School Psychology

A Social Psychological Perspective

Frederic J. Medway, Thomas P. Cafferty, Frederic Medway, Frederic J. Medway, Thomas P. Cafferty, Frederic Medway

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781317784128
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Didattica
• Subtopic: Didattica generale

This impressive volume reintroduces the importance of -- and the contributions made by -- social psychology to school psychology. It provides an overview of the basic areas of social psychology (history, attitudes, attribution, attraction, and research methods) as well as the traditional school psychology functions (assessment, therapy, and consultation). To unite these two crucial areas, the editors and their contributors provide detailed discussions of specific educational and social issues such as substance abuse prevention and treatment, loneliness, cooperative versus competitive environments, and integration of handicapped and culturally different children. Based on classical, contemporary, and cutting-edge research and theory, this text should become an essential reference tool for all school psychologists.

Part

I

THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON APPLYING SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY TO EDUCATIONAL PRACTICES

The purpose of this volume is to demonstrate the many contributions of social psychology to the profession of school psychology. Part I consists of eight chapters providing overviews of important developments, theories, and methods of social psychology and their extension to the practice of psychology in schools. These chapters deal with important applications of social psychology in working and conducting research with individual children, their parents and families, teachers, and the school as a social system.

Chapter 1 by Medway reviews the history and growth of social psychology and school psychology. Medway describes how social and school psychology developed from common origins in philosophy and psychophysics research, and how the first social psychologists were interested in the application of their work to educational issues. This chapter describes the cross-fertilization of the two fields and how each has been shaped by similar social and political occurrences, including the migration of large numbers of immigrants to the United States at the turn of the 20th century, prevailing philosophies of education, two World Wars and their aftermath, and the social movements of the last three decades.

Chapter 2 by Cafferty deals with the nature of attitudes and attitude change. The study of attitudes has been a major social psychological topic, and, at one time virtually defined the field. For school psychologists, understanding the nature of attitudes is important in numerous contexts. These include understanding educators’ and the public’s attitudes toward school psychology, attitudes of school staff toward particular practices such as intelligence testing, behavior modification, and consultation, and the attitudes of schoolchildren toward school policies, academic work, teachers, their families, and their own abilities. Cafferty reviews issues in measuring such attitudes and some of the theoretical models underlying effective attitude change programs.

In chapter 3 Levesque and Lowe focus on two particular types of beliefs and inference processes: causal attributions and expectations. Since the 1970s attribution research has been a major topic in social psychology. Attributional propositions have been widejy employed in school psychology; for example, in consultation, in studies of diagnostic labels and their effects, in research on teachers’ attributions and behaviors, and in investigations of children’s school achievements and learning difficulties. Levesque and Lowe offer a model for understanding a variety of theories and findings in attribution and expectation research. They emphasize the antecedents, consequences, and cyclical nature of social perception. They differentiate between category and target-based expectancies, and mastery versus learned helplessness attributions. Throughout the chapter they highlight the educational applications.

Chapter 4, coauthored by Maruyama and LeCount, reviews the nature of interpersonal attraction in educational settings. Interpersonal attraction is discussed in regard to both cognitive and reinforcement models. Several of the theories covered in this chapter (e.g., dissonance, social influence) also are cited in chapters in Part II on clinical interventions. Maruyama and LeCount also cover the sources of initial impressions, and the maintenance and development of long-term relationships, including friendship formation and its measurement.

In chapter 5, Henning-Stout and Conoley show the importance of gender in school psychology. These authors point out that training and practice in school psychology has virtually ignored gender considerations even though gender expectations can and do influence the delivery of psychological services. This chapter covers theories of gender-linked behavior, and how schools, communities, peers, and the media often socialize students into rigid sex-typed roles. Henning-Stout and Conoley raise a provocative question, namely, to what extent does school psychology, by its practices, serve to perpetuate gender stereotyping?

Chapter 6, by Barbarin, and chapter 7, by Illback, examine the nature of families and schools, respectively, both from the point of view of systems theories. Barbarin introduces how family roles are interdependent, and how this affects the process of change in the family system. He provides some specific ways to measure family functioning and discusses the role of school professionals in effecting family change. Illback reviews the history of industrial-organizational psychology and its application to schools. Illback discusses the work of Daniel Katz, a social psychologist with a psychoanalytic orientation, who, after devoting many years to research on attitudes, addressed problems of organizations. Illback provides an integrative model from which to view schools as social organizations, focusing on both structures and processes. He concludes his chapter with a review of organizational development.

The last in this section, chapter 8, by Medway and Skedsvold, describes the use of social psychological research methods in school psychology. The authors examine the prevailing research problems in the fields, existing research paradigms, and the “social psychology” of school experimentation including experimental biases, deception, and data evaluation. In addition, Medway and Skedsvold present a selective review of social psychological research methods useful for school psychologists such as observational techniques, survey procedures, archival methods, and naturalistic inquiry. The authors conclude that many social psychological research methods that traditionally have been underutilized in school psychology hold great promise for advancing future school-based research and evaluation.

Chapter

1

THE RAPPROCHEMENT OF SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY AND SCHOOL PSYCHOLOGY: A HISTORICAL ANALYSIS

Frederic J. Medway

University of South Carolina

Imagine that you have just walked into an elementary school, turned and entered the first classroom on the left, and sat down. In front of you are children taking turns winding fishing reels as fast as they can. Some children wind alone, others in small groups, alternating these situations. An adult watches them and patiently records the winding time. The purpose is to determine if there is a change in individual, solitary performance when others are present.

Now suppose you are told that a psychologist set up this situation, and you are asked to guess his or her expertise. What criteria would you use to make your determination? Would you choose a school psychologist because the event takes place in a school or exclude school psychologist because of your beliefs that school psychologists do not work with classroom groups and are usually engaged in individual testing. Would you choose a developmental or educational psychologist because the subjects are children and the topic is educationally relevant or dismiss these groups because developmental levels are not studied and many variables are uncontrolled? Furthermore, would you choose a social psychologist because the event deals with the effects of social influence or exclude a social psychologist because of beliefs that they typically study college students on campus rather than schoolchildren.

In actuality, the study described is considered the first social psychology experiment and was conducted by Triplett (1897–1898) at schools in Indiana. The study is one of many illustrating that there are few distinct boundaries between many psychological subspecialties. Nor are there many distinct boundaries between psychology and other social sciences, including sociology, management science, political science, and cultural anthropology. However, in the last decade, and especially since World War II, social psychology and school psychology have developed their own unique interests, foci, viewpoint, and scholarship. Each discipline now has its own textbooks, journals, research topics, perspectives, and political influences with which it has to deal. However, in this chapter, I consider the common ground of social and school psychology, their mutual contributions, and how the identities of both fields have been shaped by similar political and social ideologies of the last century. My intent is to show that a full appreciation of contemporary school psychology is impossible without reference to the history of studies of society generally and without knowledge of social psychological propositions, propositions described in detail in following chapters of this text.

Table 1.1 presents an outline of the landmark events that have shaped the development of social psychology and school psychology. As is described, both fields are rooted in the writings of ancient Greek philosophers who initially applied rudimentary scientific methods, rather than religious or supernatural concepts, to the study of man in society. The lineage of social psychology springs from social philosophy, and the lineage of school psychology springs from clinical psychology, which in turn is rooted in studies of individual differences and ancient writings in philosophy and medicine.

Table 1.1 Landmarks in Social and School Psychology

The 1990s mark the 100th anniversary of both social psychology and psychology applied to education. At the turn of the last century, the professions of social and school psychology did not exist. Armchair theorizing about the individual and society had been recorded for approximately 2,000 years, and important work was underway in psychophysics and evolution. However, psychological experimentation was just beginning in the laboratories of Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920) in Liepzig, Germany in 1879; Sir Francis Galton (1822–1911) in Britain in 1884; and William James (1842–1910) in the late 1870s at Harvard. With the exception of Galton’s work, there was essentially no applied psychology. As we enter the 1990s there are approximately 5,000 social psychologists (American Psychological Association Directory, 1986) and approximately 16,000 school psychologists (National Association of School Psychologists Directory, 1989). Both fields have developed a distinct body of literature (Allport, 1985; Fagan, 1986) and standards for training. There are accreditation, certification, and licensure regulations in school psychology. The number of training programs for school psychologists increased from 45 in 1962 to 211 in 1984 (Brown & Minke, 1986).

Defining the Fields

What is Social Psychology?

Nearly all introductory textbooks in social psychology attempt to define the field. G. Allport (1985) offered the most popular definition. Allport defined social psychology as “an attempt to understand and explain how the thought, feeling, and behavior of individuals are influenced by the actual, imagined, or implied presence of others” (p. 3). Allport focused on the actions of individuals within a social context. This definition embraces the following major research topics in social psychology over the last 40 years: (a) attitudes; (b) cognitive processes including social perception; (c) interpersonal relations, including attraction, aggression, and altruism; (d) social and sexual roles; (e) small group behavior; (f) the relationship between environment and behavior; and (g) social variables in health, law, and education.

However, Allport’s definition is embedded in the psychological perspective that takes the individual as the primary unit of analysis. Another definition was provided by Elwood (1925) utilizing a sociological perspective. Elwood defined social psychology as “the study of social interaction … based upon the psychology of group life” (p. 16). The emphasis here is not on how individuals are affected by social phenomenon but rather how societies and institutions are organized and develop. A “sociological” social psychology attempts to study roles, culture, complex social structures, and deviance.

What is School Psychology?

Unlike social psychology, no one has proposed a widely accepted definition of school psychology (cf. Reynolds, Gutkin, Elliott, & Witt, 1984). This is due in part to changes and fluctuations in the field that have occurred in the last 25 years. School psychology is no longer just the practice of clinical psychology in child guidance clinics and schools. It has been expanded to include services to individuals below and above school age, has concerned itself with social, emotional, and vocational services as well as educational ones, and has broadened to include indirect services to caregivers and social systems besides diagnosis and treatment of individual clients. Borrowing heavily from Reynolds et al. (1984), we can define school psychology as an applied psychological discipline designed to enhance the educational and psychological welfare of learners (child and adult) through prevention, diagnosis, intervention, research, and training.

By definition and tradition, school psychology is firmly embedded in psychology and its scientific method. School psychologists look to the science of psychology to provide answers to practical, educational problems, and problems that commonly are intertwined with certain social contexts. Thus, social psychology’s concern with how individuals perceive, feel about, and respond to events must be shared by anyone in school psychology.

Historical Development of Social and School Psychology: The Search for Commonalties

Ancient Philosophical Roots

Common to both social and school psychology is the reliance on scientific method to address human behavior. Initial thinking about the origins and nature of social behavior can be traced back to the ancient Greeks, particularly the philosophers Plato (427–347 B.C.) and Aristotle (384–322 B.C.). Plato was concerned with how individuals and societies functioned in harmony. Plato proposed that social behavior is a function of man’s biological nature and the predominance of head (intellect), heart (volition), and stomach (appetite). Particularly relevant to school psychology was Plato’s claim that societies functioned best when individuals occupied places and held positions for which they were most aptly suited. Testing programs to identify individual abilities of prospective public officials had in fact been initiated in China some 1,500 years earlier, and Plato’s equating of ability levels and employment status was quite consistent with the purposes to which assessment would be put for the next 1,800 years (French & Hale, 1990). Further, both Plato and Aristotle were nativists who claimed that intelligence and other capacities were inborn. Both lived in a society with distinct social classes and barriers to advancement. Aristotle, however, did place some emphasis on the role of environment in determining social behavior. Thus, Plato and Aristotle were the first to begin to articulate the so-called “nature-nurture” controversy that, in the last half century, has been debated in the intelligence test arena.

Sahakian (1974) noted that Aristotle was the first to begin to study the social psychology of attitudes and persuasion. Aristotle considered per...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Contributors
• Foreword
• Preface
• Part 1: Theoretical Perspectives on Applying Social Psychology to Educational Practices
• Part 2: Applying Social Psychology to Clinical Interventions in the Schools
• Part 3: Applications to Clinical and Social Problems
• Author Index
• Subject Index