Let us begin with the key assumption that educational and socioeconomic experiences are mediated by psychosocial resources. Firstly, this chapter explores what these resources are. Then it posits that they have important implications for attainment and progression; perhaps more so than immutable characteristics and sociocultural forces that are exclusive. This position is strengthened by another key assumption: that outcomes of attainment and progression are influenced byâand can be improved throughâinteractions and relationships in settings in which individuals are socialised. Intimate insights into Caribbeansâ experiences and outcomes in education and socioeconomic domains throughout the chapters support and animate these assumptions as they come alive in an arguably evolved perspective on educational attainment and socioeconomic progression.
ConceptsâContexts
Educational attainment and socioeconomic progression are achievements that fostered advancement in industrialised societies, such as Britain, right through the twentieth century, and especially after the 1950s. Thus, these achievements are germane to advancement; and, in that light, attainment and progression have sustained focus in polities. But the same cannot be said for psychosocial resources, which also have implications for advancement. Oddly, such resources are unexplored within the context of socioeconomic advancement, though clues to their implications can be found in the roots of contemporary psychology, specifically in the works of gestalt psychologist Solomon Asch,1 social psychologist Abraham Maslow,2 personality psychologist Gordon Allport,3 functional psychologist William James,4 and sociocultural psychologist Lev Vygotsky.5 The concept itself, however, owes its origin to the theory of psychosocial development as articulated by psychotherapist Erik Erikson,6 and, more recently, in the works of social psychologists Shelley Taylor,7 Paul Stenner,8 and Stephen Frosh,9 who explore psychosocial resources within mental health and the psychosocial within applied science contexts.
Given this origin, it is fair to say that the concept of psychosocial resources rests on the shoulders of giants. However, unlike, say, financial resources, the fluid nature of resources identified as psychosocial means that there is notâand perhaps cannot beâan official set of identities. Rather, a set of guidelines by which they can be ascertained precede the identities they are given in written work.
Psychosocial Resources in Context
Within the parameters of this book, psychosocial resources are understood loosely as components of the psyche that mediate how people manage life events; their lived experiences, in other words. In the chapters that follow I proffer a perspective of these resources around attitudes, behaviours, and expectations that temper individualsâ responses to their life events and, as a result, sustain their psychological, physiological, and spiritual wellbeing. To this I shall add socioeconomic welfare, since wellbeing is framed within the context of contemporary globalisation and socioeconomic advancement.
Foremost, psychosocial resources are preserved in our psyche in the same way as attitudes, such as work ethics; behaviours, such as reading habits; and expectations, such as career opportunities. This is a neurophysiological process , occurring in the central nervous system, in the associational tracts of the brain . By this, psychosocial resources carry instruction for cognitive and social development. Their identities and implications, nonetheless, are fluidâvarying across cultural contexts and social settings. This is because the psychological and social factors that shape them are contextual and continually evolving in settings in which they are developed and deployed to mediate experiences; especially those involved in learning and acting. These settings make up social worlds, or the social environmentâthe construct preferred by Vygotsky, pioneer of the biosocial development theory and its cultural-historical psychology and sociocultural psychology offshoots.
Positioning Socialisation
Vygotsky was influenced by Jean Piaget,10 the august clinical psychologist who propounded that experience precedes understanding. Drawing upon this influence, Vygotsky posited that social worlds shape capacity to learn, reason, problem-solve, think abstractly, and comprehend complex ideasâcognition, in one word. Social worlds, however, are susceptible to changes in the society of which they are part. To cope with such changes, much of which is at times dramatic, psychological processes adapt and evolve with experiences. This serves the development and deployment of psychosocial resources thatâin mediating experiencesâfacilitate social functioning by channelling socialisation, which in social science traditions is understood as the process through which individuals learn to live in their social worlds.
Socialisation enables individuals to develop into social creatures and learn appropriate norms through attachment to and autonomy from socialisation agents. Relatives, community leaders, and teachers are familiar examples. But as a species whose survival and continued existence are contingent on functional relationships, we humans are disposed to attach psychologically to anyone to whom we are emotionally attuned and anything that supports our psychological processes and ability to function socially. Psychological trauma from which we are impelled to seek relief is what we experience when our emotional attunement suffers or an intimate relationship is ruptured. The experience of Jean-Marc Itardâs11 âBoy of Aveyronâ illustrates this experience well. The boy, Victor, is said to have been raised by beasts in a forest, to which he would instinctively return after escaping from human capture. Insights from his life support the notion that attachmentâ defined in the works of developmental psychologists John Bowlby12 and Mary Ainsworth13 as the development of closeness and intimacy that are bases for functional relationshipsâis vital to our sense of safety and survival. Thus, attachment is arguably the most important of all the dynamics in psychosocial relationships in that it is fundamental to our psychological wellbeing and sense of self, which gestalt psychologist Carl Rogers14 described as the organised perceptions of âIâ or âmeâ and the relationships between âIâ or âmeâ and others and various aspects of life, as well as the values attached to these perceptions. Accordingly, sense of self is a fluid and mutable gestalt, but at any given moment it is a specific entity.
Agents of Socialisation in Their Role
Socialisation agents facilitate the acquisition of such perceptions in addition to appropriate norms among younger generations in socialisation settings, such as within the family, in the community, and at school. Their success, however, is predicated upon the nature of the attachments and relationships between themselves and the younger generations. Think octopuses whose versatile arms function as active attachments to and autonomies from the core as a helpful metaphor. In a human sense, these attachments and autonomies come about through internalisation, mimicry, psychological mirroring, and social bonding. The neurophysiologist Giacomo Rizzolatti15 found that these experiences register indelibly in brain cells, which he identified as âmirror neurons â, that enable us to mimicâconsciously and subconsciouslyâothers with whom we interact. It is by this process that the attitudes, behaviours, and expectations of socialisation agents, who are often older generations, are mirrored and internalisedâor registeredâfor recall in the psyche of younger generations. These manifest in components of their psyche: that is, psychosocial resources that mediate how their life events will be managed.
The psychosocial resources that mediate childrenâs experiences in schools can be inherited from socialisation agents therein. These resources are arguably more important than, for instance, financial ones with regard to educational attainment. They can be inherited in the sense that children are socialised by teachers who invest effort and high expectations in them, and decisively help them to develop and sustain aspiration for educational attainment. In Teaching with the Brain in Mind, educationist Eric Jensen16 makes the case that teachers Jensen (2009)â input in this kind of aspiration manifests in educational success among their pupils. In a psychological sense, he avers that children mirror the expectations their teachers hold for them, as well as the effort those teachers invest in them. Robert Rosenthal17 and Lenore Jacobsonâs18 dated but still relevant Pygmalion in the Classroom considers how this occurs in practice. In this controversialâbut seminalâwork, we are offered useful insights into the relationship between teachersâ expectations and the educational outcomes of the children in their classrooms.