Not just, "Because I said so" - Evaluating claims

This is fun!  I am really enjoying the comments from my colleagues.  The best part of this course for me is the varied perspectives. I find myself saying “Um” and “huh” and “ah” a lot while I am reading the comments because your comments give me a snippet into your thinking AND how you are receiving my information (blog). This is important for me because it helps me to be much clearer that the message I am trying to put across is received so differently by each of you. I need to ask myself when I am communicating, am I doing so in a way that illustrates my point in the manner that I am intending. I also wonder if it really matters if I am doing this or is it more interesting to be challenged in my thinking about a particular point; maybe a little of both.  I’ll work on being as explicit as I can and then look forward to how it was received and consider the implications of that because for sure, mixing my thoughts with your thoughts provides me with some interesting directions. Reflecting on this co-construction helps me to consider the implications for the classroom engagement with students.

I am going to assess a claim made by Narayan (2000) regarding similar goals between social work, Freire and Ghandi. To do this, I will start with an introduction to a process that I think helps to connect these ideas and support the claim put forward by Narayan.  This week’s blog is on the longer side. Justifying our positions and thoughts takes time.

Perspective Transformation – what Mezirow identifies as Habermas’s theory of knowledge as it relates to the third area in which humans generate knowledge, the emancipatory area or emancipatory action. This is referred to by Mezirow (1981) as the least well known and he equates it with perspective transformation. Elements of perspective transformation include, (1) a disorienting dilemma;  (2) self examination;  (3) a critical assessment of personally internalised role assumptions and a sense of alienation from traditional social expectations;  (4) relating one’s discontent to similar experiences of other sorts to public issues - recognising that one’s problem is shared and not exclusively a private matter;  (5) exploring options for new ways of acting;  (6) building competence and self-confidence in new roles;  (7) planning a course of action;  (8) acquiring knowledge and skills for implementing one’s plans;  (9) provisional efforts to try new roles and to assess feedback;  and (10) a reintegration into society on the basis of conditions dictated by the new perspective.

Of these many elements, I would like to focus on the disorienting dilemma as it speaks to how a perspective transformation occurs, meaning, how our values, beliefs and assumptions are challenged and reconceptualised to lead us to a perspective transformation.  

Perspective transformation is the emancipatory process of becoming critically aware of how and why the structure of psycho-cultural assumptions has come to constrain the way we see ourselves and our relationships, reconstituting this structure to permit a more inclusive and discriminating integration of experience and acting upon these new understandings.  It is the learning process by which adults come to recognise their culturally induced dependency roles and relationships and the reasons for them and take action to overcome them (Mezirow, 1981).

This process of transformation includes a disorienting dilemma, the process people experience while they struggle with former and new understandings. This dilemma can occur as sudden insight or occur over time in smaller increments, allowing people time to adapt their assumptions and depending on the severity of the challenge to our assumptions, the process may appear more like two steps forward and one backward (Mezirow, 1981). For me, this fits really well with a constructivist paradigm because it is about how we make meaning of our world. This is important in adult education because as instructors, we need to be aware of the learning process the students may be experiencing and how challenging that experience can be for them.  Just as we have struggle in our understandings at times in the classroom on Monday nights as we discuss our values and beliefs, so too do the students in our classrooms as we provide opportunities for them to challenge their values, beliefs and assumptions. “Perspective transformation involves not only becoming critically aware of habits of perception, thought and action but of the cultural assumptions governing the rules, roles, conventions and social expectations which dictate the way we see, think, fee and act” (Mezirow, 1981). This last idea transitions nicely into why this is important for social work education, as social justice is a primary social work value.

The question of power relations in social work education is identified in the literature through the following authors. Each one of these sources could be critiqued/evaluated for their claims.  I will evaluate the claims of one for this week’s blog, people-centered values, non-violence and social responsibility by Narayan (2000).

•          Academic professionalism – reconceptualizing the relationship (Brew, 2003))

•          Use of collaborative, dialogical and student-centered approaches to teaching and learning (Fougner, 2012)

•          Authenticity and intentional self-disclosure (Mangione et al., 2011)

•          People-centered values, non-violence and social responsibility (Narayan, 2000)

•          Critical questioning (Hudspith & Jenkins, 2007)

•          Development of a more equal teacher/student interaction (Narayan, 2000)

•          Use of peers as co-constructors of knowledge (Fougner, 2012)

•          Empowerment-based teaching and learning demand exploration of personal identity in relation to oppression and domination (Zapf, Jerome, & Williams, 2011)

•          Use of cooperation, self-reflection and interaction to reduce power disparity (Tsien, 2007)

•          Blended learning (Cooner, 2011)

I have chosen to evaluate the Narayan (2000) source because it is an article identifying the relevance for social work education of the views put forward by Freire and Gandhi. The third area identified as similar to social work goals include social responsibilities; a look at equitable distribution of power and resources. For social work education this look at power could include how schools of social work involve themselves in macro-level issues, how they support marginalized groups and how social work education can be made available to economically disadvantaged people. Jules wondered if my look at power was related to the relationship between the instructor and student and yes, that is part of it, but it leads to broader issues of power. How do we get to those broader issues includes how instructors negotiate power relations with students in the learning environment.

Both Freire and Gandhi believed in education leading to action. Social work practice has professional obligation to be politically active. Additionally, social work education is organized within the formal education system and is successful to the extent that these ideas support the dominant ideologies in society. Freire advocated student-centered not teacher-centered education including dialogue between instructor and student leading to liberation not domination. I see this as connecting to Mezirow’s perspective transformation. How students experience their perspective transformation and disorienting dilemma or not may determine how they see their role as a professional social worker. I think this links to Anna’s comments as well in terms of the social and political constraints. In what ways were student beliefs challenged and to what extent did a transformation occur may determine their view of their role, for example, do they see a calling in macro practice through a critical theory perspective with a focus on policy change? Your question of leadership training Anna is a good one. There once was a course called Organizational Leadership that appears to have been incorporated into a Macro level course helping students to connect their roles as leaders beyond organizations and towards the broader level injustices.

For me, this article was very relevant to my area of exploration. It helped me to connect social work goals and values to social work pedagogy, disorienting dilemma, perspective transformation and constructivist theory. Are there assumptions in the claim that social responsibilities a common goal between Freire, Ghandi and social work. I think there are many and for a final time, I will connect it with the extent to which students are able to achieve a perspective transformation.whatsocial and political constrains social workers have to deal with on a daily basis. Do we have any data on the variation in how these constrains are challenged or dealt with by social worker who have been References

Brew, A. (2003). Teaching and research: New relationships and their implications for inquiry-based teaching and learning in higher education.

Fougner, A. (2012). Exploring knowledge through peer tutoring in a transitional learning community: An alternative way of teaching counseling skills to students in social work education.

Mangione, L., Mears, G., Vincent, W., & Hawes, S. (2011). The supervisory relationship when women supervise women: An exploratory study of power, reflexivity, collaboration and authenticity.

Mezirow, J. (1981). A Critical Theory Of Adult Learning And Education.

Narayan, L. (2000). Freire & Gandhi. Their relevance for social work education.

Hudspith, B., & Jenkins, H. (2007). Teaching the Art of Inquiry.

 Zapf, M., Jerome, L., & Williams, M. (2011). Team teaching in social work: Sharing power with bachelor of social work students.

 Tsien, T (2007). A participative learning and teaching model: The partnership of students and teachers in practice teaching.

 Cooner, T. (2011). Learning to create enquiry-based blended learning designs: Resources to develop interdisciplinary education.