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Adult learning in social work education: towards liberation or domestication?

Identifieur interne : 000E01 ( Istex/Corpus ); précédent : 000E00; suivant : 000E02

Adult learning in social work education: towards liberation or domestication?

Auteurs : Beth Humphries

Source :

RBID : ISTEX:1C359181C1F17D1764FF6F26821DE5D4055E298C

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Abstract

Higher education, along with other strands of the welfare state, is under going revolutionary change under the Thatcher government. This article argues that traditional liberal values on which education is based are not adequate to withstand the nex right assault, suggests elements of a pro gressive radical education, and re-examines notions of academic freedom It focuses on values underpinning the process of learning in social work, but suggests a wider application to policies within higher education prac

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DOI: 10.1177/026101838800802301

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ISTEX:1C359181C1F17D1764FF6F26821DE5D4055E298C

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<meta-value>4 Adult learning in social work education: towards liberation or domestication? SAGE Publications, Inc.1988DOI: 10.1177/026101838800802301 Beth Humphries Liverpool Polytechnic Higher education, along with other strands of the welfare state, is under going revolutionary change under the Thatcher government. This article argues that traditional liberal values on which education is based are not adequate to withstand the nex right assault, suggests elements of a pro gressive radical education, and re-examines notions of academic freedom It focuses on values underpinning the process of learning in social work, but suggests a wider application to policies within higher education prac INTRODUCTION One result of contemporary debates about the future of higher education in this country has been the throwing into stark relief of the motives of new right intellectuals, which are geared to reversing attempts to end inequality, regardless of all the rhetoric about 'equal opportunities' (see King 1987). Educationalists of all shades have been united in their protest at the attack on traditional liberal values which underpin the education system, and in their efforts to preserve 'academic freedom: Social work education too is undergoing a major overhaul, and is being pushed increasingly towards employer-led, competency- based, narrowly vocational training, as set out in the plans for the future produced by the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work (CCETSW 1987), and the Council's intentions for the Certificate in Social Care. Social work educators in educational institutions and in service agencies are busily negotiating the content of the new look training, often one feels, with less concern for those values which will underpin learning programmes than for strategies for survival in the attack on education and on welfare. Nevertheless, the value base is important, and needs to be thought through now, before negotiations are completed. But what of those liberal values on which educational practice has been built and which are so vehemently defended? Are they in any case an adequate basis for tackling inequality * A number of people read and commented on drafts of this article. They are Pam Flynn, Ralph Rud- dock, Marion Martin and Derek Clifford. I am grateful to them for their insights. 5 in the 1980s, and for combating institutionalised oppression? Are they worth fighting for? This article argues that the current political context affords an opportunity to re-examine those educational values held so dear, that in fact they embody bourgeois notions which maintain the status quo, indeed contribute to oppression, and therefore are inadequate as a basis for anti-oppressive practice. It suggests the ingredients of alternative values for a radical education, and calls for a re-thinking of the notion of academic freedom. The discussion focuses on the process of learning in social work education, but the wider goal is to highlight the need for a more rigorous critique of the values which permeate education and social work, and exploration of the implications of a radical approach for educational practice. This paper arises out of work I have been engaged in over a number of years with colleagues and with students in a School of Social Work, where we tried to apply negotiated and participatory learning approaches to our teaching. We moved increasingly from a liberal to a radical perspective in our attempts to make notions of 'perspective transformation' a reality for ourselves and our students, and to liberate ourselves from the domesticating influence resulting from the liberal value base which informs most of formal education. FROM PEDAGOGY TO ANDRAGOGY For over a decade there has been a move in social work education, and in some other aspects of higher education, at least in theory, away from 'objectives' models of teaching and learning towards `andragogical' models, which aim to help students set their own learning goals, and give them more power over the learning process, with the teacher as facilitator rather than as 'transmitter of knowledge'. To my knowledge a thorough critique of the liberal value base of these approaches has not been attempted and is now overdue in the light of policy shifts in recent years. In offering such a critique, I shall focus primarily on the work of Malcolm Knowles, a pioneer in this field, whose articulation of the assumptions of andragogy are spelt out in his book, Tlze Adult Learner: A Neglected Species, published in 1973, and in an essay in Adult Learning and Education, edited by Malcolm Tight ( 1983), and who has influenced thinking in social work education particularly. In introducing this critique, a telling observation arises from an examination of the word `andragogy', whose literal meaning is 'teaching the man', as opposed to pedagogy, 'teaching the child'. It is entirely appropriate that the word 'andragogy' is used, because it becomes clear that Knowles' model holds both androcentric and ethnocentric notions and has in mind 'man' as the typical adult learner. In outlining his explicit assumptions therefore, I have not modified his language to make it non-gender specific, but have retained the consistency between the language used and the ingredients of the approach. 6 Knowles argues that andragogy is based on four assumptions about the characteristics of adult learners. These are: (i) as a person matures, his self-concept moves from one of being a dependent personality toward one of being a self-directing human being; (ii) he accumulates a growing reservoir of experience that becomes an increasing resource for learning; (iii) his readiness to learn becomes oriented increasingly to the developmental tasks of his social roles; (iv) his time perspective changes from one of postponed application of knowledge to immediacy of application, and accordingly his orientation toward learning shifts from one of subject-centredness to one of problem- centredness. These assumptions form the basis of the difference between how children and adults learn, and Knowles sees the direction of modem adult educational 'technology' as moving towards students achieving 'ever deeper processes of self-diagnosis of their own needs for continued learning, in formulating their own objectives for learning, in shaping responsibility for designing and carrying out their learning activities, and in evaluating their progress towards their objectives.' (Knowles 1983, p68) The role of the teacher within this framework is to perceive the locus of responsibility for learning to be in the learner, and to suppress her/his own compulsion to teach what s/he knows the students ought to learn in favour of helping them learn for themselves what they want to learn. Our attempts to put this into practice were based on developing student-centred, problem focused learning which took account of students' experience, tried to help them identify their developmental tasks and subsequently their learning needs. This paper attempts to examine the approach more closely, and to try to unpack Knowles's assumptions further, in the light of our experience. Self-concept Underlying this notion of a developing self-concept is the argument that children's first image of themselves is of dependent personalities whose lives are managed for them by the adult world. When children become adults, dramatic changes happen to their self-concept in that they see themselves as producers and doers, and their chief sources of fulfilment are as workers, spouses, parents, citizens. 'In fact, the point at which a person becomes an adult' psychoiogically, is that point at which he (sic) perceives himself to be wholly self-directing. And at that point he also experiences a deep need to be perceived by others as being self-directing.' (Knowles 1983, p56) Here Knowles assumes that all adults will have similar aspirations and 7 opportunities for self-direction, that their own and others' expectations of them will be of a uniform character regardless of social characteristics such as class, 'race' and gender. By making blanket statements about adult self-concept Knowles's account is misleading in that it implies greater choice in self-direction than in fact exists. It also ignores contradictions and particular difficulties faced by, for example women and black people from working class backgrounds who find a place in the higher education system. A number of writers have demonstrated, for instance, that in western culture women are not regarded as of equal status with men, and as not truly 'adult' in the sense of being independent of men. There is a large volume of literature supporting this view, but here I quote one of the best known authors, to illustrate the point: 'Humanity is male and defines woman not in herself but as realtive to him; she is not an autonomous being ... she is defined and differentiated with reference to man and not he with reference to her ... He is the absolute - she is the other.' (de Beauvoir, 1975, p16) Social policies around work, housing, health and 'the family' have been based on assumptions of the dependency of women on men (see Ungerson, 1985 and Pascall, 1986). More specifically, within education there is growing evidence that throughout the education system, girls and women are expected to be passive. Mednick et al (1975) for example, describe how girls learn to fear success and to underachieve, concealing intelligence and initiative in order to be accepted as 'feminine'. In higher education too, derogatory images of women, or their invisibility, are carried both by the women themselves as an internalised oppression, and by those who structure their learning experience. Knowles takes no account of these values and ideologies held by those who staff educational institutions. Eric Robertson (1980) has said that 'the norms of our higher education system are the norms of the bachelor boy student... course design and planning has been implicitly related to a concept of a 'normal' student who is a clean-limbed 18 year old ex-sixth form white male.' Clearly this is the image held by Knowles. The image of the self-directed learner which he describes cannot be applied to large sections of the adult population. The experience of black people in the British education system has compounded the notion that whiteness and success are synonymous (see for example Verma and Bagley 1979). The attitudes of teachers have resulted in disorientation and bewilderment on the part of black children, which in turn has been interpreted as a sign of stupidity, 'Their concepts of us as simple-minded, happy folk, lacking in sophistication or sensitivity, became readily accepted definitions.' (Bryan et al, 1985, pl04) 8 Black people's attempts to be self-directing and to articulate their response to second class schooling results in their being pathologised and labelled as 'troublemakers', and increasingly they come to see school as a pointless punitive exercise. Wright's study illustrates this vividly, and shows the inappropriateness of describing the nature of the education experience of Afro-Caribbean children as 'underachievement'. Rather her research suggests that more accurate descriptions are 'inequality' and 'educational disadvantage', since they are likely to be placed by teachers in ability bands and examination sets well below their actual academic ability (Wright 1987). Gurnah spells out the grievances black people have with the educational system, identifying teachers' stereotypes of black children, schools' reluctance to involve black parents as governors, the Eurocentred nature of the curriculum, and a lack of research on black educational needs (Gumah 1987). At the same time, as the Egglestone Report (1985) pointed out, black people have a commitment to higher education, seeing academic qualifications as a defence against the discrimination they know they will meet in the labour market. Yet there are social processes that work to counteract their efforts. Our experience has been that in social work education black students find themselves in trouble, academically and in practice placements, to a level disproportionate to their numbers, because they do not always meet the expectations of white academic institutions and white professional organisations, and because racist interpretations are imposed on their motives, behaviour, language and forms of expression, and styles of working. Yet seldom do such difficulties result in an examination of educational structures and assumptions, or any commitment to make changes, making rhetoric about equal opportunities suspect to say the least. ' These examples of the ways in which the process of education in this country is both racist and sexist, and the identification of social groups who are not expected to develop a full-blown adult self-concept in Knowles's sense, serve to illustrate the need to take the consequences of such experiences into account in a more active way than Knowles implies. For both women and people from black communities there will be an inevitable conflict on entering higher education (and how such conflict is compounded when students are both women and from black communities). On the one hand there is an expectation of conformity to Knowles's perception of adult learners, while on the other, dominant images of them are as childlike and dependent, and/or as troublesome and dull. .. Experience It is now generally accepted that good teaching practice starts with students' experience - acknowledging it, valuing it and building on it. Students confirm repeatedly that tasks which help them relate past experience 9 to current learning give them more confidence than those to do with their knowledge of facts and figures. But the place of past experience in educational theory is more complex than Knowles and others have suggested. In describing the role of experience Knowles says, 'to an adult, his (sic) experience is him ... So if you ask an adult who he is, he is likely to identify himself in terms of what his occupation is, where he has worked, where he has travelled, what his training and experience have equipped him to do, and what his achievements have been. An adult is what he has done.' (Knowles, 1983, p61) Knowles goes on to claim that because adults define themselves largely by their experience, they have a deep investment in its value, therefore when its worth is minimised, they themselves feel rejected. There are at least two difficulties with this approach. First, it tells us very clearly which kinds of experience are most highly valued in this society. In Britain today large numbers of people are not in a position to 'define themselve by their occupation, where they have worked and what their training has been'. Their experience of unemployment, of never having had a job and of so-called training through MSC programmes has not led them or others to have a 'deep investment in its value'. Those who take on low paid and low status jobs receive messages about their value which do not enhance self-esteem or confidence. Women who have been defined as 'just housewives', whose identity is dependent on that of their husbands or their children, bring with them into higher education skills and knowledge which are not socially valued within academic settings, even in those where notions of adult learning are espoused. If their experience is of other cultures rather than stereotypical 'English', this is regarded as a problem, not as an asset. Black women have struggled against policies whose messages about black family life pathologise it rather than romanticise it, as in the case of ideologies of white families (see Carby 1982), but such struggles are not acknowledged and built on as a positive base for learning. By spelling out in the quote above the kinds of experience held to be legitimate, Knowles ignores the realities of people's lives, and sets as the 'norm' a male, employed, white middle class image, which leaves no room for experiences of poverty, of racism, of sexism, of discrimination as a result of age, disability or sexual orientation. Nor does it leave room for the richness and diversity of alternative perspectives. If 'the adult is what "he" has done', then it should be recognised that adulthood amongst these groups is illustrated by their having achieved a place in higher education in spite of the education system rather than because of it, and in staying in and succeeding, despite denial of the legitimacy of their experiences. It is unrealistic to assume that teachers in academic institutions are exempt from cultural assumptions. Indeed such institutions are one of the prime carriers of dominant ideologies, and reward those whose achievements conform 1010 to conventional wisdom and assumptions of fixed power relations within a competitive environment. A second problem with Knowles's conception of the role of experience, which follows from the above discussion, is that emphasis is placed on `unfreezing' experience, rather than unlearning commonsense assumptions. The notion of 'unfreezing' suggests images of suspended animation in which the thawed entity which emerges carries the same form and attributes as formerly, and proceeds from that point. This is not a sufficiently radical concept for what sometimes entails a need to set aside deeply held values and adopt new ones. It can be a painful process for students to learn to question and to re-evaluate past experience, and to confront new and threatening knowledge. In social work education there has been a tendency to reinforce commonly- held stereotypes, and to take the view that 'one's values are one's own private affair', so long as students have a propensity towards 'acceptance' of others and their beliefs and lifestyles. But in the 1980s such liberalism is being challenged by policies influenced by a new right ideology, which penalise and pathologise already disadvantaged groups, (as in for example the new adult training strategy), and which indeed legitimate inequality. The professions are under pressure to conform to and implement these policies. In order to resist these moves, educators need to help students not only to examine the implications of new right thinking, but, a much more profoundly difficult task, to review and question the liberal position the majority of them will hold, which is the traditional stance of the welfare professions, and of course, on which their power base and power relationships are built and maintained. Knowles's insights have been offered to us in a political, social and historical vacuum and thus need modification to take account of the wider effects of education. I shall return to this point later. Developmental tasks of social roles In delineating his ideas about the link between effective learning and those things a person feels s/he needs to know, Knowles makes important points about the 'teachable moment', and certainly, in a study which I carried out recently with women students on computer assisted learning (Humphries 1987), their capacity to learn about computers and computer assisted learning (CAL) was linked to the degree of relevance they felt computers and the program content had for their practice as social workers. However, a limitation of Knowles's concept is that it assumes the developmental tasks themselves to be unproblematic, the issue being the acquisition of skills to perform ascribed social roles such as 'worker, mate, parent, home- maker, son or daughter of an aging parent, citizen, friend, organization member, religious affiliate and user of leisure time' (Knowles 1983, p63). The model fits very well with the Baker plans for the reform of the education system! 1111 This functionalist view takes as given the legitimacy of existing social arrangements and does not encourage any questioning of them. In considering one's role as a worker, for example, Knowles describes a problem-free, linear progression from apprentice to supervisor to executive - 'his (sic) task becomes one of working up the occupational ladder' (p63), until he reaches his 'ceiling'. The missing ingredient is any discussion of power, and of the ways in which education, rather than assuring equality of opportunity per se, actually reproduces inequalities within already determined structures. There is no raising of questions such as 'What are the conditions which result in some people having opportunities to ascend occupational ladders and others not?' 'Is "citizenship" enjoyed by all inhabitants of this country on equal terms? If not, why?' . 'What are the differences and the consequences of being a son and of being a daughter of an aging parent? Indeed, what are the social consequences of aging?' 'What are the limits on the concept and the use of leisure among different groups? Why?' Helping students to ask such questions about developmental tasks complicates any debate about the 'teachable moment'. Typically, students of professional social work, when asked about their learning needs, respond that they want to learn how to do a better job, and employers who sponsor them have this also as a priority. This is understandable, given the huge pressures resulting from child abuse scandals, but often a result is a rejection of critical thinking as a luxury academic game not connected to the real world. Some educators also take this view. In fact the value stance adopted by professionals may be crucial to the lives of their clients/patients/pupils/students. Moreover, a capacity for critical reflectivity does not exclude that domain of learning which concerns technical competence, but rather informs action in important and significantly, explicit ways. Although Knowles's intention is to make both teacher and student active in the negotiation process in student-centred learning, in fact teachers are seen as more passive than learners, as responding solely to the concerns of students (and employers), and as reinforcing dominant and established views. It is important for students to be encouraged to define their own learning needs, but as I have pointed out, the values inherent in development tasks as identified by students need to be questioned, and this cannot take place in a vacuum. This is why educators need to be explicit about the value base on which their practice depends, and which informs any framework for learning offered to students. 1212 Problem centredness ' Within the adult learning model as posited by Knowles, the emphasis for adults in education is on immediacy of application of knowledge, rather than on postponed application of knowledge, therefore educational activities should be problem centred and not subject centred. A problem centred time perspective implies that adult education needs to be concerned with life situations, rather than theoretically oriented. It also suggests that a formal curriculum is less valuable than finding out what the learners need to learn, a shift in emphasis from teachers teaching to students learning, and opportunities to apply and try out learning quickly. This represents an important move in educational theory towards recognising students' maturity and their rational capacity. But problem centredness does not mean necessarily challenging values, changing views, or transforming practice. It might simply reinforce established ideas and preconceptions, and therefore cannot be regarded as an unequivocal 'good'. Further, there is an inherent contradiction in a problem centred approach in a higher education setting, in that the move is away from authoritarian, hierarchical educational processes towards democratic, mutually directed learning. At the same time it remains within hierarchical and bureaucratic structures which demand unilateral control of assessment and clarity of objectives. Of course there will be some room for negotiation within the system, but those of us who have experimented with adult learning models have, along with our students, experienced frustrations related to the conflict between our efforts and the requirement to examine students' performance on an authoritarian model. John Heron, in his presentation of an alternative model of assessment, describes his attempts to introduce collaborative, peer and self assessment, but admits that 'these courses are obviously not within the aegis of the traditional... educational bureaucracies' (Heron 19$1, p65). Present government policies in higher education, with tighter control of curricula by central government and by industry and employers, clearly will result in more rather than less authoritarianism in the ways students' work is evaluated. Related to this, under pressure from new right intellectuals the emphasis is increasingly on subject centred and rigidly controlled curricula. This leads me into a second point to be made about student centred learning, which echoes what I said earlier about the place of values in education. Knowles asserts that 'nothing makes an adult feel more childlike than being judged by another adult; it is the ultimate sign of disrespect and dependency as the one who is being judged experiences it' (Knowles 1983, p59). Such a statement conceals the fact that educational institutions always and inevitably make judgements about what kinds of knowledge and behaviour are legitimate, and it is dishonest to pretend that any other conditions could pertain. Knowles's position derives from an individualistic, liberal ideology of 1313 education which ignores the need for education (particularly professional education) in the 1980s to commit itself to specific values which are clear and open to students, and which inform criteria for assessment, whether that assessment is carried out by staff alone, or by staff along with students in a collaborative model. Thus, both in assessing experience, in setting educational goals, in negotiating content and in evaluating the degree to which goals have been achieved, a crucial prerequisite is that the staff in colleges and in agencies are clear as to which values they embrace, and do not pretend that all points of view are equally acceptable. I expand this point below in discussing 'academic freedom'. This does not assume that they will be homogeneous in their value stance, but underlines the need for a policy to which they and students can refer, and which is matched by appropriate practices. If education is to be for liberation, then liberal values need to be revisited and replaced with values which are more conducive to practice which challenges rather than reinforces state reductionism. TOWARDS POSITIVE VALUES IN LEARNING AND TEACHING The options facing social work education are both challenging and daunting. The future holds many uncertainties, but what is clear is that an opportunity exists for transformation of professional training programmes which will take us into the next century. This section attempts to bring together some of the themes addressed in my critique of liberal adult learning theory, and to suggest guidelines for an educational practice towards liberation for students, and ultimately, clients of social work. It arises from work carried out in educational practice, and is informed by socialist, feminist and anti-racist perspectives. The framework consists of three main themes, which I hope wll be expanded and developed by others. The Aims of a Radical Education In reassessing the assumptions of adult learning theory, I do not reject, as I hope I have made clear, the concern to enhance the quality of self-directed learning; to acknowledge and use students' experience; to make learning relevant to developmental tasks; and to make learning problem centred rather than subject centred. But such ideals need to be taken further, and should not exist in a social and political vacuum. A progressive radical education, like any other education model, is a tool, a means to an end. The ultimate goal is liberation through what Mezirow (1983) calls 'perspective transformation', which entails the effort to help students reflect on their experience of social roles and relationships, to identify real problems involving reified power structures, to recognise that meanings are constructed from unreflected upon assumptions about social reality. Moreover, such a radical education offers 1414 students access to alternative meanings which makes possible a critique of commonsense assumptions, and allows planning for action towards social change. CCETSW's proposals for the future of social work education include lists of topics which it is argued have a legitimate place in syllabuses (see CCETSW, Oct. 1987, p16). But defining educational needs in this way makes them potentially limitless. What is needed is a way of thinking which takes nothing for granted, which provides tools for uncovering and critiquing hidden ideologies surrounding policies and debates about 'the elderly, 'AIDS', 'welfare rights', 'child abuse', 'drug abuse', 'violence', 'sexuality', and so on. Having acquired such tools, students can then apply them to all aspects of their experience, to that of their clients and to institutional structures. Experiences with students, particularly those from relatively less powerful groups such as working class, women, gay and black students, suggest that such perspective transformation can be a most powerful and liberating feature of adult learning. Development of such skills in students means encouraging imaginative, curious, analytical minds grounded in rigorous and responsible scholarship, but a scholarship committed to values which entail participation in creating a more just society. Barbara Du Bois argues that all academic enterprise is 'passionate scholarship', a notion which explodes the myth of 'neutral', 'objective', 'value free' approaches, and offers a challenge to make explicit 'where you are coming from' (Du Bois 1983). Currently the version of passionate scholarship which dominates education policy in this country is that of the new right, committed to values of the market place and aggressive individualism. Values for Practice The basic principles of a value base towards liberation are, I suggest: (a) an acknowledgement of the relationship between major social divisions in society and the provision of welfare, and a focus on the ways in which divisions based primarily on class, 'race' and gender are reproduced in welfare policies and practice, and affect especially the most powerless sections of the population. In educational practice, this means an awareness of the limits of self-direction and choice for some students because of the distribution of power and the ways this is maintained. A major way in which such inequality is maintained is through socially ascribed and apparently fixed roles and relationships, rooted in institutionalised ideologies; . (b) a view of education which seeks to uncover reified power relationships, and to make links between personal experiences and political processes, particularly as these are mediated through the 'hidden curriculum'. This means widening the range of experiences seen to be legitimate as prior learning and 1515 as a basis for future learning, and, after Friere (1972), developing 'problem pusing' as a method of connecting the realities of students' lives with internalised cultural myths, and giving them access to alternative meanings. This appl ies as much to experience in practice placements as to college-based work; (c) educational methods which have as central the notion of 'empowerment', involving working for the redistribution of power in education through the recruitment of people from oppressed groups, both as students and as staff; through resisting the labelling of students; through the structuring of learning in ways which give oppressed minorities a voice; through adopting more appropriate assessment criteria; through opening up learning programmes and practices to the scrutiny and demands of members of black communities; and through the planning of other strategies towards change. These values and methods should be reflected in practice curricula and in programme planning. In attempting to put these values into practice, colleagues and I have made a number of important shifts in our approach to learning about social work practice. Over a period of about three years, from a point of negotiating a learning sequence in a political and social vacuum, we moved to adopting the notion of 'change' as the organising concept. Finding this still not adequate, we chose to start from an explicit value base, in that our 'bottom line' became the notions of 'oppression' and 'empowerment'. Thus it was assumed without debate that oppression exists in this society, and learning was structured around identifying its elements and those groups affected. In this way the focus was away from individualistic explanations of 'clients' problems', on to issues of inequality, power, alternative explanations, and back to action in relation to individuals, groups and communities. Models of practice and organisational structures could then be evaluated in the light of the critique which developed, and the process of perspective transformation progressed. Creating a Learning Environment It is generally accepted, and seen to be good groupwork practice, that in order to facilitate learning, there needs to be created an 'ethos of support, encouragement, non-judgemental acceptance, mutual help and individual responsibility' (Mezirow 1983). One of the advantages of learning in supportive groups, as women's consciousness-raising groups have found, is that participants can be exposed to viewpoints other than their own and can relate to the experiences of others rather than continue to see their dilemmas as private and therefore their individual 'problem'. But in group learning situations, there also needs to be an acknowledgement of divisions and inequalities based on structural differences between people. In groups where there is permission to 'say whatever you like without anyone making judgments', 1616 this usually means the preponderance of dominant and oppressive ideologies. Meanwhile minority perspectives remain silent. The pain experienced as a result of relentless, invisible, ethnocentric, heterosexist or able-bodist challenges to the existence of minorities goes unnoticed and unexpressed, and power relationships remain untouched. A learning environment based on perspective transformation will question the 'live and let live' mentality, and will seek to use groupwork practice to uncover hidden ideologies and their operation in group interaction, but not at the expense of already oppresed students. At the same time the learning environment also needs to recognise that perspective transformation can be a slow and painful process, with much disorientation and stumbling blocks in the attempt to live with the contradictions it highlights. People from oppressed minorities have learned not to trust their experience, and sometimes have difficulty believing that what they think makes any difference. Experiences in groups often confirms this 'knowledge' in that often what the young, and people from ethnic minorities for example, have to say is ignored or meets silence, because their forms of expression may not conform to a 'norm', or because their perspective is not instantly recognisable by dominant members (see Spender 1980 on the impact of women and men in groups). A helpful learning environment makes space for them, and insists on their right to it, creating a genuine dialogue with the aim of helping them gain more control over their transactions. Part of a strategy towards this is to arrange formal access to supports, from within and outside the institution. But a supportive learning environment consists of more than what happens in teaching sessions, in placements and in tutorials. It also concerns decisions about priorities and distribution of resources, rewards, employment, and links to wider movements for social and political change. Moreover, all of these need to be set in the context of a clear policy commitment to change which aims to transform every aspect of the curriculum and which exposes practice and makes it accountable to people in the wider community, particularly those representing black communities and black workers. At the same time, it is important not to approach such ideals in a naive and uninformed way. Rooney (1987), for example, spells out the numerous ways in which white organisations can subvert initiatives towards change, even when plans are carefully thought out and supported at management levels of the organisation. ON ACADEMIC FREEDOM The approach I have outlined here to a progressive radical education practice has implications for a particular shibboleth within academia. Many will be offended at the suggestion of adopting positive values, on the grounds that it is an attack on academic freedom, especially at a time when academic freedom is 1717 being vigorously defended against new right dogma (see for example THES editorial, 12.2.1988), and will resent my suggestion that certain freedoms need to be restricted in the interests of social justice. Academic freedom, one of the supreme values of liberalism, is embraced almost universally in our institutions of higher education, but it is in fact open to a range of definitions and assumptions, and in the dialectic of ideologies, is invoked at the convenience of different groups for different reasons and to different purposes, and therefore needs to be examined. For example, state interference in education which increasingly subordinates it to the economy may be seen as a threat to academic freedom. But student demands for participation in decision making may also be seen as a threat to academic freedom. Exclusion of fascist and racist organisations and individuals from educational institutions may be seen as a threat to academic freedom, but so also may dissident staff who challenge established ways of viewing the world. The official liberal version of British society which celebrates tolerance is plausible so long as the fundamental question, 'Whose freedom?' is not asked, and consequently any interference with established power can be construed as an attack on academic freedom. Arblaster makes this point, and emphasises the argument I have tried to make throughout this article, 'Where power is unequally distributed, an apparent general freedom is in practice only available to those with the power to make use of it ... Where specific freedoms or rights are involved, it is clear that freedom for some will be power for some, and power for some necessarily means powerlessness for others. Often it means worse than that - dependence, subservience and even oppression.' (Arblaster 1974, ppl2-13) An ideology of academic freedom has been used to open the way to the expression of racist and fascist opinions, as demonstrated by the case of Patrick Harrington, who was supported by the courts in his demand for the right to be fascist. Such views are, of course entirely consistent with new right authoritarianism, and allow calls for compulsory repatriation, and lead to conditions such as those created by Section 28 of the Local Government Act, with its restricctions on the activities of local authorities and of lesbians and gay men throughout the country. They also lead to the kinds of political pressures brought to bear on the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA), by two of its members. Baroness Cox is reported to have questioned the wisdom of giving accreditation to Wolverhampton Polytechnic because of the row over the disrupted visit of a South African embassy official, which had led to a renewal of the campus free speech controversy. And Malcolm Pearson, the CNAA's treasurer suggested that accreditation be withheld from Brighton Polytechnic if a Marxist bias was shown to exist on reading lists on social science options (THES 15.4.88). In its more subtle form, an ideology of academic freedom serves to diffuse 1818 discontent in a climate where it appears all views are heard equally, and where education per se is seen to be capable of redressing social inequalities and as overcoming the unfair distribution of life chances. Most students of social work, like the rest of us, bring to higher education commonsense ways of viewing the world, amongst which are vacuous beliefs about freedom, and which lead, in situations of conflict, to a misconstruing of 'bias'. Thus challenges to sexual and racial harassment, or the introduction of feminist perspectives to courses, are met with cries of 'threat to academic freedom' and 'political bias'. In social work particularly, it seems that people's feelings have first to be taken into account, so that before anti-racist and anti-sexist policies can be adopted, bids are made to modify them to avoid offending colleagues and others representing dominant views. Such modifications result in toothless policies, and no threat at all to the status quo. In these calls to avoid 'bias', existing bias goes undetected because it harmonises perfectly with the conventional wisdom of the day. More conspicuous opinions are seen to be less legitimate than the dominant orthodoxy. ACADEMIC FREEDOM AND NEUTRALITY . What this leads to is the questioning of an assumption in concepts of academic freedom that all points of view are admissible and of equal worth, and that the function of teachers is as neutral channels through which a range of views flow unprocessed, and students make up their minds about which views of the world are appropriate for them. Bligh's discussion of academic freedom is useful in helping us to unpack this assumption. He suggests that 'academic freedom' is a collective name for a number of freedoms, in particular, (i) freedom to disseminate the truth as one sees it, and (ii) freedom to express doubts and criticisms of any belief (Bligh 1982). Bligh does not ask the political question 'Whose freedom?' but he points out that freedom (i) implies freedom from disseminating ideas one believes to be false, and that (i) and (ii) imply freedom to express one's belief that certain truths are unimportant. This of course is quite different from a notion of academic freedom which holds that all perspectives have equal status. It implies a selective tradition in education in which not all knowledge is regarded as legitimate, but what students receive is a choice from a much larger universe of possible knowledge about social phenomena. Teachers who make claims to neutrality and who deny their position of power in processing not only people but processing knowledge also, may persuade themselves that teaching is a 'purely professional' activity, which it surely is not. 'Neutrality' leads to silence, which means consent and ultimately repression. Thus the adoption of a `neutral' stance makes it, 'nearly impossible for educators and others to develop a potent analysis of widespread social and economic injustice. It makes their curricular and teaching 1919 practices relatively impotent in exploring the nature of the social order of which they are a part.' (Apple 1979, pl0) In any case, is neutrality a desirable objective in education? The quote from Apple reinforces the point that a claim to neutrality defuses a critical reflection which would lead to action for change in unjust structures. Arblaster too agrees that elimination of personal bias is not only undesirable, but an unattainable absurdity, and he calls for an abandonment of such an illusion which 'has been used as a weapon against dissidence and unorthodoxy in education, especially if that bias has been left-wing' (Arblaster 1974, p17). Those of us who struggle for social justice will certainly come into conflict with the 'anything goes' model of academic freedom, and with the idea of the unattached intellectual. But the point that is being made is that in fact 'anything doesn't go', and the commonsense definition of academic freedom is an illusion. But the illusion is nurtured tenderly by academics who view themselves as neutral, and who resist changes to the very powerful and deeply held distinction between on the one hand the public, the impersonal and the objective, and on the other, the private, the personal and the subjective. As a result academic criteria are seen as leading to objective knowledge, while ethical or moral criteria are seen as leading to purely subjective, even 'political' considerations, and should therefore be dismissed. An example of this compulsion to dichotomise is illustrated by one response to the views expressed in this article, that they are more 'passionate' than 'scholarship'. This misses the central concept of the inevitability of passionate scholarship whatever the perspective being posited, and is in fact designed to perpetuate the myth of neutrality, of the separation between the 'academic' and the 'political' and to discredit perceptions other than the dominant ones. Such views are expressed for example, in disputes about the inclusion of feminist theories in teaching. Of course feminist meanings and knowledge is political, honestly so, because it is about a redistribution of power and an end to silence. But is no more political than the bulk of codified knowledge has been. As Spender points out, 'the meanings encoded under the rubric of psychology or history or even biology, have also been political, though not frankly so. That these meanings have not been open to question, that they have been justified on the grounds of "objectivity" - as it has been defined by males - is just as much a political act as any feminists are engaged in.' (Spender, 1980, p63) Arguments supporting an ideology of academic freedom are misleading and ultimately oppressive. They are misleading in that they neutralise conflict and therefore reduce the potential for change in institutions, because they are concerned with legitimating and sustaining existing social arrangements. When these arrangements are seriously challenged the cry for academic freedom 'may well take the form of concern for the sacred' (McClure and Fisher 2020 1969, p7). They are oppressive in that 'detachment', and an 'anything goes' mentality are incompatible with a commitment to change, and with any identification with the struggle against inequality. Orthodoxy in education works against any development of a curriculum which affiliates teachers and students with cultural, political and economic groups committed to changing institutional arrangements which limit the lives of so many people. A view of academic freedom which acknowledges the selective tradition in education, will not lead to questions about how we and our students can remain detached, for we will see that we have no choice but to be committed. The issue will become what values we will ultimately choose, and how our version of 'passionate scholarship' will be shaped. It is exactly this enterprise in which I have engaged in writing this article. CONCLUSION Adopting an educational practice which centres on equality of opportunity and outcome and on social justice has far reaching implications for the curriculum as I have suggested earlier, and leaves nothing untouched, from recruitment of students through to qualification and post-qualifying work. It also has consequences for recruitment of staff and staff relationships with each other, with students, with community groups and with other agencies involved in the educational process. In addition, it calls for an examination of the effects of theories and their expression in practice, and implies that radical education should be concerned with non-pathologising approaches. This article has focussed mainly on one aspect of the learning experience, but the critique needs to be expanded to look in detail at these other ways in which values are mediated. In the racial, class and gender bias of bureaucratic, hierarchical institutions such changes are not easy to effect, and indeed will be resisted, and need the support of key people in power, support which is unpredictable and unreliable, and subject to other organisational forces. In addition, a radical educational practice is unlikely to be supported by all colleagues and all students, some of whom will find ways of sabotaging and blocking initiatives in order to maintain existing power structures. One of the main ways in which this happens is through debates about academic freedom which I have addressed above. But the struggle must be engaged on a number of fronts and in a range of organisations, if any impact is to be made on the changes taking place in the welfare state. The critique I have entered into here in relation to liberal values in education, should of course not end there, but should be expanded to consider the traditional value base of social work practice (embodied mainly in the BASW Code of Ethics, [1975)}, to uncover hidden ideologies which do not address issues of power. As it is, CCETSW has framed its proposals to reinforce this state of affairs, and to suit the views of the radical right (see Jones 1987), 2121 adding a 'sensitivity to "race" and gender issues' to a profoundly conservative approach, carrying with it a risk of incorporating potentially dangerous views into unchanged education structures. A complete re-evaluation is needed if social work education and practice, even in those settings regarding themselves as radical, is not to be thoroughly domesticated. Bibliography Apple, M. (1979) Ideology and Curriculum RKP Arblaster, A. (1974) Academic Freedom Penguin Basw (1975) A Code of Ethics for Social Work Bedford Square Press Bligh, D. (1982) 'Freedom, Rights and Accountability', in D. Bligh, ed, Accountability or Freedom for Teachers SRHE Monograph, 50 Bryan, B., et al (1985) The Heart of the Race: Black Women's Lives in Britain Virago Carby, HV (1982) 'White Woman Listen! Black feminism and the boundaries of sisterhood' , in Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, The Empire Strikes Back Ccetsw (1987) Care for Tomorrow CCETSW, October De Beauvoir, S. (1975) The Second Sex Penguin Du Bois, B. (1983) 'Passionate Scholarship: notes on values, knowing and method in feminist social science', in G. Bowles and R. Duelli Klein, Theories of Women's Studies RKP Eggleston (1986) Education for Some : Summary of the Eggleston Report on the educational and vocational experiences of young black people. Runnymede Trust Friere, P. (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed Penguin Gurnah, A. (1987) 'Gatekeepers and caretakers: Swann, Scarman and the social policy of containment', in B. Troyna , ed, Racial Inequality in Education Tavistock Heron, J. (1981) 'Assessment Revisited', in D. Boud, ed, Developing Student Autonomy in Learning Kogan Page Humphries, EM (1987) Women, Computer Assisted Learning and Social Work Education: A Case Study, unpub. MA thesis, Newcastle Polytchnic Jones, C. (1987) 'Onwards to QDSW - or not? in Community Care 17th September 1987 King, DS (1987) The New Right: Politics, Markets and Citizenship Macmillan Knowles, M. (1973) The Adult Learner: A Forgotten Species Knowles, M. (1983) `Andragogy: An Emerging Technology for Adult Learning ', in M. Tight, ed, Adult Learning in Education, Croom-Helm McClure H. & Fischer, G (1969) Ideology and Opinion-Making: General Problems of Analysis NY Univ. of Columbia Mednick, SA (1975) Psychology: Explorations in Behaviour and Experience J. Wiley & Sons Mezirow,J. (1983) 'A Critical Theory of Adult Learning and Education , in M. Tight, ed, op. cit. Pascall, G. (1986) Social Policy, A Feminist Analysis Tavistock Robertson, E. (1980) 'Women in Higher Education', paper given at EOC Manchester Conference Rooney, B. (1987) Racism and Resistance to Change Merseyside Area Profile Group Spender, D. (1980) Man Made Language RKP Troyna, B. ed (1987) Racial Inequality in Education Tavistock Ungerson, C, ed (1985) Women and Social Policy Macmillan Verma, GK and Bagley, C. (1979) Race, Education and Identity Macmillan Wright, C. (1987) 'Black Students - White Teachers', in B. Troyna, ed, op. cit</meta-value>
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<abstract lang="en">Higher education, along with other strands of the welfare state, is under going revolutionary change under the Thatcher government. This article argues that traditional liberal values on which education is based are not adequate to withstand the nex right assault, suggests elements of a pro gressive radical education, and re-examines notions of academic freedom It focuses on values underpinning the process of learning in social work, but suggests a wider application to policies within higher education prac</abstract>
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