Kathryn Ecclestone

LEARNING OR THERAPY? THE DEMORALISATION OF EDUCATION

ABSTRACT:  Contemporary educational goals place increasing emphasis on conferring recognition and building self-esteem for people deemed to be marginalised and vulnerable. Such goals coalesce with the language, symbols and practices of therapy inscribed within a broader ‘therapeutic ethos’. The paper relates these trends to broader cultural demoralisation about peoples potential for human agency and evaluates their effects on educational debates.   A therapeutic ethos in education appears benign and empowering. Yet, the paper argues that it produces a diminished view of people and low expectations about peoples capacity for resilience and autonomy. One effect is to encourage an alignment between the values and activities of education and welfare. This both legitimises and extends institutional and government influence over peoples psychological and emotional states. The paper explores these trends and evaluates their implications for educational ideas about human agency.

Changing the subject: the educational implications of developing emotional well‐being

Claims that emotional well‐being is synonymous with successful educational practices and outcomes resonate with contemporary political portrayal of well‐being as integral to ‘social justice’. In Britain, diverse concerns are creating an ad hoc array of therapeutic interventions to develop and assess attributes, dispositions and attitudes associated with emotional well‐being, alongside growing calls to harness subject content and teaching activities as vehicles for a widening array of affective outcomes. There has been little public or academic debate about the educational implications of these developments for the aspirations of liberal humanist education. This article addresses this gap. Drawing on philosophical, political and sociological studies, it explores how preoccupation with emotional well‐being attacks the ‘subject’ in two inter‐related senses; the human subject and subject knowledge. It argues that it is essential to challenge claims and assumptions about well‐being and the government‐sponsored academic, professional and commercial industry which promotes them.

Resisting images of the 'diminished self': the implications of emotional well- being and emotional engagement in education policy

Developing people’s emotional well‐being and emotional engagement are official aims in social policy. A growing number of initiatives respond to diverse, often contradictory public, political and professional concerns about individuals’ emotional needs. These concerns are a powerful discourse in ‘personalised learning’. The article contributes to debates in critical policy research. It evaluates the subtle ways in which policy initiatives to develop emotional well‐being and encourage emotional engagement with public services resonate with images of the ‘diminished self’ emerging in broader cultural discourses. Critical evaluation is necessary in order for researchers and educators committed to social justice to challenge the influential idea that emotional well‐being should be a prominent educational goal and to resist the diminished images of human potential that underlie it.

Commitment, compliance and comfort zones: the effects of formative assessment on vocational education students’ learning careers

Research evidence that well‐executed formative assessment raises achievement and enhances motivation and autonomy has influenced policy and practice in schools and universities in the United Kingdom. Formative assessment is also built into the aims and assessment activities of outcome‐based qualifications in post‐compulsory education. Behind these apparently positive developments are important questions about the nature of motivation, autonomy and achievement that formative assessment fosters. This paper draws on empirical studies of assessment practices in advanced level vocational qualifications for 16–19‐year‐olds in the UK. It argues that a socio cultural understanding of assessment illuminates the ways in which political concerns about engagement and participation, rather than goals of subject‐based knowledge, encourage formative assessment practices that improve rates of achievement whilst encouraging instrumental and limiting forms of motivation and autonomy. This raises questions about the acceptable trade‐off between achievement and education for students whose learning careers already put them at a disadvantage.

Alternative perspectives on learning outcomes: challenges for assessment

In discussing the relationship between curriculum and assessment it is commonly argued that assessment should be aligned to curriculum or, alternatively, that they should be congruent with each other. This article explores that relationship in five educational contexts in the UK and in Europe, ranging across school education, workplace learning, vocational education and higher education. Four main themes are highlighted: construct definition, progression, assessment procedures, and system-level accountability. What emerges from the five case studies under review is a multi-layered process of knowledge being constructed in diverse ways at different levels in each context. The article concludes that, rather than thinking in terms of either alignment or congruence, these relationships are better understood in terms of non-linear systems embracing curriculum, pedagogy and assessment.

Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered: A Policy Analysis of the GNVQ Assessment Regime 1992-2000.

The assessment regime for General National Vocational Qualifications (GNVQs) has been radical, influential and controversial. Its numerous changes, and the debates, which have accompanied them, illuminate the political and organizational struggles that characterize assessment policy in the United Kingdom. The paper draws on interviews with representatives from diverse constituencies involved in developing GNVQ assessment policy. It argues that GNVQs presented mainstream policy processes with profound epistemological and ideological challenges. A combination of unprecedented political scrutiny, ad hoc development and extreme organizational rivalry undermined these challenges. The fate of the GNVQ assessment regime has important implications for future attempts to create distinctive vocational education and assessment.

‘Straitjacket’ or ‘springboard for sustainable learning’? The implications of formative assessment practices in vocational learning cultures

In contrast to theoretical and empirical insights from research into formative assessment in compulsory schooling, understanding the relationship between formative assessment, motivation and learning in vocational education has been a topic neglected by researchers. The Improving Formative Assessment project (IFA) addresses this gap, using a sociocultural approach to explore the relationship between formative assessment practices and ‘learning cultures’ in vocational education. This article explores the influence of learning cultures in vocational education on the practice of formative assessment and evaluates critically two closely related questions. Why do some learning cultures foster formative assessment that leads to instrumental learning while others develop deeper forms of learning? When is formative assessment a springboard for sustainable learning, and when does it remain an instrumental straitjacket?

Euston Road and the ivory towers: the impact of the GNVQ research industry

A growing research enterprise surrounds the implementation of General National Vocational Qualifications (GNVQs). It encompasses a diverse array of researchers and consultants from different organisations who work to different agendas and imperatives. Between 1992 and 1997, the National Council for Vocational Qualifications developed a large research and support programme for GNVQs and this has become closely linked to projects carried out by other government bodies. This programme has now moved into the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA). The official research programme dominates political and research agendas for GNVQs. It also inhibits radical and critical thinking about developments in the vocational curriculum. The paper uses Lakatoss criteria to evaluate the research programmes which have evolved around GNVQ developments. It argues that researchers in higher education face two particular problems in deciding how their own research contributes to debate and policy in the vocational curric...

Evaluating the ‘spirit’ and ‘letter’ of formative assessment in the learning cultures of part‐time adult literacy and numeracy classes

Research and development on formative assessment has paid little attention to part‐time adult basic education in informal community‐based settings. A three‐year project funded by the Nuffield Foundation, the National Research Development Centre for Adult Literacy and Numeracy, and the Quality Improvement Agency addresses that gap in vocational and adult basic education. It explored factors that help and hinder change to teachers’ formative assessment practices, and the ways in which different ‘learning cultures’ affect different approaches to formative assessment. The project used a problem‐based approach to professional development that rejects simple, top‐down ‘recipes’ and guidance for ‘best practice’. This paper evaluates critically the effects of the ‘learning culture’ on whether teachers’ formative assessment practices were in the ‘spirit’ or ‘letter’ of assessment for learning in adult literacy and numeracy classes, drawing on interview and observation data from six classes in two very different organisations.

Learning policy: towards the certified society

At the outset Jenny Ozga establishes that she is aiming the book at teachers who have an interest in carrying out policy research. She maintains that t̀eachers are policy makers; they have a strong influence on the interpretation of policy, and they engage with policy at a number of levels, from the national level of formal policy making through to the informal arena of pupil ± teacher relations’ (p. 3), consistent with her view of policy as a process which extends beyond the macro level, into institutions and classrooms. The overriding strength of the book is the strong emphasis on values and policy and the associated detailed attention to the broader contexts within which policy is constructed. Ozga is at great pains to locate her own value position, frequently underscoring her critical theory orientation and concerns for social justice. Thus, she successfully models the explicit choices of theoretical positions that she advocates. The chapter 2 discussion of how policy is shaping the teaching profession is quite specific to England, although the general trends described are likely to be clearly recognizable in many other countries (including my own). Chapter 3 offers a theoretical framework for policy research and draws on Dale’s work to distinguish `policy analysis’ from s̀ocial science’ projects, with Ozga clearly aligning herself towards the latter. However, I am not convinced that these labels necessarily add clarity, especially for teachers embarking on policy research. The term p̀olicy analysis’ is often used in a generic way in the literature and thus the particular meaning ascribed by Ozga (through Dale) may be more confusing than illuminating, and the important point about values lying at the heart of the distinction may be lost. I am also not entirely convinced about the extent to which this book continues to present a dichotomy between `policy analysis’ and s̀ocial science’ projects. I personally prefer to eschew mutually exclusive categories in favour of continnua, which can provide a broader `menu’ of orientations from which to choose. Chapter 4 contextualizes policy research in terms of both the èconomizing’ of education and globalization. Globalization is described only in terms of supranational activity operating `downwards’ to shape national policy, without reference to the active `upwards’ , and possibly s̀ideways’ influences of some nation-states on globalization agendas. Thus, arguably, the concept of globalization might have been further developed as a dynamic, complex interrelationship between supranational, national and subnational levels. The early part of chapter 5, entitled `Resources for Policy Research’, again focuses on policy context (and might have been better located within the previous chapter). While it provides an excellent critical analysis of pressure towards instrumentalism in university research (from research on policy to research for policy) teachers, who have been identified as the primary target for the book, may find themselves impatient to arrive at the subheading s̀ome methodological resources’. Here Ozga argues that she cannot set out a range of methodological approaches because thesewill depend upon choice of research orientation, i.e. values and theory. What she does provide in the latter part of this long chapter is an insightful review of some methods she has employed to critically interrogate policy, including policy texts, interviews and observations. Chapter 6 turns to the value of historical perspectives to enhance understanding of education policy contexts, and some methodological issues associated with life histories are explored. The brief concluding chapter returns to the starting point by reiterating the importance of value-orientation and theoretical explicitness in education policy research. Policy Research in Educational Settings most definitely offers a very useful contribution to