The Routledge International Companion to Educational Psychology

Andrew J. Holliman

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136675089
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The Routledge International Companion to Educational Psychology brings together expert practitioners, researchers, and teachers from five continents to produce a unique and global guide to the core topics in the field. Each chapter includes coverage of the key thinkers, topic areas, events, and ideas that have shaped the field, but also takes the reader beyond typical textbook material and into engagement with current issues, cutting-edge research and future directions in the field of educational psychology from an international perspective.

With over 30 chapters, the volume is divided into four themed sections: 'An introduction to educational psychology', 'How children learn and develop', 'Issues concerning the assessment of children' and 'Identifying and meeting the needs of children with learning difficulties'. Covering the key issues and fundamental strands of educational psychology The Routledge International Companion to Educational Psychology aims to provide the reader with knowledge of:

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• educational psychology (history, child rights, and practice);

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• factors which influence children's learning and development;

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• issues to do with assessment (a key aspect of educational psychology);

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• special educational needs (identification and how to meet their needs);

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• the key thinkers, events, and ideas that have shaped the field;

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• the core topics across educational psychology in an accessible manner;

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• cutting edge research including recent research evidence and theory;

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• future directions in the field of educational psychology;

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• educational psychology from an international perspective.

The book is conceived for both student and researcher use, and considers the implications for educational psychology practice in all sections. It will be highly beneficial for both students and lecturers on Education Studies and Psychology undergraduate courses, as well as combined undergraduate degrees.

PART I An introduction to educational psychology

DOI: 10.4324/9780203809402-1

1 A HISTORY OF EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGY

Malcolm W. H. Hughes

UNIVERSITY OF THE WEST OF ENGLAND, UK

DOI: 10.4324/9780203809402-2

If I had to reduce all of educational psychology to just one principle, I would say this: The most important single factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows. Ascertain this and teach him accordingly.

(Ausubel 1968: vi)

Introducing a history of educational psychology

The challenge of this chapter is to present a history of educational psychology. You may have noticed that many textbooks begin with a background chapter that provides a historical or theoretical context for the chapters to come. This Chapter 1: A history of educational psychology could be no exception to the usual practice; that introductory chapters lay the foundations for the rest of the text. An author might use an opening chapter, being introductory in nature, to briefly present ideas that are more fully explored later by writers with specialist expertise, particularly in this instance those who make the connection between psychology and educational settings.

This chapter is about where ideas and connections between ideas originated, and how such understanding can help you appreciate the importance of educational psychology for what happens in schools and other educational settings. It will help you judge the potential influence of educational psychology on teachers and how a thoroughgoing understanding of educational psychology can improve teaching and therefore the life chances of children and young people throughout the world. The aim of this chapter is to present an origin of educational psychology that traces connections between the development of scientific method, the research methods used by psychologists in educational settings, and the main theories (and theorists) that now inform so much of what happens across the globe in our schools and colleges. In summary, it is the connections – adopting a view of learning that is connectionist – that we are looking for, and aim to reveal.

Finding connections – but between what?

While resisting the temptation to present a kind of ‘Who’s Who’ of educational psychology, it can be helpful to identify at an early stage some of the names that will appear during this chapter and many of those that follow. But which names to choose? It is probably fair to say that for the past century or so, educational psychology has been heavily influenced by research carried out in the USA, and reported in international research journals published in either the USA or the UK (Bridges 2006). This is not in any way to exclude work carried out throughout Europe and in Australia and other parts of the developed or newly developed world – often seminal and innovative work that many authors in this text will call upon to support their arguments or conclusions. Rather, this is a realistic declaration of a widely accepted view that without the pioneering and entrepreneurial climate of higher educational institutions in the USA, much of the work that has contributed to the development of the applied science of educational psychology would not have been carried out (Nelson 2001). Neither would the work have been recorded and reported, to the benefit of children and young people throughout the world (Feldman and Desrochers 2004).

The influence of American scholarship is one reason to turn to the American text Educational Psychology: A Century of Contributions (Zimmerman and Schink 2002), which looks at the historic contributions of 18 leading psychologists who influenced the field of educational psychology from its origins in the late nineteenth century to its current status in the second decade of the twenty-first century. Each chapter presents a biography of an eminent scholar whose work has had a significant influence on the field of educational psychology – scholars selected by a committee of eight eminent present-day educational psychologists. The committee selected the following biographical subjects:

• Albert Bandura 1925–
• Alfred Binet 1857–1911
• Benjamin Bloom 1913–1999
• Ann Brown 1943–1999
• Jerome Bruner 1915–
• Lee Cronbach 1916–2001
• John Dewey 1859–1952
• Nathaniel Gage 1917–2008
• Robert Gagné 1916–2002
• William James 1842–1910
• Maria Montessori 1870–1952
• Jean Piaget 1896–1980
• Herbert Simon 1916–2001
• Burrhus Frederic Skinner 1904–1990
• Charles Spearman 1863–1945
• Lewis Terman 1877–1956
• Edward L. Thorndike 1874–1949
• Lev Semenovich Vygotsky 1896–1934

It is worth pausing for a moment to take a longer look at this list of key contributors to the origins of educational psychology. How many different ways could you organize this list? Try writing each name on a separate piece of card and sorting and grouping the cards in as many different ways as you can. You may need to do some surfing of the Internet or use the index of this book to give you some basic information to go on. Date order is a good starting point, and many students who engage with this activity also go straight for names they have and haven’t heard of, or the birthplace of the psychologist (European or American). Of course, this list of contributors to the history of educational psychology is a selection from a much longer list of possible contenders.

How was this list constructed? What thought processes were the committee of eight engaged in during the selection process for Educational Psychology: A Century of Contributions? Well, there is one obvious process, making selections – selecting. Members of the committee also employed other processes such as categorizing, comparing, connecting, discarding, refining, evaluating, and explaining. If you did start to sort the list of contributors as suggested in the preceding paragraph then you may also have engaged in similar processes. The committee of eight were also working together, ‘bouncing ideas’, bringing new insights or unfamiliar knowledge. They built or constructed the list together; an important idea for the kind of ways you can engage with the main ideas of this chapter and with others who might be studying with you. What else might be important?

Setting the scene or setting the learning agenda

This chapter began with an important and telling quotation from the American psychologist David Ausubel (1918–2008). You may already have spotted that he does not appear on the list of 18 eminent contributors, and after you have further engaged in a study of educational psychology you may think it appropriate to add Ausubel’s name to the list. For now it is worth noting that Ausubel believed that people acquire knowledge primarily through reasoning from concepts, principles, and ideas presented by a teacher. They do not necessarily discover the knowledge for themselves, as some others on our list of 18 would suggest. Learners understand new knowledge using deductive reasoning – from general ideas to specific cases, not from specific cases leading to general concepts (inductive reasoning). Ausubel’s expository teaching model stresses what is known as meaningful verbal learning – verbal information, ideas, and relationships among ideas, taken together. Therefore, Ausubel would assert that learning by heart by repetition (rote memorization) is not meaningful learning, because material learned by rote is not ‘connected’ with existing knowledge.

Ausubel’s teaching strategy always begins with an advance organizer. An advance organizer is an introductory statement broad enough to encompass all the information that will follow (Hung and Chao 2007). Advance organizers can serve three purposes: they can direct your attention to what is important in the coming material; highlight relationships among ideas that will be presented; and remind you of relevant information you already have (Hung et al. 2010).

In general, advance organizers fall into one of two categories, ‘comparative’ and ‘expository’ (Gajria et al. 2007). Comparative organizers activate or reactivate (bring into working memory) already existing schemas. They remind you of what you already know but may not yet realize is connectable or relevant. For example, at the start of a biology lesson pupils could be asked ‘How would you transform spiders into insects or an amphibian into a reptile?’ In contrast, expository organizers provide new knowledge that pupils will need in order to understand the upcoming information. The quote from David Ausubel at the start of this chapter could be considered an expository advance organizer. Finding out what the learner already knows and teaching him or her accordingly is a well-constructed and memorable general principle that could inform the remaining exposition of this chapter. However, Ausubel’s principle may not be a good advance organizer for what is to follow. Why not? It might be helpful to review the Ausubel quotation against the three purposes of advance organizers explained earlier. How can Ausubel’s principle be considered a helpful advance organizer when it doesn’t deal with the origins and history of educational psychology, and no-one can know what you already know before you read this chapter? However, something more appropriate can be constructed.

An advance organizer for this chapter

Here is one idea of how a good advance organizer for this chapter might read:

‘The history of educational psychology begins with its philosophical foundations in the late nineteenth century, follows attempts to apply scientific method to educational settings and now celebrates its current status as a fully recognized applied science in the second decade of the twenty-first century.’

The general conclusion of research on advance organizers (e.g. Langan-Fox et al. 2001) is that they do help pupils learn (especially when the material to be learned is quite unfamiliar or complex) if two conditions are met. First, to be effective the organizer must be understood by the pupils. This was demonstrated dramatically in an early study by Dinnel and Glover (1985). They found that instructing pupils to paraphrase an advance organizer – which, of course, requires them to understand its meaning – significantly increased the effectiveness of the organizer. Second, the organizer must really be an organizer! By its internal organization and logic, it must indicate relations among the basic concepts and terms that will be used. How does the advance organizer above match the two conditions?

We can start by looking at some of the terms used: ‘philosophical foundations’; ‘scientific method’; ‘recognized applied science’. Philosophical foundations are the origins of educational psychology, with the word ‘philosophy’ deriving from the Greek philosophia which means ‘love of wisdom’. Philosophy is no mere musings about the meaning of life and the universe but rather the use of rational, critical and systematic logic to establish understandings about language, knowledge, values, and mind (Larvor 2008). Furthermore, although in many modern university departmental structures philosophy inhabits liberal arts faculties and schools, it was a term originally applied to scientists. Natural philosophers were early scientists (before the nineteenth century) who studied nature and the physical universe, precursors of the sciences of biology, botany, physics, chemistry, and astronomy (Kaufman 2006).

It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise, therefore, that William James (1842–1910), firstborn of our list of most eminent scholars and widely considered the ‘father’ of educational psychology, was among other things a philosopher. James was concerned with beliefs, truths, emotions, and how we know what we know – the ‘nuts and bolts’ of gaining knowledge and developing cognitive abilities through experience. The branch of philosophy that drew James’ attention was epistemology, from epistēmē (meaning ‘knowledge’) and logos (meaning ‘logic’ or ‘reasoned discourse’), as it is concerned with the nature of knowledge. Epistemology addresses the questions: ‘What is knowledge?’ ‘How is knowledge acquired?’ and ‘How do we know what we know?’ Therefore, empiricism is a theory of knowledge emphasizing the role of experience, especially based on what we can observe and make sense of (Clough 2009).

Developing a theory – developing a scientific method

Did William James invent empiricism? Hardly, as the history of science – or rather scientific method – is rooted in the philosophy of the famous Greek scholar Aristotle. Aristotle (384–322 BC) established empiricism as a theory of knowledge which asserts that all knowledge arises from experience and observation. Almost 1400 years later, the Persian scholar Ibn al-Haytham Alhazen (965–1039) combined observation and experimentation (scientific methods) and rational argument in his Book of Optics, to form a theory of vision. The theory stated that light is emitted or reflected from objects rather than from the eyes (El-Bizri 2005). The development of scientific method by Alhazen and later by the likes of Bacon, Copernicus, Leonardo da Vinci, Galileo, Newton, Kepler, Darwin, Freud, and Skinner allowed for the development of theories in the physical and social sciences, including educational psychology.

As in other forms of scientific research, educational psychology is based on the observation of the phenomena – the happenings – of teaching and learning. Systematic observations are organized into patterns of behaviour that have causes and consequences. The way in which we make sense of what we observe is to construct meanings from the causes, behaviours and consequences of particular phenomena. If these observations in educational settings are conducted in reliable and valid ways (the scientific method) then the meanings we construct are more likely to apply to more learners than just the individuals or groups the scientist observes (Niaz 2004). Scientific observations are real and factual, yet facts alone do not make a science. What is needed is a way of combining and interpreting facts – reasoned discourse or logic – to create a theory that makes sense of what scientists have observed and recorded.

What do we mean by a theory? A theory is a system of concepts that connect to form a framework of ideas (or schema) which allows for understanding. Burrhus Skinner (usually known as B. F. Skinner), a highly influential American psychologist, author, and inventor, provides a more precise definition of the development of theory using scientific methods. He said: ‘It [a theory] is an attempt to discover order, to show that certain events stand in lawful relations to other events. The methods of science are designed to clarify these uniformities and make them explicit’ (1953: 35).

Therefore a theory is formed (in the context of educational psychology) by the systematic observation of how teachers and learners behave, and the causes and consequences of the behaviour. The scientific method organizes these observations in order to create a theory about the behaviour being observed. However, systematic observation by itself is not enough. At the same time we are looking for explanations of the changes of behaviour by considering earlier observations, contextual or environmental factors and changes in cognition or learning. Together, and over time, systematic observations can be used to create theories about how and why we think teachers teach as they do and how learners learn.

At the beginning of the twentieth century the development of the new discipline of educational psychology rested on the successful application of the scientific methods of observation and experimentation to educational problems. Even in the earliest years of the discipline, educational psychologists recognized the limitations of this new approach. In his famous series of lectures Talks to Teachers on Psychology, published in 1899 and regarded by some as the first educational psychology textbook, William James commented that: ‘Psychology is a science, and teaching is an art; and sciences never generate arts directly out of themselves. An intermediate inventive mind must make that application, by using its originality’ (1899: 7–8).

Therefore, it wasn’t just about creating an applied science of how learners learn to inform how teachers should teach, because even James, the ‘father of educational psychology’, recognized that education is not a simple set of solutions that always work because they have once been observed to work. Rather, teachers call on a range of strategies based on principles adopted by educationalists, founded on theories of learning, cognitive development, authentic assessment of attainment, and developmentally appropriate provision.

Using a scientific method

The Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget (1896–1980) is arguably the most influential figure in educational psychology, particularly when others apply his theories of stages in cognitive development to educational contexts. You will read a good deal about his theories throughout this book (e.g. Howe, Chapter 10, this volume; Vousden, Wood, and Holliman, Chapter 5, this volume). Learner-centred education – good practice (arguably) around the globe in early childhood and primary school settings today – is deeply rooted in Piaget’s theory that people learn best about the world through exploration of it rather than being told. Spend just a few minutes in many early years settings and you can observe the freedom children have to explore ideas, materials, and objects through talking about what they are finding and sharing with others. You will also observe the expert way in which teachers support children’s activities and language to draw out meanings from the children’s experiences.

Piaget was a biologist who originally studied molluscs. By the time he was 21 he had published 20 scientific papers on them, and gained a PhD about them at the University of Neuchâtel. As a teenager, he published two philosophical papers (Piaget, like William James, was considered a philosopher). After graduating, he moved to Paris to teach at the Grange-Aux-Belles Street School for Boys. When marking some intelligence tests at the school, he noticed that young children consistently made types of mistakes that older children and adults did not. Piaget came to think that age differences in patterns of wrong answers reflected differences in how children of various ages ‘thought’ about the questions and that older children not only know more, but also think differently to younger children. His curiosity led Piaget into the study of the development of children’s understanding, through closely observing them – particularly his own three children – and talking and listening to them while they played or worked on exercises he set.

Jean Piaget used scientific methods of observation and experimentation to explore the differences in how children at different ages thought about a problem. An often-quoted example is the pendulum problem – useful for us as the idea is simple to explain – to test at what age children can engage in formal operations. Essentially, formal operations involve the development of an ability to think scientifically and apply the rigour of the scientific method to cognitive tasks. Piaget used this test to judge whether a child had progressed sufficiently to perform formal operations (Inhelder and Piaget 1958).

Children and adolescents are shown a pendulum (consisting of a weight hanging from a string and then set in motion) and asked to try to figure out what determines the speed at which the pendulum sways from side to side. Is it the heaviness of the weight, the length of the string, the height from which the weight is dropped, or the force with which it is dropped? Participants are given various weights and various lengths of string to use in their deliberations.

Children in concrete operations – the developmental stage that precedes formal operations – tend to approach the problem with random attempts, often changing more than one variable at a time. They may try the heaviest weight on the longest string dropped from medium height with medium force, then a medium weight on the smallest string dropped from medium height with lesser force. When the speed of the pendulum changes, it remains difficult for them to say what caused the change because they had altered more than one variable at a time. If they happen to arrive at the right answer – it’s the length of the string (but you knew that already!) – they find it difficult to explain why. This is crucial to understanding how Piagetian theory is constructed and applied; cognitive advances at each stage are reflected not just in the solutions children devise for problems, but in their explanations for how they arrived at the solution.

It is only with formal operations that we can find the right answer to a problem like this and explain why it is the right answer. The formal operational thinker approaches the pendulum problem by utilizing the kind of hypothetical thinking involved in a scientific experiment. The thought process spoken out loud could be something like this:

Let’s see, it could be weight; let me try changing the weight while keeping everything else the same. No, that’s not it; same speed. Maybe it’s length; if I change the length while keeping everything else the same, that seems to make a difference; it goes faster with a shorter string. But let me try height, too; no change; then force; no change there, either. So it’s length, and only length, that makes the difference.

Thus, the formal operational thinker changes one variable while holding the others constant and tests the different possibilities systematically. Through this process, the formal operational thinker arrives at an answer that is not only correct but can be explained and defended. The capacity for this kind of thinking, which Piaget (1972) termed hypothetico-deductive reasoning, is at the heart of his theory of formal operations.

Not all our 18 leading psychologists engaged in scientific method to formulate theory. Remember that William James, as well as being a medical practitioner, was principally a philosopher, an original thinker, and a linker between the disciplines of physiology, psychology and philosophy. His 1,200 page work, The Principles of Psychology (1890), is a complex blend of physiology, philosophy, and personal reflection that has given us such ideas as ‘the stream of consciousness’ and the baby’s impression of the world ‘as one great blooming, buzzing confusion’ (1890: 462).

In contrast, Piaget not only observed and made sense of what he observed, but applied scientific methods to create and check out his emerging theories of cognitive development and learning. Now would be a good time to retrieve your name cards for the 18 leading psychologists. Put William James and Jean Piaget at the top of two columns and place the remaining cards according to whether you think each psychologist is more a philosopher/author like James or more a scientist/author like Piaget. As suggested earlier, you may need to do some surfing of the Internet or use the index of this book to give you some basic information to go on.

How did you get on? Perhaps you had some cards left over. These were probably the names of leading psychologists who contributed enormously to the origins and history of educational psychology, but fitted the identity of neither a philosopher/author nor a scientist/author. One of the cards that might have been left over was Maria Montessori, although you might also have placed her in the philosopher/author column. She is an inspirational example of somebody who successfully linked child development and issues of social justice (Nawrotzki 2006), and her work is worth a short introduction now.

Applying science for a teaching method

Montessori (1870–1952) was an Italian teacher, philosopher, and physician best known for her method of education for children from birth to adolescence. She was the first woman in Italy to receive a medical degree and went on to work in the fields of psychiatry, education, and anthropology. She believed that each child is born with a unique potential which can be ‘revealed’ by their early experiences including the type of education they receive. Her early work centred on women’s rights and social reform, part of which was establishing children’s rights to a high-quality education from an early age. The Montessori method of teaching (as it became known) was a revolutionary method of education characterized by personalized teaching and individual learning, children’s self-directed activity, teachers matching children’s learning environments to developmental level, and the role of physical activity in forming concepts and gaining mastery in practical skills. The method is in use today in many settings (mainly nursery and primary schools) throughout the world, all named after the founder of the method.

Maria Montessori died in the Netherlands in 1952, after a lifetime devoted to the study of child development. She remains one of the few great theorists, who transformed her ideas into a way of organizing classrooms, schools, curricula, and pedagogy. A rich and important seam of research into the applications, effects, and outcomes of her methods remains and continues to grow (Vettiveloo 2008).

Montessori is a wonderful example of a third category of eminent contributors to educational psychology. She was a scholar, a philosopher, a scientist, a medical practitioner, but principally a reformer and founder. She reformed the learning experiences of countless thousands of children founded on the principles and theories of social and cognitive psychology. Her application of what she believed to be principles of social justice and how children develop and learn best made an enormous contribution to the history of educational psychology.

Retrieve the name cards again and this time make three columns: philosopher/authors, scientist/authors and reformers/founders. Of course any categorization can be a rough-and-ready tool, and students with different perceptions and perspectives will produce different configurations. Do not permanently discard your name cards. As you read this text it would be interesting to review your categories or to group the cards in a different way. You may also wish to discard some names or add names to the list pile, like that of David Ausubel.

Finding connections in the chapter

Finally, we can return to the advance organizer used earlier in the chapter. Do you think, or can you agree, that the history of educational psychology begins with its philosophical foundations in the late nineteenth century, follows attempts to apply scientific method to educational settings, and is now a fully recognized applied science? Can you trace the connections between this advance organizer and the ideas presented in the chapter? The three-part nature of the organizer mirrors the structure of the argument that followed in the rest of the chapter and the three eminent contributors to educational psychology who exemplify each part of the discussion.

By the time you finish this book you may have constructed perspectives on educational psychology that allow you to critique the advance organizer about the history of educational psychology and the original selection of the 18 leading psychologists. However, it is not possible to make the connections ‘for’ you between the history of educational psychology, Jean Piaget, Maria Montessori, William James, scientific method and the application of theory; but ‘you’ can make those connections for yourself. Now, it is over to you!

Contact address: [email protected]

References

• Ausubel, D. P. (1968) Educational psychology: a cognitive view, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
• Bridges, D. (2006) ‘The disciplines and discipline of educational research’, Journal of Philosophy of Education, 40: 259–272.
• Clough, P. T. (2009) ‘The new empiricism’, European Journal of Social Theory, 12: 43–61.
• Dinnel, D., and Glover, J. A. (1985). ‘Advance organizers: encoding manipulations’, Journal of Educational Psychology, 77: 514–521.
• El-Bizri, N. (2005) ‘A philosophical perspective on Alhazen’s Optics’, Arabic Sciences and Philosophy, 15: 189–218.
• Feldman, M. P., and Desrochers, P. (2004) ‘Truth for its own sake: academic culture and technology transfer at Johns Hopkins University’, Minerva, 42: 105–126.
• Gajria, M., Jitendra, A. K., Sood, S., and Sacks, G. (2007) ‘Improving comprehension of expository text in students with LD: a research synthesis’, Journal of Learning Disabilities, 40: 210–225.
• Hung, W.-C., and Chao, C.-A. (2007) ‘Integrating advance organizers and multidimensional information display in electronic performance support systems’, Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 44: 181–198.
• Hung, W.-C., Smith, T., Harris, M., and Lockard, J. (2010) ‘Development research of a teacher’s educational performance support system_ the practices of design, development, and evaluation’, Educational Technology Research and Development, 58: 61–80.
• Inhelder, B., and Piaget, J. (1958) The growth of logical thinking from childhood to adolescence, New York: Basic Books.
• James, W. (1890) The principles of psychology, Volume 1, New York: Henry Holt and Company.
• James, W. (1899) Talks to teachers on psychology: and to students on some of life’s ideals, New York: Henry Holt and Company.
• Kaufman, D. A. (2006) ‘Knowledge, wisdom, and the philosopher’, Philosophy, 81: 129–151.
• Langan-Fox, J., Wirth, A., Code, S., Langfield-Smith, K., and Wirth, A. (2001) ‘Analyzing shared and team mental models’, International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics, 28: 99–112.
• Larvor, B. (2008) ‘What can the philosophy of mathematics learn from the history of mathematics?’, Erkenntnis, 68: 393–407.
• Nawrotzki, K. (2006) ‘Froebel is dead; long live Froebel! The National Froebel Foundation and English Education’, History of Education, 35: 209–223.
• Nelson, R. R. (2001) ‘Observations on the post-Bayh-Dole rise of patenting at American universities’, Journal of Technology Transfer, 26: 13–19.
• Niaz, M. (2004) ‘Exploring alternative approaches to methodology in educational research’, Interchange, 35: 155–184.
• Piaget, J. (1972) The child’s conception of the world, Towota, NJ: Littlefield Adams.
• >Skinner, B. F. (1953) Science and human behaviour, New York: Macmillan.
• Vettiveloo, R. (2008) ‘A critical enquiry into the implementation of the Montessori teaching method as a first step towards inclusive practice in early childhood settings specifically in developing countries’, Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 9: 178–181.
• Zimmerman, B. J., and Schink, D. H. (eds.) (2002) Educational psychology: a century of contributions. A Project of Division 15 (Educational Psychology) of the American Psychological Society, New York: Routledge.

2 THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD

Mary Kellett

THE OPEN UNIVERSITY, UK

DOI: 10.4324/9780203809402-3

This chapter explores inherent tensions in the shift towards children’s rights, articulated in child participation and voice policies, with power dynamics in schools. It focuses mainly on the English educational sector, although illustrative material is also drawn from other global nations. Fundamental children’s rights are depicted alongside some teachers’ fears that progressive embracement of those rights risks destabilizing and subverting core educational principles and practice. The chapter begins with a brief exposition of the contemporary status of children’s rights and how some of these have evolved in school environments. The body of the chapter discusses those articles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) that impact on children’s educational experiences and the role of educational professionals. A major focus is the perspectives of children themselves as depicted through child agency and child-led research. It concludes with a reflection on future directions and likely global responses.

The status of children's rights

Discourse around children’s rights has grown rapidly in the wake of the UNCRC (United Nations 1989). This international edict acknowledged the status of children in society and accrued human rights directly to minors. There are 41 articles, several of which relate to education. A subset of these are simplified and summarized in Table 2.1.

Table 2.1 UNCRC articles linked to children's education

Article	Summary of content
2	Governments should ensure that children are protected against all forms of discrimination or punishment that derives from discrimination.
3	The best interest of the child is paramount. Organizations should ensure practices that support children’s wellbeing.
4	Governments should make UNCRC rights available and accessible to children.
12	Children have the right to say what they think should happen, when adults are making decisions that affect them, and to have their opinions taken into account according to their age and maturity.
13	Children have the right to express their views freely and to receive and share information as long as the information is not damaging to them or to others.
14	Children have the right to think and believe what they want, and to practise their religion.
19	Governments should ensure that children are properly cared for, and protect them from all forms of violence, abuse, neglect or exploitation by anyone who has care of them. This should include prevention and support programmes.
28	Children have the right to quality education and to be supported to attend school to the highest level of their abilities.
29	Education should enable children to develop their skills and abilities.
30	Children from ethnic minority groups should be allowed to enjoy their own culture, to practise their own religion, and to use their own language.
31	Children have a right to rest and leisure, to engage in play and recreational activities appropriate to their age.

Adopting a rights-based approach to childhood challenges some traditional child development paradigms and necessitates a rethinking of underlying principles. Pertinent to this is the debate about development as natural versus development as cultural (Woodhead 2006). The cultural context in which children live impacts on the way in which we understand and interpret their development rights and gives rise to some tensions. Competence-dominant theories (see James, Jenks, and Prout 1998; Woodhead and Faulkner 2008) limit the self-agency of children in the exercising of their rights, whereas social-constructivist theories recognize the emancipatory status of the children as social actors with evolving capacities (Lansdown 2005).

These articles of the UNCRC demand a reappraisal of children’s role in shaping their development, influencing those with responsibilities for their care and education and being listened to in all matters that affect them. It strikes at the heart of conventional authority relationships between children and the adults who regulate their lives, and offers the promise of being a major catalyst for social change towards a more respectful view of children’s status as young citizens.

(Woodhead 2005: 91)

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child was set up to monitor how states are implementing the Convention. In the immediate aftermath of UNCRC many countries passed new legislation to embed the 41 articles, but the Government in England and Wales maintained that these were already covered by the 1989 Children’s Act. However, at the United Nations Special Summit on Children’s Rights (in 2002), the UK Government was criticized for not doing enough, especially in relation to children’s participation. In response to this criticism, the Every Child Matters (ECM) Green Paper 2003 was fashioned and ultimately adopted into English law via the 2004 Children’s Act. In the UK’s devolved parliaments similar legislation was adopted: the Welsh Assembly Government (2004) publication Children and Young People: Rights to Action; the Scottish Executive (2005) publication Getting It Right for Every Child: Proposals for Action; and in Northern Ireland, the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister (2006) publication Our Children and Young People – Our Pledge.

The onset of ECM has been a significant factor in the advancement of children’s rights in education. The aim of ECM was to place children at the centre of service provision and build support around them based on five outcomes – being healthy; staying safe; enjoying and achieving; making a positive contribution; and economic wellbeing. Schools and educational psychologists were required to incorporate these into their planning processes. This brought about a notable shift towards a more child-centred approach to learning coupled with acknowledgement of the importance of listening to children and of promoting their participation and voice. A new respect for the worth of children’s views and the knowledge and understanding of their lived experiences began to emerge, which had a major impact on children’s rights in education globally (Fitzgerald et al. 2010; Lansdown 2005).

The right to an education

Although the fundamental right of a child to a minimum of a primary education is not in question, the extent to which children have any rights over the ‘nature’ of that education is less clear. Considering that a large proportion of a typical childhood is spent in full-time education, children have relatively few rights over how this is managed (Devine 2003). Children in most developed countries do not have any right to determine what school they go to, when and how long they attend, or what curriculum is offered. These decisions are determined in law and choices made through the proxy of their parents. Harris (2009) asserts that English education law needs to catch up with child care law if it is to hold to the spirit of the United Nations Convention. For example, in child care law, children can have their accommodation preferences considered but pupils have to wait until Sixth Form (where students aged 16 to 19 typically study for advanced school-level qualifications) before they have any rights over their choice of school.

Essentially, children have the right ‘to’ an education but no right to ‘decline’ an education. This raises some interesting tensions and puts Wyness, Harrison, and Buchanan’s (2004) assertion of a child’s right to self-determination at variance with educational gatekeepers who deny self-determination with regard to school attendance. There is considerable unease about the social injustices in the school exclusion system and the impact these have on attainment and life aspirations for those children caught in the vortex. Few would argue against the benefits of education for children but some would advocate a strengthening of children’s rights to decision-making concerning educational processes (Smyth 2006).

Children’s Rights Alliance England (CRAE) commissioned research to provide feedback to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child by exploring children’s awareness and understanding of the UNCRC and their rights (see Davey 2010). Children and young people completed an online survey (n = 1,362) and took part in focus groups (n = 346). The research looked at six aspects of children’s lives: respect and freedom; family and friends; health and safety; education; play and leisure; and crime and neighbourhood. Children and young people had strong ideas about what is important to them. These included:

• knowing about and being able to exercise their rights
• being part of a family (whatever that construction of family was)
• being respected and listened to
• having the right to live in a good area with a sense of community.

Findings showed that very few children and young people knew about or understood their human rights. Even fewer knew how to seek redress if their rights were violated. The 2008 report of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child highlighted a number of concerns about the implementation of the Convention in the UK, not least the level of awareness of their rights among UK children. The committee singled out unsatisfactory levels of discrimination among minority groups and disabled children, especially with regard to attainment and school exclusion. It judged that the principle of the best interests of the child was still not reflected as a primary consideration in all legislative and policy matters affecting children, notably in the area of juvenile justice.

We can learn much about the contemporary status of children’s rights in education and likely future directions by reflecting on how some current rights have evolved. Previous generations grew up with corporal punishment as an everyday occurrence in the classroom. Sweden led the way, banning corporal punishment in 1979. Most European countries followed suit over different time scales, e.g. Finland as early as 1983 and Portugal as late as 2007. In the UK, legislation to ban corporal punishment in state schools was passed in 1987 (more than a decade later for private schools). However, corporal punishment is still allowed in many non-European countries, putting them in direct conflict with Article 19 of the UNCRC (see Table 2.1). This illustrates the uneven employment of quite fundamental children’s rights in education and signals the distance yet to be travelled before global parity can be achieved.

Wellbeing

In addition to freedom from abuse, children have a right to wellbeing, leisure, and play. These cornerstones of the UNCRC are of primary concern to educational psychologists who seek optimal ways to ensure they are realized. Bullying is a prominent issue in schools affecting a child’s right to wellbeing. Understanding the perspectives of perpetrators and victims continually challenges professionals. The school experiences of children with learning difficulties were vividly depicted in Mencap’s Don’t Stick It, Stop it! research campaign in 2007, which revealed that 80 percent of children with learning difficulties were being bullied at school – 60 percent had been physically hurt by bullies. For 27 percent of children with learning difficulties, the bullying lasted three or more years. Children themselves can be powerful anti-bullying advocates and many schools have peer-run anti-bullying initiatives.

Cyberbullying is on the increase. A recent youth-led research study commissioned by the Diana Award (Tarapdar and Kellett 2011) involving 1,512 young people in England found that 38 percent were affected by cyberbullying, some to the point of being suicidal. Interestingly, the report also found that young people felt safer in school than in their own homes, so educationalists are clearly making progress with intervention strategies. There is more discussion about wellbeing in Erten, Savage, and Di Stasio (Chapter 6, this volume), which considers the positive outcomes that accrue when emotional aspects of a classroom are closely linked to the academic business.

Pupil voice

An important element, in most developed countries, that underlines children’s right to optimal education is pupil voice predicated on Article 12 of the Convention (see Table 2.1). In England this has grown out of the ECM agenda, albeit slowly because of entrenched paternalist and protectionist perspectives that have historically pervaded the education sector (Leitch and Mitchell 2007). Participation theorists such as Shier (2001: 110) refer to a continuum that has listening at one end and power sharing at the other: children are listened to → children are supported in expressing their views → children’s views are taken into account → children are involved in decision making processes → children share power and responsibility for decision making. Lundy (2007: 933) conceptualizes children’s voice as being constituted in four parts, not one:

• Space: Children must be given the opportunity to express a view
• Voice: Children must be facilitated to express their views
• Audience: The view must be listened to
• Influence: The view must be acted upon as appropriate.

This perspective highlights the inefficacy of voice operating in a vacuum. There have to be the right conditions in place before children can exercise voice and mechanisms to carry that voice to an audience in order to be influential. Creating space for children to express their views in a safe space without fear of reprisal is underpinned by the ‘assurance’ of this cited in Article 12.

A number of initiatives, of interest to educational psychologists, are addressing how this ideology can be applied to promote listening cultures and meaningful participation by pupils on school issues. The UK government strengthened its commitment to pupil consultation in the 2002 Education Act and through the Ofsted inspection framework which gives the inspection body powers to request evidence of how schools are consulting with pupils and how they are considering their views. Since 2005, Ofsted has also included children’s views directly via a pupil questionnaire.

At the tokenistic end of the spectrum, pupil voice is passive, a perception of voice as being a gift in the power of adults (in this case, teachers) to bestow rather than a fundamental right. Terms such as ‘giving children a voice’ perpetuate this (Lodge 2005). Adult control is evident where young people are given a voice through their views being ‘allowed’ to emerge (Hamill and Boyd 2002), which suggests a dependency on adults to provide any such opportunities. Teacher–pupil power dynamics also has a significant bearing on how children’s views are accessed. During the Iraq War, adults were allowed to exercise their democratic right to protest against the invasion but children were threatened with school suspension if they took time out of lessons to join protest marches.

The school environment is one of the most governed childhood arenas outside of youth offending institutions, and a location where children are least able to assert their human rights (Kellett 2009; Mayall 2000). Harris (2009) discusses how education law needs to catch up with child care law if it is to hold to the spirit of the Convention. Despite all the rhetoric around pupil voice, teaching and learning are largely forbidden areas of enquiry (Fielding 2001). Although teachers are aware of the shifting nature of children’s status in society, this is rarely welcomed if it challenges their own roles and authority (Devine 2003; Hamill and Boyd 2002). Tensions arise when children aspire to raise issues that conflict with those of their teachers (Alderson 2000). In some settings, teachers regard the voicing of pupil views as potentially subversive and destabilizing (Garner 2010). This is familiar territory to educational psychologists, who have to act in the best interest of the child even if this leads to challenging conflicts with teaching staff.

Nevertheless, there has been considerable progress in facilitating pupil participation and voice in some schools, with more and more examples emerging of pupils contributing to – or in some cases researching – teaching and learning issues (Rudduck 2006). Cultural change is proving slower to achieve (Leitch and Mitchell 2007) and there is still a real danger that lip service will be rendered to pupil voice for reasons of a school’s accountability rather than for reasons of children’s human rights (Robinson and Taylor 2007). This concurs with Bragg’s (2001) contention that when rapid results are needed (and performance league tables spring immediately to mind here) it is easier to listen to those voices that accord with the establishment position rather than those that challenge it.

School councils

The growth of school councils has done much to raise awareness about the potential for pupils to play a part in leadership and management. School councils are forums that enable pupil representatives to take forward views and concerns of their peers into governance structures. The 2002 Education Act recommended the setting up of school councils in maintained schools. The Welsh Assembly went a step further in making school councils compulsory in 2006. Despite a strong rationale for school councils to enhance children’s rights, they have attracted criticism for being too adult-centric in their agendas and processes (Rudduck and Fielding 2006) and opportunities for pupils to comment on matters that affect their education can be very limited.

Rudduck and Fielding (2006) were concerned about this tokenism and identified three critical factors that impeded the efficacy of school councils. The first was adult–child power relations and a perception that agency was in the gift of the adult to bestow. The second related to inclusion and a perception that school council pupil representatives were drawn from articulate, middle-class groups. Lastly they highlighted authenticity and a perception that staff did not buy into the purpose or ethos of school councils. Whitty and Wisby (2007) also expressed concern about tokenism where insufficient time is allocated for school council meetings and their ensuing feedback processes. Cotmore (2004) drew attention to the general lack of training for student representatives. On a positive note, when school councils work optimally, correlations can be found between these pupil consultation processes and school improvement (Bergmark and Kostenius 2009; Rudduck and Flutter 2004). For examples of school council good practice see www.speakersschoolcouncil.org.

Special educational needs

Pupils fully understand which forms of communication are most likely to be valued (Rudduck and Fielding 2006) and that initiatives such as pupil voice which are intended to be empowering can perpetuate exclusionary practices if they become over-populated by articulate minorities (Lensmire 1998; Rudduck and Flutter 2004). Bragg (2001: 73) refers to this as an implicit contract requiring pupils to ‘speak responsibly, intelligently and usefully’. If not handled carefully, voice can create hierarchical pupil power structures that result in silence and suppression for some pupils (John 1996). This is most evident with children who have special educational needs. They are least able to exercise their rights and are among the most marginalized of pupil groups. This resonates with the discourse in Erten et al. (Chapter 6, this volume) about teachers with pathognomonic beliefs having less effective engagement with students than those with interventionist beliefs, which undermines the rights of marginalized students.

For much of the twentieth century, the medical model of disability prevailed and doctors diagnosed children from four categories: feeble-minded, moral-defective, imbecile, or idiot. Idiots were judged to be ‘ineducable’. The 1970 Education Act established the absolute right of all children, irrespective of their disability, to a full education and the ‘ineducable’ category was finally abolished. However, no provision was made for children with severe learning difficulties and many continued to be educated in specialist schools or hospitals where behaviourist techniques were favoured. Notions that this kind of classical conditioning could lead to effective education were heavily criticized as learning without understanding (McConkey 1981) and the creation of banks of non-transferable skills (Collis and Lacey 1996). So at a very basic level, the right of children with severe special needs to an appropriate education was not being met. Moreover, their right to be treated with dignity and respect was being disregarded in language that described them as ‘sub-normal’ and ‘mentally handicapped’.

The Warnock Report (1978) succeeded in replacing these terms with a less stigmatizing descriptor, ‘learning difficulties’. This heralded the onset of a social model of disability in which the disabling factors were regarded not as within-child deficits but as the failure of society to adapt learning environments to accommodate their needs. The closure of many special schools followed as increasing numbers of children with learning difficulties were included in mainstream schools. At one level this was an advancement of the rights through the upholding of the prerogative to attend a school within their own local community. At another level, what first appeared to be a valuing of rights later became an infringement of those rights as some parents bemoaned the loss of special schools with their smaller classes and specialist support. The consideration of rights, therefore, is more about the right of children and families to choose the educational provision they consider to be most appropriate.

Pupil-led research

The final section of this chapter is devoted to an exposition of children exercising the right to lead their own research about aspects of their education (Fielding 2004; Kellett 2005). This initiative provides an evidence base for issues of concern and increases the likelihood of transformative action (Bucknall 2009). The Children’s Research Centre at the Open University (http://childrens-research-centre.open.ac.uk) trains and supports children and young people to undertake their own research. Two examples of projects that raise educational rights issues follow.

Dandridge’s (aged 10) research (2008: 5) concerned gender rights. She reported that 62 percent of Year 5 pupils (nine- and 10-year-olds) considered girls were favoured in their primary school. Eighty-six percent of them also thought that boys were punished more than girls. Eighty percent of Year 6 pupils (10 and 11-year-olds) had the perception that girls were more often chosen for ‘special jobs’. Dandridge’s research also included some lesson observations. She describes one English lesson where 12 questions were asked by the teacher, of which nine were answered by girls and three by boys. In the same lesson there were 19 occasions of boys being told off compared to four occasions with girls. A similar picture emerged from observations in Art and Maths lessons. Dandridge concluded that most teachers wanted to be fair to all pupils irrespective of gender and there was no deliberate intention to favour girls, but suggested they might be doing this without realising it. She presented her research to a panel of teachers and governors. As a consequence, pupil gender equity was added to the school’s planning document as a professional development action point.

Priyasha’s (aged 13) research (2010) explored issues around homework for Year 8 students (12- and 13-year-olds). She started from the interesting premise that learning occurs in many places and is not confined to school. Her contention was that young people’s time outside of school is precious and there are opportunities to learn from many experiences, and homework had the potential to constrain this. Therefore homework needs to be relevant and meaningful, otherwise it risks infringing those rights. Priyasha analysed her findings in conjunction with her school’s homework policy document. She found that a lot of students thought that homework was being given for the sake of being given instead of having a purpose, which was at odds with the school homework policy. The time allocation for Year 8 homework was 30 minutes, but 81 ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table Of Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction by Andrew J. Holliman
• PART I An introduction to educational psychology
• PART III Issues concerning the assessment of children
• PART IV Identifying and meeting the needs of children with learning difficulties
• Index