Theory

29 Feb 2016

Structure Vs Action?

During my Sociology at A-Level and later on for my Masters in Political Science, I studied both Structure and Agency (or Action) theories.

Structuralists would include Marxists, Feminists, Critical Race Theorists emphasise how the structures in society form, how ideas and rules are made normative and how this results in bias and discrimination towards certain groups. However, it is also the case that by focusing only on gender, for example, one can miss other structural elements that affect individuals – e.g. working hours. A culture of long working hours is not sexist per se but it can and does exclude women with children all the same.

These theories are best when explaining systematic biases within systems and why certain divisions exist as well as the ideas that emerge from them to maintain systems. For example, the use of stereotyping to impact on our beliefs about certain groups of people and how it restricts them.

The structure preserves itself. Therefore, such theorists have tended to favour revolutionary ideas to enact social change. The structure needs to be torn down root and branch so that all the ideas associated with it are gone because while they remain they can influence people who will then be more likely to believe and reinforce these structures.

Structure theories lend themselves to ‘false consciousness’ narratives and create a zero-sum game situation. The current prevalence of the idea of oppression also stems from this idea that we are, in essence, at the mercy of the structures in society.

Agency theorists on the other hand, such as Parsons, focus on communication, purposes, beliefs and their impact on our actions. These theorists don’t accept that we are products of structures alone. These theories best explain why changes do occur without radical change, why societies evolve and affect the social structures and systems. There is greater emphasis on the importance of change within individuals, communities and societies not just through leadership but changes in how we think. However, they fall down on the issue of where the content of our beliefs come from and the extent to which structures influence them. It is also an assumption that all people are able to exercise agency in roughly similar ways so does not take into account structural factors which inhibit agency.

Gidden’s Structuration Theory was an attempt to bring the two together. I recall one International Relations lecturer likening it to a tennis match. The ball is being sent back and forth across the court so fast that the ball begins to blur but in the end, while close, synthesis does not occur. The essential question of which is more important remains and the more one goes into it, the more chicken and egg it becomes.

I think individual differences here are important. It seems evident that some find it harder to think outside the norm, shed stereotypes, push boundaries, change their thinking and, therefore, circumstances. I also believe it is true to say that no person does this constantly in all aspects of their life. A person may be willing to do this as a teacher but not as a parent. Change their ideas at work but not their ideas about Art. We are all a mixture of the radical and the conservative. It is probably necessary for our mental health.

I just saw it all as a Carroll Diagram so threw one together.

Ultimately, both structures and actions matter. There is no point pretending that we live in an equal society where everyone has the same opportunities. Equally, to state that we have no control over the choices we make reduces us to mere puppets. No one way of looking at things is without exception.

It is with this in mind that my next post will focus on structure and agency as I see it affecting Behaviour Management in schools.

P.S.: I know that there are gaps in my knowledge on this so feel free to suggest reading or links to more recent developments.

22 Feb 2016

Moving on from Maslow

Teachwell Behaviour, Education Policy, Progressive Education, Teaching and Learning Child-Centred, Children, Discipline, Early Years, Methods, Parents, Philosophy, Primary School, Teachers, Teaching Assistants, Theory 1

The first and second parts of this series of blogs explored the pyramid diagram and critiqued the use of his theory to devise behaviour management strategies.

I have written and rewritten the opening of this post three times now. I went for the let’s go point by point through the criticisms. Then I went full-on progressives know shit about child abuse angle. Then I thought of just sticking some diagrams in to tell the story. None of those felt right, though. I don’t want to have a go at anyone because even those progressives who tout ideas I disagree with are not doing so because they are bad people or because they are trying to cause harm in this situation.

Changing is hard for a lot of people; it can be hard on occasions even for people who cope with it well on the whole. Each new experience can be met with varying levels of courage, resistance or hopelessness.

So here are the things that I think are problematic about the adoption of Maslowesque beliefs.

All the needs that Maslow mentions are real, the idea that we are cut off from some as a result of deficiencies is something that has come less from Maslow as from others. But given how much of the received wisdom in education is a game of Chinese Whispers, one can see how it has morphed into any deficiency at a lower level means higher levels needs are absent.

Thus, we have the school of thought that says if a child’s home circumstances involve neglect or abuse we need to meet their lower order needs first – such as food and self-esteem before we can expect them to cope with schools rules based on values and ideas of right/wrong. It’s not their fault they can’t meet the expectations and that we need to accommodate their behaviour as a result.This so often turns into constantly shifting boundaries to avoid ‘punishing’ the child by enforcing consequences for rule breaking. Even though this is at odds with the fact that all children need boundaries to feel secure, it is seen humane and caring to act in this manner.

There is no evidence of this. In fact, I would argue the exact opposite. We are products of our experiences and some of those raise our consciousness and awareness. If anything, children who live in a family where domestic violence is the norm, are being confronted with moral issues and dilemmas repeatedly. They are shielded from explanations of what they are seeing and understanding their experiences, their feelings which are related to these and the ability to come to terms with it. Children who have experienced intense physical abuse are confronted with the real possibility of death during that experience. Who doesn’t experience confronting one’s own morality at a spiritual level? What evidence is there that young children don’t? The only explanation I have been presented with repeatedly is the blessed pyramid.

I find it bizarre that the very people who talk about dealing with children in a ‘holistic’ manner ignore these needs in a child so willingly.

If I am honest, I think they do so because they don’t know how to help. It’s easier to feed a child when they are hungry, cuddle them if they seem upset, placate them if they are angry, make excuses for poor behaviour and deliver discrete but meaningless self-esteem lessons. Having pushed for children to see counsellors, I have been disappointed how little impact they have on the children referred. It seems teachers are not the only one to take Maslow’s hierarchy as the ‘TRUTH’ and act accordingly.

Let’s get this straight:

Being an adult who cares does not mean that you know automatically what is needed by a child.
Growing up in a positive home environment is not immunity against entering abusive relationships. I will come to this in further posts examining the cycle of abuse, something we are not trained to know or understand.
Comparing a loving home and one that is chaotic, and trying to make up for the gap between them is not the answer. If it were, it would work, there would be no need for excuses.
Compensating children for their negative experiences with positives ones is a trivial exercise unless the negative experiences are explained and the effects acknowledged and dealt with. The problems that are causing the confusion, aggression, sadness and loss are all there. As teachers, you can’t change this by changing your behaviour because it isn’t your behaviour causing the major problems in the first place.

There is one incident from my childhood which stands as an indicator of how wrong assumptions made by well-meaning adults can be:

One of the things that happened when the tension between my parents got very intense is that family members and friends of my parents would try to intervene and mediate to help them. This would involve them meeting in what we called the ‘front room’ – the nicely furnished room for guests while we, my brothers and I, would be in the living room (that we used daily). We could hear the muffled agonising of our parents, the angry shouts, attempts to calm, etc.

On one occasion, my father stormed out of the ‘meeting’ that was being held, shouted he was off to pack his bags and leave as he had had enough. The three of us looked at each other with utter relief. Finally, there was to be an end to constant cycle of tension, aggression and uneasy compromises. I was 7/8 and my brothers were a year and two years older respectively. We were so pleased and discussed what it would mean but in the end, it was clear that it would mean some level of peace at home, which we desperately craved.

Only half an hour later this hope was snuffed out completely. One of my parents friends came in and told us not to worry because they had sorted it and dad would be staying after all. I still remember the look on my brothers faces which would have mirrored my own. We had come so close to an end to the daily misery only to be plunged back in with no end in sight. It was one of the most dispiriting events of my childhood.

But, you see, the friends and family were convinced they knew what we wanted and needed and misunderstood our unhappy faces. They thought it was because he had said he was leaving and we were still unsure. So they ‘reassured’ us some more that he would be staying. When that didn’t produce any happy response, they brought my dad in to say it, as a final reassuring measure. Then they left.

Their assumptions were understandable, based on cultural norms and what they believed was best for the child. But they didn’t understand what it was like to live in that environment day after day. The toll took on us and how it made us feel. As we were to tell mum many times, we would have supported her if she had wanted to get divorced but what held her there wasn’t us but cultural expectations, co-dependency and immaturity. Those who were supporting her were subject to the same and had normalised unhelpful attitudes and beliefs.

Those who advocate excuses need to remind themselves that they are not neutral. Being able to care for and love a child does not mean that you are not subject to:

cultural and societal norms
received wisdoms
unquestioned assumptions
narratives told from particular perspectives
prejudiced ideas and beliefs

They also need to stop pretending that they are not affected by:

unhealthy beliefs about relationships
their emotional needs
incomplete understanding of the home lives of the children they are trying to help
emotional immaturity
lack of knowledge and understanding of the emotional, moral and spiritual effects of living in an abusive environment
an underlying perfectionism which sees children growing up in these environments as perpetual victims because of the ‘damage’ done by childhood
an inability to accept that one is wrong or has made mistakes
an inability to effectively evaluate the impact of interventions
caring more about virtue signalling
wanting to appear superior to others
wanting social approval by acting and behaving in a particular way

In the next few weeks, I am hoping to collate more information from the research out there to see what we really know about the lives of children from abusive homes and why so many of the interventions in place fail to improve the behaviour of children in our classes. In addition, I will examine the conformity of the ‘excuses’ model.

18 Feb 2016

Maslow’s Hierarchy – Critique Part Two

Teachwell Behaviour, Progressive Education, Social Class, Teaching and Learning Child-Centred, Children, Discipline, Early Years, Methods, Parents, Philosophy, Primary School, Teachers, Teaching Assistants, Theory 2

In the first part of this post, I reviewed the link between Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and behaviour management systems in schools, in the context of excuses made for poor behaviour. I critiqued the commonly used diagram when presenting Maslow’s ideas and it impacts on how we perceive Maslow’s theory.

I don’t dispute that Maslow identified important needs that humans have.

However, the way his theory has been and continues to be used as the basis for managing the behaviour of disruptive pupils, without critique, review or evaluation, is unethical. (The same goes for Bowlby’s attachment theory, but that is another post altogether).

Maslow’s sample was deliberately chosen from two particular groups. He studied people who he thought were ‘exemplary’ (such as Albert Einstein) and then chose a sample from ” the healthiest 1% of the student population”.

So not children then, much less children suffering from neglect, abuse or mental health problems.

He deliberately did not want to study those who had mental health problems as”the study of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy specimens can yield only a cripple psychology and a cripple philosophy.”

I don’t think that Maslow could have been further removed from the study of the children his ideas are most applied to.

In their book ‘Urban Myths about Learning and Education’, `De Bruyckere, Kirschner and Hulshof highlight:

Maslow added two more layers to his hierarchy (knowing and understanding, aesthetics). Anyone who knows why we only encounter the earlier not the later version of his hierarchy in education, please feel free to leave a comment below.
In 1962, Maslow expressed surprise why his theory had not been repeated, tested, analysed or criticised. In his words, he felt that people had “just used it, swallowed it whole, with only the most minor modifications”. That is a pretty damning criticism of anyone who promotes a simplistic diagnostic use of his theory. It would seem the education establishment in the UK and elsewhere is oblivious to this. How uncritically is Maslow being presented and taught if this criticism is unknown to teachers in comparison to the diagram? I have yet to encounter such a self-critique of a model in political science (my initial area of study) which I was not made aware of. Theories and ideas are not meant to be accepted uncritically, and it is yet another contradiction in the education system, that those banging on about critical thinking in education, seem to be doing the least. Especially when it comes to Maslow!!
What detailed investigations there have been, did not provide empirical evidence for Maslow’s theory.

As Bruyckere, et al point out,

“Maslow thought that people would use his findings to conduct further experiments of their own, but that did not happen before his death in 1970. Why? Because sometimes we are too lazy to check whether something is right – or not. This kind of laziness can be dangerous.”

I couldn’t agree more, especially when well-intentioned educationalists preach it from the pulpits, teachers accept it as received wisdom and behaviour support teams/consultants/programmes, etc. peddle it out to support their ideas on behaviour management systems. To say Maslow has been influential is an understatement.

The following ideas are what I consider to be the greatest hindrance in supporting children, who like myself, come from families where they have witnessed or experienced abusive behaviour and relationships.

Needs are experienced in a hierarchical order.
Lower order needs must be met before higher order needs.
Morality is a higher order need and emotional needs must be met first.
Two levels of needs can not be experienced or met at the same time.
Deficiencies at lower levels prevent individuals from meeting higher order needs.
Personal growth and fulfilment is rare and is fixed at the top of the apex of needs regardless of one’s experiences in life.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but they form the basis of my critique of the ‘excuses’ approach to behaviour management in the third part of this series of blogs.

Bibliography:

De Bruyckere, Kirschner and Hulshof (2015). Urban Myths about Learning and Education.

Hofstede, G. (1984). “The cultural relativity of the quality of life concept.”

Maslow, A (1954). Motivation and personality.

Wahba, M. A.; Bridwell, L. G. (1976). “Maslow reconsidered: A review of research on the need hierarchy theory”. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance 15