworks Jan Currie Part Three: Curriculum 10 The (Multicultural) Educational Value of the Aesthetic Dimension of Experience Janet Ferguson 11 Cultural Diversity in Art Education Helen Charman 12 Who Decides for Posterity? On the Concept of Classical Art Ruth Lorand 13 The Use of Stories in Intercultural Education Piero Paolicchi 14 Aesthetics, The Arts and Post-School Education David Jones 15 Values and Visions: Values Education in a Pluralist Society Sally Burns 16 Tolerating the Alien: Empathy in History Education Marnie Hughes-Warrington 17 Language Education for a Pluralistic Society Elisabeth Gfeller 18 The Role of Values in Psychology: Implications for a Reformed Curriculum Ben Bradley 19 Sexuality Education, Values, and Cultural Diversity: International Developments and Questions Arising Ronald W.Morris 20 Mathematics as Social Practice in a South African Workplace Context Dave Baker 21 Design and Technology Education for a Pluralist Society Bernard Down Index

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166 183 198 212 224 240 252 271 291

304 324

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Contributors

Dave Baker Senior Lecturer in Education, Faculty of Education, Sport and Leisure, University of Brighton, UK Stephen Bigger Head of Applied Education Studies, University College, Worcester, UK Michael Bonnett Senior Lecturer in Education, Homerton College, Cambridge, UK Ben Bradley Professor of Psychology, Charles Sturt University, Australia Sally Burns Educational Consultant, Wales, UK Karen Caple Coordinator, Schools Values Project, Association of Independent Schools of Western Australia, Australia Helen Charman Formerly Educational Coordinator, The October Gallery, London, UK Jan Currie Associate Professor in Education, School of Education, Murdoch University, Western Australia Karsten Douglas PhD Candidate, Department of Educational and Psychological Research, Malmö School of Education, Lund University, Malmö, Sweden Bernard Down Senior Lecturer in Education, Brunel University, UK Janet Ferguson Independent scholar and Training and Development Consultant, Bermuda and UK Elisabeth Gfeller Consultant to Switzerland Linguistic Training Centre and Member of the PROPELCA team (an experimental trilingual Education Project of the University of Yaoundé, Cameroon) Graham Haydon Lecturer in Education, Institute of Education, University of London, UK Cathie Holden Senior Lecturer in Education, University of Exeter, UK Marnie Hughes-Warrington Lecturer, Department of Modern History, Macquarie University, Australia David W.Johnson Professor of Educational Psychology, University of Minnesota, Cooperative Learning Centre, USA Roger T.Johnson Professor of Education, University of Minnesota, Co-operative Learning Centre, USA David Jones Senior Lecturer in Adult Education, Pilgrim College, UK Mal Leicester Senior Lecturer in Continuing Education, Warwick University, UK Ruth Lorand Senior Lecturer in Philosophy, Department of Philosophy, University of Haifa, Israel Celia Modgil Senior Lecturer in Education, Goldsmiths College, London University, UK

Sohan Modgil Reader in Educational Research and Development, University of Brighton, UK Ronald W.Morris Associate Professor in Education, Department of Culture and Values in Education, McGill University, Canada Piero Paolicchi Professor of Social Psychology, Dip. di Scienze Sociali, Universitá di Pisa, Italy Theresa A.Thorkildsen Associate Professor of Education and Psychology, College of Education, University of Illinois, USA

Editors’ Foreword

This is one volume in a series of six, each concerned with education, culture and values. Educators have long recognized that ‘education’ is necessarily value laden and, therefore, that value issues are inescapable and fundamental, both in our conceptions of education and in our practice of it. These issues are particularly complex in the context of cultural pluralism. In a sense the collection is a recognition, writ large, of this complexity and of our belief that since values are necessarily part of education, we should be explicit about what they are, and about why we choose those we do and who the ‘we’ is in relation to the particular conception and practices in question. The first three volumes in the series deal with values diversity in education—the broader issues of what values ought to inform education in and for a plural society. The second three focus more narrowly on values education as such—what is the nature and scope of moral education, of religious and political education and of political and citizenship education in and for such a society? Thus collectively they consider both values diversity in education and values education in diversity. Individually they each have a particular level. Thus volumes 1–3 cover the levels of system, institution and classroom. Volumes 4–6 focus respectively on moral education, religious and spiritual education, politics and citizenship education. This structure is intended to ensure that the six volumes in the series are individually discrete but complementary. Given the complexity of the value domain and the sheer diversity of values in culturally plural societies it becomes clear why 120 chapters from 23 countries merely begin to address the wealth of issues relating to ‘Education, Culture and Values’. Mal Leicester, Celia Modgil and Sohan Modgil

Part One Classroom Practice

1 Value Issues in Developing Children’s Thinking MICHAEL BONNETT It is a commonplace to observe that education is a highly value-laden notion and the general sense in which this is true was nicely captured in R.S. Peters’ (1966, p. 25) classic characterization of the concept as the transmission of something worthwhile in a morally acceptable manner. And formal definitions such as this apart, it is clear that the practice of education unavoidably exhibits certain values. For example, the selection of curriculum content and teaching style, discipline regimes, the use of praise, the teacher’s overt enthusiasms and ways of interacting with children, all do this. Yet notwithstanding this awareness of the ways in which values are embedded in education, there sometimes remains a tendency to see the development of children’s thinking as a purely cognitive matter—a ‘neutral’ getting them to ‘think better’: more logically, rationally, critically, creatively, etc. This stance is reinforced to some extent by the influence of notions of children’s thinking as passing through universal cognitive stages as for example argued by Piaget, or as being enhanced through the development of certain techniques or the acquisition of ‘executive thinking skills’ identified by metacognitive psychology. The problem here is that this general outlook can divert attention from the fact that not only is developing children’s thinking a highly value-laden activity, there is also an important diversity of views over some of the values involved. This point becomes explicit in general terms when we start to examine the notion of quality in children’s thinking. This paper will begin to explore some important senses in which developing children’s thinking raises value issues and to explore their further ramifications for education. I will begin by briefly mentioning two fairly obvious senses in which the development of children’s thinking involves values, before moving on to examine in more depth some further equally important but less overt senses. First, from the point of view of the traditional curriculum in which thinking is structured in terms of different subject areas, some of these are quite explicitly concerned with values, e.g. those that deal with moral, social, political, aesthetic, and spiritual issues. ‘Neutral’ approaches to teaching in these areas have sometimes been advocated precisely because the values element is prominent and there is a pluralism of views with regard to many of them. Second, what we think affects how we feel and how we act: our emotions and behaviour are informed by our appraisals of the situations in which we find ourselves. For example, to feel indignation involves seeing a situation as in some way unjust. It is therefore very important for the thinking integral to our affective and practical life to be examined in terms of the values which inform it. Such critical evaluation can make a significant contribution to overcoming the power of blind prejudices and stereotypes in the shaping of attitudes and behaviour. But sometimes the presence of values is less obvious and/or occurs at a deeper level. The most potent kind of values transmission is that which is implicit since there is then no opportunity to monitor what is going on. And some of the values embedded in developing children’s thinking have remained so implicit as to be virtually invisible to

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both teachers and learners. For example, this can often be true with regard to the underlying criteria—and therefore values—which have determined the selection, presentation and interpretation of ‘the facts’ taken to describe a certain historical or religious event. This brings me to a critical point: no thinking is simply a matter of the neutral application of concepts or mental ‘skills’, but centrally involves motives and attitudes. This is true in (at least) two ways: (a) Unlike the Platonic picture of thinking which has as its ultimate point of reference a realm of pure abstract ideas, more plausible views of the matter suggest that the touchstone of thought is our ongoing involvement in a world of everyday things and situations in which we conduct the business of living. Affect and cognition are intimately interwoven in our participation in, and understanding of, this world. The whole enterprise of thinking is therefore shot through with values—and, often, value conflicts. A specific example of the latter on the grand scale was Darwin’s dilemma over the publication of the Origin of Species, more widespread might be tensions between business, professional and personal ethics. But, more generally, it is now widely recognized that the very terms of our everyday language and thought reflect the values embedded in different social practices and ‘forms of life’. (b) Arising from the above, it will be argued that it is possible to identify certain fundamental ‘modes’ of thinking which express different ambitions and thus different sets of values. Emphasizing any such mode of thinking in education is to inculcate its associated values at the expense of other possibilities, and some of these values are increasingly contentious. Clearly differences in emphasis in what is taught imply certain priorities and status-relationships between the values involved. Now there are myriad ways of classifying thinking. The ten-subject UK National Curriculum is one such and it is not difficult to detect value tensions within it—and some pretty unambiguous indications of differential status and priorities in its subject structure as, for example, in the identification of English, mathematics and science as ‘core subjects’. In the rest of this paper I will make use of a classification of basic modes of thinking which undercuts the issues raised by subject divisions and reveals some fundamental value issues which lie at the heart of the development of children’s thinking and the quality of their understanding. It will be argued that this analysis has wide ramifications and presents educators with some far-reaching issues.

Three fundamental modes of thinking There have long been dichotomies within the western tradition of thinking (and in some senses between its dominant motives and those of some other traditions) along the following lines: public/private; objective/subjective; classicism/ romanticism; ‘rational’/‘intuitive’; sciences/arts. These have not altogether been eclipsed by the modern/postmodern debate and they continue to resonate in many guises. (Indeed, the fragmentation and relativism of postmodernism can of course be seen in part as a subjectivist response to the Enlightenment project of achieving ‘grand narratives’.) It seems to me that some central facets of this complex tension can be brought to the

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surface by an analysis of thinking as operating in three distinctive modes: ‘rationalcalculative’, ‘authentic’, ‘poetic’. Before developing this analysis, let me say immediately that it is not being suggested that concrete examples of thinking are necessarily, or indeed often, ‘pure’ in terms of such modes. Nonetheless each mode will be taken to represent a significantly different way of relating to the world and to express an important set of values. Furthermore, it will be argued that in modern technological society, the rationalcalculative mode is very much in the ascendant and this has important consequences for our underlying relationship with the world. I will now attempt to give a characterization of each of these modes of thinking and to outline the motives and values that lie at their heart. (These will be illustrated further when their broader ramifications are explored in the final sections of the paper.) Rational-calculative thinking ‘Rational-calculative’ thinking is essentially instrumental in outlook. In this frame of mind we classify things—and people—in terms of their use: as ‘chairs’, ‘tables’ and ‘telephones’; as ‘doctors’, ‘dentists’, ‘customers’, ‘manpower’, etc. Rivers may be seen as a source of hydro-electricity, mountains as a source of ore, and both as a source of attraction for a tourist industry. Plants and animals, relationships and institutions, ideas and theories—all are encountered and set up in instrumental terms. Thus for this type of thinking, things do not have an intrinsic value, but are valued centrally in terms of how we ‘reckon them up’ in terms of their capacity to serve further ends. Their value, and indeed their very meaning, becomes a function of where they are located in the complex webs of self-orientated human purposes which constitute our commerce with the world around us. It is important to recognize that such thinking subordinates things to these ends in two ways: (a) through viewing them in terms of its instrumental plans and (b) in tandem with this, and through its aspiration to manage things—its need to get them ‘ordered up’ through the imposition of a system of publicly shared conceptual schemes which enable common purposes to be expressed and pursued. The fluid, the changing, the mysterious, cannot be organized: it has first to be captured, stabilized, by being defined. This has the effect of transforming unique things into instances of general categories. Things become objects—defined in terms of the properties that are standard for the category to which they have been allotted, other aspects losing visibility. Thus the vital ‘presencing’ of a wild flower in the grass—the unique fullness of its standing there—may be reduced in our sight to its exemplifying a certain genus, to its being the product of some evolutionary process or the source of some drug or other commodity. A person may be viewed primarily as instancing a certain personality type or as occupier of certain roles so as to lose sight of her unique and in some ways indefinable many-sidedness. Through this process of objectification, things can be the better manipulated in thought, i.e. put into chains of reasoning which constitute our theories and plans and whose ultimate goal is to predict, control and exploit aspects of our environment. The underlying values expressed by this calculative thinking, then, are those associated with mastery: systematic analysis and organization; pre-specification and objectification, with the ultimate goal of converting everything into a possessable and

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efficiently manageable resource. It expresses a sort of ‘frontier’ spirit towards the world; a constant drive to extend control, to harness and to utilize. Clearly such thinking is an able servant of a society whose main goal is economic productivity (whether centralized or free market) and its huge success in this context holds the danger of making other modes of thinking appear feeble or wayward in comparison. Rational-calculative thinking in its various modes (such as scientific, mathematical, and technological) promises to set the standard for all thinking and the values that it expresses promise to assume an impregnable position—particularly in a consumerist, market-driven society. Authentic thinking Preoccupation with the publicly agreed categories, procedures and standards through which rational-calculative thinking is articulated runs the risk of producing a depersonalized understanding. With its focus upon what is technically correct in terms of public standards rather than the personal and moral significance of what in some sense is known, it could lead to one having a near-perfect intellectual grasp of, say, the theory of evolution, the working of society, the global ecosystem, etc., but feeling no personal point or value in such knowledge. A student might be able to give the rationale for a moral code, but feel no commitment to it. He or she might be able to evaluate a piece of literature or the actions of some historical character through the estimations of others more knowledgeable, but feel untouched by what they know. ‘Authentic’ thinking involves relating what one knows to one’s sense of one’s own existence: appreciating what it implies for one’s outlook and one’s actions in a way that properly acknowledges the element of personal responsibility that each of us has for how we live our lives (Bonnett, 1978, 1994; Cooper, 1983). Søren Kierkegaard (1843) once made the point that what we so often need to do in order to progress in our understanding, is not to acquire yet more knowledge, but to ‘catch up’ with what we in some sense already know. He was writing in the aftermath of the knowledge explosion of the eighteenth-century European Enlightenment and this emphasis on what we might term ‘subjective depth’ of understanding seems no less pertinent today when the rate of proliferation and dissemination of knowledge is even more rapid with the burgeoning of information and communications technology. Clearly this subjective dimension to thinking and understanding is relevant in varying degrees and in different ways depending on the particular content of what is to be understood. Sometimes, as say in the case of learning the rules of arithmetic, it may be sufficient that one simply sees the point of what one is learning and how it may feed into one’s own life. But sometimes, as say with learning about World War I, a deeper response needs to be evoked. If one learnt the statistics, but remained unaffected by the conditions under which this war was fought—the fear, the courage, the suffering, the pointlessness—such learning would be shorn of much of its educative quality. From this perspective, then, the development of the learner’s own view on what is learnt is paramount and is seen as the source of personal meaning in education. The idea of authentic learning suggests that proper understanding requires a reflective interpretation of material which is infused with the individual’s own feelings and concerns, and through which those feelings and concerns themselves are enlarged and refined. It values

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subjective quality of knowledge rather than objective quantity and involves a range of attitudes constitutive of personal integrity such as sense of self-worth, courage of one’s convictions, perseverance, confidence to question, take risks, face consequences. It places respect for learners and their genuine individuation through taking personal responsibility at the heart of developing their thinking. Poetic thinking What appears for rational-calculative thinking is conditioned by the instrumental and prespecifying categories which it imposes on the world. What appears for authentic thinking is conditioned by the self-referencing concerns expressed by the thinker. By contrast, poetic thinking attempts to be receptive to things themselves—in their many-sidedness and particularity. It represents a frame of mind in which instrumental and self-referencing concerns drop away to a significant degree so that a more direct participation in the here and now is possible. Instead of subjecting things to rational scrutiny it celebrates the sheer presence and vital immediacy of things. It is thus often expressed in a language which breaks down the levelling and constraining power of rational-calculative categories through the use of metaphor and through potentially more direct forms of expression such as art and music which can invite us to experience things afresh, freed-up from instrumental and commercial preoccupations. Take for example the paintings of Van Gogh: in these we are invited to participate in the unique vibrant qualities of these sunflowers, these trees outside Saint Remy asylum, this cornfield, etc. The most obvious manifestations of poetic thinking are of this kind: contemplation of works of art; wonderment in the presence of certain aspects of nature such as the variety and beauty of life in a drop of pond water or the immensity of the galaxy; entering into a poem or novel or dramatic role; responding creatively to inherent qualities of materials such as wood or clay with which we are working (in contrast to the process of modern manufacturing which decides in advance the detail of what is to be produced and attempts to order up materials to suit). Here we may have experiences which quite outrun our ability to capture them in rational categories and explanations. But poetic thinking is potentially more extensive than these examples suggest. For example, it is sometimes natural to, and often highly appropriate to, human relationships. The ability to empathize with another or to love wholeheartedly are cases in point. Such an orientation does not seek to manipulate and change another, but is receptive/responsive in spirit and therefore encourages others to reveal themselves in their uniqueness more fully. The values that inform poetic thinking, then, can be summarized as follows: it seeks harmony rather than power, receptiveness rather than imposition, it celebrates rather than dominates, it is openly curious and wondering rather than goal-orientated and ‘problemsolving’, it acknowledges mystery and strangeness rather than demanding transparency through explanation, it stays with things in their wholeness rather than analysing them into constituent parts. There is a sense in which poetic thinking is itself deeply pluralistic—it seeks to preserve and enhance the rich individuality of things in their organic interrelatedness. It seeks not to use (up), but to serve in the sense of bringing what is incipiently there more fully into being, as say when a craftsperson brings out the quality of grain dormant in wood or the lustre resting in metal. And in this way it can be of the greatest importance in understanding and appreciating our world, providing a more

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direct and evocative intuition of the truth of a situation. Consider, for example, how the image of an oil-covered bird can affect our sense of what risks it is appropriate to take with the environment. Here again deeper feelings and understandings, hitherto perhaps half-formed, or tranquillized, or covered over, can be disclosed. Now clearly it would be wrong to assume that these three dimensions of thinking are mutually exclusive, or that (as previously mentioned) any specific example of ‘real’ thinking will be ‘pure’ in terms of them. Much is hybrid and frequently it will be a matter of emphasis. Nonetheless we can begin to see that, qualitatively, there are some basic distinctions to be drawn. Further, it is plain that, at the level at which we are now considering thinking quality, we are not merely dealing with purely intellectual or cognitive capacities, but broad ways of relating to the world which include attitudes, dispositions and emotions. We are dealing, not with sets of neutral procedures or processes, but with stances to life that are highly value-laden. Such stances both inform and reflect, reinforce and are reinforced by, different social and institutional arrangements and relations with the environment. The pluralism which they represent is at the heart of a great many of the value tensions and conflicts endemic to western society and its globalization. In the remainder of this chapter I will sketch some ramifications of the three modes of thinking and the diversity of outlook they engender for the following issues: (a) what it is to develop children’s thinking and how we should judge quality of understanding; (b) teacher-pupil relationships and the culture of the school; (c) attitudes towards the environment; (d) the ‘good life’ and the ‘good society’; (e) multicultural education.

Developing children’s thinking and quality of understanding It does no harm to remind ourselves in general terms just how significant an issue the development of thinking and understanding is. How we think about things—how we reveal them to ourselves—either individually or as a culture conditions in the most fundamental way our relationship with them. Thus to characterize how we think is in a very important sense to characterize what we are, for we exist as conscious beings in the way we relate to the world—how we reveal it and in what manner. Now it is clear that the three modes of thinking described above represent sets of significantly different possible emphases in the development of children’s thinking which will seriously affect both their own views on what counts as good thinking and how they themselves will perceive the world around them. It is important to note, also, that while, previously, I gave a preliminary characterization of rational-calculative thinking as finding expression in science, mathematics and technology, clearly there is more to it than this. Depending upon how they are thought and taught, these subjects can have strong authentic and poetic elements, and, equally importantly, the arts can be set up in highly rational-calculative terms. In science, for example, clearly there are extensive opportunities for engendering feelings of respect, wonder and mystery, and such feelings are acknowledged by some of

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our greatest scientists. Yet there lingers a competing—and highly influential—view which sees the universe in mechanistic terms and as there to be harnessed in just the way that rational-calculative thinking advocates. Furthermore, in the way that science is taught, little or no space may be made to develop the qualities of personal engagement and reflection that authentic thinking demands. This raises fundamental questions about what will count as quality and depth of thinking in the science curriculum. At the heart of these questions are competing values concerning both the purposes of science itself and the way in which it should be assimilated into our outlook on the world. Some aspects of this central issue will be taken further in the discussion of attitudes towards the environment, below. With regard to the arts, there is a considerable danger of adopting a rather technical and rationalistic stance towards them. There have been those such as Paul Hirst (1973) and David Best (1985, 1992) who have characterized the arts as forms of rationality; moreover, if in art appreciation the work is seen basically as a representation (at whatever degree of abstraction), this seems to require that its subject has in some way been fixed beforehand, i.e. objectivized, in order that it can indeed be represented. This contrasts with a poetic interpretation of the artwork which sees it as having the potential to create an open space in which a subject can presence afresh, freed from our normal objectivizing and manipulative aspirations towards it. Here, in a certain sense, we are invited to see with a naïve eye and the underlying value is a more direct and celebratory participation in, and dwelling in, things themselves. Thus, on occasion, the arts can put the intrinsic qualities of things up for decision (is it lofty or flighty, earthy or base, pious or hypocritical?) by inviting us to engage with the interplay of creative powers which constitute them. Through such involvement fundamental cultural values can be reexperienced, reinterpreted or reaffirmed and culture is thereby renewed. From the point of view of the poetic, in the modern age we are in increasingly large part too caught up in an intellectual and commercial processing and possessing of things to appreciate them in their individual richness and uniqueness. The great value of the work of art is that it can—insofar as it works, and through our participation in it—bring us to an awareness of things that is not dominated by this ordering, through invoking an experience in which both commerce and connoisseurship are put out of place. In such participation in the work, then, the thing is not represented, not defined, and thus is not set at a distance convenient for a rational inspection of it. It is just there, actively and engagingly, such that we may respond to it—receive it and sustain it—as it is, in its own world. From this perspective the artwork conceived as a statement or judgement is a rationalization of art which subverts its vital aspect. In essence, on this account, art appreciation is a form of thinking but not a form of reasoning. Its achievement is disclosure. Its truth is more fundamental and purer than ‘truth as correctness’ (which statements make possible) for it does not seek to impose an analytic order on things, but rather receives and reveals them in their spontaneous wholeness and oneness with a dwelt-in world. Through somehow invoking the world in which things have their being the artwork has the power to give us a direct entrance into that world. Furthermore, it would be claimed that because rational-calculative thinking inhibits such genuine receptivity, it removes the possibility of genuine inspiration. Its initiatives and ingenuity are ultimately too self-centred and thus ‘constipated’. The price of its drive to

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organize and control is an increasing insulation from the spontaneous and the sense of the unknown which illuminate and draw thought onwards (Bonnett, 1995). Finally, the modes of thinking I have outlined can be seen as offering differing perspectives on the ‘teaching critical thinking’ and ‘thinking skills’ movements. At base these latter see effective thinking as a matter of processing data through pre-specified strategies or preformed skills. This essentially calculative subordination of content to technique runs in stark contrast to a view of thinking which is concerned to listen to the ‘call’ of what is there, a sensitivity to the as yet unknown which draws thinking on in its own unique way. On this latter view content is not perceived as merely ‘brute data’ which needs to be brought to order—formulated and problematized according to generalizable strategies and techniques. Rather content is felt as having its own life and logic in which the thinker has to learn to participate and to be held in the sway of. Understanding is indeed a form of ‘standing under’. Here again the tension between the basic values of mastery and harmony is brought into relief.

Teacher-pupil relationships and the culture of the school Perhaps the epitome of rational-calculative thinking is that of the marketplace, and the effects on the teacher-pupil relationship of increasing attempts to understand education on the market model provide graphic illustration of some of the value possibilities which the different modes of thinking can set in train. Central to the market model is an attempt to pre-specify in considerable detail what children are to learn—the ‘product’—and to set up schools as efficient deliverers of this product by placing them in competition with each other in a market situation, in which those who are de facto largely external to the more intimate interactive processes of formal education—such as employers and many parents—are viewed as the ‘customers’. Such an approach has many supporters and has been justified in terms of its apparent clarity of purpose and clear mechanisms of accountability: published test results and degree of success in the market. These in turn are taken to lead to greater productivity, characterized as raised educational standards and improved cost-effectiveness. From a simple consumerist perspective such values are hard to refute. But let us now look at this from another, less calculative, perspective. With such an emphasis on pre-specification, tangibility and control, the teacher-pupil relationship takes on a very particular complexion. On the logic of such a model the teacher-pupil relationship is set up as an instrument for the achievement of a set of pre-specified ends and is thus pervaded by a pretty severe kind of rational-calculative thinking which necessarily inhibits a full engagement of the participants as persons. On this logic pupils become objects (defined for example, by ‘base-line’ tests) to be processed, and teachers become operatives whose function is to ‘deliver’ knowledge which, too, is ordered up into a standardized form through being mapped in a national curriculum. In this way it can be delivered relatively unambiguously and progress can be periodically checked against standard measures. Here, what is valued is essentially conformity to a blueprint which is itself the product of a highly analytic and objectifying stance towards education. Only that which can be made tangible and demonstrated publicly comes to be regarded as

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valid and ironically, as a consequence, the public image of learning can stand as a substitute for what is actually involved in the learning process. What from one perspective is viewed as a means to raise standards from another is seen as not only transforming learning into a charade, but as having the inevitable effect of enervating those most intimately involved in the process, de-skilling and devaluing them. High degrees of pre-specification inhibit teachers and learners from contributing their own life to the relationship and thus from making it vital and personally fulfilling. Teachers are increasingly expected to improve their productivity while having less and less opportunity to influence or evaluate the product in personally valid terms, while pupils are increasingly to become modified in ways which set them up as so much material rather than persons with individual aspirations and concerns which their education might have explored and refined. The question of the nature of the standards that education is to seek is thus raised. So how would the values which motivate the poetic approach affect one’s view of the teacher-pupil relationship? Centrally the attempt to be receptive/responsive would require that those intimately involved in the process of education are trusted to create their own framework for learning and interaction. The emphasis is not on pre-specification but relations of reciprocal receptiveness and response between teacher, pupil, and that which is there to be learnt. This is the only way to integrity when the central concern of education is not to meet the demands of the market, but to meet the demands of the personal growth of pupils—when the standards to be achieved are not set in accordance with certain tangible pre-specifiable outcomes, but in accordance with the requirements of authentic understanding. On this model teaching in the full sense involves an engagement of the personhood of the teacher with the personhood of the child. Both must be free to respond to the felt needs of the learning situation, to the ‘call’ of what is at issue in the child’s engagement with the material that is occupying him or her. A relationship which pivots around a quest for authentic understanding takes its start from a listening and is a matter of coresponsibility of teacher and learner. Such a relationship constantly takes its cue from the actuality of a particular child or group of children attempting to find or construct meaning. Clearly a view of understanding which sees it as something not preformed and thus ‘deliverable’ in any straightforward sense makes heavy demands on both teachers and pupils because of the level of personal engagement involved; on this view there is an awareness of the sense in which understanding is ultimately less an acquisition and more a way of being. It becomes a set of capacities, beliefs, sensitivities, participations, affects, empathies, responses which constitutes one’s very being in the world. We exist understandingly and learning which leaves this untouched is of little educational value. It follows, too, on this view, that one should no more attempt to predefine teachers in terms of a set of ‘free-floating’ universalizable competencies than one should attempt to predefine the detailed outcomes of education for pupils. To do so again would be to introduce a static element in the midst of a relationship which is highly contextdependent and which needs to be experienced as a responsive interplay, free to follow its own demands. Issues of the relative value of control and surveillance versus trust in the integrity of authentic learning are brought into stark relief- as is the value framework in terms of which effectiveness and accountability are to be interpreted: whose welfare and flourishing is education to promote and in what sense(s)? From the point of view of the

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poetic, any detailed answer to the latter can only result from the cues which emerge from the ongoing interaction between teacher and pupil. This in turn will need to be sustained by those sorts of institutional arrangements which allow the insights which arise from this interaction to find effective voice in the ‘higher order’ decision—and policy-making which might bear upon it. It is evident that this requirement carries extensive implications for the authority and management structures of, as well as the general ethos of, the school as a social institution (see Bonnett, 1996).

Attitudes towards the environment and nature Many of the points raised in the previous section have resonances when it comes to considering attitudes towards the environment. A number of these are exemplified in the debate between ‘anthropocentrism’ and ‘biocentrism’ which underlies a wide range of current environmental policy issues. On the anthropocentric view the worth of the environment is measured ultimately in terms of its actual and potential usefulness to humankind. Thus its value is assessed in calculative terms and actions are shaped in the light of this. As Kant once put it with regard to sentient nature: ‘Our duties towards animals are merely indirect duties towards humanity’. On the biocentric view nature is seen as having some sort of intrinsic value and thus is due a respect in its own right. This reflects a more poetic relationship in which nature is seen as capable of ‘giving’ rather than as constantly challenged to meet human demands, and in which our basic stance is one of attendance upon nature and a working in harmony with it. Carolyn Merchant (1992), amongst others, has argued that the modern highly instrumental stance towards nature was given impetus by the way it was conceptualized at the inception of modern science: namely as a machine. Seen as consisting of inert atomic parts propelled by external forces, nature is portrayed as essentially ‘soul-less’ and thus as not morally protected from highly interventionist and invasive experimental procedures. With the ascendence of this model the Renaissance view of nature as a living organism—of which the world of humankind was an integral part—collapsed, and indeed Capra (1982) argues that the gendering of nature as feminine, itself legitimized motives of penetration, exploitation and bringing to order by ‘masculine’ culture. He observes that: ‘The terms in which Bacon advocated his new empirical method of investigation were not only passionate, but downright vicious. Nature, in his view, had to be “hounded in her wanderings”, “bound into service” and made a “slave”. She was to be put in “constraint”, and the aim of the scientist was “to torture Nature’s secrets from her”.’ Clearly this is a stark description, but it is one entirely compatible with calculative values and it provokes us to confront the underlying attitudes which we may be reinforcing in the ways in which we conceptualize and teach environmental issues. And while it would be false to give the impression that anthropocentrism as currently defended would endorse quite such an aggressive attitude towards nature, it remains clear on this view that nature is essentially regarded as a resource to be drawn on to meet human needs and that it is to be experienced as valuable or frustrating depending upon what it can ‘deliver’. Thus the distinction between rational-calculative and poetic thinking raises some salient value issues in this area and leads us to examine, for example, the metaphors that

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we use for nature and the methods of enquiry that they legitimate. It provokes fundamental questions concerning what counts as a right relationship with nature and the criteria in terms of which, for example, we are to understand notions such as ‘conservation’ and ‘sustainable’. It also raises questions concerning the values implicit in the kinds of knowledge frameworks we use to describe and investigate nature and to understand our place in it. It may be that the works of such as Gerard Manley Hopkins and Van Gogh have at least as much to say to us on these topics as the science and geography which have been the traditional vehicles for environmental education.

The ‘good life’ and the ‘good society’ A view of education implies a view of the good life and of the good society, i.e. a view of what is to count as human flourishing. It would be odd, indeed, if the differing values embodied in rational-calculative, authentic and poetic ways of thinking did not lead to differing interpretations of these notions. Clearly each mode has extensive ramifications for the quality of relationships—both towards others and the world in general—which are invited and underwritten. Thus they condition in a very profound way what will be meant by ‘community’, including the extent of its membership (e.g. whether it includes nature). It is evident, too, that a society on the road of ever-increasing mastery and control will be imbued with a very different spirit to one which seeks to celebrate individuality and/or an intuitive harmony in interrelationships based on trust and openness. This ethos will be expressed in myriad ways through its specific goals and the details of its social arrangements. However, as previously emphasized, the fact that one can give a formal analysis of the three modes of thinking which reveals their distinctive features should not be taken to imply that they operate separately in real life. Here, as ever, the issue is one of degree of emphasis and priority, and thus the intention in this section will be to describe some of the tensions that a society which is hybrid in its aspirations contains, and some of the value dimensions to the decisions that lie before it. Described in stark terms, rational-calculative thinking may be seen as tending towards a culture of totalitarianism of people and things, personal authenticity as tending towards a culture of unhealthy self-absorption, and the poetic as tending to a culture of unhealthy quietism. Perhaps the values that quicken each need somehow to be brought into a complementary relationship. Thus the question of how they might be brought into balance is an important one, the balance struck defining a culture in a very profound way. It seems clear that rational-calculative thinking sets the tone for many aspects of western culture. I have previously referred to its expression in those quintessentially western phenomena: modern (i.e. ‘classical’) science and technology. Then there is the ascendance of global capitalism and the ‘free market’ in which everything is priced and thus turned into a commodity—as it would have been, albeit through different mechanisms, had global Marxism survived. But central to the ethos of a ‘calculative society’ is the ever-increasing mobilization of people and resources to instrumental ends and a relentless drive for efficiency which requires constant monitoring of progress and cost-effectiveness. This in turn tends to lead to a sharp distinction between work and leisure, business and personal ethics—the one becoming viewed as an escape from the other.

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However, while on the calculative model production has to be highly visible (and thus focuses on that which is tangible enough to be measured in some publicly demonstrable way), the values that motivate it remain largely invisible, with those most integral to the process not invited to question them. In addition, the whole enterprise requires high degrees of pre-specification of product and process and an underlying challenging and demanding attitude which perceives anything which is uncompliant as an obstacle to be surmounted or dissolved. Wherever possible materials (and labour) are designed and engineered to meet the demands of the manufacturing process and success is a function of degree of manipulation of these resources. While human comfort and convenience are catered for at one level, essentially operatives are required to adapt to the demands of the process and the technology. Here we are presented with a picture of life which at its kernel is shaped by the desire for economic success. Efficiency in this regard means mass production which in turn requires mass consumption with all that this brings in terms of the averaging off of products and taste. The authentic needs of individuals and local communities are in danger of becoming lost in broad market trends and the personal responsibility of the individual is in danger of being subverted by constantly re-created market segments and the smooth running of the processes of production and consumption. The creation of mass personal and public ‘needs’ through advertising, etc. is too familiar to rehearse here as is the importance of ‘image’ over reality. These and the requirement to fit with the standardizing tendencies and institutions of such calculative thinking do little to encourage authenticity—as when, for example, ‘traditional values’ become modulated in calculative terms (such as the values of citizenship becoming assimilated to those of the consumer). In addition, there is the danger that the pace of innovation and change which arises from the market’s preoccupation with the ‘new’ will make democratic decision-making appear slow and thus outmoded. And the need for standardization and modularization (of everything from window frames and vegetables to education courses) will disrupt that in life which derives from a freer more spontaneous order which yet is deeply rooted through a more direct involvement with things. By contrast, and as we have previously noted, at the heart of the poetic lies an encouragement to take the risk of being open to the unknown, to being inspired and sustained by that which is beyond our capacity to fully grasp (physically or intellectually) and to control. In a culture which reflects this, ‘productivity’ will be judged as much in terms of spiritual and artistic activity as in terms of market production/consumption, and the notion of subsistence living would rise from the pejorative to become a spiritual and practical aspiration. Ends and means would be less clearly distinguished, for quality of experience would be sought as much in ongoing relationships as with any ‘products’ arising from those relationships, and certainly the notion that things in general should be seen as serving some further end would cease to be a basic assumption. Furthermore, a prime motive in such a culture would be to enhance a certain ‘fullness of contact’ with things themselves, a contact which properly acknowledges their own qualities and power. Such a culture would attempt to live closer to its own environment by, for example, reducing the degree of exploitation of other environments in order to meet its needs, by reducing the distance that long chains of processing and distribution put between things and their consumption, and by changing the balance of values within

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‘commonsense’ which increasingly insulate us from nature—such as those which lead to expectations of readily switchable sources of energy and a comprehensive range of insurance policies, which transform once elemental aspects of life into mere items to be calculated and dealt with according to a scale of human convenience. It suggests a society which operates on the basis of trust and natural harmony as much as accountability in the form of surveillance. Here then are the poles of some of the tensions that face educators in terms of the basic social values and attitudes which education is to convey. As previously emphasized it is all a matter of redressing the balance rather than totally eradicating any one set of values. But it is important to realize that this should not be viewed as simply a matter of adjusting the proportions in a ‘mix’, but rather as a matter of needing to decide priorities relative to particular situations and of examining ways in which it might be beneficial for one mode of thinking to infuse another. For example, it might be argued that in general the tendency to aggressive instrumentalism expressed by rational-calculative thinking could be ameliorated by relocating it within a more authentic or poetic outlook. In this way it might help to refine the possibilities for response of these latter forms of thinking while at the same time itself being radically changed in spirit by taking its inspiration from what these forms themselves intuit. In this way a certain definition of the good society would be created.

Multicultural education Developing children’s understanding in relation to cultures other than their own is clearly an area in which value diversity will sometimes appear in sharp relief. It is also an area in which highly significant values can be so implicit as to be invisible to those that hold them. I believe that the three fundamental modes of thinking that I have described in this paper raise a number of important issues for multicultural education in terms of the definitions and orientations they invite. To begin with—and at a very basic level—the tendency of rational-calculative thinking to ‘level-off’ the particular in the interests of making things more manageable has significant implications for our primary understanding of notions of ‘pluralist society’ and ‘multicultural education’. If we take a pluralist society to be one which is not only culturally plural in the descriptive sense, but to be a society which values this plurality (and perhaps seeks to celebrate it), then clearly to the extent that rational-calculative thinking comes to dominate, there is the risk that it will submerge alternative cultural orientations and re-create ‘diversity’ in forms restricted to those that are congenial to it. I have previously alluded to the growing subordination of all values to those of a consumer culture and the reconstruction of ‘diversity’ in the population in terms of market segments which may bear little relationship to the internal structures of actual communities. However the substantive point here is a broader one: the danger of portraying diversity and conflict from the aspect of a very particular—and unexamined— underlying view of what counts as harmony (or even economic harmony). This in turn brings with it the risk of simply assuming that there is only one kind of underlying harmony to be accorded with and discounts the possible need to acknowledge deeper cultural difference.

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The institution of a common currency for evaluations provided by, for example, some one version of ‘economic health’, while highly convenient for instrumental purposes, is both deeply imperialistic and an anathema to authentic pluralism. And even though rational-calculative thinking cannot be simply equated with this particular modulation of it, there remains here an echo of what Solomon (1980) once aptly dubbed the ‘transcendental pretense’: the Enlightenment attempt to project one (in this case bourgeois) version of European rationality as the universal standard for humanity. The dimensions of authentic and poetic thinking suggest rather different orientations towards pluralism and multicultural education—the former focusing on the perspective of individuals and the felt validity of their experiences in terms of their own existence, the latter striving for an openness to the unfamiliar and that which cannot be rationally reckoned up. Both authentic and poetic thinking, in their different ways, provide approaches for exploring meanings outside those habitual ones provided by an individual’s primary culture. From these latter points of view there are numerous ways in which the general preoccupation with abstractions and categories of rational-calculative thinking is potentially antipathetic to authentic pluralism. To begin with, it threatens to result in seriously oversimplified characterizations of other cultures through indulging a form of what has been termed ‘essentialism’ (Rattansi, 1992). In its need intellectually to possess and sum up, rational-calculative thinking will seek to impose a rational consistency which veils the ambivalences and ‘contradictions’ which are present in any living culture. Further, this sort of reductionism will be combined with a tendency to reify what it is to be a member of a culture, and thus to remain blind to the possibilities of the play of constantly shifting identities and alignments, social contexts and intersections of forces (e.g. more generalized anxieties and desires arising from gender, class, perceived economic prospects, etc.) which in part constitute the subjectivities of individual members. From the standpoint of authenticity, this is illustrative of a more general concern about the risk of the subordination of the individual to cultural stereotypes. In such ways, then, rational-calculative thinking distracts from the essential ‘particularity’ of cultural diversity, its complexity and the need to properly ‘listen’ to what is there and to what is happening—both within cultures and within individuals in varying circumstances. Furthermore, it is implausible simply to assume that rational consideration alone will impinge effectively on elements of outlook and behaviour, some of which are notoriously and deeply irrational. The ubiquity of the language of ‘prejudice’ attests to the frequency of instances where rationality is regarded as having lapsed in people’s attitudes. But just as importantly, some domains of human experience such as art and religion which are highly relevant to understanding another culture are, arguably, intrinsically non-rational. They are not instances of failure or inadequate exercise of the rational faculties; they are areas of understanding which are in part the product of—and can only be fully accessed by—other kinds of thinking. Poetic thinking attends to an important sense in which we need to be open to the truth of the immanent in experience and to respect its integrity if genuine empathy and understanding is to be achieved. (And even then, because of the many structural factors which are known to influence it, we should not simply assume that this will translate into behaviour.) In sum, educational policies founded on the rational-calculative attitude, apart from being potentially deeply hegemonic in the ways described, are likely to remain frustrated

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by the poverty of its understanding of the issues it purports to comprehend. In order to be successful, multicultural education—which needs both to respect the requirements and sensitivities of minority groups and to encourage pupils to respect those whose beliefs differ from their own and to see diversity as a source of enrichment (Halstead, 1988)— will need to avail itself of a more poetic apprehension of the issues at stake. What basis there might be for a reconciliation of, say, the values of liberalism centred on rationality and personal autonomy with minority groups whose ways of life are based on a sacred order of authority can only be explored through respecting the authenticity of those involved. And certainly if multicultural education is to have any enduring positive effect, it would seem to require the sort of poetic quality in learning and between teacher and pupil sketched earlier in this paper. There can no more be short cuts here than in the achievement of authentic understanding in any other sphere.

Conclusion The values embodied in the different modes of thinking and understanding with which we habitually operate are some of the most pervasive and powerful in terms of their influence on us. Precisely because they are so thoroughly insinuated in our thinking, they remain for the most part quietly out of focus and can thus, so to speak, operate with a ‘free hand’. In this paper I have tried to provide an analysis of certain very fundamental modes of thinking and their embedded values and I have suggested that one—the rational-calculative—holds sway across broad tracts of current thinking both in modern society at large and education in particular. I have suggested that this should be a matter of considerable concern and that a balance has to be redressed with other potentially more humane and open kinds of thinking. This might involve a relocation of the calculative within the ambience of the authentic and the poetic so as to enable it to serve purposes which are greater and more generous than its own and thus restore a deeper sense of meaning and inspiration. Whatever the possibilities here, if, as I have argued, how we think fundamentally characterizes our relationships with all around us, the potential diversity of values embedded in developing children’s thinking presents the educator with a set of issues which need to be more fully acknowledged than is often the case.

References Bailey, C.H. (1983) Beyond the Present and the Particular: A Theory of Liberal Education. London, Routledge & Kegan Paul. Bantock, G.H. (1952) Freedom and Authority in Education. London, Faber and Faber. Best, D. (1985) Feeling and Reason in the Arts. London, George Allen and Unwin. Best, D. (1992) The Rationality of Feeling: Understanding the Arts in Education. London, Falmer. Bonnett, M. (1978) Authenticity and education. Journal of Philosophy of Education 12. Bonnett, M. (1983) Education in a destitute time. Journal of Philosophy of Education 17(1). Bonnett, M. (1994) Children’s Thinking. London, Cassell. Bonnett, M. (1995) Teaching thinking, and the sanctity of content. Journal of Philosophy of Education 29(3).

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Bonnett, M. (1996) ‘New’ era values and the teacher-pupil relationship as a form of the poetic. British Journal of Educational Studies 44(1). Bonnett, M. (1997) Environmental education and beyond. Journal of Philosophy of Education 31(2). Bridges, D. and McLaughlin, T. (1994) Education and the Marketplace. London, Falmer. Capra, F. (1982) The Turning Point. New York, Simon & Schuster. Cooper, D. (1983) Authenticity and Learning. London, Routledge & Kegan Paul. Cooper, D.E (1986) Education, Values and Mind. London, Routledge & Kegan Paul. Halstead, J.M. (1988) Education, Justice and Cultural Diversity. Lewes, Falmer. Heidegger, M. (1954) What is Called Thinking? trans. J.G.Gray (1968) New York, Harper & Row. Heidegger, M. (1959) Discourse on Thinking, trans. J.M.Anderson and E.Hans Freund (1969). New York, Harper & Row. Heidegger, M. (1977) The Question Concerning Technology and Other Essays, trans. W.Lovitt. New York, Harper & Row. Hirst, P.H. (1973) Literature and the fine arts as a unique form of knowledge. Cambridge Journal of Education 3 (3) pp. 118–32. Kierkegaard, S. (1843) Fear and Trembling and Sickness Unto Death, trans. W.Lowrie (1970). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Merchant, C. (1992) Radical Ecology. New York, Routledge. Peters, R.S. (1966) Ethics and Education (London, Allen & Unwin). Rattansi, A. (1992) Changing the subject? Racism, culture and education. In J.Donald and A.Rattansi (eds.), Race, Culture and Difference. London, Sage Publications. Solomon, R.C. (1980) History and Human Nature. Brighton, Harvester Press. Standish, P. (1992) Beyond the Self. Aldershot, Avebury. Taylor, C. (1991) The Ethics of Authenticity. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press. Walsh, P. (1993) Education and Meaning. London, Cassell.

2 Cooperative Learning, Values, and Culturally Plural Classrooms DAVID W.JOHNSON AND ROGER T.JOHNSON

Diversity: promise or problem? In the story, Beauty and the Beast, Beauty, to save her father’s life, agrees to live in an enchanted castle with the Beast. While very fearful of the Beast, and horrified by his appearance, she is able to look beyond his monstrous appearance into his heart. Considering his kindness and generosity, her perception of his appearance changes. She is no longer repelled by the way he looks but is drawn instead to his loving nature. The better she gets to know him, the less monstrous he seems. Finally, finding him dying of a broken heart, she reveals her love for him, which transforms the beast into a handsome prince. They not only live happily ever after, but all those who stumble in despair into their domain are changed, finding on departure that their hearts are now filled with goodness and beauty. This is a frequently repeated story. We are often repelled by those we do not know. Yet after they have become our friends, we do not understand how once they seemed monstrous to us. Nowhere is Beauty and the Beast more apparent than in schools. For it is in schools that diversity among individuals is most often faced and eventually valued. The diversity of students is increasing in most schools every year. The increased ease in transportation systems, the increased migration, and the dynamics of the world economy is resulting in many nations facing increased diversity in their society. Changes in the world economy, transportation, and communication are resulting in increased levels of interdependence among individuals, groups, organizations, communities, and societies. Students can be from many cultures, ethnic groups, language groups, and religions as well as from different economic social classes and ability levels. Pluralism and diversity among individuals creates an opportunity, but like all opportunities, there are potentially either positive or negative outcomes. Diversity among students can result in increased achievement and productivity, creative problem solving, growth in cognitive and moral reasoning, increased perspective-taking ability, improved relationships, and general sophistication in interacting and working with peers from a variety of cultural and ethnic backgrounds (Johnson and Johnson, 1989). Or, diversity among students can lead to negative outcomes. Diversity can result in lower achievement, closed-minded rejection of new information, increased egocentrism, and negative relationships characterized by hostility, rejection, divisiveness, scapegoating, bullying, stereotyping, prejudice, and racism. Once diverse students are brought together in the same school, whether the diversity results in positive or negative outcomes depends largely on whether learning situations are structured competitively, individualistically, or

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cooperatively: each of these structures teaches values and creates patterns of interaction that will result in diversity being valued or rejected. This chapter focuses on the use of cooperative learning to promote a culturally plural society within the school. The topics discussed are: (a) The nature of each type of interdependence and the values implicit in each. (b) The types of cooperative learning. (c) The basic elements essential for effective cooperation. (d) The research supporting the use of cooperative learning and verifying its positive influences on diversity. (e) The implications of the theorizing and research on cooperation for diversity.

Interdependence and values The value systems underlying competitive, individualistic, and cooperative situations exist as a hidden curriculum beneath the surface of school life. This hidden values curriculum permeates the social and cognitive development of children, adolescents, and young adults. Each type of interdependence has a set of values inherently built into it and those values determine whether diversity is viewed as positive or negative. The values resulting from competition When a situation is structured competitively, individuals work against each other to achieve a goal that only one or a few can attain (Johnson and Johnson, 1989). Individuals’ goal achievements are negatively correlated; each individual perceives that when one person achieves his or her goal, all others with whom he or she is competitively linked fail to achieve their goals. Thus, individuals seek an outcome that is personally beneficial but detrimental to all others in the situation. Inherent in competition is a set of values that is taught and retaught whenever a person engages in competition. The values are: 1 Commitment to getting more than others. There is a built-in concern that one is smarter, faster, stronger, more competent, and more successful than others so that one will win and others will lose. 2 Success depends on beating, defeating, and getting more than other people. What is valued is triumphing over others and being Number One. Winning has little to do with excellence and may actually be opposed to excellence. Competition does not teach the value of excellence. Competition teaches the value of winning—doing better and getting more than other participants. 3 Opposing, obstructing, and sabotaging the success of others is a natural way of life. Winning depends on a good offense (doing better than others) and a good defense (not letting anyone do better than you). There are two ways to win—doing better and obstructing others’ efforts. A smart competitor will always find ways to oppose, obstruct, and sabotage the work of others in order to win. 4 The pleasure of winning is associated with others’ disappointment with losing. Winners feel great about winning and they automatically feel great about other people losing.

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When someone loses, it is a source of pleasure and happiness because it means that one has a better chance of winning. 5 Other people are a threat to one’s success. Because smart competitors will obstruct and sabotage the work of others, competitors are to be distrusted and watched closely because their efforts to win and their efforts to sabotage one’s work are threats. Competition casts schoolmates as rivals and threats to one’s success. 6 Other people’s worth is contingent on their “wins.” When a person wins, he or she has value. When a person loses, he or she has no value. The worth of a person is never fixed. It all depends on the latest victory. When a person stops winning he or she no longer has value as an individual. Competition places value on a limited number of qualities that facilitate winning. Thus, since only a very few people can win, most people have no value. In school, for example, if a person did not score in the top 5 or 10 per cent in math or reading on the last test, they have no or limited value academically. The other 95 to 90 per cent of students are losers and have no value. 7 Self-worth is conditional and contingent on one’s “wins.” Competition teaches that self-worth is contingent on victories. When a person stops winning he or she stops having value as a person. Far from helping students to believe in themselves, competition creates perpetual insecurity. 8 Competitors value extrinsic motivation based on striving to win rather than striving to learn. Winning is the goal, not the learning or the practice or the development. The inducement of trying to beat people, like other extrinsic motivators, has been shown to reduce students’ interest in the task itself. 9 People who are different from one are to be either feared or held in contempt. Other people are perceived to be potential obstacles to one’s success. If they are different in a way that gives them an advantage, the difference is feared. If they are different in a way that gives one an advantage over them, they are to be discounted. High performing students are often feared because they can win and low performing students are often held in contempt as losers who are no competition. The values resulting from individualistic efforts When a situation is structured individualistically, there is no correlation among participants’ goal attainments (Johnson and Johnson, 1989). Each individual perceives that he or she can reach his or her goal regardless of whether other individuals attain or do not attain their goals. Thus, individuals seek an outcome that is personally beneficial without concern for the outcomes of others. The values that individualistic experiences teach are: 1 Commitment to one’s own self-interest. One’s own success is viewed as important. Others’ success is considered to be irrelevant. There is a solitary calculation of personal self-interest. There is a built-in self-centeredness while ignoring the plight of others. 2 Success depends on one’s own efforts. What is valued is reaching some standard for success. Individualistic work teaches the value of independent efforts to succeed. 3 Other people’s success or failure is irrelevant and of no consequence. 4 The pleasure of succeeding is personal and isolated.

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5 Other people are irrelevant to one’s success. Because their success or failure has no impact on oneself, others are avoided and seen as unrelated to one’s success. 6 Other people’s worth is nonexistent because they are seen as irrelevant and no value to one’s efforts to succeed. When others are evaluated, there is a unidimensional focus on the quality that most affects the success on a task (such as reading or math ability). 7 Self-worth is based on a unidimensional view of oneself. Only the characteristics that help the person succeed are valued. In school, that is primarily reading and math ability. 8 Individualistic experiences result in valuing extrinsic motivation based on achieving criteria and receiving rewards rather than striving to learn. Achieving up to a criterion is the goal, not the learning, practice, or development. The rewards received for success is the underlying motivator of learning. 9 People who are perceived to be different are disliked while people who are perceived to be similar are liked. Other people are perceived to be unnecessary and not relevant to one’s success. The values resulting from cooperation Cooperation is working together to accomplish shared goals (Johnson and Johnson, 1989). Within cooperative activities individuals seek outcomes that are beneficial to themselves and beneficial to all other group members. Cooperative learning is the instructional use of small groups so that students work together to maximize their own and each other’s learning (Johnson, Johnson, and Holubec, 1993). Within cooperative learning groups students are given two responsibilities: To learn the assigned material and make sure that all other members of their group do likewise. In cooperative learning situations, students perceive that they can reach their learning goals only if the other students in the learning group also do so. The values inherent in cooperative efforts are: 1 Commitment to the common good. In cooperative situations, individuals’ work contributes not only to their own well-being, but also to the well being of all other collaborators. There is a built-in concern for the common good and the success of others, as the efforts of others also contribute to one’s own well-being. 2 Success depends on the joint efforts of everyone to achieve mutual goals. Since cooperators “sink or swim together,” an “all for one and one for all” mentality is appropriate. What is valued is team-work and civic responsibility. Succeeding depends on everyone doing his or her part. Cooperation teaches the value of working together to achieve mutual goals. 3 Facilitating, promoting, and encouraging the success of others is a natural way of life. Succeeding depends on everyone doing well. There are two ways to succeed— contributing all one can to the joint effort and promoting other cooperators’ efforts to contribute. A smart cooperator will always find ways to promote, facilitate, and encourage the efforts of others. 4 The pleasure of succeeding is associated with others’ happiness in their success. Cooperators feel great about succeeding and they automatically feel great about other people succeeding. When someone succeeds, it is a source of pleasure and happiness because it means that one’s help and assistance has paid off.

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5 Other people are potential contributors to one’s success. Because smart cooperators will promote and facilitate the work of others, cooperators are to be trusted because their efforts to succeed will promote one’s own success. Cooperation casts schoolmates as allies, colleagues, and friends who will contribute to one’s success. 6 Other people’s worth is unconditional. Because there are so many diverse ways that a person may contribute to a joint effort, everyone has value all the time. This inherent value is reaffirmed by working for the success of all. Cooperation places value on a wide range of diverse qualities that facilitate joint success. Thus, everyone has value. 7 Self-worth is unconditional. Cooperation teaches that self-worth results from contributing whatever resources one has to the joint effort and common good. A person never loses value. Cooperative experiences result in individuals believing in themselves and their worth. 8 Cooperators value intrinsic motivation based on striving to learn, grow, develop, and succeed. Learning is the goal, not winning. The inducement of trying to contribute to the common good, like other intrinsic motivators, increases students’ interest in the task itself. 9 People who are different from oneself are to be valued. Other people are perceived to be potential resources for and contributors to one’s success. If they are different that means more diverse resources are available for the joint effort and, therefore, the difference is valued. The diverse contributions of members results in the realization that, in the long run, everyone is of equal value and equally deserving, regardless of their gender, ethnic membership, culture, social class, or ability. Summary There are three types of social interdependence: Positive (cooperation), negative (competition), and none (individualistic efforts). Each type of interdependence teaches an inherent set of values. These values influence whether diversity results in positive or negative outcomes. This does not mean, however, that competitive and individualistic efforts should be banned in schools. Students should learn how to compete appropriately for fun and enjoyment, work individualistically on their own, and work cooperatively as part of teams. Cooperative learning, however, should be used the majority of the school day, as it is cooperative experiences that promote the most desirable values for the future well-being of students and the future well-being of society.

Nature of cooperative learning Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for toil. For if they fall, one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him who is alone when he falls and has not another to lift him up… And though a man might prevail against one who is alone, two will withstand him. A threefold cord is not quickly broken. (Ecclesiastes 4:9–12)

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History of cooperative learning Cooperative learning is an old idea. The Talmud clearly states that in order to learn you must have a learning partner. In the first century, Quintilian argued that students could benefit from teaching one another. The Roman philosopher, Seneca advocated cooperative learning through such statements as, “Qui Docet Discet” (when you teach, you learn twice). Johann Amos Comenius (1592–1679) believed that students would benefit both by teaching and being taught by other students. In the late 1700s Joseph Lancaster and Andrew Bell made extensive use of cooperative learning groups in England, and the idea was brought to America when a Lancastrian school was opened in New York City in 1806. Within the Common School Movement in the United States in the early 1800s there was a strong emphasis on cooperative learning. In the last three decades of the nineteenth century, Colonel Francis Parker brought to his advocacy of cooperative learning enthusiasm, idealism, practicality, and an intense devotion to freedom, democracy, and individuality in the public schools. His fame and success rested on his power to create a classroom atmosphere that was truly cooperative and democratic. Parker’s advocacy of cooperation among students dominated American education through the turn of the century. Following Parker, John Dewey promoted the use of cooperative learning groups as part of his famous project method in instruction. In the late 1930s, however, interpersonal competition began to be emphasized in schools and in the late 1960s, individualistic learning began to be used extensively. In the 1980s, schools once again began to use cooperative learning. Types of cooperative learning Cooperative learning is the instructional use of small groups so that students work together to maximize their own and each other’s learning (Johnson, Johnson, and Holubec, 1993). Within cooperative learning groups students discuss the material to be learned with each other, help and assist each other to understand it, and encourage each other to work hard. Cooperative learning groups may be used to teach specific content (formal cooperative learning groups), to ensure active cognitive processing of information during a lecture or demonstration (informal cooperative learning groups), and to provide long-term support and assistance for academic progress (cooperative base groups) (Johnson, Johnson, and Holubec, 1993). Any assignment in any curriculum for any age student can be done cooperatively. Formal cooperative learning is students working together, for one class period to several weeks, to achieve shared learning goals and complete jointly specific tasks and assignments (such as decision making or problem solving, completing a curriculum unit, writing a report, conducting a survey or experiment, or reading a chapter or reference book, learning vocabulary, or answering questions at the end of the chapter) (Johnson, Johnson, and Holubec, 1993). Any course requirement or assignment may be reformulated to be cooperative. In formal cooperative learning groups teachers: 1 Specify the objectives for the lesson. In every lesson there should be an academic objective specifying the concepts and strategies to be learned and a social skills objective specifying the interpersonal or small group skill to be used and mastered during the lesson.

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2 Make a number of pre-instructional decisions. A teacher has to decide on the size of groups, the method of assigning students to groups, the roles students will be assigned, the materials needed to conduct the lesson, and the way the room will be arranged. 3 Explain the task and the positive interdependence. A teacher clearly defines the assignment, teaches the required concepts and strategies, specifies the positive interdependence and individual accountability, gives the criteria for success, and explains the expected social skills to be engaged in. 4 Monitor students’ learning and intervene within the groups to provide task assistance or to increase students’ interpersonal and group skills. A teacher systematically observes and collects data on each group as it works. When it is needed, the teacher intervenes to assist students in completing the task accurately and in working together effectively. 5 Assess students’ learning and helping students process how well their groups functioned. Students’ learning is carefully assessed and their performances are evaluated. Members of the learning groups then process how effectively they have been working together. Informal cooperative learning consists of having students work together to achieve a joint learning goal in temporary, ad-hoc groups that last from a few minutes to one class period (Johnson, Johnson, and Holubec, 1998; Johnson, Johnson, and Smith, 1998). During a lecture, demonstration, or film, informal cooperative learning can be used to (a) focus student attention on the material to be learned, (b) set a mood conducive to learning, (c) help set expectations as to what will be covered in a class session, (d) ensure that students cognitively process the material being taught, (e) provide closure to an instructional session. During direct teaching the instructional challenge for the teacher is to ensure that students do the intellectual work of organizing material, explaining it, summarizing it, and integrating it into existing conceptual structures. Informal cooperative learning groups are often organized so that students engage in 3–5 minute focused discussions before and after a lecture and 2–3 minute turn-to-your-partner discussions interspersed throughout a lecture. Cooperative base groups are long-term, heterogeneous cooperative learning groups with stable membership (Johnson, Johnson, and Holubec, 1998; Johnson, Johnson, and Smith, 1998). The purposes of the base group are to give the support, help, encouragement, and assistance each member needs to make academic progress (attend class, complete all assignments, learn) and develop cognitively and socially in healthy ways. Base groups meet daily in elementary school and twice a week in secondary school (or whenever the class meets). They are permanent (lasting from one to several years) and provide the long-term caring peer relationships necessary to influence members consistently to work hard in school. They formally meet to discuss the academic progress of each member, provide help and assistance to each other, and verify that each member is completing assignments and progressing satisfactorily through the academic program. Base groups may also be responsible for letting absent group members know what went on in class when they miss a session. Informally, members interact every day within and between classes, discussing assignments, and helping each other with homework. The use

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of base groups tends to improve attendance, personalize the work required and the school experience, and improve the quality and quantity of learning. The larger the class or school and the more complex and difficult the subject matter, the more important it is to have base groups. Base groups are also helpful in structuring homerooms and when a teacher meets with a number of advisers. The cooperative school In addition to structuring classroom work cooperatively, school administrators may structure teachers into cooperative teams. There are three types of cooperative teams within a school (Johnson and Johnson, 1994). Collegial teaching teams are formed to increase teachers’ instructional expertise and success. They consist of two to five teachers who meet weekly and discuss how better to implement cooperative learning within their classrooms. Teachers are assigned to task forces to plan and implement solutions to school-wide issues and problems such as curriculum adoptions and lunchroom behavior. Ad hoc decision-making groups are used during faculty meetings to involve all staff members in important school decisions. The use of cooperative teams at the building level ensures that there is a congruent cooperative team-based organizational structure within both classrooms and the school. Finally, the superintendent uses the same types of cooperative teams to maximize the productivity of district administrators.

Basic elements of cooperation Many teachers believe that they are implementing cooperative learning when in fact they are missing its essence. Putting students into groups to learn is not the same thing as structuring cooperation among students. Cooperation is not: 1 Having students sit side by side at the same table and talk with each other as they do their individual assignments. 2 Having students do a task individually with instructions that the ones who finish first are to help the slower students. 3 Assigning a report to a group where one student does all the work and others put their name on it. Cooperation is much more than being physically near other students, discussing material with other students, helping other students, or sharing materials with other students, although each of these is important in cooperative learning. In order for a lesson to be cooperative, five basic elements are essential and need to be included (Johnson and Johnson, 1989; Johnson, Johnson, and Holubec, 1993). The five essential elements are as follows. 1 Positive Interdependence: Positive interdependence is the perception that you are linked with others in a way so that you cannot succeed unless they do (and vice versa), that is, their work benefits you and your work benefits them. It promotes a situation in which students work together in small groups to maximize the learning of all members, sharing their resources, providing mutual support, and celebrating their joint success. Positive interdependence is the heart of cooperative learning. Students must believe that

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they sink or swim together. Within every cooperative lesson positive goal interdependence must be established through mutual learning goals (learn the assigned material and make sure that all members of your group learn the assigned material). In order to strengthen positive interdependence, joint rewards (if all members of your group score 90 per cent correct or better on the test, each will receive 5 bonus points), divided resources (giving each group member a part of the total information required to complete an assignment), and complementary roles (reader, checker, encourager, elaborator) may also be used. For a learning situation to be cooperative, students must perceive that they are positively interdependent with other members of their learning group. It is positive interdependence that creates the overall superordinate goals that unite diverse students into a common effort. It is also positive interdepend ence that results in a joint superordinate identity. Students need to develop a unique identity as an individual, a social identity based among other things on their ethnic, historical, and cultural background, and a superordinate identity that unites them with all the other members of their society. At the same time they need to understand the social identity of classmates and respect them as collaborators and friends. It is positive interdependence, furthermore, that underlies a common culture that defines the values and nature of the society in which the students live. 2 Individual Accountability: Individual accountability exists when the performance of each individual student is assessed and the results are given back to the group and the individual. It is important that the group knows who needs more assistance, support, and encouragement in completing the assignment. It is also important that group members know that they cannot “hitch-hike” on the work of others. The purpose of cooperative learning groups is to make each member a stronger individual in his or her right. Students learn together so that they can subsequently perform higher as individuals. To ensure that each member is strengthened, students are held individually accountable to do their share of the work. Common ways to structure individual accountability include (a) giving an individual test to each student, (b) randomly selecting one student’s product to represent the entire group, (c) having each student explain what they have learned to a classmate. 3 Face-To-Face Promotive Interaction: Once teachers establish positive interdependence, they need to maximize the opportunity for students to promote each other’s success by helping, assisting, supporting, encouraging, and praising each other’s efforts to learn. There are cognitive activities and interpersonal dynamics that only occur when students get involved in promoting each other’s learning. This includes orally explaining how to solve problems, discussing the nature of the concepts being learned, teaching one’s knowledge to classmates, and connecting present with past learning. Accountability to peers, ability to influence each other’s reasoning and conclusions, social modeling, social support, and interpersonal rewards all increase as the face-to-face interaction among group members increase. In addition, the verbal and nonverbal responses of other group members provide important information concerning a student’s performance. Silent students are uninvolved students who are not contributing to the learning of others as well as themselves. Promoting each other’s success results in both higher achievement and in getting to know each other on a personal as well as a professional level. To obtain meaningful face-to-face interaction the size of groups needs

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to be small (2 to 4 members). Finally, while positive interdependence creates the conditions for working together, it is in the actual face-to-face interaction in which students work together and promote each other’s success that the personal relationships are formed that are essential for developing pluralistic values. 4 Social Skills: Contributing to the success of a cooperative effort requires interpersonal and small group skills. Placing socially unskilled individuals in a group and telling them to cooperate does not guarantee that they will be able to do so effectively. Persons must be taught the social skills for high quality cooperation and be motivated to use them. Leadership, decision-making, trust-building, communication, and conflictmanagement skills have to be taught just as purposefully and precisely as academic skills. Procedures and strategies for teaching students social skills may be found in Johnson (1991, 2000) and Johnson and F.Johnson (2000). Finally, social skills are required for interacting effectively with peers from other cultures and ethnic groups. 5 Group Processing: Group processing exists when group members discuss how well they are achieving their goals and maintaining effective working relationships. Groups need to describe what member actions are helpful and unhelpful and make decisions about what behaviors to continue or change. Students must also be given the time and procedures for analyzing how well their learning groups are functioning and the extent to which students are employing their social skills to help all group members to achieve and to maintain effective working relationships within the group. Such processing (a) enables learning groups to focus on group maintenance, (b) facilitates the learning of social skills, (c) ensures that members receive feedback on their participation, (d) reminds students to practice collaborative skills consistently. Some of the keys to successful processing are allowing sufficient time for it to take place, making it specific rather than vague, maintaining student involvement in processing, reminding students to use their social skills while they process, and ensuring that clear expectations as to the purpose of processing have been communicated. Finally, when difficulties in relating to each other arise, students must engage in group processing and identity, define, and solve the problems they are having working together effectively. In order to use cooperative learning effectively teachers must understand the nature of cooperation and the essential components of a well-structured cooperative lesson. Understanding what positive interdependence, promotive interaction, individual accountability, social skills and group processing are, and developing skills in structuring them, allow teachers both to adapt cooperative learning to their unique circumstances, needs, and students and to fine-tune their use of cooperative learning to solve problems students are having in working together.

What do we know about cooperative efforts? Everyone has to work together; if we can’t get everybody working toward common goals, nothing is going to happen. (Harold K.Sperlich, President, Chrysler Corporation)

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Learning together to complete assignments can have profound effects on students. A great deal of research has been conducted comparing the relative effects of cooperative, competitive, and individualistic efforts on instructional outcomes. These research studies began in the late 1800s but the field did not gain momentum until the 1940s when Morton Deutsch, building on the theorizing of Kurt Lewin, proposed a theory of cooperation and competition. His theory has served as the primary foundation on which subsequent research and discussion of cooperative learning has been based. During the past ninety years over 550 experimental and 100 correlational studies have been conducted by a wide variety of researchers in different decades with different age subjects, in different subject areas, and in different settings (see Johnson and Johnson, 1989 for a complete listing and review of these studies). Building on the theorizing of Kurt Lewin and Morton Deutsch, the premise may be made that the type of interdependence structured among students determines how they interact with each other which, in turn largely determines instructional outcomes. Structuring situations cooperatively results in students interacting in ways that promote each other’s success, structuring situations competitively results in students interacting in ways that oppose each other’s success, and structuring situations individualistically results in no interaction among students. Students can help, assist, support, and encourage each other’s efforts to learn. Students can obstruct and block each other’s efforts to learn. Or students can ignore each other and work alone. These interaction patterns affect numerous variables, which may be subsumed within the three broad and interrelated outcomes of effort exerted to achieve, quality of relationships among participants, and participants’ psychological adjustment and social competence (see Figure 2.1) (Johnson and Johnson, 1989). Achievement Over 375 studies have been conducted over the past ninety years to give an answer to the question of how successful competitive, individualistic, and cooperative efforts are in promoting productivity and achievement (see Table 2.1) (Johnson and Johnson, 1989). Working together to achieve a common goal produces higher achievement and greater productivity than does working alone. This is so well confirmed by so much research that it stands as one of the strongest principles of social and organizational psychology. Cooperative learning, furthermore, resulted in more higher-level reasoning, more frequent generation of new ideas and solutions (i.e., process gain), and greater transfer of what is learned within one situation to another (i.e., group to individual transfer) than did competitive or individualistic learning. The more conceptual the task, the more problem solving required, the more desirable higher-level reasoning and critical thinking, the more creativity required, and the greater the application required of what is being learned to the real world, the greater the superiority of cooperative over competitive and individualistic efforts.

Table 2.1 Social interdependence theory Process

Cooperative

Competitive

Individualistic

Interdependence

Positive

Negative

None

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Interaction Pattern

Promotive

Oppositional

None

Outcome 1

High effort to achieve

Low effort to achieve

Low effort to achieve

Outcome 2

Positive relationships

Negative relationships

No relationships

Outcome 3

Psychological health

Psychological illness

Psychological pathology

Figure 2.1 Outcomes of cooperative learning. Source: Johnson and Johnson (1989). Some cooperative learning procedures contained a mixture of cooperative, competitive, and individualistic efforts while others were “pure.” The original jigsaw procedure (Aronson, 1978), for example, is a combination of resource interdependence (cooperative) and individual reward structure (individualistic). Teams-GamesTournaments (DeVries and Edwards, 1974) and Student-Teams-Achievement-Divisions (Slavin, 1986) are mixtures of cooperation and intergroup competition. Team-AssistedInstruction (Slavin, 1986) is a mixture of individualistic and cooperative learning. When the results of “pure” and “mixed” operationalizations of cooperative learning were compared, the “pure” operationalizations produced higher achievement. Differences among individuals in personality, sex, attitudes, background, social class, reasoning strategies, cognitive perspectives, information, ability levels, and skills have been found to promote achievement and productivity (see Johnson and Johnson, 1989).

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Interpersonal relationships A faithful friend is a strong defense, and he that hath found him, hath found a treasure. (Ecclesiastes 6:14)

Individuals care more about each other and are more committed to each other’s success and well-being when they work together to get the job done than when they compete to see who is best or work independently from each other. This is true when individuals are homogeneous and it is also true when individuals differ in intellectual ability, handicapping conditions, ethnic membership, social class, and gender. When individuals are heterogeneous, cooperating on a task results in more realistic and positive views of each other. As relationships become more positive, there are corresponding increases in productivity, feelings of personal commitment and responsibility to do the assigned work, willingness to take on and persist in completing difficult tasks, morale, and commitment to peer’s success and growth. Absenteeism and turnover of membership decreases. There are 180 studies that have been conducted since the 1940s on the relative impact of cooperative, competitive, and individualistic experiences on interpersonal attraction (Johnson and Johnson, 1989). The data indicate that cooperative experiences promote greater interpersonal attraction than do competitive or individualistic ones (effect sizes= 0.66 and 0.62 respectively). The higher the quality of the study and the more pure the operationalization of cooperation, the stronger the impact of cooperation on interpersonal attraction. The positive relationships formed transfer to voluntary choice situations. Even when individuals initially dislike each other, cooperative experiences have been found to promote liking. Much of the research on interpersonal relationships has been conducted on relationships between white and minority students and between nonhandicapped and handicapped students (Johnson and Johnson, 1989). There have been over forty experimental studies comparing some combination of cooperative, competitive, and individualistic experiences on cross-ethnic relationships and over forty similar studies on mainstreaming of handicapped students (Johnson and Johnson, 1989). Their results are consistent. Working cooperatively creates far more positive relationships among diverse and heterogeneous students than does learning competitively or individualistically. Once the relationship is established, the next question becomes “why?” The social judgments individuals make about each other increase or decrease the liking they feel towards each other. Such social judgments are the result of either a process of acceptance or a process of rejection (Johnson and Johnson, 1989). The process of acceptance is based on the individuals promoting mutual goal accomplishment as a result of their perceived positive interdependence. The promotive interaction tends to result in frequent, accurate, and open communication; accurate understanding of each other’s perspective; inducibility; differentiated, dynamic, and realistic views of each other; high self-esteem; success and productivity; and expectations for positive and productive future interaction. The process of rejection results from oppositional or no interaction based on perceptions of negative or no interdependence. Both lead to no or inaccurate communication; egocentrism; resistance to influence; monopolistic, stereotyped, and

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Table 2.2 Mean effect sizes for impact of social interdependence on dependent variables Conditions

Achievement

Interpersonal attraction

Social support

Self-esteem

Total studies Coop vs. Comp

0.67

0.67

0.62

0.58

Coop vs. Ind

0.64

0.60

0.70

0.44

Comp vs. Ind

0.30

0.08

−0.13

−0.23

Coop vs. Comp

0.88

0.82

0.83

0.67

Coop vs. Ind

0.61

0.62

0.72

0.45

Comp vs. Ind

0.07

0.27

−0.13

−0.25

Coop vs. Comp

0.40

0.46

0.45

0.33

Coop vs. Ind

0.42

0.36

0.02

0.22

Coop vs. Comp

0.71

0.79

0.73

0.74

Coop vs. Ind

0.65

0.66

0.77

0.51

High quality studies

Mixed operationalizations

Pure operationalizations

Note: Coop=Cooperation, Comp=Competition, Ind=Individualistic Source: Johnson and Johnson (1989).

Table 2.3 Processes of acceptance and rejection Process of acceptance

Process of rejection

Positive interdependence

Negative interdependence

Promotive interaction

Oppositional or no interaction

Frequent and open communication

No or inaccurate communication

Understanding of other perspectives

Egocentricism

Inducibility

Resistance to influence

Differentiated views of each other

Monopolistic views of each other

High self-esteem

Low self-esteem

Successful achievement, productivity

Failure, lack of productivity

Expectations of positive and productive future interaction with others

Expectations of negative and unproductive future interaction with others

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static views of others; low self-esteem; failure; and expectations of distasteful and unpleasant interaction with others. The processes of acceptance and rejection are selfperpetuating. Any part of the process tends to elicit all the other parts of the process. Psychological health and social competence Working cooperatively with peers, and valuing cooperation, results in greater psychological health and higher self-esteem than does competing with peers or working independently. Personal ego-strength, self-confidence, independence, and autonomy are all promoted by being involved in cooperative efforts with caring people, who are committed to each other’s success and well-being, and who respect each other as separate and unique individuals. When individuals work together to complete assignments, they interact (mastering social skills and competencies), they promote each other’s success (gaining self-worth), and they form personal as well as professional relationships (creating the basis for healthy social development). Individuals’ psychological adjustment and health tend to increase when schools are dominated by cooperative efforts. The more individuals work cooperatively with others, the more they see themselves as worthwhile and as having value, the greater their productivity, the greater their acceptance and support of others, and the more autonomous and independent they tend to be. A positive self-identity is developed basically within supportive, caring, cooperative relationships while a negative self-identity is developed within competitive, rejecting, or uncaring relationships. Children who are isolated usually develop the most self-rejecting identities. Cooperative experiences are not a luxury. They are an absolute necessity for the healthy social and psychological development of individuals who can function independently. Reciprocal relationships among outcomes There are bidirectional relationships among efforts to achieve, quality of relationships, and psychological health (Johnson and Johnson, 1989). Each influences the others. First, caring and committed friendships come from a sense of mutual accomplishment, mutual pride in joint work, and the bonding that results from joint efforts. The more students care about each other, on the other hand, the harder they will work to achieve mutual learning goals. Second, joint efforts to achieve mutual goals promote higher self-esteem, selfefficacy, personal control, and confidence in their competencies. The healthier psychologically individuals are, on the other hand, the better able they are to work with others to achieve mutual goals. Third, psychological health is built on the internalization of the caring and respect received from loved-ones. Friendships are developmental advantages that promote self-esteem, self-efficacy, and general psychological adjustment. The healthier people are psychologically (i.e., free of psychological pathology such as depression, paranoia, anxiety, fear of failure, repressed anger, hopelessness, and meaninglessness), on the other hand, the more caring and committed their relationships. Since each outcome can induce the others, they are likely to be found together. They are a package with each outcome a door into all three. And together they induce positive interdependence and promotive interaction.

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Making diversity among students a strength The current research indicates that cooperative learning promotes greater efforts to achieve, more positive relationships, and greater psychological health than do competitive and individualistic learning. These outcomes indicate that when cooperative learning is used the majority of the school day, diversity among students can be a potential source of creativity and productivity. Following four guidelines will help students capitalize on their diversity (Johnson and F.Johnson, 1997). 1 Students must work together cooperatively with a high level of positive interdependence and the other five basic elements carefully structured. Students must believe that they “sink or swim together” in striving to achieve important mutual goals. The discords of diversity are not automatically transformed into a symphony when people are brought face-to-face. Prejudice, stereotyping, and discrimination often increase with proximity. What largely determines whether interaction results in positive or negative relationships is the context within which the interaction takes place. Group members must work together to achieve mutual goals, rather than be required to compete to see who is best or work individualistically on their own. When people cooperate, they tend to like each other more, trust each other more, are more candid with each other, and are more willing to listen to and be influenced by each other (Johnson and Johnson, 1989). When people compete or work individualistically, then liking, trust, influence, and candor tend to decrease. There is considerable evidence that cooperative experiences, compared with competitive and individualistic ones, promote more positive, committed, and caring relationships regardless of differences in ethnic, cultural, language, social class, gender, ability, or other differences (Johnson and Johnson, 1989). The impact of positive interdependence will be enhanced when members have equal status and social norms and authorities promote positive relationships and friendship formation (Watson, 1947; Williams, 1948; Allport, 1954). 2 Students must have a superordinate identity that (a) unites the diverse personal identities of students and (b) is based on a pluralistic set of values. Recognizing diversity and valuing and respecting differences is done in four steps. First, students need to develop an appreciation for their own gender, religious, ethnic, or cultural background. A personal identity is a consistent set of attitudes that defines “who you are” (see Johnson [2000] for a full discussion on developing a personal identity). A personal identity consists of multiple sub-identities that are organized into a coherent, stable, and integrated whole. The sub-identities include a gender identity (fundamental sense of maleness or femaleness), an ethnic identity (sense of belonging to one particular ethnic group), a religious identity (sense of belonging to one particular religious group), and so forth. Second, students need to develop an appreciation for the gender, religious, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds of other members. Students can develop an identity that does not lead to the rejection of other members who are different. Third, students need to develop a strong superordinate identity that transcends their differences. Being the member of a learning group or society needs to be creedal rather than racial or ancestral. In essence, learning groups have their own culture that supersedes the individual cultures of members. Fourth, students need to learn a pluralistic set of values concerning democracy, freedom, liberty, equality, justice, the rights of individuals, and the responsibilities of citizenship. All members have equal value. Most learning groups,

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schools, and societies will become a multicultural unit knitted together by a common set of values. 3 Gain sophistication about the differences among students through personal relationships that allow for candid discussions. Only through knowing, working with, and personally interacting with members of diverse groups can individuals really learn to value diversity, utilize diversity for creative problem solving, and work effectively with diverse peers. Candid conversations with a friend about inadvertent misunderstandings can often teach more than numerous books. To gain the sophistication and skills you need to relate to, work with, and become friends with diverse peers, you need actual interaction, trust, and candor. 4 Clarify miscommunications among students from different cultures, ethnic and historical backgrounds, social classes, genders, age-cohorts, and so forth. If students from different gender, social class, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds are to communicate effectively, they must continually increase their language sensitivity by knowing the words and expressions that are appropriate and inappropriate in communicating with diverse groupmates and being aware of the key elements of communication style and how diverse cultures use these elements to communicate. Without awareness of nuances in language and differences in style, the potential for garbled communication is enormous when interacting with diverse peers.

Summary Diversity among students will increase in most schools in most countries. Such diversity is an opportunity that can have positive or negative consequences. Which one results partly depends on the type of interdependence structured among students. There are three types of interdependence: Cooperative, competitive, and individualistic. Each has an implicit value structure that is taught as a hidden curriculum. Competition teaches the values of beating and getting more than other people to be successful, obstructing the work of others, feeling happy when other people fail, seeing others as a threat to one’s success, viewing worth as contingent on wins, and viewing those who are different in negative ways. Individualistic efforts teaches the values of viewing success as dependent on one’s own efforts, seeing others as irrelevant to one’s success, and viewing diverse others in negative ways. Cooperation teaches the values of committing oneself to the common good, seeing success as depending on the efforts of all collaborators, feeling happy when others succeed, seeing others as resources to help one succeed, viewing worth as unconditional, and viewing diverse others in positive ways. While competitive, individualistic, and cooperative efforts should all three be part of schooling, cooperation is by far the most necessary if diversity is to result in positive outcomes. Cooperative learning is the instructional use of small groups so that students work together to maximize their own and each other’s learning. Cooperative learning experiences are based on students’ perceiving that they sink or swim together and that they must provide face-to-face help and support, do their fair share of the work, provide leadership and resolve conflicts constructively, and periodically process how to improve the effectiveness of the group. There is considerable evidence that students will learn more, use higher level reasoning strategies more frequently, build more complete and

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complex conceptual structures, and retain information learned more accurately when they learn within cooperative groups than when they study competitively or individualistically. Much of the information about different cultural and ethnic heritages cannot be attained through reading books. Only through knowing, working with, and personal interactions with members of diverse groups can students really learn to value diversity, utilize it for creative problem solving, and develop an ability to work effectively with diverse peers. While information alone helps, it is only through direct and personal interaction among diverse individuals who develop personal as well as professional relationships with each other that such outcomes are realized. Understanding the perspective of others from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds requires more than information. It requires the personal sharing of viewpoints and mutual processing of situations. In addition, in order to identify with and internalize the values inherent in the society as a whole, students must work cooperatively with others, build personal and committed relationships with peers who are committed to a superordinate identity as members of the same society. There is considerable evidence that cooperative experiences, compared with competitive and individualistic ones, promote more positive, committed, and caring relationships regardless of differences in ethnic, cultural, language, social class, gender, ability, or other differences. Finally, if the discords of diverse students meeting in the school are to be transformed into a symphony, students need a positive self-view, the psychological health to face conflict and challenge, and the social competencies required to work effectively with diverse peers. Personal and super-ordinate identities are developed through group processes. It takes membership in cooperative groups to develop a personal identity, an ethnic identity, an identity as a citizen of a society, and an identity as a world citizen. There is considerable evidence that working cooperatively increases students’ self-esteem and psychological health, their ability to act independently and exert their autonomy, their interpersonal and small-group skills, and their understanding of interdependence and cooperative efforts. Diversity can fulfill its promise rather than be a problem when learning situations and schools are structured cooperatively. This begins with diverse students being brought together in the same classroom, the teacher using cooperative learning procedures the majority of the time, the principal organizing teachers into colleagial support groups aimed at increasing their expertise in using cooperative learning and working together as a team, and the superintendent organizing administrators into colleagial support groups aimed at increasing their expertise in leading a cooperative school and working together as a team. Such a cooperative organizational structure will result in diversity enhancing learning and in creating a shared super-ordinate identity as American, and at an even higher level, world citizen.

References Allport, G. (1954). The Nature of Prejudice. Cambridge, Mass.: Addison-Wesley. Aronson, E. (1978). The Jigsaw Classroom. Beverly Hills, Calif.: Sage Publications. Deutsch, M. (1949). A theory of cooperation and competition. Human Relations 2, 129–52.

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Deutsch, M. (1962). Cooperation and trust: Some theoretical notes. In M.Jones (ed.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation (pp. 275–319). Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. DeVries, D., and Edwards, K. (1974). Cooperation in the classroom: Towards a theory of alternative reward-task classroom structures. Paper presented at the meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, April. Johnson, D.W. (1991). Human Relations and Your Career (3rd edn.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. Johnson, D.W. (2000). Reaching Out: Interpersonal Effectiveness and Self-Actualization (7th edn.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Johnson, D.W., and Johnson, F. (2000). Joining Together: Group Theory and Group Skills (7th edn.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Johnson, D.W., and Johnson, R. (1989). Cooperation and Competition: Theory and Research. Edina, Minn.: Interaction Book Company. Johnson, D.W., and Johnson, R. (1994). Leading the Cooperative School (2nd edn.). Edina Minn.: Interaction Book Company. Johnson, D.W., Johnson, R., and Holubec, E. (1998). Advanced Cooperative Learning (3rd edn.). Edina, Minn.: Interaction Book Company. Johnson, D.W., Johnson, R., and Holubec, E. (1993). Circles of Learning (4th edn.). Edina, Minn.: Interaction Book Company. Johnson, D.W., Johnson, R., and Smith, K. (1998). Active Learning: Cooperation in the College Classroom (2nd edn.). Edina, Minn.: Interaction Book Company. Slavin, R. (1986). Using Student Team Learning. Baltimore: Center for Research on Elementary and Middle Schools, Johns Hopkins University. Watson, G. (1947). Action for Unity. New York: Harper. Williams, D. (1948). The effects of an interracial project upon the attitudes of Negro and white girls within the YWCA. In A.Rose (ed.), Studies in the Reduction of Prejudice. Chicago: American Council of Race Relations.

3 Explicit Values in the Classroom: Is it Possible? KAREN CAPLE

Introduction The National Professional Development Program (NPDP) Values Review Project in Western Australia (WA) has been proactively investigating the extent to which values can be explicitly integrated into the schooling curriculum, in particular one framed within an outcome-based context. The NPDP Values Review Project was one of eighteen projects undertaken in Western Australia over a three-year period through government funding, all under the coordination of the WA Cross-sectoral Consortium (1994–6). This Consortium comprised representatives from each of the WA Government, Independent, Anglican and Catholic school authorities, the government and non-government teachers’ unions, representatives from professional and subject associations and the WA Council of Deans of Education. The NPDP was a Commonwealth initiative where funds were made available to the States and Territories over a three-year period, for teacher Professional Development (PD) activities. These funds supported national initiatives in education, by recognizing the importance of ongoing teacher renewal to improve educational outcomes for students. The activities undertaken were to address the following goals: • facilitate the use of curriculum statements and profiles for Australian schools, key competencies and the teaching of accredited vocational education courses in schools; • assist the renewal of teacher’s discipline knowledge and teaching skills and help teachers to improve work organization practices and teaching competencies within schools; • enhance the professional culture of teachers and encourage teacher organizations to take a higher profile in promoting professional development; • promote partnerships between educational authorities, teacher organizations, principals’ associations and universities in the provision of professional development opportunities for teachers.

Background A perceived lack of an explicit values dimension in the national statements and profiles being developed for Australian National Curriculum in 1993, motivated a group of individuals from the non-government schooling sector1 in western Australia, to initiate the present project. Prior to this, the Education Department of WA had commenced

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working on Student Outcome Statements (SOS), a set of desired outcomes in eight learning areas for monitoring student achievement. Both of these initiatives signalled a concern, as to the lack of an explicit values dimension. At this time the Revd. Dr Tom Wallace, Chaplain and Education Consultant for the Anglican Schools Commission in WA, convened a meeting to discuss this apparent lack of values within the proposed outcomes being developed at both national and state levels. A number of questions were raised and discussed at this meeting: • Could SOS be modified to include a more specific reference to values? • What values should be identified in each of the learning areas? • Were values able to be integrated into a student outcomes framework that was sequentially developed into eight levels? • How could both teachers and schools integrate values more effectively and explicitly into classroom practice and school life? Thus the NPDP Values Review Project was born with the general aim of determining the extent to which values can be explicitly integrated into a curriculum that may be framed by Student Outcome Statements and current curriculum practices. After funding was granted by the Commonwealth and directed to the WA Crosssectoral Consortium for distribution, the project was initiated and managed by a group, reflecting the partners represented in the Consortium. This management group was initially termed a ‘Reference Committee’ and has helped guide and advise on the work and direction of the project since 1994.2

Stages in the project • 1994 Initial planning and development of a values framework • 1995 Publication of the Agreed Minimum Values Framework, a framework, established through a consensus approach, of core shared values Values Audit of Student Outcome Statement (WA version) School Trials 1995 Exploration of writing Values Outcome Statements • 1996 School Trialing in two phases One day Conference Exploration of placing values explicitly into Student Outcome Statements (WA version)

This chapter documents the process and results of the 1996 Classroom Practice Trial of the NPDP Values Review Project.

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The Agreed Minimum Values Framework The Agreed Minimum Values Framework document developed by the NPDP Values Review Project and released in May 1995, is a framework of values that represents a baseline agreement of values for a group of consultants who were contracted to undertake this task, late in 1994. Despite this document representing a consensus position on values within the non-government schooling sector in Western Australia, it has proved to be a valuable document or tool for individual schools, systems or sectors, communities or religious groups to create or refine their own values framework, to suit their own needs and purpose. The document contains sixty values listed under three levels (Ultimate, Democratic and Educational) and within four themes. These value words are listed in Table 3.1 under these four themes. Each value within the document is defined or expanded to give a context for its existence.

Table 3.1 Agreed Minimum Values Framework NPDP Values Review Project Life perspectives

Individual

Society

Natural world

After-life

Access

Authority

Conservation of the environment

Family

Caring

Benefits of research Development

Freedom of worship

Citizenship

Community

Diversity of species

God as Creator

Compassion

Conflict resolution

Domains of knowledge

God as Selfrevealer

Empowerment

Contribution

Environmental responsibility

Knowledge

Equality

Critical reflection

Exploitation

Personal meaning

Imperfection

Diversity

Nature is good

Religion

Individual differences

Family

Quest for truth

Religious freedom

Individual uniqueness

Morality

Rehabilitation

Religious quest

Learning climate

Multiculturalism

Science and values

Search for knowledge

Open to learn

Participation

Stewardship

Spirituality

Opportunity

Reconciliation

Sustainable development

Study of world views

Responsibility

School as community

Value systems

Responsibility and freedom

Social justice

Social nature

The common good

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Value dimension Welfare

For example, equality, is defined as ‘We affirm the equal worth and basic rights of all persons, regardless of differences in race, gender, ability, and religious belief.’ Schools within the trial were encouraged to define their chosen core values in a similar manner, as part of their School Values Statement.

Overview of 1996 trialing The 1996 trialing within the NPDP Values Project was in two main areas, having been identified as needed from previous project work: • Classroom Practice: this trial involved 45 teachers, government (24) and nongovernment (21) teachers from both primary (31) and secondary (14) backgrounds. The trial investigated and documented how values could be explicitly integrated into the curriculum within the context of the individual school and its community. • School Planning: this component involved 20 schools,2 10 government and 10 nongovernment, who developed a School Values Statement, as part of their School Ethos or Development Plan. This Values Statement clearly identified those values that were important to the school and each trial school explored ways of integrating these values into the life of the school (e.g. School Policies, Pastoral Care and School Priorities).

Aim of the Classroom Practice Trial The overall aim of the project was to investigate the extent to which values could be explicitly integrated into the schooling curriculum, in particular one framed within an outcome based context. The specific aims of the Classroom Practice Trial were to help teachers: 1 explore the role of values in teaching 2 take part in the development of a School Values Statement3 3 be able to articulate the explicit inclusion of values in the general curriculum 4 adapt a program or unit of work to include explicitly chosen values from the Agreed Minimum Values Framework and school plan 5 demonstrate the outcomes of the implementation of a School Values Statement The Classroom Practice Trial was based on an action inquiry model, where teachers used a combination of reflective practice and action research throughout the trial period: Reflective Practice=plan act recall experience and reflect evaluate re-plan Action Research=plan act informally monitor recall and reflect on experience review and evaluate action re-plan

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The important feature of this trial was that each teacher was able to create their own inquiry or case study, to suit the needs of their own students and school. The reflective practice undertaken enabled the teachers to consciously evaluate the process presented within the draft curriculum package used during the trial, and to document the outcomes they experienced. The stages of the trial were constructed to support this notion of an inquiry model. In addition, some of the supporting and underlying principles of the trial were identified from a study conducted in western Australia on principles of best practice related to professional development (Louden 1994). These principles included: • voluntary participation • self-reflective practice • spaced learning • workplace learning • innovative teaching practice • collegial support and critique • provision of teacher relief • provision of high quality “user friendly” materials and resources • support of the school executive • builds knowledge and ownership through action research • professional review

Timeline for the trial March Expressions of Interest sent to all metropolitan schools and country schools (nongovernment only) April

Selection and Confirmation of Involvement

May

Workshop 1: Background and introduction to the trial, including the Draft Curriculum Package. A session on practical classroom skills in the area of values was also included for trial participants.

June

Network Cluster Meetings: Four half-day meetings were held for teachers to network and share ideas on their classroom practice, in addition to seeking guidance from the project co-ordinator.

August

Workshop 2: This workshop provided a “higher order of values integration” within the classroom. Guest speakers and workshop presenters challenged those present to a more in-depth view on values, in addition to teachers being able to share their current experiences within the classroom.

September Network Cluster Meetings: These four half-day workshops gave each teacher an opportunity to collaborate with their curriculum network and share classroom experiences. This final workshop also formed part of the Final Reporting associated with the trial. October

Reporting and Evaluation of the Trial and Process: A report on the trial (case study) and process undertaken submitted.

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Stages within the Classroom Practice Trial Stage 1: Awareness raising The NPDP Values Project had been undertaking some trialing during 1995, however on a much smaller scale and centered predominantly within the non-government schooling sector. A series of classroom trials were conducted by eleven teachers and these formed the foundation to the extensive trialing in 1996. In addition to the trialing and other associated work, an important milestone of the project was the release of the Agreed Minimum-Values Framework in May 1995. This document was distributed widely to individual schools and groups and was the genesis of an explicit values dimension in educational initiatives in Western Australia. In November 1995, a series of three half-day workshops were held for Principals and interested teachers to gain an insight into the work of the project and to direct the project forward into 1996. The feedback and enthusiasm displayed by the 140 who attended, from ninety different schools, was affirming for this explicit values dimension within education. The feedback gained from the workshops revolved around the following questions: • In what ways is the current work of the NPDP Values Review Project potentially useful or of value to schools? • Are there any important issues that need to be addressed? • What are the needs of schools? • What are the needs of Administrators? • Any other suggestions and ideas? The feedback received from the group at this point was overwhelming, as from those in attendance, forty-three schools indicated some degree of commitment to trialing in this area of values in 1996. All feedback gained from those who attended was annotated and used as a foundation to the work undertaken throughout 1996. From this gathering, a network was formed and twenty-four schools subsequently engaged the Project Coordinator to give presentations to staff either late in 1995 or early 1996. It is of special note that this series of presentations was independent of the classroom practice trialing phase conducted during 1996. The following comments received from participants highlighted some of the important issues to be considered: • If values are to be incorporated into all learning areas, how will teacher bias, indifference or personal values be addressed? • My school needs to establish what are the values that it wants to impart to its students. • Dealing with students in the classroom from different cultural backgrounds who/whose parents do not value democracy or personal freedom, raises the question of PD for teachers, new skills are needed.

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• Agreed values—minimum values—need to be determined by all sectors of society, not just the educationalists. • Values do not arise in isolation—issues in schools often involve conflicting values. One of the major outcomes of the workshops was for schools to indicate their level of future involvement in the project, by addressing the following questions: • Would your school be interested in being kept informed of the NPDP Values Review initiatives? • Are you interested in having a school visit by the Project Coordinator to give a short presentation to staff on the NPDP Values Review Project? • Would your school be interested in the curriculum initiatives planned for 1996? School Planning Trial Classroom Practice Trial • Would your school be able to assist in the collection of resources and examples of best practice methods that currently exist? Early in 1996, at the commencement of the school year, a further half-day workshop was held for interested school personnel. This workshop again outlined the progress of the NPDP Values Review Project and focused specifically on the trialing to be undertaken during the year. Teachers involved within the initial trialing during 1995, presented some of their findings and experiences to those present. The whole concept, expectations and time frame of the 1996 trialing was presented and individuals and schools were asked to submit a form detailing their expression of interest in the trialing, in either of the two main focus areas. In February 1996, following this initial workshop, the project had a major dilemma in relation to accommodating the interest expressed, as funding was limited to engaging thirty teachers for funded placements. The level of interest expressed at the time was shown by the fact that forty-five schools sought involvement in the trial and seventy-four teachers nominated to be included in it. As a result of this overwhelming interest, a set of criteria were used to prioritize individual schools, as well as offering places to those schools and teachers who could self fund their involvement. The criteria used were: 1 Expression of interest and commitment from attendees at the workshop held late in 1995 2 Schools committed to both aspects of the trialing (School Planning and Classroom Practice) 3 Order of reply 4 Balance of school sectors and Primary/ Secondary components This process of selection created the final position for trialing, forty-five teachers from twenty-six schools commenced the 1996 Classroom Practice Trial.

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Stage 2: Writing of a draft process package This stage involved researching and writing a draft process that teachers could use as a guide within their own schools. One of the outcomes was to trial and modify this process in order for it to be published and made available to others as a model or framework. This publication would contain both the trialed process and all the case studies from the NPDP Values Review Project Classroom Practice Trial. The appointed writer4 consulted widely and devised a process to undertake throughout the trial, matching the vision and guidelines provided by the Project Coordinator and the cross-sectoral management committee of the project. The package aligned itself to support the action research format of the trial, and to complement the workshops conducted throughout the trial. An overview of the content of this Draft Classroom Practice Package is detailed below, however the content as listed, does not reflect the decision to create a package that was short, precise, effective and ‘user friendly’ for the participants to use. The package was considered an excellent resource by the external Evaluator of the NPDP Values Review, and has been available for purchase since 1997 with all the case studies from the trialing included in the package. The Draft Curriculum Package was designed to be a step-by-step guide for teachers to identify and integrate key values into programs and classroom practice. The package was built around the small number of trials completed in 1995, as part of the initial work of the project, and was implemented through the workshops conducted in association with the trial. Stage 3: Introductory workshop This one-day workshop for the forty-five teachers involved both an introduction to values in education and the Draft Curriculum Package developed for the trial. Professor Brian Hill, from Murdoch University and a consultant to the project, delivered a thoughtprovoking session on “Values, what are they, and the importance of them.” This was followed by a session on outcomes in education, in addition to the launch and exploration of the Draft Curriculum Package. This workshop provided a worthwhile springboard for the trial, as reflected in these comments: Box 3.1 Contents of Draft Curriculum Package 1 Introduction Organization of this package The 1996 School Trials Aims of the 1996 Classroom Practice Trial Outcomes-based learning in WA Schools Terminology 2 Getting started Integrated values into teaching Articulating values and creating your own School Values Statement Examples of School Values Statements 3 The Classroom Environment

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The worlds of the teacher In the classroom What is your own values stance as a teacher? How can you establish an appropriate classroom environment to promote values development? How do children best learn? What kind of language do you use as a teacher? 4 Programming 10 steps to creating your own program/unit of work 5 Sample Units of Work 6 Assessment and Reporting 7 Reflection and Collaboration Being a reflective teacher Creativity, intuition and a journal Teaching as conversation Reflection and contemplation Collaboration with colleagues Collaboration with parents/community 8 Resources

• I now know my role and requirements within the project and I feel that support is available to meet concerns. • I thought the order of presentations today was most effective—ideas and focus areas all became interrelated and into perspective. Congratulations on the trial package—the background reading will become more and more relevant as the process is put into place by teachers. • The Draft Package is very well put together; it is encouraging to have a document so clearly arranged. I feel enthused and now well informed about the expectations of me and the outcomes expected from the group. The teachers at the workshop were provided with the following brief for the trial: 1 Explore what a value is and explicitly identify those appropriate to your school community. 2 Select a unit of work with which you are very comfortable, and feel values are inherently a part of, and explicitly place your chosen key values of the school into the program of work. 3 Teach the unit. 4 Reflect during and after the unit, as to how the values integration went, including reflections from staff and students, where possible. This simple process is demonstrated in Figure 3.1. A focus within the workshop was to explore what a value is, enabling each teacher to have the same starting point in terms of identifying or determining those specific values suited to their own school community. This common definition was taken from Values Strategies for Classroom Teachers (Lemin et al. 1994):

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Values are determined by the beliefs we hold. They are the ideas about what someone or a group thinks is important in life and they play a very important part in decision making. We express our values in the way we think and act. The distinction between values, beliefs and attitudes5 was also important to clarify for the trial teachers, so the following was presented as demonstrating each, as well as their interaction:

Figure 3.1 The process of developing a new values program (NB: Values relate to ethical issues rather than to religious instruction which has it own particular content, i.e. subject in itself.)

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Value: one’s judgment of what is important or worthwhile in life…values are articulated, developed, agreed, settled and acted upon, at the level of the culture of the community. Belief: acceptance of thing, fact or statement as true or existing…‘beliefs’ implies our acceptance, tenure and emotional commitment to a particular set of propositions about the world…reality. Attitude: settled behavior or mode of thinking… strong feelings or convictions towards or away from something… Stage 4: Network cluster meetings A series of four half-day workshops were held for participants, arranged specifically in like curriculum areas to facilitate networking. The aim and desired outcomes of these half days were: • To reflect upon values in the classroom, and the practical implications occurring within the classroom • To share with colleagues, the progress and steps undertaken by each participant, along with any difficulties being experienced • To assist participants with the trialing, reflecting upon the expectations and guidelines provided within the Draft Curriculum Package These four workshops were an essential component of the action research trial process, as it proved to be a critical point for all participants. Individual teachers provided inspiration and guidance to their peers, despite the different socio-economic backgrounds of schools, teachers and students involved within the trial. Stage 5: Workshop 2 This second one-day workshop provided a range of different opportunities for the trial participants. A higher order, more intense presentation was given on values within the classroom and the relationship of the teacher to his or her class,6 followed by an informal session of the issue of assessment of values.7 This was supported by a workshop session on practical strategies to use within the classroom, followed by further networking of teachers across all sectors and spheres of education. Stage 6: Network cluster meetings The second series of half-day workshops were modeled on the first round, however an additional focus was placed on the Final Report and expectations of the project. An external evaluation8 undertaken by the NPDP Values Review Project, clearly documented the success of these half-day workshops, reporting the following teacher comments: • In addition to reassurance the workshops afforded opportunity to share ideas, consider different approaches to implementation and to hear about the difficulties others were experiencing.

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• The workshops…allowed time to interact with other teachers and to appreciate their problems and solutions. They gave me time to reflect on the project away from the classroom and the busy atmosphere of school They gave me inspiration from specialists in different fields, as well as encouragement Stage 7: Final report At the commencement of the trial, each teacher was provided with an outline of the expectations required when submitting the Final Report and case study. This format was developed in order to collate standard information from all schools within the trial, into an easily identifiable package at the conclusion of the trialing. The final Curriculum Package developed by the NPDP Values Review Project has been available since 1997. The Final Report consisted of: Process (a) How did you derive your values statement? (b) Identify and list the outcome strands and statements (WA version) that you used in your trialing. (c) How did you undertake the task of explicitly integrating values into your lessons? (d) What were the results of your attempts to integrate values into your: 1 Programming 2 Teaching and learning strategies 3 Student understanding and response 4 Selection of content Reflections

(a) Using your journal, share some of your: 1 Highlights of the trial 2 Difficulties incorporating values 3 Difficulties working with outcomes (b) Do you have any feedback or suggestions working on: 1 The Draft Process Package 2 Identifying and forming your School Values Statement 3 Integrating values into your teaching 4 Working with Student Outcome Statements

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Reflections on the trial The findings and data collected from the forty-five teachers involved in the 1996 trialing, was undertaken in many different curriculum areas9 across the full range of years of schooling.10 The reflections below are grouped for ease of summary, and not always placed according to the sections in which the respondents originally placed their answers. Each teacher involved in the trial derived a set of core shared values from documents that existed in the school at the time, from publications from their schooling sectors and from the Agreed Minimum Values Framework to create their own school values statement: • I presented a suggested list of values from the Agreed Minimum Values Framework, together with a copy of the Framework to my colleagues at a staff meeting. The selection of values was a challenging task but I was guided by the School Aims and Objectives booklet, our Pastoral Care Policy and the curriculum initiatives we had put into practice in the Junior School. (Year 5 Teacher) • I worked alone and began by going to our School Code of Ethics and highlighting all of the words that I felt held a value. I then circled the values from The Agreed Minimum Values Framework that interested me. From these I created a priority of values that I felt were the most fundamental. (Year 7 Teacher) • The statement was created through a consultative process involving the values trial teachers, who presented a draft statement to the school staff for endorsement. Parents were also consulted through a Parents and Citizens Association meeting and endorsed the statement. The values incorporated within the statement were selected from the school performance indicators, school behavior management policy and the Agreed Minimum Values Framework. (Year 1–7 Teachers) • Selection of “Trial Values” was quite a difficult task so I can see that a School Values Statement really must be in place first before teachers can be expected to introduce values as a matter of course… Creating a School Values Statement is a big task and needs the full commitment of a coordinated and supportive committee. (Year 6 Teacher) Most teachers were surprised how easy it was for them to integrate values. Rather than making vast changes to their programs and teaching styles, they added the extra dimension of values through carefully chosen questions or activities: • I had already planned my program in Society and Environment for the Term, so I had to decide which values I wanted to cover ‘post programming’. I broke down each lesson to find out where values would fit best, and then altered the focus of the lesson. (Year 3 Teacher) • Integrating values into my teaching was not difficult. It involved some thought at the planning stage of programming merely because it was different. It involved teaching in a different way—therefore different activities needed to be arranged. This was refreshing for both my class and me. Many useful classroom activities would not have been undertaken if values teaching had not occurred. (Year 3 Teacher)

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• Keep the usual programs and add values questions to the usual discussion, project or work based exercises. Carefully chosen literature can be an easy way to begin discussions about chosen values. (Year 3 Teacher) Some teachers commented that values integration would become easier for them with practice and with a continued focus on values: • As this becomes accepted practice, teachers will find it easy as putting in that “value” question or adding a thought-provoking suggestion to elicit discussions on important values in life. It is more a matter of conscious effort than one of great difficulty. (Year 6 Teacher) • There were learning curves for all of us on this first program, but it was evident that the students responded well to the oral work and appreciated the extra group activities. (Year 6 Teacher) • My class policy has always echoed the belief that the classroom itself has to become a place where the student is comfortable and is able to believe that s/he has values, so it was relatively simple for me to continue working with my students without the need for dramatic changes in behavior or planning. (Year 4 Teacher) While others stressed that they had always programmed with values in mind but that this trial allowed them to make these values explicit: • I appreciated the opportunity to make more explicit something I had been doing anyway. I think it is really important that we make our own values overt and that we give the students opportunities to explore and formulate theirs. (Year 9 Teacher) • I have no difficulty in programming values into my lessons. It is something I have always done in the past. It is inherent in the very ‘social’ nature of the subject, but in the present context I find the highlighting of ‘values in education’ certainly makes more conscious of the need for closer correlation with student outcomes. (Year 2 Teacher) The classroom atmosphere was considered vital by many, particularly as fostered by the teacher’s own attitudes, value stance and relationship with the students: • The area of difficulty in integrating values was in the actual presentation and facilitation of lessons and learning experiences. It involved the presentation of information and experiences according to my value stance of “committed impartiality.” (Pre-primary Teacher) • The development of a positive classroom climate does not happen immediately but over a period of time and as a result of the consistent promotion and demonstration of positive values and behaviors. Its development is fundamental to the success of any values based program and the most powerful determinant is the teacher—being genuine and sincere will not solve all the problems but will help you to develop the trust which will allow a student to at least explore different values and the notion of choice. (Year 4 Teacher) • I consciously avoided standing in front of the children and informing them of the values that we were “going to learn.” The aim was for the children to experience the activity first and then draw their own conclusions from the following discussions. I tried to alter my normal lesson as little as possible and not make the value teaching too

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obvious. It was hoped that the message would be better absorbed with a subtle approach. (Year 6–7 Teacher) Several teachers commented that they were still in the process of developing a new approach to class activities, which they found exciting but challenging: • It is taking me some time to become used to my new role in discussions. I even have to watch my body language. I’m so pleased I decided to incorporate the values into my philosophy program because philosophy lessons see me as the facilitator, modeling procedures of inquiry but also taking a stance of committed impartiality—this has been emphasized during the trial. (Year 5 Teacher) • I avoided directly teaching a particular value. Instead, I used activities which helped students to consider and reflect on a variety of points of view which enabled them to develop an opinion and belief. Sometimes I found this difficult because I held a particular belief very strongly. (Year 6 Teacher) A large number of teachers reported that students were strongly involved and interested in the trialing, even groups of students who tended to be negative towards school: • There was more involvement by all students in the lessons. It was noticeable that there was a keener response from those students who are normally reluctant to participate in discussions. Although there was an improvement in the oral discussion level, this improvement did not flow through to the student’s written work. (Year 6 teacher) • I believe that more students were on task and producing worthwhile work while working on these projects than one might usually expect. (Year 9 Teacher) • The language that they used when discussing inter-personal issues changed noticeably. Their reflective writing also demonstrated their increased understanding. (Year 9 Teacher) Teachers generally felt positive about the experience of being required to be explicit about values in programs. Comments included that the values made the program more real or focused, and that it was good to be explicit about something that had always been present under the surface: • To explicitly state the values that this program would be teaching, had a very positive psychological effect upon my teaching. I felt that the entire program was based on a very firm and worthwhile foundation. (Year 3 Teacher) • Incorporating values was not really a problem. In fact, it enabled me to give a more clearly defined focus to my teaching program. (Year 10 Teacher) In fact, the programming process was seen as one of identifying and highlighting issues and ideas that were relevant to an explicit values dimension: • During the planning process I identified relevant issues that could be a focus for values exploration. I then selected specific strategies for exploring values. I found that I did not make major changes to planning and many strategies were part of my normal dayto-day teaching. (K-7 Teacher)

Conclusion

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The National Professional Development Program in Australia has provided a valuable pathway for the Values Review Project to undertake major developments in the field of values in education. The establishment of the Agreed Minimum Values Framework has been recognized as a first, and its usage in two aspects of trailing has been unmatched. This trial in Classroom Practice has provided an excellent tool for any group or individual committed to identifying values and integrating them explicitly into practice. Both the process trialed and case studies submitted as a part of the NPDP Values Review Project trial, and soon to be published in the Final Curriculum Package, will be an asset to any educational or community group throughout the world, recognizing multicultural diversity in all facets.

Notes 1 Non-government schools refers to schools that are church based, including Catholic schools, and other independent or private schools, i.e. not government systemic schools 2 The total number of schools involved in both aspects of the trialing was 26, as overlap did occur between the two aspects. 3 A School Values Statement as defined by the NPDP Values Review Project, is a simple collection of values to affirm and exists as a subset of a school’s development plan or vision/mission statement. 4 The curriculum writer contracted to undertake the formation of the process package was Ms Jane Grellier, from Jane Munroe and Associates. 5 The distinction between values, beliefs and attitudes is from a paper by Professor David Aspin for the NPDP Values Review Project, and is contained within the Final Classroom Practice Curriculum Package. 6 Chapter 4 of the Final Curriculum Package contains a very valuable section exploring the notion of “What is your own values stance as a teacher?” 7 Chapter 6 of the Final Curriculum Package contains a relevant and thought-provoking focus on “Assessment, Evaluation and Communication.” 8 An external evaluation was carried out by Dr Graham B. Dellar, Curtin University, on the NPDP Values Review Project in October 1996. 9 In Western Australia the curriculum has been categorized into eight key learning areas, derived in part from investigations into a national curriculum. These are: The Arts, English, Health & Physical Education, Languages other than English (LOTE), Mathematics, Science, Studies of Society and Environment, and Technology and Enterprise. 10 In Western Australia, the years of schooling are from pre-primary (age 5) to Year 12 (age 17). The term K-12 refers to this age span of schooling.

References Lemin, M., Potts, H. and Welsford, P. (eds.) (1994) Values Strategies for Classroom Teachers: Hawthorn, Victoria: ACER Louden, William (1994) What Counts as Best Practice in Teachers’ Professional Development. Report No 1, prepared for the WA Cross-sectoral Steering Committee for the NPDP in Western Australia. NPDP Values Review Project. Agreed Minimum Values Framework. NPDP Values Review Project (1997) Values in Education: Classroom Curriculum Package. NPDP Values Review Project (1997) Values In Education: School Planning Package.

4 Growing up Today: Children Talking about Social Issues CATHIE HOLDEN I would like the world to be kind and friendly. Like if you walk into town and people have a push-chair and they accidentally bump into someone they would say ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to’. The other person would say ‘That’s OK’. I would like it if everyone thought about violence. I hate the violence. Girl, aged 11

The rapid social and economic change witnessed by society in the 1990s has led to intense debate about the values of young people and the role of educators in equipping them to become responsible adults in a culturally diverse society. The church has entered the debate with Carey (1996) recognizing the ‘strong moral concern’ of children but questioning the part currently being played by schools in fostering this concern. The National Forum for Values in Education has drawn up guidelines for schools emphasizing the family, relationships, the self and the environment. Central to this debate is a concern that children should become active citizens in the future, with a moral framework to guide them. The media report that young people are not interested in voting and that they have no desire to be actively involved in creating a better society (TES, 1996). As a result there is a fear that young people are apathetic, devoid of interest in current issues and cynical about the part they can play in society. What is missing from this debate is the perspectives of children themselves. It is this that this chapter seeks to redress. Pollard, Thiessen and Filer (1997) argue that children have the right to express their opinions about the relevance of their schooling to their own lives and culture. Those concerned with education should, they say, take these views seriously and ensure that the curriculum meets children’s needs, thereby decreasing alienation and allowing for a subsequent rise in learning or ‘standards’: Listening to pupil voices should not be seen as a sentimental or romantic option, but as a serious contribution to educational thinking and development (p. 5). This chapter takes the rights of children to be heard as central: it is through listening to children that we can understanding their values, their hopes, their motivation and their misunderstandings and can thus plan an appropriate curriculum. Values and morality

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cannot be taught in a vacuum: they must be placed within an appropriate context, and this context must be relevant to pupils. This chapter looks at specific social, moral and economic issues, and argues that these are areas of national (and international) concern and ought to be more widely debated in schools. Listening to children talk about these issues indicates that they are also of concern to children and that they are an appropriate forum for values education. The work reported here arises from a recent major research project which focused on children’s hopes and fears for the future (both for themselves and for the wider world) and their visions of the kind of future society they would like. While the overall findings have been reported elsewhere (Hicks and Holden, 1995), this chapter reports specifically on children’s views on social and economic issues.

Social issues: a rationale Poverty, unemployment, violence, racism and gender inequality have been identified as major concerns for the twenty-first century by educators, politicians and policy-makers. Most recently Brighouse (1996) called for ‘the key problems of the next century— population growth, unemployment, ozone depletion, drought, famine and poverty’ to be addressed in schools. More specifically, the International Labour Organization report (ILO, 1996) states that world unemployment has reached one billion and that almost onethird of the global work force is out of work or underemployed. Unemployment in European Union (EU) countries is now 11.3 per cent. The report emphasizes that the growing number of working poor will aggravate economic problems and social unrest and as a result argues that unemployment is the most important challenge facing industrialized and developing countries equally. Poverty, whilst recognized as a problem for many third world countries, is now a major issue in the United Kingdom, with almost one in three children living below the poverty line (TES, 1997). Violence was included in our research as a key issue as it was evident from our pilot survey that children were concerned about this and linked it with poverty and unemployment. Recent debate in the media has also depicted increasing violence as a major concern for the 1990s, with incidents such as the murders of toddler Jamie Bulger and headteacher Philip Lawrence fuelling the debate. In addition racism and the position of women were chosen as key issues. Whilst these relate more to attitudes and beliefs than to socio-economic factors, we considered them important as a measure of the values and beliefs currently held by young people. The position of women continues to be a focus for debate. Feminist writers maintain that girls are still disadvantaged by the educational system because, despite their better performance in many examinations, they are still earning less and sharing fewer of the top jobs. The National Curriculum may have ensured access to all for the taught curriculum, but gender bias is still evident in schools (Arnot, 1993; Weiner, 1994). In addition the work of Mac an Ghaill (1994), amongst others, shows how gender expectations can work to the detriment of boys, with pressure put on them to conform to certain ‘macho roles’. Discussion of racism and anti-racist teaching has been discouraged in schools since the 1980s and further sublimated by the National Curriculum. Griffiths and Troyna (1995) detail the ‘persistent and invidious demonisation of and racist education as part of

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a more general attack on equal opportunities issues’. However, a Department for Education and Employment (DFEE) press release (1996) indicates that racism is once again being recognized as contributing to underachievement. The release details measures to raise standards for ethnic minority pupils, and asks the Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) to ‘review its accumulating inspection evidence on racial harassment and stereotyping and the action schools are taking to tackle this’. Evidence of such continuing racial discrimination comes from Gilborn and Gipps (1996) who indicate that while some ethnic minority groups are making good progress, Afro-Caribbean boys still underachieve, and still suffer from discrimination when applying to older universities. The report also notes widespread racial harassment of ethnic minority pupils which is not always recognized by teachers.

Children and the future Children’s concern for the future was taken as the central focus of our research as images of the future play a crucial role in social and cultural change both at personal and societal levels. People’s hopes and fears for the future influence what they are prepared to do in the present and what they are prepared to work towards. Boulding (1988) and others have suggested that images of the future are a critical measure of a society’s inner well-being, acting as a mirror of the times. Ascertaining the views of children towards the future seems particularly important as the attitudes they hold now may determine the part they are prepared to play in maintaining our democratic society into the next century. The data were obtained by questionnaire and indepth interviews with nearly 400 pupils from the south-west of England. Eight schools were chosen to ensure a balance of urban and rural catchment areas and different socio-economic classes. Ethnic minority children were also represented. Pupils were drawn from four age groups: 6–7, 10–11, 13– 14, and 17–18, with an equal number of boys and girls, but the complexity of the issues discussed in this chapter mean that 7-year-olds are excluded from this particular focus. The main findings, reported in Hicks and Holden (1995), conclude that: British young people in the 1990s appear optimistic about their own future. They are committed to the responsibilities of adult life and wish for a good job, a good education and secure relationships with partners and children. They are less optimistic about the future for other people, both in their local community and globally… Whilst they often hope for a more just and sustainable future, school provides little opportunity for discussions on such issues. They feel responsible as citizens of the future for what may happen, but lack a clear vision of what their own part in this might be… Their visions thus remain fragmented and essentially conservative in a time of radical change.

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What pupils said In order to investigate pupils’ opinions and understanding of social issues, they were first of all given questionnaires which addressed each issue in relation to the future. Would unemployment, for example, increase, stay the same, or decrease? A sample were then asked in interview to elaborate on their answers and explain their thinking. This enabled the researchers to gain access to the complexity of children’s thinking, including an understanding of how misconceptions varied with age and factors which determined a positive or negative outlook. Each issue was addressed from a local and global perspective, with children being asked for their opinions on both. This was done because of our long-standing belief that both perspectives are important in this age of cultural diversity and global communication. Children may feel more immediate affinity with their local area but, as Brighouse (1996) says, we would be working within ‘an artificial framework’ if we just tried to understand issues of equal opportunity or injustice in relation to the local community. In addition what children perceive as happening in their own area may be very different to what they expect for the rest of the world. Previous work on children’s expectations for the future (L.Johnson, 1987) shows that they tend to be less optimistic about the possible future for people outside their own community. More problems exist ‘out there’ than ‘back here’. Children’s opinions on each issue are reported below, with discussion on these reserved for the final section of the chapter. Unemployment Children were asked if they thought that in the future, there would be more unemployment, less

Table 4.1 Unemployment in the local area (%) (n=284) Age 11

Age 14

Age 18

Total

More unemployment

51

37

46

45

About the same

28

39

46

36

Less unemployment

21

25

7

19

Table 4.2 Unemployment in the world (%) (n=284) Age 11

Age 14

Age 18

Total

More unemployment

48

53

62

53

About the same

25

33

25

28

Less unemployment

27

14

13

19

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unemployment or if levels would stay the same. Discussion in follow-up interviews allowed them to elaborate on the reasons for their choice and their understanding of this issue. The data indicate that half the children questioned thought that levels of unemployment would worsen, with the other half divided over whether it would improve or stay the same. They were slightly more pessimistic about the situation globally than locally. With a further breakdown by gender, boys were slightly more optimistic than girls as in each case two-thirds of those saying there would be less unemployment were boys. Children’s understanding of unemployment naturally varied with age. Eleven-yearolds who thought levels of unemployment would increase used as evidence what they saw around them or their own family situations: When you go down the High Street there’s people saying they’re hungry… My mum’s unemployed… She’d like to go out to work. Other 11-year-olds showed an ability to hypothesize about the job situation, and we see at this age the beginnings of what was to become a recurrent theme: a fascination with new technology at the same time as a realization that it may bring job losses. There won’t be any more jobs in the future because there’s electronics…like JCB trucks. They just have to sit in them and move the controls. There are robots now. There’ll be robots…robots will take over people’s jobs. Those who thought unemployment would decrease gave as reasons evidence from personal experience or thought that the government could provide jobs: My Dad was unemployed but he’s got a job now. If there was a good government they could pay people to collect litter…at least it’s a job. In one instance this led to debate about the power of governments to change the economic situation and illustrates the different levels of economic awareness among 11year-olds: I think countries might change things…like whoever wants a job you can just have it. People might invent more jobs. No, you can’t do that, you can’t, you can’t… Fourteen-year-olds were more optimistic than younger pupils about improved economic prospects in their local area, but less so for the global situation. Those that thought there would be more unemployment shared the 11-year-olds’ fear that ‘machines will take over’. One pupil explained:

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There’ll probably be more (unemployment) because machines at the moment are taking over jobs. As technology progresses there’ll be more people out of jobs. A new cause for unemployment emerged within the 14-year-old group, that of overpopulation coupled with immigration. Some children stated that the increased population ‘will mean more unemployment’ while others added that this was made worse by people coming into the UK: There’s not going to be enough space. It’s pretty easy to get into England—for immigrants to get our jobs. In addition one pupil added that unemployment could be voluntary: A lot of people are purposely unemployed to cheat the system and try to get more money. The oldest pupils were the least optimistic about employment conditions worldwide with nearly two-thirds expecting more unemployment. Like the 14-year-olds they cited increased technology and overpopulation as key reasons. Their information sources were ‘television and talking to people’: few mentioned having discussed unemployment and its causes at school. It seems, then, that there is cause for concern. The older pupils get, the less optimistic they are about the job market which will directly affect them, and yet their understanding of issues relating to employment are not grounded in accurate information. They have misconceptions about immigration, are confused about the role of technology and appear to have had little chance to discuss these issues in school. Poverty Pupils were much more optimistic for the future economic prosperity of their local community than for the world. Just over a quarter thought there would be more poverty locally whereas nearly a half expected more poverty on a global scale. It is interesting to compare pupils’ perspectives on unemployment and poverty. Whilst in each case a worse scenario was expected globally than locally, children seemed much less optimistic about employment prospects increasing than they did about the alleviation of poverty, despite the fact that most linked unemployment with poverty, as illustrated by this 11-year-old: There’ll be more poor people because there won’t be so many jobs because of robots and they won’t be able to have a home and there’ll be more tramps. Some 14-year-olds made the same links, and as with unemployment, cited immigration as a cause:

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I think it (poverty) will be just the same—it won’t get any better or worse There are always people from other countries coming over getting jobs and people in our country aren’t getting the jobs. If people are still coming to Britain there’ll still be the same number of poor people.

Table 4.3 Poverty in the local area (%) (n=284) Age 11

Age 14

Age 18

Total

More poverty

36

25

25

29

About the same

33

54

59

47

Less poverty

31

22

16

24

Table 4.4 Poverty in the world (%) (n=284) Age 11

Age 14

Age 18

Total

More poverty

48

42

51

47

About the same

34

40

30

35

Less poverty

18

18

19

18

A group discussion by 14-year-olds shed further light on their understanding: Poverty here, it’s because of the government. There’s a recession. And it’s because of modernization… Technology’s too far ahead for its own good—there’s not much for us to do. Yes, some people will get very rich and others will be very very poor. It (poverty) is going to go up… We’re going to run out of things—gas and oil. While comments on ‘modernization’ and ‘technology’ indicate that pupils assumed that these could cause unemployment, the first comment points to a realization that government policy can influence socio-economic conditions with the last pupil believing that poverty is an inevitable consequence of depletion of resources. One might have expected the 18-year-olds to have a more sophisticated understanding of the causes of poverty, but some continued to deliver simplistic arguments indicating an inadequate knowledge base. Once again immigration and overpopulation were given as reasons for a rise in poverty, with a belief that governments could influence the situation, especially in the global context. Well there’s not much contraception in the third world and that’s where the poverty is… I think the Northern countries will realize the Southern countries need help.

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One girl pondered the meaning of poverty: I watched a debate on TV about poverty today and in Victorian times— they say there’s more poverty today…depending on your definition. There’s a different meaning of the poor… So even if there is more poverty if won’t be as much as today. Another simply said that there would be more poor people because of drugs ‘which made people ill and poor’. What seems evident is that whilst some older pupils are more aware of the complexity of the issues, pupils of all ages lack information about the causes of poverty. Within Britain, continued immigration was consistently cited as a reason for poverty and unemployment, with similar misunderstandings surrounding overpopulation in relation to the third world. Those who thought that governments had it in their power to influence economic conditions were unable to say how this might come about: ‘government’ seemed to be a ruling group who could choose to influence people’s lives at will. There was very little understanding of economic systems or economic interdependence. Violence Children did not appear optimistic about the chances of a more peaceful society. Whilst both 11-and 14-year-olds seemed divided about whether violence would increase or not, the 18-year-olds were far less optimistic. As with pupils’ reactions to poverty and unemployment, again there was a feeling that the situation would be worse globally than locally. The arguments given by 11-year-olds seemed to fall into three main categories. First, there were those children who saw crime and violence as being linked to employment prospects: If there’s more unemployment there’ll be more violence—they’re dead bored and they have no jobs. If people lose their job it forces them to get more violent. Second, there was an assumption (repeated often) that what happens in other countries may happen here. Attitudes in the US in particular were seen as influencing behaviour in Britain: In America police carry guns and it encourages people to have guns so there’s more fighting. Some children mentioned that they had heard about refugees or seen war-torn countries on television and that this might be a cause of increased violence:

Table 4.5 Violence in the local area (%) (n=284) Age 11

Age 14

Age 18

Total

Growing today

61

More violent

41

45

67

49

About the same

44

46

25

38

Less violent

15

10

9

12

Table 4.6 Violence in the world (%) (n=284) Age 11

Age 14

Age 18

Total

More violent

64

59

61

61

About the same

15

33

25

25

Less violent

21

8

14

14

I think other people from other countries will come over and there’ll be like lots of fighting. This reflects findings from the main survey (Hicks and Holden, 1995) where children of 7 and 11 worried about ‘the IRA coming to my town’ and a situation like Bosnia being re-enacted in their local community. Finally some children saw an increase in material goods and ‘electronic things’ as being likely to cause more violence, as people would be tempted to ‘steal things’ which they could not buy. Violence, especially in their local community, was one of the areas 11-year-olds felt most strongly about and talked about at length. One child said plaintively that she knew there would be more ‘because nobody’s taking any action on violence …nobody’s doing any thing about it’. Both she and her friend agreed that ‘if somebody did take action it might get better’. Fourteen-year-olds seemed to take a more prosaic view. Many accepted a rise in violence as inevitable, although some pointed out that it was ‘not as bad here as in other places’. There was a feeling that violence and crime were a part of society that was here to stay and which you learnt to deal with. It’s not so bad… There are places you don’t go at night and the weekend. As with 11-year-olds, pupils in this age group saw violence as being linked to crime and unemployment and once again mentioned the influence of the US. I think there’ll be more (violence) because especially from America—it seems to come over to Britain ten years later and everyone there is carrying guns. There was no mention in this age group of refugees arriving or of potential terrorist action, but instead a new perception: that the home background might be influential. Violence to children in the home was mentioned as was violence on TV:

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There’ll be more violence because people learn it from their parents, they see them getting beaten up. And there’s a lot more influence on TV and small kids pick it up. Children get confused—like fact and fiction—they don’t know the difference. You see someone get hit and get up and kids think they can do it…young children—7 and 8. None of the 14-year-olds interviewed saw themselves as in any way lacking a moral code or contributing to violent behaviour. In another conversation the 14-year-olds referred to ‘teenagers’ in the abstract, as though they themselves were not in this age bracket: Shoplifting’s going up. Yes because teenagers don’t get the understanding they need—you see it on TV—crime’s going up, the suicide rate’s going up. There’s a gang of teenagers who hang around us and my dad’s car’s been broken into three times. Teenagers now—if they want something they just steal it. There’s no police here—they take at least half an hour to get here from Bath. These pupils did not appear to listen to each other; instead they stated their viewpoints as individuals. One thought teenagers needed more understanding; another seemed to write off his peers as selfish materialists with no moral code. The final statement suggests that inadequate policing may be to blame. Although when responding to the questionnaire 14-year-olds were equally divided about whether violence would increase or stay the same, in interview the assumption was that it would increase. Pupils cited many examples of crime and violence in their community and only a minority reiterated their belief that the level of violence would stay the same (or decrease): In the future there’s bound to be more weapons but the police will have better ways of controlling criminals, so it’ll balance itself out. Fourteen-year-olds had less to say about violence in the world, even though they were ostensibly more pessimistic. Most comments related to the danger of war, rather than violence amongst peoples living in distant localities. There’s just like one button…if all the countries disagree they could blow up England with one button—that’s quite scary. Possibly nuclear war could break out—if we run out of resources. The oldest pupils were the least passionate about this issue. The 18-year-olds seemed to accept that there was ‘a trend towards more violence’ and that this was a fact of life which one had to deal with. When questioned about the causes of violence, they echoed the 14-year-olds, citing unemployment, poverty and the approach of parents. For one 18year-old it all ‘depends on parental attitudes—what they let children watch on TV’.

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Again it appears that pupils have half the truth, although it is more difficult to make judgements about levels of knowledge when dealing with social rather than economic issues. Pupils were making links, were trying to understand the reasons for violent behaviour, but were likely to make simplistic assumptions. Little time was given in schools for discussion of such behaviour. Position of women What is interesting here is the significant difference of opinion according to age: younger pupils expected today’s status quo to be maintained whilst older pupils anticipated that women would have more power. Further analysis showed a gender difference with more girls than boys expecting women to be more powerful. The 11-year-olds, in interview, were not nearly as concerned about this issue as they were about violence or poverty. Some thought women would be more powerful but many thought the situation would be the same, either because there was no need to change or because change was unlikely. One said change was not possible ‘because most of the government are men’, and another added: ‘I think it should change but it won’t.’ By contrast 14-year-olds were very interested in this issue and in interview based their perception of women in the future either on their own experiences or what they saw happening around them. The girls were much more outspoken than the boys

Table 4.7 Women in the local area (%) (n=284) Age 11

Age 14

Age 18

Total

More powerful

36

58

65

51

About the same

45

39

32

40

Less powerful

19

3

3

10

Table 4.8 Women in the world (%) (n=284) Age 11

Age 14

Age 18

Total

More powerful

30

59

77

52

About the same

51

35

22

38

Less powerful

19

6

1

10

in these discussions. One girl thought things would be the same in the future because school preserved gender inequalities: We’re not allowed to play basketball or rugby. But many girls were optimistic that things would be better for women: I think they will be, definitely. There will be better jobs. They’ll be more independent.

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Women are coming up in the world. They’ll be totally equal in the future A boy of 14 agreed, albeit cautiously: They have been getting more equal and I suppose it will continue to happen. They are well not totally equal, but fairly equal now. Whilst most thought the global situation would be similar to that in their own community, some pupils felt that people in other countries were less concerned about equal opportunities, citing India as an example: ‘because they haven’t got the same understanding (of women) as we have over here.’ As with the 14-year-olds, this subject engendered fierce debate amongst those aged 18. There were those who maintained that more power for women and greater equality were inevitable, and those who thought that the status quo would be maintained either because it ought to be, or because the process of change was so slow. In the former category boys (b) and girls (g) were often in agreement: I think it will be different…there’s been a great change of girls doing exams men used to do. (g) Already people’s attitudes are changing immensely. (b) Women have the qualifications but a lot of people giving them the jobs have been men, but now women are in those positions—it’s going to be easier, (g) By contrast, those who thought that the status quo would be maintained because of inherent gender differences were usually boys: There will always be a place for men doing dirty jobs and women doing other jobs. The physical differences will always mean they do different jobs, (b) Men are stronger than women. (b) One girl argued fiercely against these boys: What about the high-powered jobs where women get 2 per cent of the jobs and get only 74 per cent of the pay of men? Another girl thought that women ought to have more equality but pointed out that It takes a long time for people to change… This issue which engendered the most discussion amongst the older pupils was also the one where they were best able to argue their case. Although once again this area had not

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been much debated in school in its own right, it was obviously an issue which they talked about amongst themselves, read about and had heard discussed by the media. Racial prejudice Both in the local community and globally, 41 per cent of pupils expected the same levels of prejudice in the future. However, of those who predicted that there would be less prejudice, it was older pupils who were the most convinced of this. A third of 18-yearsolds expected a more tolerant society (globally and locally) as opposed to under a fifth of 11-year-olds. It is notable how the expectation for a more tolerant world increases with age, in contrast to the 18-year-olds’ pessimism about economic issues. The 11-year-olds were divided in their views and the influence of the school was found here in a way which was not evident in the other responses. In one school, the children had followed a programme on racism as part of their Religious Education. These children were convinced that racism would decrease because (they thought) other children would have followed this RE programme and would have learnt the things they had learnt and so

Table 4.9 Prejudice in the local area (%) (n=284) Age 11

Age 14

Age 18

Total

More prejudice

48

18

25

32

About the same

32

51

41

41

Less prejudice

20

31

35

28

Table 4.10 Prejudice in the world (%) (n=284) Age 11

Age 14

Age 18

Total

More prejudice

54

29

25

38

About the same

28

54

43

41

Less prejudice

18

17

32

21

would be more tolerant in the future. They had learnt about Martin Luther King, Gandhi and racism in Britain and now knew, they said, that: Even though people may have different religions they are still just as good. In other schools, however, the response was much more mixed and revealed a degree of ignorance and uncertainty about the future. You get all these protests and that sometimes makes it worse…you can only call those dolls golly now.

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If more people are born there might be more prejudice against them…like Catholics. Others linked better employment prospects to a decrease in prejudice, saying that there would be less racism if there were more jobs as then ‘they wouldn’t pick on other people’. A sharp contrast to the views of the white children talking above was provided by the black 11-year-olds. Many of the latter felt that racism would get worse, citing what they had seen or heard: There’s white people and they’re driving any Muslim people out of the area. Some tried to find reasons for this: I think some people do that (are racist) because they don’t get houses. They don’t make no laws…there’s no laws (to do with racism). Only one child tried to explain that things could change: It depends on the people who make the rules… like the president and that. Although half of the 14-year-olds had said that levels of racism would stay the same, in interview the overwhelming view of the 14-year-olds was that prejudice would decrease because ‘people are being taught about it’ and ‘people are mixing together more and becoming friends’. But pupils readily identified forces at work against this, citing ‘films that are racist’ and the police: Yeah—and if there was a black man in a nice car and the police saw him they’d stop him but if it was a white man they wouldn’t—police shouldn’t be allowed to be racist. As with violence, pupils thought that racism was worse ‘in other places’, citing London and other big cities or other countries: Germany—that’s a racist country—they set Jews alight in concentration camps. None of the pupils in this group discussion challenged this remark. Eighteen-year-olds were the most convinced that there would be less racial prejudice. They felt that racism, in common with sexism, was more talked about now and that there was more awareness of the similarities between races and the damaging effects of prejudice. Less prejudice was accepted as a fact of life but it was also recognised that change was a long-term process.

Growing today

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There will be less—people have changed from how they used to be. People are more accepting now than they used to be… It’ll change over time, with generations. Although many pupils were optimistic that racism would decrease, their attitudes towards racial prejudice reveal a mixture of ignorance and stereotyping. The comments about police behaviour and German racism are worrying and again indicate a lack of discussion about these issues in most schools. The school where race had been incorporated into the curriculum is the exception. Black children were understandably concerned about racism, in the same way as many 11-year-olds were concerned about violence, but again there appeared to be little forum for discussion in school. Whilst the attitudes of the older pupils are encouraging, their expectation that people will become more tolerant seems at odds with their previously stated belief that continuing immigration might cause further unemployment, violence and poverty. It also does not fit with the lived experiences of the black children. Again it appears that many pupils have a superficial and fragmented understanding of the issues, based on conversations with friends and information from the media, unchallenged by informed debate in school.

Discussion Our survey reveals that pupils in the 1990s feel that the world will be a more tolerant place in the future and yet also accept that more violence is inevitable, along with increased unemployment and poverty. Underpinning their thinking is a strong sense of justice and fairness, exhibited in their indignation at acts of racism, teenagers who steal or parents who allow young children to watch violence on TV. However, many beliefs are not founded on sound knowledge but are based on stereotypical assumptions, fragmentary evidence or emotional response and are thus often confused and illinformed. This is particularly true in those areas which relate to socio-economic issues. Most children had very limited knowledge of the reasons for unemployment. It was accepted as a situation which would get worse, with new technology, immigration and overpopulation cited as reasons. If, as the International Labour Organization says (ILO, 1996), unemployment is the most important challenge facing the industrial and developing world, our children are ill-prepared for this, although they will be the most directly affected. Likewise, poverty was thought to be either a state of being which could be influenced by governments or again a result of immigration, overpopulation and unemployment. If one-third of our children now live in poverty (TES, 1997) and if many suspect immigration may be a cause of this, this does not bode well for the improved race relations which the same pupils foresee. Increased violence greatly concerned the 11-year-olds whilst older pupils accepted this as inevitable and a part of life. Again, pupils had not had much chance for informed debate on this issue: their opinions appeared to be based on what they had seen on television or heard discussed at home. There was much moral indignation about the behaviour of ‘teenagers’ and some parents but little sense of what could or should be done. One is left with a picture of anxious and bewildered 11-year-olds who realize that

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the world is a rather frightening place, turning into cynical 14- and 18-year-olds who accept that this is the way things are, and that you learn to look out for yourself, acquiring information about the places and people to avoid. Such attitudes do not bode well if we wish to work towards a more peaceful society. This then supports the case for informed discussion on violence and conflict resolution at both primary and secondary level. First, the anxiety and concern of the 11-year-olds needs to be harnessed and allayed, with discussion and opportunities for action in school so that they do not accept increased violence as inevitable. Second, older pupils need informed debate to challenge many of the misconceptions surrounding the roots of violence. In particular, pupils often thought that violence in the US would automatically transfer here and that increased poverty and unemployment would lead to more violence. There was no evidence of children welcoming increased violence (indeed it was the opposite for the 11-year-olds) but rather of young people feeling powerless in the face of inevitable social changes. Children’s perspectives on race revealed many parallels, although this was a more complex area. As noted, there were many misconceptions with some children thinking the police per se were racist and one citing Germany as a racist country. Pupils who hold that that racism will inevitably decline need to have this complacency challenged. The black children talking indicated that this was not their perspective and indeed the latest information from the Commission for Racial Equality (1996) indicates that black people still suffer high levels of discrimination. The emotive response of many children that ‘immigrants are taking our jobs’ needs to be explored. Hatcher (1995) points out that ideas about race may co-exist contradictorily in white discourse. In other words, children may make statements about being anti-racist (and mean it genuinely) but may hold racist views about immigration and poverty. P.Johnson (1996) points to the importance of the emotions in shaping children’s reactions to dealing with prejudice. We need, he says, to develop children’s metacognitive skills in reflection if we are to succeed in promoting increased tolerance and respect: This self-consciousness involves self-awareness, self questioning…even measures of self confidence and self-doubt: a capacity to systematically work through important elements of one’s approach to a values situation. That must then lead to…self control and conscience. Alongside this there must be the provision of up-to-date information on race, so that children can form their personal responses and value systems from an accurate knowledge base. Pupils seemed best able to argue coherently on gender issues. This area seemed to be one where many were aware of the current debates, although there was inevitably some disagreement between boys and girls. Younger children were less interested in this area, but by secondary school it was evidently a much-discussed subject. As with race, this is an area where the emotions affect one’s rationale, and pupils need to be encouraged to examine their own feelings and values, realizing where they stand and why. In order to do this they need accurate information and an introduction to the controversial nature of the debate on gender equality. Children should be introduced to these issues whilst still in

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primary school so that they can start to think through the arguments before the ground is muddied by the sexual emotions of adolescence. Apparent in all the responses was a lack of knowledge of global issues. Pupils consistently thought that socio-economic conditions would be worse globally (as opposed to locally) but had very little evidence upon which to base their statements. In fact the comments about violence, war, immigration and gender indicate the beginnings of xenophobic insular attitudes, where Britain might be bad but other places are worse, with people from other countries influencing or threatening our well-being.

Ways forward Whilst it is heartening to see a sense of justice and optimism in our young people, there is clear evidence of the need for a programme of social, moral, cultural and economic education. Children need time and space to discuss social issues and they need accurate information to inform their judgements. This points to the need for what Richardson (1990) calls transformative education; that is an approach which allows children to explore, debate and act upon current social issues. Such an approach is endorsed by Lister (1987). He reminds us of the ‘vanguard educators’ of the 1980s who advocated that the curriculum should contain ‘major issues; war and peace, poverty and development, human rights and the challenges of multicultural societies and an interdependent world’ so that children could be prepared for the changing world in which they live. The introduction of the National Curriculum marginalized teaching of these issues, whilst paying lip service to educating children as future consumers and citizens with the cross-curricular ‘Education for Citizenship’ and ‘Economic and Industrial Understanding’, established in 1996/7. These themes are rarely found in schools, however (Hannan and Merryfield, 1995), and in any case it is doubtful if they ever really addressed pupils’ concerns about social and economic issues (Davies, 1991; Hyland, 1991). Despite this marginalization, many materials have been produced to support teachers who wish to enhance their teaching with a global dimension or who wish to explore social issues with pupils. The Development Education Centres have produced many teaching packs which help to explain the causes of global poverty (e.g. Traidcraft, 1994; Unicef, 1988) and there are also materials available on multicultural education and anti-racism to support teaching in primary and secondary schools (e.g. Institute of Race Relations, 1988). Myers’s work (1992) on gender provides starting points for both staff and pupils. Work on conflict resolution in schools and human rights can inform debates on violence and peace. If we harness young people’s optimism, their sense of justice and fairness, and encourage them to discuss and debate the social issues pertinent to our time we will be following Richardson’s transforming stance. This is where ‘energy is not directed into smashing and burning, but into confronting, opposing, arguing, campaigning, and into building, caring, loving, sharing, making’. Essentially this is concerned with education for justice, an education ‘concerned with feelings and consciousness as well as structures’. Such an approach educates children about the structures of our society as well as enabling them to explore their values and emotions. It is this that will foster active

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citizenship, that will enable children to feel informed and empowered to work towards a better society and it is this that the young people in our survey so evidently need.

References Arnot, M. (1993) A crisis in patriarchy? British feminist educational politics and state regulation of gender. In M. Arnot and K.Weiler (eds), Feminism and Social Justice in Education. London: Falmer Press. Boulding, E. (1988) Building a Global Civic Culture; Education for an Interdependent World. London; Teachers College Press. Brighouse, T. (1996) Foreword in M.Steiner (ed.), Developing the Global Teacher. Stoke on Trent: Trentham. Carey, G. (1996) Speech to House of Lords, 5 July, 1996. Commission for Racial Equality (1996) Roots of the Future: Ethnic Diversity in the making of Britain. London: CRE. Davies, I. (1991) Citizenship: What Is It? Pastoral Care in Education 9(2), 9–11. DFEE (1996) Action to raise standards for ethnic minority pupils. Press release DFEE, 5 Sept. 1996. Gilborn, D. and Gipps, C. (1996) Recent Research on the Achievement of Ethnic Minority Pupils. Ofsted, HMSO. Griffiths, M. and Troyna, B. (eds) (1995) Anti racism, Culture and Social Justice. Stoke on Trent: Trentham. Hannan, A. and Merryfield, A. (1995) Whatever happened to education for all? Unpublished paper, University of Plymouth. Hatcher, R. (1995) Racism and children’s cultures. In M. Griffiths and B.Troyna (eds), Anti racism, Culture and Social Justice. Stoke on Trent: Trentham. Hicks, D. and Holden, C. (1995) Visions of the Future: Why we need to teach for Tomorrow. Stoke on Trent: Trentham. Hyland, T. (1991) Citizenship education and the Enterprise Culture. Forum. 33(3), 86–8. Institute of Race Relations (1988) Roots of Racism. ILO (1996) World Employment 1996–7: National Policies in a Global Context, Geneva: International Labour Organization. Johnson, L. (1987) Children’s visions of the future, The Futurist 21(3), 36–40. Johnson P. (1996) Metacognition and the emotions in race relations education. Unpublished paper for the conference of the Journal for Moral Education, Lancaster. Lister, I. (1987) Global and International Approaches to Education, in C.Harber (ed.), Political Education in Britain. London: Falmer Press. Mac an Ghaill, M. (1994) The Making of Men. Buckingham: Open University Press. Myers, K. (1992) Genderwatch: After the ERA. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. National Curriculum Council (1991) Curriculum Guidance Eight: Education for Citizenship. York, HMSO. National Curriculum Council (1991) Curriculum Guidance Four: Education for Economic and Industrial Understanding. York: HMSO. Pollard, A., Thiessen, D. and Filer, A. (1997) Children and Their Curriculum. London: Falmer Press. Richardson, R. (1990) Daring to be a Teacher. Stoke on Trent: Trentham. TES (1996) MPs act on sinking interest in citizenship. Times Educational Supplement, 7 June 1996. TES (1997) The gap is growing all the time. Times Educational Supplement, 31 Jan. 1997. Traidcraft (1994) International Trade Game. Traidcraft: Gateshead.

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Unicef (1988) We Are what we Eat: But who Controls our Choice’? An Active Learning Project on Food and ‘Nutrition. London: Unicef. Weiner, G. (1994) Feminisms in Education. Buckingham: Open University Press.

5 Discussion of Values and the Value of Discussion GRAHAM HAYDON Sophie’s parents were threatening to remove her from the school because Tracey was threatening her. When I sat down with them, Tracey, in her blue jeans and black leather jacket, said she did not like Sophie’s clothes. Sophie was wearing a Laura Ashley floral dress and a straw hat. ‘Anything else?’ I asked. ‘Yes. She talks funny. She uses stupid words.’ Sophie: ‘Oh, don’t be so preposterous.’ Tracey. ‘There. See what I mean?’ Clarke, 1997, p. 158

The idea of discussion in the classroom is not unfamiliar to teachers, at least in Britain (though the practice may be less familiar than the idea). There is no subject in the curriculum in which a teacher may not on occasion initiate discussion between students either across the whole class or in smaller groups. Yet it is probably the case that most teachers have had little training specifically directed at this aspect of classroom activity.1 Since most teachers also will have had little systematic introduction to dealing with values in their teaching, discussion about values is likely to be an area in which teachers’ practice is informed more by whatever preconceptions they bring to their task than by any considered view of why there should be discussion of values and of what can come out of it. Philosophers of education have looked at the topic of discussion before. Indeed, in the 1970s David Bridges (1979) treated the educational role of discussion at length.2 I have learned a lot from his account, and there is much of value in it which there is no need or space to repeat here. But while many of his examples involved values, he was not focusing especially on values as the subject of discussion. My intention in this chapter is to give something of an overview of the role of discussion in matters concerning values. I shall assume a context of diversity of values, in all its inherent complexity. I shall not here attempt to give practical guidelines for the conduct of discussion; my concern is that any such guidelines might be misapplied if teachers do not have an understanding of the variety of possible forms and aims of discussion about values, so that, drawing on that understanding, they can be clearer about what to expect or not to expect from discussion. One way to see if there is something distinctive about discussion of values, as opposed to discussion of anything else, is to see whether there is something about the nature of values in particular that makes a difference. An important point here is the extent to

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which values have their existence, or at least their effective existence, within the realm of human thought and language. Since language is a social phenomenon, I shall refer to this realm as that of ‘discourse’; for although individuals can talk to themselves, they can only learn language in interaction with others. We can say, then, that some things in the world have an existence which is independent of discourse; others are discoursedependent. The first would exist even if no persons had ever existed who were capable of thinking or talking about them; I take this to be true, for instance, of stars and planets (though, of course, if no persons existed there would be no one to call them ‘stars’ and ‘planets’). Things of the second kind exist only in so far as there are people who think and talk in certain ways. The movements of the planets around the sun are of the first kind; movements on the stock exchange are of the second kind. Without people acting in certain ways on the basis of certain understandings, there would be no such thing as stocks and shares; in that sense, stocks and shares exist only in the world of human discourse. Should we class values among things of the first kind or of the second? Some people who think of values—or at least some values—as absolutes will talk as if values existed quite independently of human talking and thinking. It is actually difficult to see in what sense this could be true (could the value of respect for persons exist if there had never been any persons?).3 But even if values could somehow exist independently of discourse, they could not make a difference to our lives except through thought and language. Values do not literally push or pull us: only our conceptions of values can move us. Falstaff in Shakespeare’s Henry IV (Part 1) was in a sense right when he said ‘What is honour? a word’, though we should expand this to say that honour is a concept which can only exist because there are language-using beings whose form of life has a place for such concepts. This is in no way to deny the force that a value such as honour (or justice, or respect for life, or recognition of human rights) can have in the world. As Falstaff was well aware beneath his cynicism, values can move people to act in ways which the biologically-given motivations which we share with other animals never could.4 So, values have their effective existence within the realm of human discourse. This means that there is a sense in which the continued existence of a value depends on its continuing to feature in discourse. A notion such as ‘human rights’ has a history; it is actually quite a recent and geographically local invention (going back only a few centuries, and coming from western Europe), but by now it seems to be pretty firmly established in moral and political discourse. On the other hand, in certain cultures the concept of honour has ceased to have an effective existence. Much the same perhaps applies to chastity. What all this is leading to is that talk about values is not incidental to their existence; it is their life-blood. This is worth remembering when we wonder how important it is that people engage in discussion of values. Unfortunately, however, the existence of values within human discourse, in the sense I have used the term here,5 does not guarantee that values will be discussed, since values can figure in the kind of human talk which can’t be dignified by the name ‘discussion’. Even the sort of ‘debate’, sometimes seen on television and no doubt often happening in private, in which people shout at each other, can be a form of discourse in which values feature (think of an argument about abortion in which terms such as ‘right to choose’ and ‘murder’ are used as sticks to beat the other

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party with). If nothing else, the more careful kind of discourse which we call discussion can allow values to be operative in a more reflective and reasoned way. Before going further I had better say something more of what I am taking ‘discussion of values’ to be (I shall use ‘discussion of values’ and ‘discussion about values’ without any deliberate distinction). First, we need some minimal notion of what picks out discussion within the broader field of human talk—a field broad enough to include both ‘passing the time of day’ in casual conversation, and a ‘shouting match’ which is only just short of physical violence and may lead to it. Discussion must be about something, where the ‘something’ is consciously recognized as being in question. This may not be a clear-cut matter; sometimes part of the discussion will be concerned with getting clear on exactly what the discussion is about. But there has to be on the part of the participants a conscious sense that there is some issue which needs to be sorted out. What counts as ‘sorting out’ may depend on the nature of the issue, and may include: coming to a correct perception of something, understanding each other, coming to an agreement about an issue, coming to a practical resolution on what is to be done. In any case, we can only sensibly describe the talking as discussion if the parties display a willingness to listen to each other, to take each others’ contributions seriously, and potentially to have their own minds altered by what another says (see Bridges (1979) for a more extended account). If discussion is characterized by such features as these, then I do not want to restrict ‘discussion of values’ to discussion in which certain values, or even values in general, are explicitly taken as the subject matter. Certainly this sometimes happens, perhaps especially in educational contexts, where the participants may explicitly set out to explore some question about values. But I want to use ‘discussion of values’ broadly enough to encompass such diverse cases as academic discussion about the causes of the downfall of communist regimes in Eastern Europe, where understanding the values that moved some of the original participants may be essential to historical understanding, and practical discussion about educational policy, such as the desirability or otherwise of selection by ability. In a discussion of the later sort there is likely to be constant reference to values— equality, achievement, co-operation, competition, efficiency, fairness, and so on—and although values such as these are not the focus of the discussion in their own right, it may well be helpful in coming to a conclusion if explicit attention is paid to what the participants understand by these values. If this suggests to the reader that most serious discussion is going to need attention to values at some point and therefore is going to count as ‘discussion of values’, I would accept the suggestion. (It will not however apply to quite all discussion; discussion between physicists about the best theoretical account of some observed phenomenon, for instance, may not require explicit attention to values, though even there some sense of what counts as a good explanation will be operative.) The fact that discussion of values will be an aspect of most serious discussion is one reason why it so important. But apart from cases where values happen to become problematic within a discussion of something else, there will be times when there is point in deliberately having a discussion about values. Such occasions are perhaps most likely to arise in educational contexts. But before turning to education, and at the risk of going over ground that is obvious, I want to stress that discussion about values is important throughout people’s lives, because the diversity of values often brings people into situations of perplexity and potential conflict, where different values can pull in different ways, and it can be quite

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unclear what is best to be done; discussion will often be the best, and sometimes the only, way of reaching a resolution. This is true even where the diversity in question is simply the plurality of values recognized by one person. If I am in a situation where professional responsibilities, family loyalties, and considerations of kindness and fairness create a dilemma, then even if this is my problem and no one else’s, discussion with someone else may help me to see my way through the difficulty. Where it is the values cherished by two different persons that create a dilemma for both of them, then again discussion may help both of them towards a resolution; and here in addition it will sometimes be that reaching a resolution through discussion will be the only alternative to unresolved stand-off or thoroughgoing conflict. Again, that situation is not dependent on cultural differences; partners or married couples, even if they come from very similar cultural backgrounds, are likely to face many situations in their life together when discussion of values is needed. But if they come into the relationship from more widely divergent backgrounds, the need for discussion of values may be all the greater. And in complex plural societies, there are a great many less intimate contexts— in working life, and in both small-scale and national political matters—which bring together people who subscribe in some degree to different values. In such a society, then, there are likely to be frequent occasions for discussion of values for individuals both in their personal lives and as citizens. We cannot, however, assume that people will know how to engage in discussion about values. Worthwhile and productive discussion needs attitudes and skills that have to be developed. Here, I suggest, is the most important function of discussion about values within education—to enable people to acquire and practise the attitudes and skills which will predispose and enable them to engage in discussion of values whenever appropriate throughout their lives. Of course, educational contexts cannot be separated off from ‘people’s lives’; increasing numbers of people spend significant parts of their lives, after childhood as well as during it, in educational contexts. And such contexts—schools, colleges, and professional training—are almost guaranteed to bring together people who do not share all of the same values, so that these contexts contain the potential for conflict between persons because of their different values. So there will be many occasions when discussion of values within education is immediately required in order to resolve or avoid conflict; discussion of this kind, not undertaken for the sake of practice, may actually be better practice for later life than discussions which are artificially engendered. The example of Tracey and Sophie at the head of this chapter, trivial though it may seem, is just such a case. As the writer (headteacher of an urban comprehensive school) says, ‘Two worlds within two miles of each other had collided’ (Clarke, 1997, p. 158). These are two ways in which discussion of values can have an immediate practical aim, or a longer-term practical spin-off. We can distinguish from these the use of discussion purely as an educational means to an end which is conceived in intellectual rather than practical terms. Traditionally (and rightly) one of the main aims of education has been taken to be the development of knowledge and understanding, and discussion can be used (here the word is appropriate) as a means to this end. Thus Bridges devotes a good deal of space to the ways in which discussion can be conducive to ‘the development of knowledge and understanding about the subject under discussion’. For a variety of reasons—because children may be less passive if they have the opportunity to engage in

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discussion; because it gives them the chance to try expressing their grasp of a topic in their own words; because it lets them hear different interpretations from theirs, or even just because it breaks up the monotony of a talk-and-chalk lesson—teachers may use discussion as one more device in their battery of methods for promoting learning. There is nothing wrong with this, but where the subject in question itself involves values, teachers should remember that the importance of discussion is not purely instrumental. Otherwise there is a danger of the teacher manipulating the discussion so that it leads to the children arriving at just the conclusion the teacher wants them to arrive at; this may serve as a means to an immediate end, but it is likely to be counterproductive to the broader and perhaps more important aims that I have mentioned (cf. Bridges, 1997, pp. 97–101, 113–16). In Haydon 1997 (pp. 142–6) I looked at a number of aims that might be achieved through discussion of values. Briefly, but not exhaustively, these were: 1 That discussion may show students that even within a classroom (and even if it is culturally fairly homogeneous) there may be considerable variety of views. (This by itself would be a very limited aim.) 2 It may help them to understand another’s point of view. (This, while important, is still a limited aim, since it does not guarantee that the other’s point of view is taken seriously in any practical sense, and it is even compatible with the determination in advance to establish the superiority of one’s own point of view, as in set-piece debates. But often, lying behind the aim of understanding, there will be the aim that people should come to be more tolerant of the different views of others.) 3 Discussion may help people to clarify their own views, through the effort of having to get these views across to others; and 4 It may enable people to test their own views, by bringing them up against questions and objections from others. Then— 5 It may enable people to come to an agreement on an issue. This is an important aim— or rather a whole class of aims—which is worth special attention. Agreement is not necessarily an aim of discussion in educational contexts. A discussion which raises many disagreements, and is left unresolved, may contribute a lot to learning, and might achieve all of the aims mentioned above. Indeed sometimes a teacher may count a discussion that generated a good deal of controversy as a better discussion than one in which it turned out that everyone quickly came to an agreement. Nevertheless, in many contexts in which discussion is not solely a means to educational ends, people will enter discussion in the hope of reaching some kind of agreement. Above I treated the development of the skills and attitudes needed for ‘real-life’ discussion (which may happen inside or outside educational institutions), as the most important function of discussion about values in educational contexts. So it is important, that on at least some occasions pupils and students should have practice in the kind of discussion that seeks seriously to reach agreement. At this point the present discussion (of the one-person, written rather than oral, kind6) needs to change tack. I have been talking about the aim with which teachers may get pupils or students to engage in discussion; but what about the aims of the pupil or students themselves? Does it matter what aims they have when they engage in discussion? (The idea of discussion as just one of a battery of methods which a teacher

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may use tends to neglect this question.) If one important function of discussion within educational contexts is to develop the attitudes and skills needed for discussion throughout life, then among the relevant attitudes will be the aims which participants bring to discussion; so this is something that should matter to the teacher. What aims, then, should a teacher wish to see in the participants in discussion (apart from the aims of the teacher, who may herself be a participant)? Sometimes it is suggested that anyone seriously taking part in discussion must be aiming at the truth about the matter under discussion. Certainly this is a possible aim; I said above that discussion may help people to clarify and to test their own views; realizing this someone may enter into discussion with the aim of getting free of errors and confusions and thus of coming to a view which they can be confident is right. Notice that in this way an individual could be aiming to get at the truth without being concerned about getting agreement; I could end up thinking that I have now got a correct view, and be grateful to the other participants who have helped me to get to that correct view, even though they have not been convinced by me and are stubbornly sticking to their errors. So in terms of the participants’ own aims, truth and agreement are not necessarily the same thing. Does this still apply where the subject of discussion is values? One problem here may be uncertainty about what kind of truth if any, is possible about values. Some extreme kinds of subjectivism about values (where values are purely personal commitment) have no room for the idea of truth about values. But what is actually more important is that they have no room for the idea that reasons can be given in questions about values, and hence that some views may be more reasonable than others. The fact that people sometimes do succeed in having a reasoned discussion about matters concerning values casts doubt on this kind of subjectivist view. A person seriously engaging in discussion does have to recognize that some positions may be better supported by reasons than others, and must be aiming at some kind of understanding or judgement that is well supported; he or she does not necessarily (so far as I can see) have to take a position on whether there can be such a thing as ‘truth’ in matters of values (which now sounds a rather metaphysical kind of question). But where, now, does the possible aim of agreement come into the picture? If the participant has to be aiming at a position which is reasonably supported, and if he or she is also aiming at agreement, then the agreement aimed at must be an agreement supported by reasons. That is to say, the mere fact of agreement will not itself be a sufficient aim. For a simplified example, think of a two-person disagreement in which there are two alternative points of view. If agreement were all that mattered, the disputants could toss a coin to decide the issue. There may in fact be situations where, because a practical issue needs a resolution urgently, this is a reasonable thing to do, but nevertheless it cannot count as discussion. Discussion involves the attempt to come to an agreement that one point of view is better supported by reasons than the other. If the participants achieve this, do they have to see themselves as having come to the right answer? Not necessarily. In fact in most contexts a less confident attitude will be more appropriate. Actual discussions are unlikely to bring up all the factors that might possibly be relevant, or to incorporate all the points of view that could be put forward on a particular issue. So agreement, even on the basis of good reasons which have been brought forward, does not guarantee that the answer arrived at is the best possible.

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At this point it is worth distinguishing different kinds of case. First, there are cases where the participants involved in the discussion are the only parties affected by the outcome of the discussion. Then there are cases where other people are affected, who could in principle have been party to the discussion, but have not been so in fact. And then there are cases where the discussion has effects beyond anyone who could even in principle have been party to the discussion. I shall explain these distinctions. The first kind of case is the simplest. Suppose that a group—who might well be the children in a school class and their teacher—have to make a decision—say, where to go on a school outing. This is the kind of matter where discussion will not be directly focused on values but will have to take values into account. Sheer enjoyment may be one factor to be taken into account, but also educational outcomes—it would be unduly cynical to assume that only the teacher cares about these; then there will be consideration for the needs and interests of particular individuals within the class. One place which the class might visit may be inaccessible to a disabled child; a visit to a distant place on Friday might mean that the class arrives back too late for a Jewish child to get home before the Sabbath; and so on. The class discussion could be aimed at achieving the best outcome, all things considered. Here we can recognize a theoretical ideal, which is that everyone has their say, so that all points of view, all preferences, all needs and interests are brought into the discussion. Suppose too that any information that is relevant to the decision is available, and that in this ideal situation a decision is arrived at which everyone in the class is happy with. Here we can say that the decision arrived at is the right decision.7 In practice, of course, no situation of discussion will be ideal. It will not always happen that all information is available, that every point of view is considered, that all interests are taken into account; but at least when the parties to the discussion are the very people who will be affected by the agreement, it makes sense to aim to get as close as possible to the ideal. At the same time, it makes sense to be willing to compromise for the sake of resolving the issue, so that a willingness to compromise will itself be one of the desirable attitudes which engagement in discussion can promote (see Haydon (1997, ch. 5) for more on compromise, and when it is or is not desirable). Now think of the many cases where people are discussing an issue in which they themselves are not the only parties affected. The issue mentioned above of selective schooling could be an example. Many people are affected by this: employers, parents, and by no means least the children who will go through any process of selection which is arrived at. If primary pupils in a particular area are discussing this issue, they may themselves be among those directly affected; when the issue is one for general public debate, many people may express a view who will not be directly affected by the outcome. In a situation like this, we can still imagine the theoretical ideal of all parties who have a view or who are affected being involved in the discussion (this, after all, is the classical democratic ideal); but it will be quite clear that any particular episode of discussion (this discussion here and now, between these particular people) will involve only a very few of the people who will in total be affected. By the nature of discussions in educational contexts, many of them will be of this sort. What, in such cases, can we say about the aims of the participants? Can we even make sense of the idea that they are aiming at the right decision? One way in which the participants could make sense of what they are doing, is to think of themselves as aiming

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to make the decision that would be made if it were possible for all parties affected to be directly involved in the discussion. This puts a burden on the participants which they would do well to recognize explicitly: that they have to take account of points of view and interests which may not be directly represented among those in the classroom. They have to exercise their understanding and imagination to see what other parties, outside of this particular context of discussion, would say if they were party to the discussion. This is just the sort of thing that may happen when a teacher sets up a role play. In geography, for, instance, the teacher might ask the class to enact a discussion which could be part of a public enquiry into the building of a new road. The aim here is that representative views of, say, commuters, industrialists and local residents should come into the discussion. So the participants in the actual discussion can still have in mind that they are trying to arrive at a decision that would be a reasonable one to arrive at if all the parties affected were actually involved in the discussion. Educationally, this kind of case is very important because it represents a model of what moral reasoning is all about. Moral thinking, on any plausible model, cannot neglect the point of view and interests of others. To some degree, it is possible for individuals to take the point of view and interests of others into account even when doing their own thinking by themselves (monological thinking). Often, though, a better way of taking other people’s points of view and interests into account is to get the others involved directly in discussion (dialogical thinking).8 And if that is not possible, then a discussion even among a limited number of people may get closer to representing those who are not directly involved than an individual relying on her own imagination could manage. I mentioned above that there are cases where the discussion has effects beyond anyone who could even in principle have been party to the discussion. Actually, the example of the road-building enquiry could be interpreted in this way, because not all of the interests affected are those of human beings. Many animals are likely to have their habitats disturbed by a road-building scheme and participants in discussion may well take this into account. Also many people would want to bring into consideration the destruction of natural beauty, even apart from any pleasure which people get from surveying the scenery. But it is significant here that I have to say ‘many people would want to bring this into consideration’, because that is the only way that such considerations can enter into decision-making at all. That is what I meant by saying that the discussion can have effects beyond anyone who could even in principle have been party to the discussion. The existence of beautiful landscapes, or the existence of rare species, may have value in itself; but it will still be just as true of such values as of any others that they can only have effective existence through human discourse. The model of discussion between persons who bring their own values into the discussion should not lead us to think that the interests of persons are the only values which count. If it was only what people wanted or needed for themselves that could come into discussion, the effect of engagement in discussion could be a narrowing of moral horizons. But teachers are in a position to try to see that this doesn’t happen. Persons who are capable of engaging in discussion can to a degree represent in the discussion that is, speak for, those who are unable to speak for themselves. Exactly how far this is possible is a moot point (i.e. very much open to discussion). It seems to me that speaking for the interests of animals may make sense; and perhaps speaking for the unborn foetus does; I doubt whether persons can speak for trees or mountains. But

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certainly people can care about trees and mountains, and there is no reason why this caring voice should not come into the discussion. Even though discussion can only be between persons, it can be a means of extending people’s moral horizons, not narrowing them. I said at the beginning that most teachers will have had little systematic training in discussion, let alone discussion that is specifically about values. The end of this chapter is not the place to attempt to make good that deficiency, but two remarks may be helpful. First, teachers may have little experience even amongst themselves of discussion which focuses explicitly on values. Within teacher training (especially in those aspects of it which still happen in institutions of higher education) there is ample scope for student teachers to discuss amongst themselves their own values, and in doing this they can be helped to become aware of the full range of diversity (cf. Haydon (1996) and (1997a, ch. 13). It would be unfortunate if this opportunity were missed. Second, there is the question of how far the teacher should lay down ground rules for discussion. In the belief that ‘the teacher is still in control of a discussion’ (Capel, Leask and Turner, p. 86) the teacher may be advised that ‘young people can be taught the protocols of discussion’ (ibid. 195). It is certainly true that, in comparison with various other forms of talk, discussion requires a degree of structure. It does not follow that the teacher has to lay down the structure in advance. A more productive learning experience may come from pupils themselves realizing as they go along that they actually need some structure to their talk, in which case they may well be able to formulate for themselves the kind of ground rules they need (such as the basic ‘only one person to talk at a time’). What may be particularly valuable, and should be possible even with young children, is a discussion that is followed by reflective discussion about the discussion. ‘What did we learn from that discussion? Did we achieve what we wanted to? If we didn’t, what prevented that? How could we do better in our next discussion?’ and so on. This, of course, is not very likely to happen spontaneously; there is certainly an important role here for the teacher as more than just facilitator. But it is, of course, one of the advantages of schooling that people can get experience in a relatively systematic and structured way of activities and practices which in later life they will have to engage in in a less structured environment. Nowhere does this apply more than to discussion about values. Like any other topic concerning diversity of values, the educational role of discussion of values is a complex matter. There are different kinds of discussion, and different beneficial outcomes which may result from them. But if I had to put in a sentence what is perhaps the most important reason for discussion of values in educational contexts, I would leave the last word to the headteacher and his staff who engaged the two girls in discussion: ‘We worked with Sophie and Tracey so that, even if they did not become best friends, they could at least coexist and respect each other’s right to be themselves’ (Clarke, 1997, p. 158)

Notes 1 The index of a recent textbook of 450 pages, Learning to Teach in the Secondary School (Capel, Leask and Turner 1995), contains six references to discussion, yielding a total of about two pages of text directly on this topic (see pp. 86, 195, 197–8). These take a predominantly instrumental view of the role of discussion ‘For the teacher, discussion is one of the more difficult strategies. Perhaps that’s why it is not often used’ (p. 195).

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2 Bridges’ account, read about twenty years later, shows something of the strength of the methods of careful distinction-drawing which were predominant in the philosophy of education of that time. Probably without having then read the authors in question (they are nowhere mentioned) Bridges anticipated some of the themes which others have since brought into philosophical work on education from a reading of Gadamer’s hermeneutics and of Habermas’s communicative ethics. 3 One way, by no means defunct within a plural society, of interpreting values as absolutes is to see them as divine commands; but if the God is a personal God who has delivered the commandments in a language which human beings can understand, then these values still are not shown to be independent of discourse. 4 If the philosophical position underlying this paragraph were spelt out it would be a broadly Wittgensteinian one. I have said more about a sense of moral obligation, as a conceptual, language-dependent, understanding which can motivate people in a distinctive way, in Haydon (1999). 5 This is not the sense in which Habermas used the term ‘discourse’ in his communicative ethics; there, ‘discourse’ refers to a particular kind of discussion which people only enter when normally taken-for-granted assumptions are called into question. See Habermas (1990). 6 See Bridges (1979, pp. 12–20) on this distinction. 7 Many readers will recognize that I have been influenced here by Habermas’s notion of the ideal speech situation; see Haydon (1997a, pp. 143–4). 8 The terms ‘monological’ and ‘dialogical’ are borrowed from Habermas’s case for communicative ethics.

References Bridges, D. (1997) Education, Democracy and Discussion. Slough: NFER Publishing Company. Capel, S., Leask, M. and Turner, T. (1995) Learning to Teach in the Secondary School. London: Routledge. Clarke, B. (1997) What comprehensive schools do better. In R.Pring and G.Walford (eds), Affirming the Comprehensive Ideal. London: Falmer. Habermas, J. (1990) Moral Consciousness and Communicative Action. Cambridge: Polity Press. Haydon, G. (1996) Values in the education of teachers: the importance of recognising diversity. In C.Selmes (ed.), Values Education and Teacher Education. Aberdeen: Centre for the Alleviation of Social Problems through Values Education, for National Association of Values in Education and Training. Haydon, G. (1997) Teaching about Values: A New Approach. London: Cassell. Haydon, G. (1999) ‘Behaving morally as a point of principle’: a suitable aim for moral education? In M.Halstead and T.McLaughlin (eds), Education in Morality. London: Routledge.

Part Two Pedagogy

6 The Way Tests Teach: Children’s Theories of How Much Testing is Fair in School THERESA A.THORKILDSEN To make classrooms safe places in which to take intellectual risks and engage in ethical inquiry, it seems important to know more about how children construe the institutional goals associated with schooling and whether children accept those goals as fair. Toward this end, I have conducted a series of interview studies on children’s conceptions and theories of fair and effective ways to conduct the business of schooling. Here, knowledge of children’s critiques of the testing process will be used to justify the need for discussions among students and teachers about the purposes behind various classroom practices. Such discussions could serve to help students and teachers create communities of scholars wherein conflicts arise over content-related issues such as whether an argument is logical or a position is ethical rather than over power-related issues such as whose educational goals are most important. This work largely evolved from an attempt to test empirically the usefulness of Michael Walzer’s (1983) argument that the fairness of institutional practices will always depend on the way particular situations are defined by particular groups at particular times. Schools are fair institutions when they promote equal educational opportunities for all learners. Promoting equal educational opportunities, in my view, does not mean establishing identical practices for all students. Instead, everyone should be allowed to engage in meaningful work and make contributions that are valued by others. To attain this vision, students need to learn in a place where they feel free to reveal their vulnerabilities, seek help, challenge those who disagree with them, and negotiate a solution to conflicts. Classroom practices would be unfair, in this view, if they undermined equal educational opportunities by promoting unjust monopoly, unjust dominance, or unjust patterns of monopoly and dominance. In the general area of educational testing, for example, Walzer’s theory might lead us to judge as unfair practices that selectively assessed only one type of skill, consistently served to ridicule the test taker, or permanently excluded some groups from demonstrating competence and/or gaining a sense of accomplishment. Certainly these possibilities have fueled debates about the ethics of testing held within the educational research community. Nevertheless, my concern was not with the debates fostered among adults. I explored whether children understood such issues well enough for that knowledge to serve as an index of their achievement motivation and moral reasoning. I began conservatively by determining whether students distinguished tests, contests, and learning situations when evaluating particular classroom practices (Thorkildsen, 1989b). Children aged 6–11 were told about three types of educational situations: learning to read, taking a standardized test, and holding a spelling contest. Then, for each type of situation, children were asked to evaluate the fairness of three common teaching practices: peer tutoring, solitary work, and interpersonal competition.

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None of the children had trouble discriminating among these situations and practices. Furthermore, there was a high degree of consensus among the students that peer tutoring would be fair and effective for a learning situation, but not for a test or a contest. Solitary work was judged fair and effective for most situations, but was seen as fairest for a test situation. And, interpersonal competition was seen as fair only for the contest situation. An interesting artifact in that study led to the design of a more in-depth interview study on children’s conceptions of how testing should be organized (Thorkildsen, 1991). Most of the 6-year-olds argued that peer tutoring would be a fair way to have a test, but could not really justify their position. To further explore this reasoning, therefore, a new group of children (aged 6–12) was asked to think about a standardized test situation similar to one they had recently experienced. The children compared two classes. In one class, the teacher used the practice of peer tutoring during a test, and in the other, the teacher used solitary work. The children evaluated the effectiveness and fairness of each practice for different patterns of test scores before deciding which practice was fairest. The findings obtained in those more in-depth interviews suggest that the high degree of consensus obtained in the first study is misleading and that, at least at the elementary level, students and teachers should have regular conversations about the nature and purposes of testing. The youngest children said that peer tutoring would be fairer than solitary work during a test and seemed preoccupied with making sure that faster and slower learners all finished and obtained the same test scores. Slightly older children said that solitary work would be most fair but that peer tutoring would also be fair. None of these children seemed to understand that if peer tutoring were allowed, test scores would not accurately reflect individual differences in students’ abilities.1 These interviews suggest that teachers should not presume that children fully understand the rationale for solitary work until about age 11. Practically speaking, therefore, when younger children are seen copying from one another during a test, it is problematic to assume that they fully understand why their behavior is wrong. Although this developmental work suggests a potential for miscommunication over how tests should be administered, even young children will comply when teachers tell them to engage in solitary work during a test (e.g., Nicholls and Hazzard, 1993; Nolen, Haladyna, and Haas 1992; and Wodtke, Harper, Schommer, and Brunelli, 1989). Teachers must simply remember to speak to children in concrete terms about the nature of their expectations. When expectations are clear, the question of how testing should be organized is not likely to lead to power struggles among classmates or between students and their teachers. Power struggles are likely when students are left to invent their own interpretations of a seemingly ambiguous situation. Children in primary grades, for example, have been observed fighting over whether a situation should take on the norms of a test or an opportunity to learn (e.g., Nicholls and Hazzard, 1993; Thorkildsen and Jordan, 1995). Teachers (and often researchers as well) rarely take time to be explicit about the definition of a particular situation and it is assumed that students will accommodate to teacher’s expectations or face disciplinary action (e.g., Ames, 1992; Bear and Fink, 1991; Pintrich and De Groot, 1990; Wigfield, 1994). This confusion can be exacerbated by the many kinds of activities and practices, such as worksheets and direct instruction (e.g., Rosenshine, 1986), that are intended to foster learning, but also hold test-like qualities.

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Specifically, children who argue that peer tutoring is the most fair way to help students learn (e.g., Thorkildsen, 1989a, 1993; Thorkildsen and Schmahl, 1997) can also be seen hiding their work from peers even when everyone knows that collaboration is permitted. This behavior suggests that at least some children value a test-like situation over a learning situation. The conflicts that arise from such differences in interpretation can lead to power struggles that distract learners from attending to content-related issues. (Busch, 1995, Colsant, 1995, and Thorkildsen and Jordan, 1995 offer concrete examples of such classroom events.) Such power struggles are further exacerbated when cultural diversity is used to explain conflicts among students and teachers. This conflict-potential parallels assumptions tested in research on motivation. In that work, some of us have argued that children can have many definitions of success that would drive their cognition and beliefs about school. (See, e.g., Austin and Vancouver, 1996; Dennett, 1978; Nicholls et al., 1989; Thorkildsen and Nicholls, 1991, 1998; Thorkildsen, Nolen, and Fournier, 1994.) Children’s criteria for success are related to their beliefs about the causes of success and teachers’ expectations. Researchers have developed many varied iterations of this position and speculated about which variable is most important in predicting children’s achievement (e.g., Anderman and Maehr, 1994; Duda and Nicholls, 1992; Schunk, 1996; Stipek and Gralinski, 1996). Yet, all of these positions presume that we understand how children prioritize learning and testing and that their definition of the type of situation under consideration is incidental. My discomfort with the assumption that situations will be defined as researchers intended them to be defined led me to seek additional empirical support for my hunch that it is worthwhile to recast motivational research similar to Dennett’s (1978) intentional perspective to more broadly include children’s ethical development.2 In this chapter I report the detailed results of an interview in which American children with a range of cultural backgrounds explored how much testing is fair in school by prioritizing testing and learning. Children prioritized testing and learning by coordinating their conceptions of how learning and testing should be organized, of current ability, of the long-term stability of intelligence, and of the perspectives of different types of learners (Thorkildsen, 1994). I also speculate about how power struggles might be supported when teachers and students from diverse backgrounds fail to discuss the nature and purposes of particular classroom activities. These speculations are linked to research on the effectiveness of promoting discussions of ethical dilemmas.

Assessing children’s theories Whose critiques? A total of 119 children in grades 2–5 were interviewed about how much testing would be fair in school.3 The mean ages of the children included here were M=7.85 (sd=0.73) for second graders, M=8.90 (sd=0.60) for third graders, M=9.90 (sd=0.64) for fourth graders, and M=10.73 (sd =0.58) for fifth graders. There were 49 boys and 70 girls all of whom obtained parental consent and gave their own consent. Everyone lived in similar urban neighborhoods in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

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Children attended one of three schools. The first school was a public, Montessori school that adhered primarily to the official Montessori curriculum (e.g., Montessori, 1964). The school housed children with a range of ethnic backgrounds, yet about half the children in each class were African American and there were relatively few Latin American children in the school. (Here, of the 42 children interviewed, 22 were African American, 17 were Caucasian, I was Latin American, and 2 had dual-ethnicity.) Most of the children came from low-income families, but a few came from middleclass families. The children in the Montessori school spent their day engaged in active inquiry and spent little time in direct instruction activities. These children did not receive textbooks or workbooks and did not usually complete teacher-designed worksheets. Furthermore, these children rarely experienced tests, taking only those mandated by the state for grades 2, 3, and 5. The second school housed only African American children (n=39), and the third school housed Latin American children (n=38) enrolled in a segregated bilingual education program (most of these children were Puerto Rican, the balance were Mexican American or had one parent from each Latin American group). In these two schools, because the majority of the children participated in free breakfast and lunch programs, school personnel did not collect money for meals and encouraged all children to participate in the morning meal. Spanish rather than English was the dominant language of the Latin American children. These children were proficient enough in English to be able to complete the interview, but occasionally a child would justify a decision in Spanish. Spanish justifications were translated from audio-taped recordings of the interviews and included in the analyses. The families of children in the second and third schools voluntarily sent the children to public schools adhering to Milwaukee’s “neighborhood school policy”—a policy that enabled the schools to remain racially segregated on the condition that educational practices and policies be carefully governed by the state. (See Stolee (1993) for details on this court-ordered decision.) As required by the state, direct instruction was systematically implemented daily in these schools. During specific parts of each school day, all interruptions ceased and children engaged in this ritualized form of learning (Rosenshine, 1986). Lessons began with a review of previously covered material. Teachers then presented new material, and children engaged in guided practice. This practice was followed by immediate feedback and corrections. The cycle was repeated until everyone seemed to master the material. Then, when ready, children engaged in independent practice. These daily lessons emphasized the attainment of correct answers rather than self-expression, and worksheets and textbooks were used often. The children distinguished this ritual from the rest of their school activities by referring to it as “learning time.” The topic of conversation In 20-minute interviews, children were questioned individually by a female examiner about the fairness of five common testing practices. The interview began with: “I’m going to ask you some questions about how much testing you think is fair in school. I work at the university to help people learn how to be good teachers and we think it would

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help if adults knew more about what students think about school. We know a lot about what teachers, parents, and principals think, but not very much about what children think. I can try to remember back to when I was in [the child’s] grade, but it’s been a long time since I was in [the child’s] grade and things have changed since then. So, I think the very best way to learn about what students think is to come to schools and ask experts like you to tell me what you think. Is that OK? [everyone agreed] “All the questions I will ask you are about opinions. This is not a test. There are no right or wrong answers. Your ideas might be different from others in your class. We think that is OK. I have a tape-recorder here because I want to remember everything you say and I write very slowly. Is that OK?” (These audio-taped interviews were later transcribed for analysis.) After the children gave their verbal consent, they were told about a hypothetical class that consisted of faster learners who work fast and usually get all the answers right and slower learners who usually work slow, sometimes don’t finish, and usually make a lot of mistakes. To make the stories concrete, cartoon drawings of one boy and one girl for each type of learner matched the ethnicity of the child being interviewed. These cartoon students were shown with the quantity of tests that would accumulate at various points during a year. Furthermore, children saw sample tests that would be used for each practice. When presented to children, the characteristics of slower and faster learners were counterbalanced. Children were asked if they knew of such slower and faster learners in their own classes. (Everyone said they did.) Children were then told: “Teachers like to find out how much each of these students know. One way they find out what students know is to give them tests. Some teachers give lots of tests and others give only a few tests. I’m going to show you some different kinds of tests and I want you to tell me if you think these are fair.” Next, the children heard stories about five different classrooms. Practices were presented in two counterbalanced orders. Furthermore, when practices were introduced, half the time the slower learner’s position was presented first and half the time it was presented second. Children first judged the fairness of each practice. Then, each practice was paired with every other practice, and children were asked to say which practice was more fair and why. The five stories, illustrated with cartoon drawings and sample tests, were: Daily quizzes. In this class, the teacher gives each student a short test every day. The teacher might give them a math test on Monday, a science tests on Tuesday, a reading test on Wednesday, a social studies test on Thursday, and so on—all year long. So, by Christmas time, they have this many tests [small piles were depicted for each student in the drawings]. And, by the end of the school year, when the teacher thinks about whether the students are ready for the next grade, they have this many tests [large piles were shown for each student]. Bi-weekly unit tests. In this class, the teacher gives students a test about every two or three weeks. Each test is a bit longer though. See? They have three pages and lots more problems. So, on one Monday, after they study a unit on science, these students might take a science test. Two Mondays

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later, they might have a reading test. A couple Mondays later they might have a social studies test, and so on. The students spend a little time studying each subject. Then, they take a test. So, by Christmas time, they have this many tests [again pictures are used] and by the end of the year when the teacher thinks about whether they are ready for the next grade, they have this many tests. A yearly standardized test. In this class, the teacher gives the students only one test for the whole school year. Students do projects and homework, and write stories and reports, but they don’t do any other tests. This test comes in a book like this [The California Achievement Tests is shown]. It has all the different subjects—reading, math, social studies, and science—in it. Students take a whole week to finish this test. In the last week of school, students work on this test every morning. So, at the end of the year, when the teacher decides who is ready for the next grade, she has only one test to look at. She looks at the stories and projects the students did, but she has just one test to look at. All the above tests. In this class, the teacher gives students all these different tests. Students do these short tests every day and the longer tests every two to three weeks. By Christmas time, they have this many tests. Then, in the last week of school, students do this real long test. So, at the end of the year, when the teacher thinks about who is ready for the next grade, she has all these different tests to look at. Class discussions. In this class, the teacher doesn’t give students any written tests at all. Instead, when she wants to know what students can do, she gets them all in a group and asks them questions. Students raise their hands and say the answers out loud. This teacher said, “Tell me what you know about the sun.” These fast learners know something so they raise their hands. This slow learner knows something, but she [the other slower learner] can’t think of anything to say. The next time the teacher asks a question, the fast learners know the answer and she [a slower learner] knows the answer but he [the other slower learner] can’t think of anything to say. This happens all year long. At the end of the year, when the teacher wants to think about who is ready for the next grade, she has no tests to look at, only students’ stories and projects. After each story, students responded to the following questions: “Would this be fair? Why? Would the faster learners think it was fair? Why? Would the slower learners think it was fair? Why? If a teacher wanted to find out who was ready for the next grade and who was not, would this be a fair thing for her to do? Why?” After all the practices were introduced, each practice was paired with every other practice and students were asked, “Which is more fair? Why? Which would the fast learners think is more fair? Why? Which would the slow learners think is more fair? Why?” These questions about slow and fast learners were counterbalanced across students. Also, subsequent analyses for possible order effects proved nonsignificant. At the conclusion of the interviews, children were asked, “When you do tests, which are you more like, the fast learners, the slow learners or are you sort of in between?” and

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“What kinds of tests do you usually take in school?” (The latter question served as a validity check on the reports we obtained from teachers. In the public direct instruction schools, children typically reported that they either took all the different tests or that they took a combination of daily quizzes and biweekly unit tests. In the public Montessori school, the children usually reported that they either took one standardized test per year or no tests.)

Methods of analysis Structural analysis Analysis involving the coordination of children’s choices of fair practices and their justifications is the most comprehensive way to determine whether shared meaning exists within and among samples. Previous interviews (Thorkildsen, 1989a, 1989b, 1991, 1993; Thorkildsen, Nolen, and Fournier, 1994) made it possible to discern some of the possible issues that children would have to coordinate when addressing this question and the difficulties they might have doing so. Nevertheless, the interview style and methods of analysis meant that children could also surprise me. Structural analysis conducted in the tradition of Piaget’s (1951) original clinical method (rather than of his revised clinical method, e.g., Piaget, 1971) reveals children’s intentions, and how they prioritize the particular educational goods they value, but relies heavily on children’s ability to explain their decisions. This interview was constructed so that children must coordinate the quantity and format of tests, the interference of tests with other learning opportunities, and the perspectives of hypothetical high and low ability students. The amount of schoolwork to be completed was controlled both verbally and in the drawings, and sample tests were used to make this dilemma as concrete as possible. None of the options allowed children to avoid considering schoolwork or evaluation. I used the same methods of analysis from previous studies to determine the range of theories evident in this study. Generally speaking, each response was treated as a symptom rather than a reality, and I looked for trends of thought over the entire content of children’s interviews (Inhelder, Sinclair, and Bovet, 1974; Larsen, 1977; Piaget, 1951). Then, I outlined the ways in which children’s responses formed qualitatively different rationalities. Specifically, I grouped the transcribed protocols (excluding references to age, grade, ethnicity, and gender and standardizing the order in which responses were presented) according to the practice that children chose as most fair. Then, I read each protocol and looked for consistencies in children’s stated purposes for completing tests, and their definitions of the problem. Separate piles were created for each approach to determining fairness. If children’s justifications were inconsistent with their fairness decisions, their justifications were used as the basis for placement. Once children’s protocols were sorted into homogeneous piles, I wrote descriptions of these positions in as concrete a manner as possible and invented a label for these various theories.

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Psychometric analyses I also looked for sociocultural variation in two additional types of data. First, the way children ranked each practice was examined for possible school and grade differences in their choices. Children’s ranking of each practice provided a richer sense of their reasoning than did their initial judgments of the fairness of each practice. Children could, for example, argue that all practices are unfair and still rank the practices in terms of their relative levels of unfairness. Next, children’s justifications were content analyzed to identify the range of issues or educational goods they considered. I adopted Walzer’s (1983) notion that educational goods are social constructions that affect the kinds of identities people take on and the meanings they make of their world. “People conceive and create (educational) goods, which they then distribute among themselves… All distributions are just or unjust relative to the social meaning of the goods at stake” (Walzer, 1983, pp. 6–9). Content analysis, therefore, permitted me to determine which aspects of the situation children defined as important. This content analysis of children’s justifications revealed eleven categories of educational goods incorporated in their reasoning (Table 6.1). For all three types of data (theories, choices, and justifications), traditional statistical methods were used to look for possible differences across grade, gender, and perceived academic identity. Gender and perceived academic identity were dropped from the analyses reported here because no differences were found when data distributions and exploratory t-tests were examined.4 Race/ethnic differences were not evident in this study. Within the Montessori sample, I looked for possible ethnic differences between the African American and Caucasian groups, but found none. I also looked for homogeneity in views among the African American children attending the Montessori and direction instruction schools. I found the same significant school differences among African American children’s theories, decisions, and justifications as were obtained with the larger sample. No other race/ethnic group comparisons could be made with this sample.

The nature of children’s theories Preliminary analyses The practice of having unit tests every 2–3 weeks was judged fair by most of the children (81 per

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Table 6.1 Educational goods children raised when justifing their choices Educational goods

Examples

Tests make students learn

Students can’t learn without tests; like to do the work. Test make students learn more; work hard.

Need a break between tests

When will students study? They need time to learn; time to do other things; a break; time to think.

Learn from discussions

Students can learn from others in discussions; don’t worry about mistakes; can be corrected on the spot; don’t have to talk if they don’t know the work.

Keep track of progress

Teachers need help keeping track of student progress. Students practice what they know; show what they know (or details about work quantity).

Minimize effort

Students want quick success; less pressure; to rest their minds; or less work.

Worry about competence

Tests make students nervous, feel stupid, worried, or distracted. Fair if students know the work; are fast, competent, etc.

Gain rewards

Students want good grades; to pass; to make mom proud; to go to the next grade.

Avoid punishment

Students feel punished; don’t want to flunk; won’t be ready for the next grade.

Social comparison

Slow learners want to catch up with fast learners. Fast learners think they are superior; show off.

Preserve student privacy

Keep grades private; mistakes confidential; scores or corrections between student and teacher.

Seek intellectual challenge

Students will know more; are ready for hard things; keep busy learning; like to do more work.

cent). Having short quizzes every day was seen as fair by 65 per cent of the children and one standardized test per year was judged fair by 62 per cent of the children. Fifty-four per cent of the children said all the tests would be a fair practice whereas only 26 per cent of the children said that having class discussions rather than tests would be fair. I counted the number of times each child chose a practice as fair in order to determine how each child ranked the various practices. Then, the mean number of times each practice was rated as fair was used in a grade by school by practice repeated measures ANOVA (with practice repeated). This analysis revealed only the logically necessary practice main effect, F(4,428)=32.78, p