Symposium
The Development of Criticality among Undergraduates: The Role of Work Placements and Residence Abroad
Fourth Paper
The Practical and Policy Implications of the Research on Criticality Development in the Year Abroad and Social Work Placements
WORKING DRAFT (NOT TO BE QUOTED WITHOUT PERMISSION)
Brenda Johnston, Christopher Brumfit, Rosamond Mitchell, Peter Ford and Florence Myles
BERA Conference, Manchester - 2004
The practical and policy implications of the research on criticality development in the Year Abroad and Social Work placements
Brenda Johnston, Peter Ford, Rosamond Mitchell, Christopher Brumfit and Florence Myles
Introductory comments
Our research strongly suggests that out-of-university experiences, such as practice placements and the Year Abroad assist, critical development, in intellectual, personal and (where appropriate) professional aspects. This paper will raise some questions, arising out of these findings, which we hope will open up a debate, about the practical and policy implications of the research for individual academics, departments and institutions and more broadly at national level. Our questions relate to specific themes as follows:
Timescale for criticality development and the role of experience
To what extent can an undergraduate degree with its relatively short time-scale provide the world and intellectual experience required for fully effective criticality?
Is Barnett, in his calls for critical being, asking for more than can or should be achieved by an undergraduate degree? Do we want teachers who are willing to challenge either the profession, or the world order as soon as they graduate? What does that say about accumulated professional wisdom, reflective practice, or craft knowledge, on professional courses? Is there no accumulated wisdom, reflective practice and craft knowledge to be acquired just in the process of living, being a citizen, a parent, a consumer?
What are the implications for disciplines which do not have an out-of-university component?
The Year Abroad and the Social Work placements are clearly extremely important for the students: is this because they are both (relatively) unstructured but also protected within a broad curriculum that gives some support for the uncertain. Could other disciplines benefit from this – how much should we go for the American year abroad model? Could/should this be funded? Might it work better as compulsory but unfunded?
Usually the courses without placements are non-professional courses. Should these out-of-university experiences be introduced for everyone? Can we think of related out-of-university experiences for everyone?
Can professional courses integrate their placement more fully into their undergraduate experience because the profession is pre-structured and has its own requirements? Can such integration be done effectively for non-professional courses where the students goals are not so definable? Is such integration desirable, or might it be counter-productive?
What about resource implications?
What does society/do employers want from graduates?
Does society wants responsible, critical thinking/doers able to function effectively in a critical sense in a modern society?
Do we have evidence that employers actually want the kind of criticality we are recognising in the practices of social work or modern languages students, or is it a construct of the teachers?
Explicit discussion of critical development across the university
What we have described is more than just the critical thinking tradition, yet not just the abstract claims of post Frankfurt-School critical theorists. How much work has been done on developing radical rethinking of the curriculum along these lines. Our evidence suggests that there is a great deal going on in these two departments to promote criticality – has this been discussed across disciplinary boundaries, or indeed explicitly, as criticality, across institutions within disciplines. The evidence of our seminar series suggests that this is a felt need, and that little cross-discussion goes on.
Does our work show that Modern Languages and Social Work share elements of criticality that other subjects do not? If so, does that relate to the out-of-university experience, so would (for example) the old B Ed degrees have shared these elements also?
Given that these out of university experiences seem to be developmentally useful in terms of criticality, can/should these out of university experience be made more effective? Do the Year Abroad and Social Work placements contribute maximally to critical development?
For example, could/should Social Work students be encouraged to critique theory (e.g. in the dissertation) more as well as making links to practice? Could/should Modern Language students be encouraged to make closer links between their experiences abroad and the work they do in the university. At the moment, what is the difference between the Year Abroad and a gap year (other universities may run their Year Abroad differently)? The benchmarking statements talk about intercultural development, but this is just a mantra and is untheorised. At the moment, people are placed abroad to some extent and little reflection is required of them. A lot of the Year Abroad is problem-solving. Should we get beyond this? Should there be greater constructive alignment between experiences abroad, previous study and assessment of the Year Abroad?
Potential problems
Social Work: Is it total overload for undergraduate students to be expected to make links, integrate values, cope in challenging practice situations, AND critique theory? Is critique of theory a stage further on?
Modern Languages: Can undergraduate students to be expected to cope with practical problems + language learning + applying theory/serious reflection. If we over-control the experience, mightwe get tied in knots as part of the point of the experience is supposed to be the big challenge?
References
Barnett, R. (1997). Higher Education: A Critical Business. Buckingham: The Society for Research into Higher Education and Open University Press.
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