Paul Armstrong, London Borough of Haringey

9402

Valuing change and changing values:
is there a case for a code of practice in university teaching and research of the education of adults

Paul Armstrong, London Borough of Haringey

Change and its management

The conference is concerned to reflect on the winds of change blowing through British adult and continuing education in the higher education sector. It seems a long time ago that the dominant debates in adult education were about the nature and direction of change - from the liberal tradition to socialist alternatives. Left wing and mostly Marxist ideologies were presented as the folk devils of the past and future of adult and continuing education, at the time the source of radical changes and threats to the liberal tradition were coming from the New Right. Utopian conceptions of social change, recurrent from the nineteenth century through to the 1970s, have given way to a new concept of change, which links education more effectively to the needs of the economy, perceives students as clients with needs that have to be met, but within increasingly rationed resources, requiring efficiency and accountability. The phasing in of ‘continuing’, ‘recurrent’, and ‘lifelong education’ reflects the relocation of adult education from the margins to the ‘mainstream’, serving the major pre-occupations of the state, particularly the demand for ‘relevance’. The liberal tradition has been subject to the demands of effectiveness, efficiency, and accreditation. And, if it had been, it was required to concern itself less with the oppressed and those with unequal access to educational opportunities. There are fewer opportunities to work towards a more just and equitable society where those inequalities are ever-widening. There is an imperative to concentrate more on putting the resource where there would be the biggest pay-off: continuing professional development.

The recognition of the rapid changes that are taking place in adult and continuing education, and more widely in the expansion of the higher education sector is reflected in the demand for the ‘management of change’. This is a professional imperative high on the list of those involved in management development within public sector organisations in the 1990s. A far cry from the pre-1970s’ demands for radical social change, managers are now required to lead their organisations and their employees through the process of change in a way that emphasises change as:

• positive
• an opportunity, not a crisis
• a collective activity
• a prime mover for business and source of growth
• something that needs investment in training and resources
• something to be managed.

From this perspective, change is not

• divisible from formulating and implementing corporate strategy
• random or purely adaptive, but planned initiatives towards a coherent strategic intent
• sudden and revolutionary, but gradual and incremental
• imposed from the top, but a shared responsibility
• disempowering
• separate from the need for competitive advantage
• without vision and direction
• inconsistent with the dominant ideology.

Training programmes in the management of change encompass the identification of the direction, sources and purpose of change, the articulation of choices, visioning change, the design and implementation of change programmes. This operates at a number of levels from the individual, through the organisational, to the cultural. Without exception, management of change programmes recognise the importance of developing the values and attitudes of individuals and organisation, to ensure consistency with the strategic intent[1].

Values in the context of change

Now values are defined as relatively enduring features of a culture. Without digressing too far into philosophical and psychological discussions on values, it is commonly accepted that changing behaviour is one thing; but changing attitudes and values is something else. In a manual on implementing total quality management through creating culture change, Atkinson[2] proposes the graph below to support his view that the introduction of a culture of quality will take time.

Values are the building blocks of culture, and it is the value system which predominates within an organisation. According to Atkinson, ‘not many people give much thought to the key values but they are critical in helping to manage change’. Values are relatively stable, long-term, deeply-rooted and hard to change. Initially, it is a matter of identifying those values that are resistant to change; then predicting those organisational values which will be conducive to the changing culture, and then attempting to develop the appropriate attitudes and values that ‘fit’ the new culture. Alternatively, it could be argued, it is only when those deep-seated attitudes and values change, that the organisational or wider culture will change. The lack of fit may be between the old and new culture, or between individual and wider organisational or cultural values. Where there is a gap, individuals may distance themselves from their organisation or culture, rather than adjust their values.

It has often been assumed that education has performed an important function in terms of socialising young people and adults into a culture’s value systems. Whether teaching is a repressive or a subversive activity, it inevitably involves the transmission of values. According to Eraut[3], an educator can handle values in three ways:

• by assuming them or taking them for granted (implicit transmission)
• by advocating them or refuting them and taking up a definite value position (explicit transmission
• by making them the subject of their teaching with the intention of promoting the students’ awareness while still preserving their autonomy (explicit discussion).

The idea of promoting value awareness through explicit discussion is characteristic of liberal ideology. Adult educators should not impose their own values on students, but provide an opportunity for them to reflect on those that they hold already - not necessarily with a view to changing those attitudes and values. One suspects that a large amount of teaching does not focus on making students aware of values.

Taking up a distinct value position is dismissed as biased and lacking in objectivity. This discussion applies equally to research as well as teaching. In the 1960s and 1970s there was a distinct emphasis on researchers confessing to their own values that are likely to have impinged on the research process.

Liberal social researchers such as Howard Becker believed that the debate about value freedom was a myth, because all researchers held particular views that would shape their definition of the research problem, influence their methodology, constrain their analysis, and determine their reporting[4]. For he and his colleagues, the answer was to simply expose their values to view, and allow them to be taken into account when reading the results of research. Becker was not prepared to go on to state any ethical canons to this effect, for he saw it merely as a matter of individual conscience or judgement.

As such values are not facts that are right or wrong; nor are they easily articulated. Value statements reflect our intentions, and most often determine not only what we do, but how we do it. In the case of total quality, it is recognised that to be successful, the organisation requires a cultural change that can only be brought about by significant changes in values as they determine behaviour. Where values are important to us they guide our conduct: we value what we do and we do what we value.

If we, our organisations, or our cultures are going to change, then we will need to value that change.

Values in a changing context

In advocating change, values have to be made explicit, whereas values can more easily be taken for granted, or never made explicit when studying the reproduction of the current state of affairs. The explication of values is essential when advocating changes for other people, changes which they themselves will have to implement.[5]

If we accept the thrust of Atkinson’s argument that the implementation of total quality requires culture change, which will only be successful if attitudes and values change, then as researchers or practitioners involved in the change process our task is clear. As adult educators, whilst not seeing ourselves as merely agents that support the task of reinforcing existing social values and attitudes, we might accept that we do often seek to influence attitudes and values; indeed, this is at the very heart of the educative and learning process. Michael Eraut[6], as we have said, argues that whether teaching is seen as repressive or subversive, it always involves the transmission of values. If teachers are unaware of values, or refuse to problematise them, or feel they are beyond their professional responsibility, then we might have what Eraut calls ‘value complacency’. Alternatively, teachers may intentionally make them explicit, advocating, refuting or taking up a particular value position. The third possibility outlined by Eraut, more characteristic of the liberal tradition, is that value awareness is raised as a teaching goal, by which values are explicitly discussed but not imposed by the teacher. As Eraut says, this may be the intention but difficult to achieve in practice.

Whether it is the teacher’s intention to promote a particular set of values, or to raise students’ awareness of issues related to values, there has to be a methodology for achieving this. In recent times, we have witnessed the drive towards competence-based teaching and learning. While much of the derivation of national occupational standards, using functional analysis, focused on skills and understanding, the dimension of values has not been neglected. Indeed, the development of functional analysis model did very much include an analysis of the ‘environment’ within which jobs are undertaken, and this did bring the issue of values and ethics into the foreground. This is now very much an issue in considering professional competence, particularly around how values and ethics might be analysed and then integrated into occupational standards[7]. Within the Care Sector Consortium, for example, efforts were made to identify and make explicit values, initially by embedding them in performance criteria and range statements, and later by developing the ‘O’ units which address the promotion of equal opportunities, protecting individual rights and responsibilities and acknowledging personal beliefs and identity. More recently, the draft Senior Management Standards developed through the Management Charter Initiative, have encompassed the analysis of values (Unit C3: Culture; 3.3 Values in Work - Consult and provide guidance on ways in which values are to be expressed in work and workingrelationships); the draft standards for Advice, Guidance and Counselling (Unit A.4.4 Operate within an agreed ethical code of practice); the Construction Industry Standing Committee standards (F226.3 Contribute to the protection of individual and community interests). There is a good deal of other work currently being undertaken with respect to values and national occupational standards of National Vocational Qualifications (NVQs).

The point is that there is a methodology currently employed which has the capacity to reveal values and ethics. Every statement of competence identified should be a function; that is, a purposeful activity with a clear outcome. Values are intrinsic factors which motivate behaviour, and individuals will practice an occupation in order to realise they share certain values. Through this methodology, professional values are continually made explicit in the competence statements themselves. They are pursued in more depth through the use of critical incident analysis. And, of course, this is by no means the only methodology available for the identification and analysis of values.

An alternative approach recently promoted is that of an Ethics and Values Audit (EVA), a tool designed for use by organisations in order that they might be able to analyse and evaluate themselves. It is undoubtedly a management tool that facilitates an examination and identification of shared principles and values, underpinning mission statements, charters and codes of practice or conduct. As Henry says, ‘it can be seen as the first stage in the process for managing change’[8].

On the market is another toolkit developed as a form of action research on behalf of Warwickshire County Council, which has enabled the local authority to get

clear messages from staff about the organisational culture: what it is and what we need to do to change it. At the same time it has produced positive changes in the culture itself by asking each participant for a commitment to changes in their own behaviour. Staff now feel that the way things are is not just a product for senior management decisions, but about the way we all behave towards each other. It has given staff a say and a stake in the way the organisation works.’[9]

Supporting values through codes of practice

Of course, methodologies for the analysis of values might be deemed unnecessary in those professions where there exist statements or codes of ethics or practice. It is well recognised that a characteristic feature of a profession is that its members share common values, or adhere to published codes of practice. A recent trawl of professional bodies and organisations generated 27 codes of ethics or practice, most of which had been recently issued or revised and updated. These codes take on quite different formats, from single paragraphs, marketing leaflets through to substantial books on rules and procedures. The format probably reflects the aims of the organisation issuing them, and the centrality of ethical issues to their practice.

Although the formats may vary, there is some similarity in terms of content. For example, the majority of codes examined had something to say about the following:

• professionalism
• conflict of interest
• maintaining competence
• reputation of the profession
• bribery and corruption

The beneficiaries of the codes are:

• the general public
• clients
• individual members

An interesting corollary of this has been the focus on the relationship between the professional and her/his colleagues. A code of ethics is often put forward as an agreement between the profession and the community, and putting the general public first may sometimes be to the detriment of the profession or colleagues in the profession. However, in practice it would appear that codes of ethics are more about protecting professional self-interest rather than the public interest. The failure of professional associations to come to terms with this has led to the emergence in Britain at the end of 1993 of a charity, Public Concern at Work, whose members are encouraged to ‘blow the whistle’ on malpractice at work.

There have been extensive surveys of professional bodies and their codes of ethics over recent years[10], reflecting the re-discovery of the significance of values to organisations. What does not come out of such surveys very clearly is how codes are agreed in the first place, and the level of consultation that has taken place among stakeholders. According to Kitson[11], most codes of ethics are developed from a defensive position by senior managers, with ‘a prudential tone with some basis in utilitarian theory’. Whilst members affirm their commitment to such codes by signing up or accepting membership, and thereby agree to the disciplinary procedures put in place to deal with transgressions, there is little sense of their active involvement in the development and agreement of the codes in the first place. Indeed, research indicates that for some members it is not a matter of whether they agree with the code or not, for them it is simply not relevant, and if pushed on the subject, would probably concur with the view that such codes are in the interest of an organisation and its management, not its employees or its clients.

In undertaking research on behalf of The Local Government Management Board to identify the values of local government, the complexity of supporting values and ethics through codes has become apparent. In the case of those who work in local authorities, it appears that professional practice is determined by more than one set of values. An accountant working in the Education Department of a local authority, for example, in membership of the Institute of Chartered Accountants will be obliged to follow the guide to professional conduct and professional ethics; at the same time, conduct will be governed by the local authority’s corporate policies, and the Education Department’s guidelines. In turn, we might expect those values contained in corporate and departmental policies to be influenced by traditional values of local government. It is likely that the accountant is a member of a trades union such as Unison, and subject to their rules, procedures and guidelines. All these influences of course will be received according to the accountant’s own set of personal values, which may or may not be congruent.

Similarly, in a university context, a lecturer may be subject to corporate, faculty and departmental policies, which may reflect traditional values such as respect for freedom of speech and free expression of ideas without fear or hindrance. However, in this case, there may be a difference. If the lecturer is an accountant, a chemist, a chemical engineer, an architect, a qualified social worker, a civil engineer, a doctor or lawyer, a sociologist, a psychologist, a counsellor, and in membership of a professional body, then she or he may have recourse to an external set of values and ethics. However, not all university lecturers will be in such membership. There is no agreed code for either teachers or researchers. To be sure, there do exist those codes that will be relevant to both teaching and research. For example, those involved in management training may pay heed to the code of practice published by management training organisations; those involved in training in counselling and in counselling skills would be covered by the code produced by the British Association for Counselling. Those involved in research could consult the code of practice published by either the British Sociological Association or the British Psychological Association, both of which relate quite directly to engaging in research activities. Alternatively, the Market Research Society has its own code of conduct, which has links to international codes of social research practice.