smsouc :mzwicnon AND summon: SOME MARGINAL NOTES Thesis for the Degree of PM}. 5 mmw 31m umvmsm ‘ PETER A REMEWER " ’ :3971 ' . “971“ .. “ Ilfliilli'llilliliilllliiii illiliifliill 1/ ~- .1 3 1293 10663 7501 LIBRARY ”1 Michigan State I Uniw rsity . ’ 4 This is to certify that the thesis entitled Symbolic Interaction and Education: Some Marginal Notes presented by Peter A. Remender has been accepted towards fulfillment ‘of the requirements for Ph-D- degree inmmn 7%ZA flip/é; Major professor Datflzw X /77/ 0-7639 ABSTRACT SYMBOLIC INTERACTION AND EDUCATION: SOME MARGINAL NOTES BY Peter A. Remender This dissertation is concerned with Symbolic Interaction as an ideal type or model for looking at human learning. Reinforcement theory is presented as a con- trasting model or frame of reference. The focus is on noting the differences between the two approaches as they might be applied to an explanation of human learning. It it held that we can better understand Symbolic Interaction and its possible implications for education if we contrast it with Reinforcement theory and its possible implications for education. No attempt is made to present a comprehensive analysis of either Symbolic Interaction or Reinforcement theory. The basic postulates of each position are pre- sented. This writer has sought to abstract the basic character of the two vantage points. The generic features of the two ideal types are used to discuss implications for education that this writer sees as congruent with each model. Peter A. Remender The analysis is presented in the form of a series of essays. The content of the essays is based on the material cited in the bibliography, observations made in formal course work, and conversations with fellow learners. These notes should be viewed as a frozen moment in an on- going dialogue. There is much that has yet to be worked out. The statements made in this document represent the judgements of this writer at a particular point in time. Much of what is said in these pages represents a revision of earlier formulations. The interactionist views the learner as engaged in a process of continuous reconstruc- tion of his experiences and of society. As an interaction- ist, this writer makes only tentative claims. He does not wish to discourage the re-interpretation of the judgements that are presently made. Following the introduction, the second chapter presents the basic contrast between the two frames of reference--Symbolic Interaction and Reinforcement theory. The third chapter considers different levels of analysis. The concern is with the question of what one needs to pay attention to in order to explain human learning. The chapter dealing with Programmed man is an attempt to depict what man would be like if one were able to condi— tion him like a lump of clay. This View of man is held to be consistent with Reinforcement theory. The position of the Symbolic Interactionist is elaborated on in chapters Peter A. Remender on "society," "selfing,' and "minding." The interaction- ist views man as acting in terms of his definitions of situations. A chapter on "contemporary traps" is a critical analysis of some of the popular critics of tra- ditional education. The analysis of the critics is written from a Symbolic Interactionist framework. In keeping with the processual View of the inter— actionist, only tentative conclusions are presented. The interactionist takes a dynamic view of man and society. If man is engaged in the process of growth and society is in the process of being changed, education cannot remain stagnant and be relevant. We know that we are on the move. The interactionist seeks to formulate some notions about how we might make our moves as intelligent as they can be. SYMBOLIC INTERACTION AND EDUCATION: SOME MARGINAL NOTES BY Peter A. Remender A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY College of Education Department of Secondary Education and Curriculum 1971 DEDICATION To my parents and to Mary Theisen. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Human behavior is learned in interaction with others. The thinking articulated in this document is no exception to this principle. The following others have been highly significant sources of ideas. Each has had much to say about the matters considered in this dissertation. Each has been a source of tremendous intellectual stimulation. The interaction with each of these individuals has been most educative. Thank you: Dale Alam, Keith Anderson, Leon Baldwin, Frank Blackington III, Wilbur Brookover, Doulatram Chattulani, Roger Cook, Jim Covert, George Ferree, Peter Flynn, Marvin Grandstaff, Irving Louis Horowitz, George Kendall, June E. Licence, James McKee, Bernard Meltzer, Louise Sause, Cornel Silea, Bill Tregea, and Charles Westie. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . iii CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. . . . . . . . . . . 1 II. TWO FRAMES OF REFERENCE . . . . . . . 14 III. LEVELS OF ANALYSIS. . . . . . . . . 33 IV. PROGRAMMED MAN . . . . . . . . . . 53 Knowledge as Technique . . . . . . 61 Knowledge as Fact . . . . . . 67 Knowledge as Established Content . . . 73 V. SOCIETY . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 VI. SELFING . . . . . . . . . . . . 106 VII. MINDING . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 VIII. CONTEMPORARY TRAPS. . . . . . . . . 160 IX. TENTATIVE CONCLUSIONS. . . . . . . . 172 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . 179 GENERAL REFERENCES . . . . . . . . . . . 196 iv CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Objectives for Chapter I: (1) To provide an overview for the remainder of the dis- sertation. (2) To indicate the general method of analysis. This chapter contains a list of objectives for each chapter. This should give the reader an overview of the dissertation. It is hoped that this will make clear what this writer is trying to do in the dissertation. At the beginning of each chapter the objectives for that chapter will be repeated so that the reader will not need to memorize the objectives or turn back to this chapter and re-read the objectives for that chapter. It may be well to read the objectives for all chapters before look- ing at particular chapters in the dissertation. This should give the reader a gestalt picture and bring into sharper focus how each chapter is related to the whole. This chapter contains a brief statement of general objec- tives which should further help the reader see how the particular objectives for each chapter are integrated into the whole. Following an elaborated on statement of objectives, some comments on the method of analysis are presented. This is intended to provide the reader with a general sense of how this writer is going about doing what he pro- poses to do. The reader will note that the term method is used here to mean a style of analysis. General objectives.--(l) To propose a philosophy of education that would provide us with a general plan of action. This is a very ambitious undertaking. In this writer's judgement, it is vital that we strive to do this even if we fall short of the task we have set for ourselves. This writer maintains that it is important for the learner and the teacher to act with an end-in-view though this end is only tentatively held. (2) To formulate some notions about learning and how behavior is changed. The selected bibliography contains a number of sources that take up this concern for learning. This dissertation attempts to draw on this material and on numerous discussions with colleagues in the formulation of the position presented in the following pages. (3) To delineate in brief compass two ideal types or models for looking at human learning. The main concern of this writer is with the Symbolic Interactionist perspective. As drawn in this document, the reader might view the relationship between Symbolic Interaction and Reinforcement theory as being a figure- ground relationship. The Symbolic Interactionist position is likely to be seen as the figure and Reinforcement theory as the ground. This means that Reinforcement theory is used to aCcentuate or highlight Symbolic Inter- actionism. It may be helpful for the reader to know this writer's bias at the outset. This writer holds that the Symbolic Interactionist perspective is a most viable con- tributor to a philosophy of life and learning. He doubts that there is any other perspective that explains more human behavior. In his estimation, the Symbolic Interac- tionist position is more congruent with an account of human behavior than is the position of the Reinforcement theorist. In the judgement of this writer, the explana- tion of the Reinforcement theorist oversimplifies the complexity of human behavior. It is not the task of this document to establish the validity of these convictions. Demonstrating the greater explanatory power of the Sym- bolic Interactionist model is beyond the scope of this document. Since the focus of this work is on describing these particular frames of reference, however, the reader may find it useful to know the vantage point from which the descriptions are drawn. Objectives for Chapter I (Introduction).--(l) To provide an overview for the remainder of the dissertation. (2) To indicate the general method of analysis. Objectives for Chapter II (Two Frames of Refer- ence).--(l) To briefly identify the key features of Rein- forcement theory and Symbolic Interactionism. (2) To suggest implications of Reinforcement theory and Symbolic Interactionism for education. (3) To comprehend Symbolic Interactionism more completely by putting it in juxtapo- sition with Reinforcement theory. General comments on Chapter II.--This chapter makes the basic distinction between the two frames of reference. This is elaborated on in subsequent chapters. The basic postulates of the two perspectives are stated in this chapter. The analysis is restricted to what we might regard to be the key features of the two orienta- tions and is not a comprehensive analysis of either position. This writer attempts to glean contrasting implications for education from the two vantage points. The differences noted are seen as a matter of focus and the reader need not assume that the differences are logi- cally inevitable. Objectives for Chapter III (Levels of Analysis).-- (1) To make explicit the notion that there are different levels of analysis. (2) To explore the issue of whether human behavior is to be explained in terms of a particular level of analysis. Note the emphasis is on explanation and not description. (3) To reject vulgar determinisms-- biological, psychological, and cultural. (4) To call attention to the social act as the process which changes both individuals and groups. The emphasis in this chapter is on offering a critique of Durkheim's conception of social facts. This does not mean that there are no dif- ferences between groups. Nor does it mean that groups are no more than an aggregation of individuals. We need to concern ourselves with joint action--in the process of interaction both the individual and the group are changed. The group and its norms is then seen as a continuously reconstructed product of human interaction. General comments on Chapter III.--The Symbolic Interactionist views learning as a process in which the actor defines and re-defines situations in interaction with others. Both the standard model for sociological analysis and stimulus response psychology tend to view action in terms of direct and unmediated responses. The reader may note the different assumptions that are being made about human behavior and learning. If we are to formulate a philosophy of education, it is vital that we know what assumptions we are making about man and society. This chapter is concerned with how human learning takes place and what assumptions are being made about how we learn. Objectives for Chapter IV (Programmed Man).--(l) To sketch a relationship between Reinforcement theory and stimulus-response-or Programmed man. (2) TO speculate on the implications for a society of a society that is com- posed predominately of programmed men. (3) To outline an image of knowledge believed to be implicit in the prin- ciples of Reinforcement theory. General comments on Chapter IV.-—If the Reinforce- ment theorist were able to condition man like one shapes a lump of clay, what would man and his society be like? This chapter explores some assumptions about man and society that this writer takes to be congruent with the principles of Reinforcement theory. This writer seeks to articulate a philosophy of education that he holds to be consistent with the previously identified key features of Reinforcement theory. An attempt is made to relate how the Reinforcement theorist views human learning. Objectives for Chapter V (Society).--(l) To out- line a Symbolic Interactionist conception of society. (2) To draw attention to the process of the social con- struction and reconstruction of society. (3) To focus attention on language behavior in society--universes and subuniverses of discourse. (4) To note the significance of society and subsocieties in the learning process. General comments on Chapter V.--We maintain that man learns in interaction with others. If learning then does not take place in a vacuum, it is vital to formulate some ideas about the different contexts in which learning takes place. A further task would be to note various consequences of particular learning environments. We are not only concerned with how one might learn different things in different societies, however. We, also, want to know how what is learned might change society. Objectives for Chapter VI (Selfing).--(l) To explore the relevance of self behavior to human learning. (2) To integrate some existentialist notions into the Symbolic Interactionist's conception of self behavior and learning. (3) To explore the relationship between self behavior and the notions of growth and becoming. General comments on Chapter VI.--This chapter presents an analysis of one of the key assumptions of the Symbolic Interactionist about man, that is, that man is engaged in a continuous flow of self indications. We would argue that this premise is vital to the interaction- ist's view of human learning. In accepting this premise, we reject the notion that man is mechanistically respond— ing to stimuli as in the case with Programmed man as we have sketched him. In terms of a philosophy of education, we suggest that there are some important differences between the training of pigeons and the education of human beings. Objectives for Chepter VII (Minding).--(l) To out- line what is meant by reflective thinking. (2) To suggest a relationship between reflective thinking and negative thinking. (3) To briefly contrast one dimensional thinking with multi-dimensional thinking. (4) To note the relevance of minding to social reconstruction. General comments on Chapter VII.--The Reinforce- ment theorist believes that he can account for human learning without making reference to mentalistic concepts. The interactionist holds that if we are to adequately explain human behavior, we must pay attention to what we have termed minding. The interactionist views man as capable of intelligent action since man may act reflec- tively and is not merely reflexively responding to stimuli or social conditions. Learning is not a mindless process for the interactionist. Objectives for Chepter VIII (Contemporary Traps).-- (1) To indicate where the Symbolic Interactionist stands in relation to some of the remarks of contemporary critics of education. (2) To lend further precision to the inter- actionist position. General comments on Chapter VIII.-—This writer uses the Symbolic Interactionist framework to look at some of the statements being made by various critics of traditional education. Even if we know what practices are mis-educative, this does not necessarily lead us to know what practices are educative. We may formulate a sound criticism of traditional education but lack an adequate alternative plan of action. We may both attack traditional education while making different assumptions about how we learn. Objectives for Chapter IX (Tentative Conclusions).-- (1) To acknowledge the incompleteness of the analysis and the existence of inconsistencies that have yet to be worked out. (2) To state some implications for education in admittedly very general terms. General comments on Chapter IX.--The interaction- ist views learning as a process in which we continuously re-construct our experiences. If this is true then we can only reach tentative conclusions. This is certainly true in this instance. If this analysis serves to inspire a more adequate formulation, it will have been worth the effort. The remainder of this chapter is devoted to how this writer has chosen to go about the implementation of the objectives listed above. The analysis is presented in the form of a series of essays. The essays are the result of the author's intellectual ruminations over the last few years. It perhaps began with this writer's graduate work at Central Michigan University where he was introduced to two outstanding proponents of Symbolic Interactionism-- Bernard Meltzer and Charles Westie. This writer became fascinated with the perspective. Two years of teaching social psychology at Wisconsin State University, Oshkosh, resulted in an increased breadth and depth of understand- ing of the position and alternative formulations. In his 10 course, this writer tried to critically compare various perspectives. In this writer's doctural work at Michigan State University, he had the opportunity to engage in extended interaction with another outstanding proponent of Symbolic Interaction--Wilbur Brookover. By conserva— tive estimates, Brookover is probably one of this country's leading sociologists of education. Incidently, these remarks about Brookover were added after he had read the document and in no way represent an attempt to prOpitiate him. It seems to be a very necessary inclusion. This document started to take its present shape when Frank Blackington III asked those of us in one of his courses to write a philosophy of education. The first rough draft of what is now Chapter II was written then. That paper more than any other should probably be regarded as the kernel of this dissertation. Other courses and other professors contributed substantially to the ideas expresSed in this document. A detailed account of the contribution of each of these individuals is forgone for the sake of crispness. For two of his years at Michigan State University, this writer had a graduate teaching assistantship for the school and society course. This enabled him to draw not only on his own experiences but on those of many others. The format of the course changed many times and this too has been a most educative experience. We read a great J ll deal about education and we spent hours talking about education and our experiences with it. We compared our experiences. We drew on the experiences of various writers. We argued a great deal about how peOple learn and how they fail to learn. These conversations were and still are most valuable. The content of the essays then is based on the material cited in the bibliography, observations made in formal course work, and conversations with fellow learners. It has, indeed, been a case of learning in interaction with one's associates. This statement of position has benefited greatly from the incisive criticism of others. Putting some notes on paper should provide a more tangible target. These notes should be viewed as a frozen moment in an on-going dialogue. These remarks ought not to be interpreted as a permanent or dogmatic statement of position. Some notes on the style employed in the pages that follow will perhaps prove instructive. It is assumed here that the best way to understand Symbolic Interactionism as a perspective is to contrast it with Reinforcement theory. This does not mean that the two are completely incompat- ible. The two perspectives are treated as if they were ends of a continuum. This does not mean that they are legitimate opposites or that the two theorists might not be behaving in the same way in particular situations. 12 Indeed, some drawing together of the two perspectives is attempted though the emphasis is on the clash of the two orientations. It is assumed that it is difficult if not impossible to understand things in isolation. The eXpres- sion wife does not make sense without the expression husband. The role of teacher does not make sense without the counter-role of student. In a similar vein, it is held that we will better understand Symbolic Interaction by putting it in juxtaposition with Reinforcement theory. It is assumed that we can better understand possible implications of Symbolic Interactionist theory for educa- tion if we understand possible implications of Reinforce- ment theory for education. Symbolic Interactionism is introduced as the negation of Reinforcement theory. This is done to create a "structure of contradictions." In doing this, the style takes on a dialectical character. This means that a set of ideas are introduced that are critical of another set of ideas. The notion of a dialectic also has a more general meaning as a process that is interactive. The dialectic is a method that leads to something dif- ferent. The dialectical notion of synthesis or integra— tion of variant positions is evident in what is attempted in these pages. The interactionist views the synthesis as a tentative or tenuous unity. What has been set down in these pages has indeed been modified many times as a 13 result of the critical comments of those who have been generous enough to hear out earlier--and in this author's estimation, cruder--formulations. This work is heavily indebted to a number of sources. It would be a valuable contribution if one were able to capture or synthesize in a few words the gist of the thinking of the men cited in the bibliography. This, however, was not seen as being sufficient even if possible. What is presented is an interpretation. The act of interpretation is seen as a dynamic act. CHAPTER II TWO FRAMES OF REFERENCE Objectives for Chapter II: (1) To briefly identify the key features of Reinforcement theory and Symbolic Interactionism. (2) To suggest implications of Reinforcement theory and Symbolic Interactionism for edu- cation. (3) To comprehend Symbolic Inter- actionism more completely by putting it in juxtaposition with Reinforcement theory. The basic postulates of Symbolic Interaction and Reinforcement theory are stated in this chapter. Doing this entails an act of abstraction. Symbolic Interac- tionism and Reinforcement theory are presented as two ideal types or models that purport to explain human behavior. A contrast is drawn between the two frames of reference generically considered. A comprehensive sum- mary of either perspective is beyond the scope of this document. There is much more that might have been said about either of the two positions that is not covered in this dissertation. This writer has tried to abstract the basic character of the two models. 14 15 This writer will outline what he takes to be the major implications of Symbolic Interaction and Reinforce- ment theory for education. The derivations do not flow directly from these perspectives but represent judgements on the part of this writer.1 The attempt to formulate consequences of the two orientations is made on the assumption that an approach to education that is explicit, theoretically integrated, and systematic would be better than one that contains numerous implicit assumptions or one that is eclectic in character. If we are to formu- late a useful philosophy of education, it is important to make as explicit as possible the assumptions we are making about the learner and the learning process. We need not assume, however, that all who accept a particular paradigm or model will behave in the way that this writer has identified as characteristic of that frame of refer- ence. There are differences within a school of thought as well as between different schools of thought. The construction of these ideal types is an act of abstraction. 1The implications that are suggested in this analysis are not necessarily logically connected to the perspectives considered. In practice, adherents to par- ticular perspectives tend to focus on different questions. "For the last fifty years the main preoccupation of the Behaviorist school has been the study of certain measur- able aspects of the behavior of rats, and the bulk of Behaviorist literature is devoted to that study," Arthur Koestler, The Ghost in the Machine (Chicago: Henry Regney Company, 1967), p. 7. 16 Reinforcement theory or stimulus response theory will be identified in terms of four key features.2 The methodological orientation is that of behaviorism. It is based on the structural principle of associationism and the motivational principle of hedonism. Finally, the orientation assumes a passive organism. It is difficult to judge at what point no further explication is necessary. This writer trusts, however, that some additional elabora- tion on the defining characteristics of Reinforcement theory will be more fruitful than offensive. The behaviorist--in his rejection of the subjec- tive procedures of introspective psychology--takes the position that one should deal only with overt behavior. This emphasis on external observables is indicative of his lack of concern for what goes on inside the organism. Often, behaviorists end up filling in for this lack of information with imputation although they profess to be unconcerned with data that requires complex judgements on the part of the observer. Associationism means the linking of units by their continuity in time and space. The mentalistic units of 2The discussion of the defining features of Reinforcement theory is largely based on Morton Deutsch and Robert M. Krauss' Theories in Social Psychology (New York: Basic Books, 1965). See also C. Addison Hickman and Manford H. Kuhn's Individuals, Groups and Economic Behavior (New York: The Dryden Press, 1956). 17 classical associationism are rejected by the Reinforce- ment theorist and the conditioned response is substituted as the basic unit of analysis. Human conceptual abilities are treated as if they were the same as those at the infrahuman level. Thus, the study of human behavior is not crucial since it is held to be possible to extrapolate from the observations of lower animals to the more complex behavior of man. Indeed, Skinner claims to treat himself exactly the way he treats his rats. Hedonistic psychology is predicated on the idea that the organism seeks pleasure and avoids pain. Rein- forcement theorists speak of the contingencies of rein- forcement that govern behavior. Rewards or reinforcers are thought to strengthen stimulus-response connections. The concept of the organism as passive rather than active means that the organism remains in a quiet state unless acted upon.3 Stimuli are thought to impinge on an organism that is ready to receive impulses from the out- side in contradiction to the idea that stimuli are selected in the process of on-going activity. The latter position is Symbolic Interactionist. 3It might be argued that the organism is not passive in operant conditioning in which the response to be conditioned must occur before it can be rewarded or punished. We may note, however, that in "describing the process of teaching by operant conditioning, Professor B. F. Skinner says, 'With these techniques a new form of behavior can be shaped as a sculptor shapes a lump of clay,'" Paul Goodman, The Community of Scholars (New York: A Vintage Book, 1964), pp. 172-173. 18 B. F. Skinner4 has made the most explicit con- nection between Reinforcement theory and educational practice. He is a proponent of the teaching machine and the "father" of programmed instruction. Indeed, contem— porary education seems to be increasingly taking on a Skinnerian character. Some experts consider him respon- sible for what they term a revolution in American education. The term "training" seems to best connote what Skinner has in "mind" for us. Is not training synonymous with conditioning: Is then the teacher no more than an animal trainer? Is man no more than an organic machine to be programmed? Implicit in the answer of the Reinforcement theorist is a definite image of knowledge. Knowledge would mean learned skills or techniques and man would be like an automaton. Knowledge would imply facts devoid of valuation and content devoid of process. This does not mean that values would not be learned. Values can be learned in a mechanistic or stimulus-response fashion and exhibited in conditioned behavior. It is the process of valuation that is not evident in the Reinforcement theo- rist's formulation. By valuation, we mean a process of creating values and not a process of instilling values. 4See B. F. Skinner, Walden II (New York: Mac- millan, 1948; paperback edition, 1962). l9 Programmed instruction is no doubt most efficient in forming stimulus-response connections. Skinner's approach is right if knowledge consists exclusively of techniques, facts, and established content. Skinner is right if we may assume the world to be a closed system in which one might be trained to respond in the most rational manner. One might argue that the author is thinking about an approach to education that utilized drill and rote memory to inculcate the content--final truths--of the past into subjects who were conceived of as being essen- tially isolated (a-social) and passive, that is, that the author is referring to traditional education. Indeed, the basic tenets of Reinforcement theory do seem to find implementation in the traditionally oriented school. The critics of traditional education should find the impact of the bureaucratic organization on education rather dis- turbing since it seems that the style of contemporary education is increasingly coming to approximate the "old" style that they attacked with such vehemence. This is a matter that will be taken up in greater detail in Chap- ter III. Concomitant with the Reinforcement theorist's conception of knowledge is his conception of the educated man. If knowledge is mechanistic (consists of stimulus- response connections), then the educated man is mindless. 20 The Reinforcement theorist finds no use for such expres- sions as mind. Presumably, the educated man for the Reinforcement theorist is one who has formed at least the minimum number of correct stimulus response bonds. He would operate well in a highly structured situation, but would find himself in serious difficulty in novel situ- ations. He can readily trace old paths but must resort to trial and error when he has no appropriate stimulus- response connection in his repertoire. The Reinforcement theorist apparently does not find it necessary to address himself to the problem of fostering initiative and creativity. If knowledge con- sists of stimulus-response connections, how does one go about making sense out of otherwise discrete, fragmented, or disconnected empirical facts? It seems that the Rein- forcement theorist would be perfectly content with an inventory of scientific findings. One might argue that anyone who wants to do his own thing could undertake a course of independent study and ignore the encyclopedic orientation of an educational system dominated by the principles of Reinforcement theory, if it were not for the fact that the bureaucratically organized educational system has become the almost exclu- sive source for the certification and legitimation of knowledge. Thus, the learner must prove his qualifica- tions by subjecting himself to a formal education in 21 which only the programmer does any "thinking." Indeed, it is interestingly left in doubt how the Reinforcement theorist explains the programmer! Is the programmer con- ditioned to write programs? How does one evaluate the programs he writes? The emphasis on overt observables would suggest that the programmer would have to make use of time and motion studies to determine if the subject has learned to perform the task in a most efficient manner. What stimulates the programmer to act? Perhaps, the above will suffice as a very general introduction to Reinforcement theory and its implications for education. Next, the author will explore the basic assumptions and propositions of Symbolic Interactionism.5 The two orientations as presented in this chapter will be seen to be vigorously competing perspectives and the pre- sentation of the Symbolic Interactionist framework should provide the basis for a more complete understanding of the implications of Reinforcement theory for education. 5Herbert Blumer coined the term Symbolic Inter- actionism and is one of the position's foremost propo- nents. The founding fathers of the orientation generally are considered to be George Herbert Mead, John Dewey, and Charles Horton Cooley. Bernard Meltzer and John Petras have distinguished between the Chicago and Iowa schools of Symbolic Interactionism: "The Chicago and Iowa Schools Of Symbolic Interactionism," in Human Nature and Collec- Eive Behavior, edited by Tamotsu Shibutani (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1970). This paper fits best in the Chicago School of Symbolic Interactionism. 22 This is not meant to imply that there are no similarities between the two orientations or that all virtue is located in one camp and nothing of value is to be found in the other. The clash of ideas is sought, however, at whatever risk there may be that injustice is being done to the com- patibility of the perspectives. Sheldon Stryker6 has identified four basic assump- tions of Symbolic Interaction theory: 1. The Symbolic Interactionist holds that human behavior must be explained at its own level of analysis, that is, it is maintained that at each successively higher level of complexity, new elements emerge. The symbol is thought to be the key emergent at the human level. Some interactionists have argued that the symbol is of such critical significance that it is appropriate to think of man as different in kind and not merely in degree as compared to the lower animals. The attempt by the Reinforcement theorists to explain human behavior in terms of principles derived from the study of infrahuman behavior is termed reductionistic and hence invalid. As an anti-reductionist, the Symbolic Interactionist would reject Skinner's book Verbal Behavior,7 which presents g 6Sheldon Stryker, "Symbolic Interaction as an Approach to Family Research," Marriage and Family Living, 'XXI (May, 1959), PP. 111-119. 7B. F. Skinner, Verbal Behavior (New York: Aqppleton-Century-Crofts, 1957). 23 no evidence to support Skinner's position except for a rather gross analogy to Operant conditioning in pigeons. 2. The basic unit of observation for the Symbolic Interactionist is the social act. Note that the basic unit of analysis for the Reinforcement theorist is the conditioned response. For the Symbolic Interactionist, learning is a social activity involving at least initi— ally interaction with others--having been socialized, the individual may engage in "self" interaction by making indications to himself--whi1e the Reinforcement theorist tends to ignore the social context. The social act takes place because men share meanings. These meanings or definitions are thought to mediate between the stimulus and response. 3. The infant of Homo sapiens is a-social at birth. Some interactionists argue that the infant of Homo sapiens is not born human although it has the potential to become human. Thus, the infant is thought to be plastic-- it has "impulses" but its impulses are not canalized. 4. Man is an actor as well as a reactor. The individual selects stimuli in the course of his activity. Consequently, man operates in a social world which he has constructed in the process of interaction. This means that the investigator must find out the individual's <3efinition of the situation. 24 Manis and Meltzer8 list the basic theoretical pro- positions of Symbolic Interaction that are reproduced below: 1. Mind, self, and society are most usefully viewed as processes of human and interhuman conduct. 2. Language is the mechanism for the rise of mind and self. 3. Mind is an importation of the social process, that is, of interaction within the individual. 4. Human beings construct their behavior in the course of its execution, rather than responding mechanically to either external stimuli or such inter— nal "forces" as drives, needs, or motives. 5. Human conduct is carried on primarily by the de- fining of situations in which one acts. 6. The socialization of the human being both enmeshes him in society and frees him from society. The indi- vidual with a self is not passive but can employ his self in an interaction which may result in behavior divergent from group definitions. John Dewey's writings in education serve as an exemplar of the Symbolic Interactionist framework. While the influence of Dewey on this section of the paper is great, this writer does not intend to simply parrot Dewey or his terminology. The Symbolic Interactionist suggests that it is important to be aware of the differences between infra- human and human behavior. It is important to note, however, that knowing what is unique to man will not pro- vide one with a clear conception of what education ought to be like, that is, the ends of education are not directly derivable from any conception of the nature of man. 8Jerome Manis and Bernard Meltzer, Symbolic Inter- action (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1967), p. 495. 25 Even if we agree that the will to commit suicide is a distinctly human phenomenon, we are not likely to agree that education should prepare men to commit suicide. It seems that we must have made at least some implicit assumptions about what man should make of himself when we formulate our ends for education. We might well endorse the statement that we should make explicit which side we are on, that is, that we ought to announce what our values are. A "purely" detached position aligns one by default with the opponents of change and may make one liable to the charge that one is guilty of the crime of silence. Neutrality supports the values of the status quo. The Symbolic Interactionist has no answer to the issue of "which values are better" but he at least puts stress on the importance of value definitions in human behavior whereas the Reinforcement theorist has no place for valu- ation in his exclusive concern for external observables. The imputation of values from action seems to imply the very minded behavior which the Reinforcement theorist has denied. The trained technician may be prepared to serve any master, but is not the norm that value judgements are to be excluded, itself a value judgement? This means not only that the educator should note the role which Utopian and dysutopian thought has had in human affairs, 26 but that he should make explicit his own conception of the good. This admonition to be explicit will not solve a conflict of values but it will at least focus our attention on the centrality of valuation. While no hier- archy of values is here established, the necessity of dealing with values as well as facts, and techniques perhaps has been. An understanding of the unique equipment of man does tell us what we have to work with even though it does not tell us precisely what to do with it. Reinforce- ment theory has ignored that which makes man a distinctly culture-creating animal. Granted, this does not tell us what kind of culture man should create. Still, the Symbolic Interactionist has drawn out attention to the constructional character of man's actions rather than assuming a simple release of learned responses when pre- sented with an appropriate stimuli. The Symbolic Interactionist holds that man engages in a process of definition and re-definition, hence, the outcome of his interaction may be seen as much more indeterminate and dynamic than the direct and auto- matic response to a stimulus depicted in the conception of Reinforcement theorists. Thus, the Symbolic Inter- actionist may argue that contemporary education should be problem oriented. Machines can be programmed to do rou- tine tasks. Training individuals to perform mindless 27 activity seems a waste of human resources. One can be conditioned to respond in a highly structured situation but this training does not necessarily foster initiative and creativity in novel situations. If conditioning results in the fixation of responses, it seems likely that this would inhibit novel responses. If knowledge is built up in the process of inter- action, the educator would need to devote more attention to the social context in which learning takes place. Conversely, this would mean that we must stop treating students as isolated individuals who we are expected to act upon in order to inculcate wisdom. We tend to look at student records as if they truly represented qualities of the individual and simul- taneously ignore the social and cultural context in which the actor formed that record. Thus, survival of the sur- vivors passes as survival of the fittest in academia. We might want to know not only that the individual has a superior or inferior record, but how to explain the indi- vidual's performance. We need not assume that all have been equally exposed to the same body of material and have been provided with the same opportunity to have learned the vocabulary of the examination. The Symbolic Interactionist takes a dynamic rather than a static conception of the educated man. The proces- sual orientation of the Symbolic Interactionist contrasts 28 with the Reinforcement theorists emphasis on knowledge as prior to and outside of the learner. The interaction- ist is concerned with knowledge creation and not merely the inculcation of previously established facts. The dialogue seems to be the educational embodiment of the interactionist's processual orientation. Learners would be expected to participate in a meaningful exchange of ideas and consequently the dialogue would play a much more focal role in contemporary education. The interac- tionist would reject the situation in which knowledge is said to pass from the teacher's notebook to the student's notebook without passing through the mind of either. The dialogue would seem to provide the vehicle by which the learner and the teacher come to create something quite different from that with which they started. The Rein- forcement notion that there is an appropriate response to a given stimulus assumes a closed system. This con- trasts with the open and changing system assumed in interactionist analysis. One ought not limit the teacher's concern with the dialogue to conversations with others. If thinking is an internalized conversation, the individual may well be involved in the group although he has said nothing. The Reinforcement theorist fails to appreciate the activity that takes place within the facade that he pays exclusive attention to. The Symbolic Interactionist is .interested in mind/self behavior. 29 In the view of some Symbolic Interactionists, the individual is thought to engage in a continuous flow of self-indications or symbolic notations. The Symbolic Interactionist is, therefore, concerned with conversations that take place between the individual and himself or between the components (I and Me) of self, that is, he is concerned with minded behavior. It must be pointed out that this aspect of the theory has generated virtually no empirical research, and that this part of the theory may offer no more than a vague blueprint for action to educa- tors. Certainly, it is much easier to operationalize knowledge so as to demand overt action (including verbali- zations) as proof that the individual student is "under- going" the experience. The Reinforcement theorist would raise the question, How can we be sure that the individual understands an idea without behavioral feedback? Yet, it seems possible that the student can be profoundly affected by what is going on without giving the teacher external indications of what is taking place inside the organism. The stimulus-response bond may be conceived of as an immediate act having a beginning and an end but no middle. It seems that we focus on this category of acts in contemporary education. The delayed act has a middle as well as a beginning and an end. Sometimes this class Of actions is termed the reasoned act or the rational 30 act.9 The interactionist would be especially concerned with acts that have this middle part--which he terms judgement or interpretation--whether the middle is ver- balized or not. The interactionist's emphasis is on reflective activity, while the Reinforcement theorist focuses on reflexive activity. The interactionist would encourage inquiry while the Reinforcement theorist would "kill" inquiry with his training. The trained animal is condi- tioned to respond. The trained animal does not inquire into the meaning of the response. The distinction here is between the direct act and the delayed act. The interactionist makes use of rewards but not to train an organism to act non-reflectively. The Reinforcement theorist acts toward man as if he were a passive vessel into which content is to be poured so as to program the "organic machine." For the interactionist, man is active and involved in transac- tions with others and with himself (later identified as minding). Indeed, young children seem to have a rather insatiable propensity to ask questions that seems to be trained out of them as they grow older. It seems that the interactionist might well favor what some psycholo- gists term "organic learning." 9See Ellsworth Faris, "The Retrospective Act and Education," Journal of Educational Sociology, XIV (October, 1940), pp. 79-91. 31 The interactionist would attempt to foster crea- tivity. This does not mean that he has an easy-to-follow recipe for creativity. Indeed, it may be easier to sug— gest what not to do then to prescribe how to foster creativity. If conditioning students inhibits creativity, it would make sense to "progressively reduce the fre- quency of authoritative intrusion into the learning pro- cess."10 This does ESE mean that there should be no structure. It seems that reducing the dependence of the learner on authority would be an important step in structuring a situation in which the learner would be expected to be creative. It is to a large extent a matter of whether the structure is established prior to the entry of the learner into the situation and has become reified or whether the learner takes part in struc- turing the situation or re-structuring the present arrangement. The teacher might suggest topics, sources, and outlines that have been well received in the past. A listing of alternative options would provide structure but maintain flexibility. The learner should not be loSidney Hook, Education for Modern Man, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1963; new enlarged edition), p. 156. 32 expected to be creative in a vacuum.11 Students could be encouraged to select their own topics, although the teacher might demand that the student formalize his plans before he begins. The student would be freed from others as well as implicated with them. He would come to form rela- tively independent judgements. The student would come to challenge the authority qua authority of his teacher and demand evidence for his teacher's conclusions. The teacher, however, need not assume that any idea is as good as any other idea. The teacher would take part in this conversation among "equals" and defend his ideas with a critical sense of evidence and relevance. This writer trusts that the effective teacher would be taken into account by his students because of the power of his ideas and not because of the power of his position. Social distance would likely be reduced. The inter actors would not need to be motivated by the Reinforcement theorist's extrinsic rewards or punish- ments. 11"One has to be patient with freedom and have as rich an environment as possible available for stu- dents so there will be things they can choose to do. One cannot ask pupils to be free or make choices in a vacuum," Herbert Kohl, The Open Classroom (New York: A New York Book Review Book, 1969): p. 99. CHAPTER III LEVELS OF ANALYSIS Objectives for Chapter III: (1) To make explicit the notion that there are differ- ent levels of analysis. (2) To explore the issue of whether human behavior is to explained in terms of a particular level of analysis. (3) To reject vulgar deter- minisms--biological, psychological, and cultural. (4) To call attention to the social act as the process which changes both individuals and groups. If our concern is with the formulation of a philosophy of education that will provide us with a gen- eral plan of action, where should we look for an answer? Does the educational psychologist have one answer and the sociologist of education another answer? How might one decide which expert is right? Are different people looking at different things? Why? Are their answers affected by the questions they ask? Is there some rule that would resolve dissensual claims? 33 34 What are the answers? Indeed, what are the questions? Questions are not to be harvested in a vacuum. Hence, some consideration of the sundry sources from which questions might be derived seems essential. It has long been argued by sociologists that these alternative sources are qualitatively as well as quantitatively dis- tinct. If this assumption is valid, it will be necessary to select the level of analysis that one regards to be the most appropriate. Let us first examine the rhetoric that has been put forth by a number of scholars and then attempt to make a judgement as to the adequacy of the methodology implied in their admonitions. In The Rules of Sociological Method, Emile Durkheim argues that the study of social facts constitutes the prOper domain of sociology.1 The existence of social facts is thought to be outside of and prior to any given individual, that is, it is held to be independent of indi- vidual manifestations. Social facts are thought not to be products of the will but rather are conceived of as molds which shape the individual's behavior. Durkheim takes an anti-reductionistic position, that is, it is maintained that at each successively higher level of complexity new elements emerge. It is his con- tention that social phenomena cannot be explained by ‘— 1Emile Durkheim, The Rules of Sociological Method (New York: Free Press, 1938). 35 looking at simpler levels of analysis. Society then is something more than a collection of individuals--indivi- duals are necessary to an explanation of social phenomena but do not provide a sufficient explanation of social phenomena. The group thinks, feels, and acts quite differently from the way in which its members would were they isolated. If, then, we begin with the individual, we shall be able to understand nothing of what takes place in the group. In a word, there is between psychology and sociology the same break in continuity as between biology and the physiochemical sciences. Consequently, every time that a social phenomenon is directly explained by a psychological phenomenon, we may be sure that the explanation is false.2 Thus, a social fact is to be explained only by other social facts. Sociology is conceived of as a dis- tinct discipline with a distinct phenomena for investiga- tion that cannot be accounted for in terms of the bio- logistic or psychologistic levels of analysis. Durkheim is stressing the same fundamental premise as the Gestalt psychologist who endorses the axiom that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. The whole is held to have a character that is not explicable or deducible by the observation of its isolated elements or parts. The chemical bond, for example, is an emergent, that is, it is something more than the elements of which it is com- posed. Ibid., p. 104. 36 It seems that there are at least three subsidiary implications of the above principle. Our attention is drawn to those situations in which the elements change but the interrelationships of the compenents remain the same. We witness this in the bureaucratic organization. The system of rules provides the organization with con- tinuity over time and independent of the particular individuals who are filling the various positions within the bureaucratic organization at any particular point in time. Secondly, we note that elements do not exist in isolation. This is evident in the recognition of some sociologists that any role implies a counter-role. Finally, the principle sensitizes us to the central importance of the context. The meaning of any element or item of behavior can be comprehended only in relation to the total field or situation of which it is a part. The culturologist Leslie White3 cites Durkheim as an intellectual progenitor of his philosophy of the science of culture. White feels that culture can and should be treated g§_i§ it had a life of its own, inde- pendent of human organisms. He argues that the proper study of mankind is not man but culture. Culture is thought to have an extra-somatic or supra-biological 3Leslie A. White, The Science of Culture (New York: Grove Press, 1949). 37 character. The biological factor is construed as a con- stant and therefore it is incapable of providing an adequate explanation for the diversity of human behavior. The appropriate level of explanation then is the social or cultural level. Ely Chinoy4 used to argue that attempts to explain the group in terms of its individual members are unproduc- tive since (a) the same individuals behave differently when members of different groups, (b) different indivi- duals behave in a similar fashion when they are in similar groups, and (c) the needs of a group are different from the needs of an individual. Peter M. Blau5 in his article dealing with "Structural Effects" takes the position that structural effects are attributes of social collectivities which can be isolated while the characteristics of indivi- duals are held constant. Others have spoken about the impact of climates, contexts, environments, ecological milieus, and social organization in their effort to demon- strate the validity of Durkheim's seminal claim. Durkheim's conception of social facts is certainly a fascinating concoction of his sociological imagination, but is it more than that? Is the construct more than a 4Ely Chinoy, Society: An Introduction to Sociology (New York: Random House, 1963). 5Peter M. Blau, "Sturctural Effects," American §ociolggical Review, 25, No. 2 (April, 1960), pp. 178-192. 38 toy in the sociologist's bag? Does it do more for him than feed his arrogance with the "knowledge" that his sociological perspective is the one true faith? Let us scrutinize the methodological implications of Durkheim's sociology to see whether it offers more than sheer ideology. Durkheim's study of suicide is an attempt to 6 provide an explication of his conception of social facts. Clearly, he attempts to seek the cause of suicide directly in the "moral structure" of society--independent of organic predispositions or the number of unstable people. Prior to Durkheim, suicide was thought of as an exclu- sively individual pathology. Durkheim's conception of the social fact as a reality sui generis led him to explain suicide in terms of variations in the social structure especially in terms of the degree of social solidarity. It is rather easy to apprehend what Durkheim meant by the social fact as an external regulating force when we examine the terms he uses--collective authority, public opinion, and the state of custom. It is much more difficult to appreciate what Durkheim takes as evidence of the operation of this social constraint. The suicide rate is regarded as a valid indi- cator of the operation of his social facts. 6Emile Durkheim, Suicide (Glencoe, Illinois: Free Press, 1951). 39 Let us dwell for a few moments on whether differ- ent rates of suicide indeed reflect variations in social structure rather than a mere cumulation of individual cases. Should we buy the argument that these rates are sufficient testimony to the existence of social facts that are irreducible to individual facts? Should we infer the existence of a qualitatively distinct level of analysis from our computation of variations in rates? It seems that essentially two issues must be raised if we are to intelligently address ourselves to a resolution of the concerns articulated above. It is important that we identify the nature of the emergent if we are to find heuristic value in Durkheim's formulation. As has been pointed out earlier, some Symbolic Interac- tionists have argued, for example, that the symbol is the key emergent at the human level and that the symbol is of such significance that we are justified in maintaining that man is different in kind and not merely in degree compared to infrahuman organisms. 7See the chapter on "the symbol" by the culturo- logist Leslie White, The Science of Culture, op. cit., pp. 22-39. White states that "it is the symbol which transforms the infant of Homo sapiens into a human being. . . ." (p. 22). "Without the symbol there would be no culture, and man would be merely an animal, not a human being" (p. 33). "The thesis that we shall advance and defend here is that there is a fundamental differ- ence between the mind of man and the mind of non-man. This difference is one of kind, not one of degree" (p. 25). 40 The validity of that contention is not the issue here, it is cited rather as an illustration of how one might go about developing the position that there are qualitatively distinct levels of analysis. This writer must admit that he is rather perplexed as to what Durkheim and his followers take to be the key emergent that justified the qualitatively distinct level of analysis that Durkheim's social facts purportedly tap in on. Secondly, we need to explore whether the conse- quences as manifested in differential rates should be regarded as direct and unmediated effects of social system properties. Durkheim's analysis proceeds without reference to the possibility of relevant intervening variables. From the Symbolic Interactionist standpoint, this is a major defect of his position. Some have felt that Durkheim posits a group mind. If this were true it would certainly solve the problem of trying to determine the emergent feature at the group level though it would create some rather interesting methodological problems. While his position makes him vulnerable to this charge, this writer would not score him on those grounds. Perhaps, the culturologist Leslie White8 is correct in suggesting that the group mind idea 8Ibid., pp. 186-187 (chapter on the cultural determinants of mind). 41 is simply an awkward image even if we do not accept his further supposition that what its adherents were saying is essentially correct. It seems to this writer that one need not make reference to any metaphysical entity in order to capture the basic thrust of Durkheim's analysis. The search for the key emergent must continue. We still must figure out how rates reflect the functioning of some emergent. Perhaps some other source may provide some illu- mination as to the nature of unique social system proper- ties. In The Logic of Survey Analysis, Morris Rosenberg distinguishes seven levels of sociological analysis-- individual, group, organizational, ecological, institu- 9 It is nice to know that tional, cultural, and societal. individuals are studied at the individual level of analysis, but the crux of our concern is with what the social science researcher pays attention to at the suc- cessively more complex levels of analysis. The answer seems to be that we must record rates or the degree to which something is manifest. At the group level, we note, for example, the degree of horseplay of the group or the amount of group horseplay. How these observations reflect some emergent group property is left in doubt. 9Morris Rosenberg, The Logic of Survey Analysis (New York: Basic Books, 1968), pp. 239-246. 42 Rosenberg's argument is clear enough as we can see in his discussion of the organizational unit of analysis: ". . . there are certain qualities of organiza- tions which cannot be inferred from any cumulation of 10 What we need to know, however, data about individuals." is whether what he takes as evidence of these organiza- tional qualities is sufficient to support the assertion that these organizational qualities exist. He speaks of the degree of bureaucratization and the degree of special- ization. Is the "degree" the emergent phenomenon? If this is the case, then how do we distinguish theory from data? Can it be that we are offered no more than a tautology cloaked in the fine array we have come to know as sociological verbiage? If the degree is not the emergent how do we then know that we have not inferred an organizational property from the properties of its components? What is our basis for endorsing the assertion that these "rates" (degrees) represent qualities of the organization or flow from the nature of organizations. Apparently these "sums" are supposed to be more than a mege aggregation of individual responses. What is it that makes these "sums independent of their particular members? Is their independence of perticular members more than a statistical artifact? loIbid., p. 241. 43 Rosenberg talks about "attributes of areas" in his discussion of ecological or spatial units of analysis. These attributes of areas are found to be embodied in differential rates. We have crime rates and we have delinquency rates. We look at voting rates. We take note of rates of schizophrenia. Still, this writer finds him— self unable to make that leap of faith that one must make in order to be sure that the data are strictly on the ecological level as Rosenberg contends. This writer takes the position that the computation of an average is no magic wand that instantaneously converts individual charac- teristics into group, organizational, or ecological charac- teristics. To describe differences between groups is not to explain those differences. Selvin and Hagstrom11 note Lazarsfeld's distinc- tion between aggregative properties and integral properties. Aggregative properties are based on the characteristics of smaller units, that is, they are means; while integral properties are thought pg; to be based on smaller units. Perhaps, if we could specify the integral properties at each successively higher level of complexity, we would have an important clue as to the identity of those llHanan C. Selvin and Warren 0. Hagstrom, "The Empirical Classification of Formal Groups," American Sociological Review, 28, No. 3 (June, 1963), pp. 399- 411. 44 emergent properties which make each level distinct and irreducible to the simpler levels of analysis. Selvin and Hagstrom cite written constitutions to illustrate what they mean by integral properties. Again, it seems that we are asked to believe that the products of human interaction are not the products of human inter- action if we are to reach Durkheim's conclusion. Once something becomes a product of human interaction it gets miraculously transformed into an organizational or group property. Reification has taken place. From the Sym- bolic Interactionist standpoint, de-reification is neces- sary. This does not mean that the interactionist proposes to explain social products in terms of psychological or individual facts. We are not renouncing our focus on human interaction. One is forced to agree with Selvin and Hagstrom's statement that "An adequate explanation of the group effects presupposes an adequate description of the groups, but neither Durkheim or his modern followers have adequate tools for describing the groups they study."12 We need to identify those distinctly group properties if we are to maintain the position that human behavior is dependent upon some kind of structural effect. The emphasis on social facts has been used to free man from biological, psychological, geographical, and 121bid., p. 400. 45 various other determinisms but has made man subject to a "cultural" determinism. Evidently Durkheim failed to explicitly perceive the need to provide for interposing variables in the relationship he drew between the struc- ture of society and suicide rates. Alex Inkeles provides a cogent argument for the necessity of including an intervening variable between the state, condition, or structure of society and the rate that is to be explained in terms of the social fact as a phenomena sui generis. It is not unintentional that to describe the standard model of sociological analysis I have used a set of symbols and a formula identical with those of stimulus response theory. In my opinion, the psychological S-R (stimulus-response) theory has its analogue in the sociological S-R (or state-rate) theory. Both suffer seriously from failure to utilize an explicit theory of the human personality, and its general and specific prOperties as an intervening variable between their respectives 5'3 and R's. The ecological explanation of criminal and delin- quent behavior provides a specimen case of the "standard model of sociological analysis" failing to indicate the vehicle by which states produce rates. Contemporary socio- logists generally recognize that environmental factors do not directly cause deviant behavior and yet Durkheim and Shaw (Delinguency Areas) ". . . failed to specify the mechanism by means of which a quality of the community 13Alex Inkeles, "Personality and Social Structure," in Sociology Today, edited by Robert K. Merton, L. Broom, and Leonard S. Cottrell (New York: Harper Torchbooks, volume II), p. 255. 46 could be translated into the individual actions which ultimately produce the delinquency rate."14 The large proportion of essentially law-abiding individuals who reside in areas having high rates of crime and juvenile delinquency ought to be sufficient testimony to the fact that the "state" or condition is not in and of itself crimogenic or delinquency producing, that is, the "state" does not contain within itself the capacity to produce a fixed quantum of law-violating conduct. A number of writers have been highly sensitive to the issues raised above. In an article titled "Struc- tural Effects and Interpersonal Relationships," Campbell and Alexander15 state that we must take care to avoid any simplistic notion of direct, unmediated structural effects. Tannenbaum and Bachmanl6 point out that "Since measures of group and organizational variables are often based on responses of individuals, it is sometimes diffi- cult to know whether the effects observed are due simply to individual characteristics." In the Harvard Educational 14Ibid., p. 254. 15Ernest Q. Campbell and C. Norman Alexander, "Structural Effects and Interpersoanl Relationships," American Journal of Sociology, LXXI, No. 3 (November, 1965): pp. 284-289. 16Arnold S. Tannenbaum and Jerald G. Bachman, "Structural versus Individual Effects," American Journal of Sociology, LXIX, No. 6 (May, 1964): p. 594. 47 Review, Wilsonl7 notes that ". . . it remains true that the hypothesis of a contextual effect, where the relevant context is determined by aggregative characteristics of the members, is always vulnerable to the counter hypo- thesis of self-selection." Boylel8 says that Where it is necessary to infer contextual charac- teristics on the basis of individual characteristics, it is essential that the measure of individual charac- teristics employed be precise and that this measure have the same meaning in different groups. We must be aware of deceptive rubrics. If we were to compare schools in a study in which the parents' social class is regarded as a relevant variable, the comparison could well be misleading if the middle class parents in one school were mostly professionals while the middle class parents in the other school were mostly sales clerks. Morris Rosenberg's discussion of intervening and antecedent variables provides an extremely articulate analysis of the problem in terms of the concept of a causal chain. "The idea of a causal chain involves the assumption that any cause has been itself caused by some influence which preceded it, and that many effects become 17Alan B. Wilson, "Social Class and Equal Educa- tional Opportunity," Harvard Educational Review, 38, No. 1 (Winter, 1968), p. 83. 18Richard P. Boyle, "The Effects of High School on Student Aspirations," American Journal of Sociology, LXXI, No. 6 (May, 1966), p. 638. 48 19 He argues that we tap in on causes of other effects." the causal stream when we perform causal analysis. One might tap in on this causal chain at a variety of points. "One need simply change one's perspective or anchorage point to convert a cause into an effect of a prior influence or an effect into a cause of a subsequent state."20 Thus, he holds that many of the disputes that take place within and between disciplines are a consequence of the disputants tapping in at different points in the causal sequence. It is one's perspective that locates antecedent, independent, and intervening variables in the causal chain. One researcher's independent variable is another's antecedent variable and still another's inter— vening variable. This insight ought to enable us to engage in a more sophisticated analysis of the relation- ship between variables. One implication of the causal chain model is that we need not rule out by fiat any particular "kind" of variable. It becomes an empirical question whether cul- ture must be explained in terms of culture or whether a social fact can only be explained by other social facts. It is possible to observe whether the relationship between two variables is canceled out when other variables are 19Rosenberg, op. cit., p. 63. ZOIbid. 49 taken into consideration. A detailed discussion of extra- neous, component, suppressor, and distorter variables is not germane at this point. Their existence is introduced merely to suggest that the data one obtains on the rela- tionship between variables is a necessary condition for the specification of a meaningful relationship and never sufficient to the establishment of a meaningful relation- ship between variables. Having cast some stones at the predominant mode of analysis in contemporary sociology, it is time that this writer comment on the vitality of the Symbolic Inter- actionist framework. The ordering of the material in this chapter may make the interactionist's orientation appear like a residual approach. It should become evi- dent, however, that the perspective is more than a rema- nent vantage point built on the ruins of a vulgar determinism. As stated earlier, the Symbolic Interactionist seeks to explain human behavior at its own level of analysis. The break in continuity is, however, between the infrahuman and human levels of explanation rather than between qualitatively distinct human levels. The emergence of the symbol was previously cited as the jus- tification of the Symbolic Interactionist's anti- reductionist stance. The Symbolic Interactionist thus considers himself a social behaviorist as differentiated 50 from the behaviorism of psychologists such as Watson and Skinner or sociologists such as Homans.21 Distinctly human behavior is symbolic behavior. As expressed earlier, the basic unit of observa- tion for the Symbolic Interactionist is the social act. The focus is on the process of definition and re- definition that takes place when individuals communicate symbolically. We find both the stimulus-response and state-rate formulas to be inadequate explanations of human behavior. Both fail to take into account the actor's interpretation or definition of the situation as a variable that intervenes between the stimulus and response on the one hand and the state and rate on the other hand. Remember the Symbolic Interactionist's emphasis on the delayed act in contrast to the direct or immediate act. Joint action may get institutionalized but we must take great pains to avoid reification of established patterns. The Symbolic Interactionist is interested in man as a distinctly human creature. When man is engaged in defining situations and acting in terms of his meanings, he is behaving in a distinctly human manner. In our cor- relation of variables we tend to ignore the process of definition as it intervenes between the independent and 21See George C. Homans, The Human Gropp (New York: Harcourt-Brace, 1950) and George C. Homans, Social Beha- vior: Its Elementary Forms (New York: Harcourt-Brace and World, 1961). 51 dependent variable. The phenomenon of interpretation and reinterpretation is the critical subject matter of the Symbolic Interactionist. As man interprets situations he gives meaning or purpose to his actions. Man is not directly controlled or determined by stimuli or societal conditions as long as interpretation intervenes between the stimulus or societal states and his response. The Symbolic Interactionist uses the formula stimulus- interpretation-response or state-interpretation-rate in contrast to the simple S-R formula. The contrast between Durkheim's sociology and the social psychology of the Symbolic Interactionist will be expanded on in the chapter on society. Briefly, man is seen to be jointly implicated in the historical process of making and reconstructing social institutions. The notion that these institutions take on a life of their own is rejected as is the notion that institutional beha- vior is to be explained as the aggregation of the acts of isolated individuals. Man is the creator of his institutions. He may choose to act in institutionalized ways. Man may take an active part in defining the rules by which he is to col- lectively live. In fact, not all men do participate fully in defining the rules by which they are expected to behave. Perhaps, we can better understand what it means to interpret or define situations if we imagine a society 52 in which the members do not interpret or define situa- tions. Perhaps, we can better understand interpretative behavior if we understand programmed or stimulus-response behavior. Thus, in the next chapter we turn to a con- sideration of what might be termed Programmed or S—R man that we might better understand the significance for the Symbolic Interactionist of the phenomenon of interpreta- tion. CHAPTER IV PROGRAMMED MAN Objectives for Chapter IV: (1) To sketch a relationship between Reinforcement theory and stimulus-response or Programmed man. (2) To speculate on the implications for a society of a society that is composed predominately of programmed men. (3) To outline an image of knowledge believed to be implicit in the principles of Reinforcement theory. For the Symbolic Interactionist, Programmed man is a fiction. We reject the idea that learners and teachers are mindless creatures. We do not see the teacher or the learner as being non-reflective. The pur- pose of this chapter is to suggest how we think that man is viewed from the vantage point of Reinforcement theory. This contributes to the clash between the two perspec- tives in terms of the assumptions made about human learn- ing and the plan of action toward the learner. We see the Reinforcement theorist acting toward the human learner as if he were a pigeon or a lump of clay. 53 54 In the second chapter, it was argued that there is in the perspective of the definite image of knowledge and of the educated man. Reinforcement theorist a We will examine the Reinforcement theorist's conception of knowledge in greater depth in this chapter. We will further contemplate the nature of contemporary society in which the principles of Reinforcement theory might gain pre-eminence and we will speculate on the possible consequences of having the schools operate on the prin— ciples of Reinforcement theory. It will be argued here that for the Reinforcement theorist, knowledge consists of valuation. nician by the use of Reinforcement principles. of: (1) Techniques devoid The educated man can be trained as a tech— Knowledge for the Reinforcement theorist consists of (2) facts that are without valuation. The Reinforcement theorist likely would produce an educated man who can repeat a series of isolated facts without having any notion of their signi- ficance. This could be done tioned responses. Knowledge theorist consists of what we content. By this we mean to theorist sees knowledge as a Interactionist is concerned with the verb--knowing. by the production of condi- for the Reinforcement might term (3) established argue that the Reinforcement noun whereas the Symbolic The content or knowledge products of the Reinforcement theo- rist are presented in isolation from the process through 55 which the content is formed. The situation for the Rein- forcement theorist is relatively static and the learner is seen as a passive receptable for the knowledge that is there before him. Thus, the Reinforcement theorist main- tains a conception of knowledge that is mechanistic, that consists of the conditioned response and which tends to ignore the process of valuation. This chapter then will draw a picture of stimulus- response man or Programmed man. We will consider what man and his society might look like if he were functionally without the processes of mind and self. These are held to be hypothetical consequences for the individual of the exclusive application of Reinforcement principles in our schools. There are also consequences for a society operat- ing on the principles of Reinforcement theory. A society in which the schools teach techniques and facts to the exclusion of valuation and content to the neglect of pro- cess is a society that is authoritarian and undemocratic. William J. Lederer writes about A Nation of Sheep.1 He was speaking about international matters, but his characterization seems to have a much more general appli- cation. This chapter seeks to explore those elements of contemporary education which function as if students were sheep and which, indeed, tend to create as a consequence 1William J. Lederer, A Nation of Sheep (Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett Publications, 1962. 56 of this treatment a nation of sheep. Stimulus-response or Programmed man is a functional infrahuman. A nation of infrahumans is a nation of "robots." In the analysis that follows, we will take as axiomatic the proposition that the bureaucratic form of organization has become a defining feature of contem— porary society. Thus, it is imperative that we take careful note of the context in which the principles of Reinforcement theory might be employed. Some see in this New Industrial State and its bureaucratic technostructure the promise of unparalleled freedom. Others caution us of the danger of creating a form of organization and thinking that can be used as an instrument for the effi- cient control and manipulation of men. Neither outcome ought to be viewed as an inevitable consequence of the increasing bureaucratization of society. Indeed, the Symbolic Interactionist views man as capable of creating and re-creating the society in which he lives. It is because of this belief in the reconstructability of society that this chapter is included in this work. It is maintained that by becoming sensitive to the danger of becoming an unwitting role player, we can refuse to allow this to happen. We can refuse to be programmed. In later chapters we will see what non-programmed man looks like. We will note the contribution the Sym- bolic Interactionist's conceptions of mind and self make 57 to his conception of the educated man and to his concep- tion of society. Without the processes of mind and self our conception of man is reductionistic. Devoid of mind/ self behaviors, man is no more than an organic machine. Devoid of these processes, human learning is in no way substantially different than infrahuman learning.2 Pro- grammed man would be trained like Pavlov's dog. A society or nation of stimulus response men would be like a nation of sheep. We are arguing here that there is no place for mind in Reinforcement theory not that there is no place for Reinforcement theory in minding. Assuming that it is inappropriate to talk about Programmed man in isolation from his environment, this chapter will deal with the education of Programmed man in a society in which the bureaucratic form of organiza- tion predominates. It is crucial to note the degree to which the organization man in an organizational society tends to function in a non-cognitive fashion. The issue is whether or not the bureaucratic organization is an instrument par excellence for institutionalized routi- nizations. In the educational sphere, it is a matter 2"The symbolic interactionist position, in view of its focus, appropriately stresses the cognitive in- fluences on human social behavior on the grounds that while men may sometimes seem to act like lower animals they do not usually do so, and if they did modern society would not exist," Alfred Lindesmith and Anselm Strauss, Social ngchology (New York: Holt, Rinehard and Winston, 1968; third edition), p. 8. 58 of whether or not education has or might become a form of social engineering based on the conditioned reflex. Before going further it is perhaps necessary to be sure that we share the same understanding of what is meant by the bureaucratic organization. For the pur- poses of this paper, the bureaucratic organization will be defined as any large scale or formal collectivity that embodies the following four principles of organization:3 (1) That there be a complex division of labor or a high degree of specialization along a horizontal plane. Thus, each individual is expected to become an expert in the performance of a very segmented aspect of the total oper- ation. (2) That there exists a formal hierarchy of authority or chain of command. This provides for a ver- tical division of labor. Legitimate authority is thought to be located within the organization on the basis of formal tables of organization designed to map the various positions within the organization in terms of the dif- ferential allocation of rights, privileges, and respon- sibility. (3) A system of rules provides for the con- tinuity of the organization over time and independent of particular individuals. Thus, at least the routine operations of the bureaucratic organization are governed 3The analysis of the defining features of bureau- cratic organizations is based on the sociology of Max Weber. See especially From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, trans. and edited by Hans Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, 1946). 59 by a formal code of operating instructions. (4) The organization's operations are conducted on an impersonal basis. Members and prospective members are supposed to be evaluated in terms of an universalistic criterion rather than a particularistic standard. It is important to note that this characteriza- tion of the bureaucratic organization implies a highly rational model which employs what some have termed a closed system strategy whereas others have utilized a natural system model with an open system strategy in their discussion of formal organizations.4 It is rela- tively clear how the mechanistic responses of Programmed man fit with the rational model and the closed system strategy. Even the natural system model, however, is thought to be governed by some kind of homeostatic or self-stabilization mechanism which suggests that "sub- stantial” change is awkwardly accounted for even in the natural system model. The image tends to be one of the system changing in a relatively linear direction that would fulfill some prior essence as in the case of the acorn becoming an oak tree. Thus, the selection of what may seem to be the more overly static conception of the bureaucratic organization is not as dramatically more 4For an interesting analysis of the distinction between rational and natural system models, and closed and open system strategies see James D. Thompson, Organizations in Action (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967). 60 static as it appears to be on the surface. Further, the author would argue that the trend is for formal organiza- tions to increasingly approximate the rational model with its closed system strategy. This trend toward what might be termed a "more perfect bureaucracy" seems ample justi- fication for the conception employed here. It is not critical to decide whether one model is the more appro- priate characterization of contemporary society--or at least it is not for the purposes of this paper. The argument here is that Reinforcement theory tends to assume a rational model with a closed system strategy while the Symbolic Interactionist tends to assume a natural system model with an open system strategy. Further, the Symbolic Interactionist seeks to avoid the near teleological assumption conventionally employed in the natural systems model. Next it seems important to provide a brief dis- cussion of knowledge as the term is used in this chapter. Knowledge is potentially divided into a variety of sub- types and a variety of sources of knowledge. We are here primarily concerned with "scientific-empirical" knowledge rather than Mannheim's political ideology or Berger and Luckmann's common sense knowledge.5 SSee Karl Mannheim, Ideology and Utopia (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1936); and Peter Burger and Thomas Luckmann, The Social Construction of Reality (Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, 1966). 61 Scientific-empirical knowledge is distinctly the legi- timate and sought after knowledge in the bureaucratic organization. Scientific knowledge is regarded as the key input in the maintenance and linear growth of the system. Thus, all good apprentice bureaucrats are expected to strive for this Eype_of knowledge. It is necessary to qualify the paradigmatic pre- sentation of knowledge types developed in this chapter. One should be aware that the author is not laboring under the misapprehension that he is dealing with mutually exclusive types of knowledge. The difficulty in differ- entiating knowledge as fact and knowledge as technique is especially apparent. Knowledge as Technigge Let us consider what it would mean if we taught techniques or means without giving attention to ends. Might not the technician qua technician function like a robot? Like soldiers, the technicians might be expected to leave the thinking to someone else—-it is theirs to execute orders, not to question why! If we teach tech- niques without expecting the learner to call into question the uses of his techniques, it is the Programmer's values that are being fulfilled. This writer argues here that the technician is not expected to make a critical trans- lation. What does it mean if the scientific establish- ment becomes the bureaucracy's service department and its 62 techniques are made available to the highest bidder? Indeed, the multiversity has been characterized as a ser- vice station for society or more accurately for a certain segment of society. If the mission of the university is seen as being a purveyor of techniques, the concerns articulated above are more than mere academic disputation. There is considerable monetary incentive to accept the role of technician and forego critical exami- nation of research projects. In 1968, the department of defense is the most sought after and frequently found sponsor of social science research.6 Project Camelot7 was a dramatic illustration of a situation in which the research scientist served as hired help. The government was not interested in submitting a problem for analysis. It is strongly suggested here that autonomy is being threatened. Programmed man is not "by definition" an autonomous creature. It is not the sponsorship or applied research per §e_that is objectionable in this writer's judgement, it is the lack of concern with how data are to be used. It is a matter of whether or not the researcher is merely being used. We are especially 6Irving Louis Horowitz, "Social Science Yogis and Military Commisars," Trans-action, 5, No. 6 (May, 1968), p. 29. 7There are a number of analyses of Project Came- lot. A very good one is Irving Louis Horowitz's "The Life and Death of Project Camelot," Trans-action, 3, No. 1 (November/December, 1965), pp. 3-7, 44-47. 63 interested in those instances in which the sponsor of the research is not interested in any abstract quest for truth. We want to draw attention to those instances in which data are sought with the hopes of being able to improve on extant techniques for manipulation and control of human behavior. Much of the money spent by industrial and commercial organizations on market research likely fits in this category. Likewise much of the Department of Defense monies. We are interested in those cases in which the client decides who is to get manipulated because he pays the bill--the researcher merely tells him how to do it. It is only the client who engages in cri- tical reflection. It seems as if the researcher is all too willing to assume and accept the client's perspective. There is a tendency for a single paradigm or model to become THE legitimate style within a bureaucratic organization.8 We may note the bureaucratic development of systematic and routine procedures. According to the Reflections on Sociology papers,9 Hans Zetterberg imposed his style on both faculty and graduate students in the 8See Thomas S. Kuhn's The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1962). Kuhn argues that "Normal science, for example, often suppresses fundamental novelties because they are necessarily subversive of its basic commitments," p. 5. 9"Reflections on Sociology," consists of a number of mimeographed papers written by some of the sociology graduate students at Ohio State University in 1968. 64 department of sociology. Academic success in the indus- trial style bureaucracy often is predicated on the use and acceptance of THE mode of thought. Is it a case of only the programmer doing any thinking? Decision-making is reserved for a power elite when this occurs. We are assuming here that the power elite are not programmed men. The problem is that most men have become alie- nated from the point of rule definition. The power elite at the top of the hierarchy makes the important decisions. The vast proportion of the men appear to become "organic machines" who serve the institutionalized and routinized will of the rule makers. The bureaucratic organization functions to give legitimacy to the system--the parties who make the decisions are thought to be exercising their professional expertise. It is a voluntary servitude.lo Most fall victim to the conventional wisdom of the power elite and seek to propitiate their superiors. They appear to become programmed men. Sociological research tends to be trivial, micro- scopic, routine, and filled with minutiae. It is 10 fl . George B. Leonard speaks of reason as an . . . ingenious way of internalizing the whip . . .," p. 76, Education and Ecstasy (New York: A Delta Book, 1968). He notes, however, tHat "In all of this, the final reinforcer has been negative. Behind each 'progressive' teacher (if you look there in the shadows) stand the stern vice- principal, the truant officer, the policeman. At the heart of every academic honor code dwell expulsion, dis- grace, p. 77. 65 postulated here that the irrelevance of so much that is termed "productive" is a direct consequence of the cen- trality of scientific method without a concomitant sense of significance. The student learns how but not why.11 It often seems that the critical posture is dead or living incognito OUtSide of establishment universities. The contemporary student is likely to be rather perplexed at what earlier scholars might have meant by the eXpres- sion "qualities of mind." It seems that all too many of the articulate critics of our time have had to take their hemlock and yet we are thought to live in a free society. Can it be that the technique of science that has stimu- lated unparalleled inquiry into the realm of the natural world has simultaneously inhibited inquiry in the realm of values. We are taught to master techniques and this is diametrically opposed to critical thought in the realm of values. The technician finds the question "why?" (in other than a mechanical sense) inimical. Indeed, meta- physical has become a dirty word. ll"Specialized techniques of Questionnaire design, codification, and compartmentalizing often make the interviewing process into the end of research rather than merely its instrument. The spate of literature on survey design and sampling techniques has encouraged a strict methodological view of the purposes of sociology," p. 6, Irving Louis Horowitz, "An Introduction to the New Sociology," in The New Sociology, edited by Irving Louis Horowitz (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964). 66 Much of contemporary research is abstracted empiri- cism with interpretation spliced in, that is, it is devoid 12 The IBM machine is certainly of theoretical relevance. a great aid to mindless researchers in search of something to publish. Their professional jargon, however, does not always manage to cloak a poverty of thought. Knowledge has become terribly esoteric. We are producing eight-hour-a-day specialists whose object is to know rather than to act.13 These punch clock specialists find themselves living off of their methodological exper- tise rather than living for knowledge. They do not live for a profession. They live their life in bureaucratic compartments. Their "self" becomes a series of segmented roles. We are building a trained inhibition into our students. Is it enough to merely know and to let others gee the information we gain for "better or worse"? The prevailing paradigm tends to determine the problems one studies. It is not a matter of how impor- tant the problem is, but how available are the funds and the data. Problems are selected primarily on the basis 12"As a style of social science, abstracted empi- ricism is not characterized by any substantive proposi- tions or theories," p. 55, C. Wright Mills, The Socio- logical Imagination (New York: Grove Press, 1959). 13See "Mainliners and Marginals: The Human Shape of Sociological Theory," Irving Louis Horowitz, in Sociological Theory} Inguiries and Paradigms, edited by Llewellyn Gross (New York: Harper and Row, 1967), pp. 358-383. 67 of their researchability. It is a matter of convenience rather than theory.14 The title of the contemporary researcher's most useful book should read: "How to stay out of controversy, not jeopardise funds, and support the status quo." It seems that by the instruments of measurement you shall know the problem. Perhaps the instruments of measurement are the problem. Knowledge as Fact Programmed man is a product of rote memorization. He is conditioned to give the appropriate response when the stimulus is given. This response is direct or non- reflective. Reliance on authority is substituted for critical thinking. Is the contemporary social scientist a-moral or immoral? Is there a distinction between ethical neutrality and irresponsibility? A value free l4In commenting on the ". . . excessive preoccu— pation with techniques at the expense of subject matter" and the trivialization of research, Lindesmith argues that "the image of the sociologist from this vieWpoint appears to have become that of a clever technician, available for hire, flitting from one problem to another as research subsidies become available. The criteria for the selection of projects appears to be, not the importance of the problem, but availability of funds and of data amenable to certain types of treatment," p. 272, Alfred R. Lindesmith, "Social Problems and Sociological Theory," in Sociology in Action, edited by Arthur Shostak (Homewood, Illinois: The Dorsey Press, 1966). 68 . . . . . 15 pos1tion ls lmpOSSlble- Like the Good Germans we may choose to accept the values of the power elite or we may be conditioned to do as we are told. Neutrality is system maintaining. Sticking exclusively to the facts is a mindless endeavor. In contrast, the Symbolic Inter- actionist is interested in the interpretation of the facts. Dewey spoke of the mere accumulation of brute facts and the laborious concern for details without inquiry into their meaning and consequences.16 It is imperative that we avoid thinking of knowledge in terms of a series of fragmented, disconnected, or discrete empirical findings. The Symbolic Interactionist attempts to formulate an integrated theory of human behavior and thus go beyond the mere encyclopedic accumulation of facts. It is this writer's impression that it is impossible to add up studies of the middle range variety to accumulate wisdom or anything other than a voluminous 15See Alvin Gouldner, "Anti-Minotaur: The Myth of a Value-Free Sociology," pp. 196-217, and Sidney Wilhelm, "Scientific Unaccountability and Moral Account— ability," pp. 181-187, in Horowitz, op. cit. See also Howard S. Becker, "Whose Side Are We on?" Social Problems, 14 (1967), pp. 239-247. l6"Even general principles, when merely memorized, stand on the same level as bare particular facts. Since they are not used either in understanding actual objects and events or in giving rise, through what they imply, to other conceptual meanings, they are to the mind that memorizes them (falsely called learning), mere arbitrary items of information," p. 185, John Dewey, How We Think (Boston: D. C. Heath and Company, 1933). 69 encyclopedia. Tests seem to relate a series of discrete topics or discrete studies. Integration is lacking. Dialogue is lacking among the various vantage points from which the facts might be viewed. It is rare that the student is presented with conflicting interpretations of the material he is expected to learn. Ideas seem to be developed in isolation of all other ideas. We fail to critically compare perspectives. The old notion of social progress has fallen into academic disrepute. It seems that we have gone from blind faith in progress to no faith in such judgements. Because of the difficulty in dealing with the term, we have thrown out the entire notion. Are we to believe that those who proclaim to be value free see no more value in what they are doing than any alternative action we might mention? The non-reflective teacher uses the book as his guide or he uses a curriculum established by some group of experts. He teaches the facts that these sources regard as rele- vant. The non-reflective teacher is not inclined to make judgements concerning what is good to know. Neither are his students. The non-reflective teacher does not make judgements concerning which facts are relevant and which are irrelevant. Neither are his students. Social telesis may be impossible under optimum circumstances. Clearly, we cannot get to the point where social telesis is possible by rewarding the publication 70 of research findings that are fragmented, disconnected, or discrete. Yet this is precisely what we are doing. How does one go about making sense out of all of the sundry facts that pass as knowledge? The solution re- quires more than an inventory of scientific findings. In the estimation of this writer, the Symbolic Interac- tionist perspective has been most fruitful in incor- porating large bodies of otherwide discrete observations into a fairly systematic view of human behavior. It is further felt that no alternative orientation is able to make as much sense out of as many facts. Facts peg ge do not speak for themselves. We need to allocate much more attention to attempts to articulate them into a meaningful pattern. Education then must prepare people to look for the relationships and to make applications rather than to merely know the facts. Knowing the facts is not sufficient. It is imperative that we divest our- selves of the notion that facts provide the sufficient condition for knowledge. Facts are certainly necessary but they must be viewed as means and not ends in them- selves.17 It is tragic that education tends to be l7Fixation on established facts can mean obsoles- cence in a transient society. "Yet for all this rhetoric about the future, our schools face backward toward a dying system, rather than forward toward the emerging new society. Their vast energies are applied to cranking out Industrial Men-people tooled for survival in a system that will be dead before they are," p. 399, Alvin Toffler, Future Shock (New York: A Bantam Book, 1970). 71 organized pg if the teachers were oblivious to this rather elementary observation. Perhaps we are. The emphasis in current social science is on quantitative rather than qualitative variables. One wonders if this means operational knowledge or knowledge operationalized. While it is certainly convenient to restrict knowledge to that which has been operationalized in quantative terms, one wonders if this is a fully satis- fying response to the questions of epistemology. We obtain a superficial objectivity. It seems that many important problems are being de-emphasized—-especially by the abstracted empiricists-- under the guise of objectivity. Not only do we fail to be objective in problem selection, but we fail to be objec- tive in the selection of techniques. Theory selects the method appropriate to one's image of reality and we should not be surprised when the method so selected pro- duces biased conclusions.l8 We may note that alternative sources of testing ideas provide us with alternative findings. For example, the radical behaviorist tells us to pay attention only to external observables in explaining human behavior while the Freudian psychologist pays attention to unconscious 18See Arnold M. Rose, "The Relation of Theory and Method," in Gross, op. cit., pp. 207-219. 72 materials. It should not surprise us to learn that they view mOtivation differently. Thus, the rules of the game define the conclusions we will arrive at by defining the legitimate source of truth. It seems at times that we are either fools or technicians--the two, of course, are not mutually exclusive categories. We must ask who sets the standards, principles, or values. It is important to locate the point of rule definition and to identify the rule definers. In the "knowledge game" we often take consensus--or in our more sophisticated moments, consen- sus among "qualified" (whatever that means) observers--to be the criterion of knowledge. It certainly seems that we confuse reliability and validity. If knowledge consists of facts, we test it by prediction which implies (perhaps seeks) order in the system and control of the system. Many would argue that the ability to predict is the test of knowing, but it seems that this tends to create an essentially static universe. Indeed, this static reality may well be a consequence of our looking for social facts, that is, for regularities, or recurrences in social life. In the pro- cess of seeing order in interpersonal and natural events, we may well underestimate the unique and the dynamic. We may have institutionalized selective perception. An indeterminate view of social actions or real- ity construction is antithetical to the view of knowledge 73 as fact.19 Are we to castigate the dialectic in favor of our quest for certainty? It seems that we put ourselves on the side of the present social system or often on the side of anyone who would make use of our facts to control any group of people for whatever purpose. Knowledge as Established Content The basic unit of observations for the Reinforce- ment theorist is the conditioned response that the pro- grammer attempts to illicit from the learner and that is established prior to the attempted formation of the stim- ulus response connection or bond. The student is con- sidered to have learned when he gives the appropriate response to the stimulus. Ours is said to be the era of the organization man. The new industrial state is corporate and not entrepreneu- rial. The educational system is but another instance of the bureaucratic style of organization. The organization man learns to fill his role in the corporate world by preparing himself in an educational system that is simi- larly structured. We produce educated men in our 19"The principle of indeterminancy thus presents itself as the final step in the dislodgment of the old spectator theory of knowledge. It marks the acknowledg- ment, within scientific procedure itself, of the fact that knowing is one kind of interaction which goes on within the world," pp. 204-205, John Dewey, The Quest for Certainty (New York: Capricorn Books; G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1929). We reject the notion of facts existing prior to and independent of the act of knowing. 74 educational factories that have learned to fit into the corporate structure. These men are not characteristi- cally taught to create knowledge. They are conditioned to repeat what has already been established.20 To the extent then that the bureaucratic organization is becom- ing the almost exclusive source for the certification and legitimation of knowledge, it becomes increasingly crucial to note the assumptions being made. One is certified to have knowledge (be an educated man) when he has assimilated the minimum prerequisite amount of content-~made enough stimulus response connec- tions. The interesting point is that a segment of the bureaucratic elite determines what is worth knowing. Under this arrangement, knowledge is very middle class, that is, the information we expect students to know is generally related to the experiences of middle class people. Without positing whether this is intentional or an unconsciously evolved device, one notes that this defi- nition of knowledge has functioned to keep all but the upwardly mobile—~as well as many of them--from the lower class in their caste-like position. These people are-- 20"Traditional methods of education, I think, have been based on a feeling that there is a body of knowledge and skill which we need to transmit to each new child, perhaps for the good of society, perhaps for the good of the child himself," p. 171, John Holt, Tpe Under-Achieving School (New York: A Delta Book; Dell Publishing Company, 1969). 75 at best--the group left behind by the wider dissemination of "knowledge" made possible by the bureaucratic organi- zation. Witness the middle class and professorial vocabu- lary that discriminates most against those who made the same errors so frequently in high school that they thought that their grammar was "correct." Note those students with a high school education who start the proverbial race in cement shoes. It will be pointed out at several points in this paper that the individual learns the language of the group or groups in which he participates. It would seem unnecessary to do this if it were not for the fact that so much of our behavior seems to be predicated on the assumption that this statement is untrue. We know that urban-industrial society is characterized by heterogeneity rather than homogeneity. Yet we expect people who grow up speaking a different language to adjust to the language of the middle class in order to prove that they are intel- ligent and deserve a share of the rewards that are avail- able to those who receive the bureaucratic seal of approval. We are less inclined to wonder whether the middle class child would survive equally well in a lower class environment. This explains at least in part why many universities today are being called racist institu- tions. 76 We look at student records as if they truly represented qualities of the individual independent of the social and cultural context in which the actor formed that record. We tend to focus on the content (records) without looking at the interactional process that pro- duced that content. It seems that in the knowledge game, "survival of the fittest" could be effectively translated to "survival of the survivors." Success should not be interpreted to imply fitness nor should failure imply inability. The data (content) measures performance at a particular point in time. It tells us nothing about what the person can or cannot do. It only tells us what the person has done. This is a defect of having only stimulus-response measures of performance. We need to know more than whether the person has or has not yet learned a given item of information. It seems that if we grow up speaking one language, we could just as easily have grown up speaking a different language (or several languages) if brought up in a different cultural context. If we accept this premise, it follows that man is capable enough or plas- tic enough to learn any language, that is, any content that we would desire to have him learn. This analysis is not evident in the writings of Reinforcement 77 theorists as it is in the works of Symbolic Interaction- ists.21 In the more pervasive bureaucracy, evaluation is based on standardized examinations. One wonders if these are valid measures of whatever they are supposed to measure and whether they represent the universalistic criteria they purport to embody. Operationally, intelli- gence is thought to be that which an I.Q. test measures. I.Q. tests measure content not process and content is clearly learned. This is ppp_to say that the particular process by which one engages in behavior that is defined as intelligent is not learned. To the extent that we certify as intelligent only those who follow a series of steps this too is the case. One might effectively argue, however, that behavior is constructed or built up in the process of interaction rather than learned in the sense of being a recipient of transmitted knowledge. This analysis need not be carried out to make the more limited point that content is learned. Thus, innate ability is 21The Symbolic Interactionist concludes that "with rare exceptions, the ability of human beings to learn is limited only by the socio-cultural environments in which they live. They learn whatever the society defines as appropriate and provides for them to learn," p. 17. "Our conception of learning is based on the obser- vation that children learn to behave in the ways that the people with whom they associate behave," p. 15, Wilbur Brookover and Edsel Erickson, Society, Schools, and Learning (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1969). 78 not being measured by tests that require one to identify content that the individual may or may not have been exposed to.22 The social conditions for all individuals and groups would have to be similar for these tests to be meaningful. Scores on national examinations (ACT, GRE, etc.) tend to provide the key to bureaucratic success for a large number of people. The Reinforcement theorist merely looks at the responses to the stimuli in the test. The student's personal record is to a significant extent beyond his control but related to community factors that can be identified and dealt with. This is most dramati- cally evident in the case of black and Chicano students in our society. Indeed, we get very “up tight" about the danger of lowering academic standards to admit black students who have less impressive credentials than the students who are now deemed acceptable. This was evident in the comments of Mr. Agnew and others on the attempt to Open the University of Michigan up to more black students. 22"We seldom question whether a child will learn the language of his associates or the expected patterns of behavior in the culture. All are aware that almost any child transferred from one culture to another easily learns a decidedly different pattern of behavior and a different language. Our conception of limited capacity, however, has led to a restricted notion of what a child can learn in school. It even takes the form of stating that only a small proportion can learn a foreign language,’ pp. 479-480, Wilbur B. Brookover and David Gottlieb, A Sociology_of Education (New York: American Book Com- pany; second edition, 1964). 79 It seems that we must re-examine the image of knowledge that we now hold so dear. Given the phenomena of mass television lectures, examinations almost have to be of the multiple choice variety yet anyone who examines the bulk of instructor's manuals that are put out is aware of the tremendous amount of trivia that they contain. The world viewed as a multiple choice exam is a series of disconnected condi- tioned responses. By placing a premium on fixed responses, we provide very little encouragement to students to engage in dialogue. We do not seek to get students to test out their ideas in interaction with others. Our concern is to find out if the student can recall what we said or what the book said with at least a sometimes specified (sometimes we grade on the curve) and quantified minimum level of retention. Dare one demand an answer to the question, "so what?"? It is a very subversive question. It is not merely multiple choice examinations that is being called into question. In order to apply the uni- versalistic standard, one is expected to quantify essay exams. The elimination of multiple choice type exams is not the answer. Much knowledge often seems irrelevant to those who have a conception of relevance. Many professors will remark with candor that they do not know what relevance is. Some think that they are being sarcastic when they 80 say this. One wonders about the social welfare student who must pass an exam dealing with geometry in order to be certified that he is qualified to handle clients. For years graduate students were asked to learn at least one foreign language in order to be admitted to the "union" with their doctorate. There are serious consequences of this concep- tion of knowledge which may threaten the survival of the bureaucratic system itself. A closed system strategy that favors knowledge transmission over critical trans- lation seems to be favored by many students in our schools. Students tend to become system-wise. They want to know what they are responsible for, that is, what they will be examined over. They demand that you make expli- cit the stimulus response connections they are expected to make. They do not seek knowledge because it might change their life, or because it might change the way they look at the world. They want to be sure that they make the appropriate stimulus response connections. They seem to be asking to be programmed. They "need" to be told what to do. Many of this writer's students have expressed a desire for definite answers. They tend to feel very uncomfortable with ambiguity. This seems to be especially true of natural science students. They want laws of nature that they can feel secure with. They avoid proble- matic situations. They avoid critical thinking. 81 Knowledge tends to become mechanistic. It could be much more efficiently assimilated with the use of teaching machines. Knowledge is transferred from the teacher's notebook to the student's notebook without passing through the mind of either. Education is the teacher's tape recorder lecturing to the student's tape recorder. Education is more and more becoming character- ized by the use of mass television lectures. Knowledge is conditioning. The student appears to be acted on rather than acting. Are we training parrots? The method of rote learning seems to be having a re-birth in the con- text of contemporary bureaucratic society. Radical behaviorists use the term substitute stimuli to refer to these conditioned verbalizations. This implies a closed system strategy in a situation in which it is imperative that we operate with an open system strategy. Knowledge as depicted in this chapter is not uniquely "human" knowledge. The Reinforcement theorist has ignored that which makes man distinctly human. To the extent that it is reductionistic, this is evident in the behavioral science image of knowledge held by the bureaucratic mentality employing Reinforcement principles.23 23"The image involved is that behavior is a mechan- ical response to or expression of some other activating force--that is, a reaction to stimuli, to organic tensions, to internalized norms, to social sanctions, to dysfunc- tional changes, etc.," p. 103, Charles D. Bolton, "Is Sociology a Behavioral Science?" in Manis and Meltzer, op. cit. 82 It is, as we have said before, important to be aware of the differences between infrahuman and human behavior and yet we seem oblivious to this distinction. The symbol enables man to respond in terms of his definition of the situation and not in the direct, automatic fashion that is depicted in the stimulus response bond. It seems that we must strive to further not only that in man which has enabled him to construct culture as we know it but also to further that which enables man to construct the good culture as best we can come to define the term. Modern education it seems has ignored that which makes man a distinctly culture-creating ani- mal, and has failed to recognize that our behavior is canalized by the meanings that mediate between stimulus and response. If we are to simply reproduce the content of the past, a Skinnerian conception of knowledge will suffice. If our maps are to be more than mere tracings of older maps, we will need a conception of knowledge that does not conceive of knowledge as content which exists out- 24 side of and prior to the seeker. 24"But data signify 'material to serve'; they are indications, evidence, signs, clues to and of some- thing still to be reached; they are intermediate, not ultimate; means, not finalities," p. 99, Dewey, Tpe Quest for Certainty, op. cit. 83 The preceding remarks represent not merely what this writer takes to be the image of knowledge that is implied in the present bureaucratic school structure that is dominated by Reinforcement principles, but it is also a conception of what it means to be an educated man. The conception of formal education presented above is in the view of this writer dysutopian. The product (graduate) of a formal education patterned after this mode is like a mindless automaton. It is not enough to sketch a negative utopia, that is, to try to point out what is wrong with contemporary education. In the chapters that follow an attempt will be made to outline a Symbolic Interactionist conception of education. The writer will attempt to provide a viable alternative to what he maintains that we have now. CHAPTER V SOCIETY Objectives for Chapter V: (1) To outline a Symbolic Interactionist conception of society. (2) To draw attention to the pro- cess of the social construction and recon- struction of society. (3) To focus attention on language behavior in society--universes and subuniverses of discourse. (4) To note the significance of society and subsocieties in the learning process. This writer has said that it is important for the teacher and the learner to act with an end-in-view. This raises the question, "education for what?" As one answers the question one is likely to make some reference to society as it is seen to be, as one thinks it might become, or as one hopes to make it. The reader might try to formulate a plan of action for education without for- mulating a conception of society if he thinks it is superfluous to our task. This writer trusts that the reader will, indeed, note the significance of society and subsocieties in the learning process. 84 85 We have just seen what happens to a society when reification and stultification set in. We have seen what happens to people when they merely internalize previously established norms and roles. Man was seen as a product of his society and the machinery set up to organize and direct human activity. In the present chapter, the Symbolic Interactionist framework is employed in present- ing a contrasting view of society. The focus is on the construction of society in the process of social inter- action instead of on the molding of men by the trans- mission of old rules. The notion that society directly shapes man is rejected and a view of man interacting with his teachers is substituted. We hold that the interpretations of the actor intervene between "social forces" and human behavior. It is possible to change the shared definitions that individuals hold by changing their patterns of association. If behavior is learned in association with others, we would expect to be able to change behavior by changing the "kinds" of people with whom a given indivi- dual associates. If we were to go no further in our 1"A network or an institution does not function automatically because of some inner dynamics or system requirements; it functions because people at different points do something, and what they do is a result of how they define the situation in which they are called on to act," p. 19, Herbert Blumer, Symbolic Interactionism (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1969). 86 analysis, we would not be saying much beyond the state- ment that changes in societal states or conditions pro- duce changes in behavior. By speaking of multiple reference groups, subsocieties, and alternative cultures, we hope to indicate how reflective reconstruction of society is possible. Before developing the above points, we need to consider what the Symbolic Interactionist means by the term "society." The Symbolic Interactionist's conception of society is best expressed by Dewey's observation that society exists in and through communication.2 A society may be identified by looking at the common universe of discourse shared by its members. Society then ought not to be treated as a thing. It does not have an existence independent of social actors who are implicated in joint action and who have used the expression to make reference to their collective endeavors. "Society" as used by the Symbolic Interactionists is a symbol with a non-empirical referent.3 We ought not 2"Society not only continues to exist py trans- mission, py_communication, but it may fairly be said to exist in transmission, in communication," p. 4, John Dewey,—Democracy and EdfiEation (New York: The Free Press, 1916). 3"A second type of referent is the non-empirical one. If you want to teach others about the meaning of these symbols, you cannot point to the referents. You can teach about these symbols only by using other symbols,‘ p. 41, Glenn M. Vernon, Human Interaction (New York: The Ronald Press, 1965). 87 point to a geographical territory and claim that this territory is a society. We ought not point to an aggre- gate of people and say that they are a society. Nor do we equate society with political boundaries. Society is not a disembodied structure. Indeed, whatever structure it has, is assigned to it by us in the process of sym- bolic interaction. Society exists in process. It is dynamic, that is, it is constantly changing. We have constructed it as it seems to be at this moment, but as we relate to our creation we tend to re-create or restructure it. Thus, we reject the notion that society is a static structure. This means that the Symbolic Interactionist must be especially careful to avoid a-historical approaches. The interactionist's sense of history, how- ever, is not confined to the past. He seeks to compre- hend what might be as well as what seems to have been. The future has a bearing on the construction of tomor— row's history. Nor is the interactionist's sense of history confined to any monistic interpretation of his- tory or singular future projection. If society were a fixed thing, we would be able to "tell it like it is." Since it is not, we need to seek alternative interpreta- tions of what man has jointly done and what he collec- tively proposes to do. 88 Society is seen as a community of actors. The actors have formed various institutional patterns that enable them to relate to one another in a predictable fashion. The cluster of norms which we term institutions define the appropriate ways of thinking, feeling, and acting. Sometimes these arrangements are perceived by members of a society as being eternal verities. They behave as they do because it is ppe_way. In the previous chapter, the bureaucratic organization was viewed as a contemporary approximation of this stultification of interaction patterns and social norms. The products of joint action may become reified. The Symbolic Interactionist draws our attention to the social construction of reality including the various conceptions of society which we have formed and in terms of which we tend to act. Awareness that society exists in and through communication is a prerequisite to the process of de-reification. The de-reification of the standard functional notion of society--functional in terms of the needs of a social system rather than in terms of serving human ends in view--is a vital task. Mainstream sociology has taken an oversocialized view of man and an overintegrated view of society.4 There is 4See Dennis Wrong, "The Oversocialized Conception of Man in Modern Sociology," American Sociological Review, XXVI (April, 1961), pp. 183-193. This writer agrees with Wrong that sociology has taken an oversocialized view of 89 a de-emphasis in most sociology on the process by which we construct and tentatively legitimate reality. As expressed earlier, the products of human interaction are no longer perceived as being a consequence of joint action. At a particular point in time, that which is built up by actors in the process of joint action may appear to an outside observer as something external and objective to the participants in society. That which seems external and objective comes to seem that way as a result of the process of forming consensus or estab- lishing a shared universe of discourse. From the Sym- bolic Interactionist perspective, it is important to note that "externalization and objectivation are moments in a continuing dialectical process."5 We will never adequately understand human society if we see man as merely internalizing an external and objective reality. Society as viewed from the Symbolic Interactionist stand- point is continuously being reconstructed. The Symbolic man and an overintegrated view of society. While this writer holds that Wrong is right in his criticism, he maintains that Wrong is wrong in his reasons for reach- ing the conclusion we share. We are confident that the Symbolic Interactionist position gives a more adequate account of society and the socialization process than his Freudian view. 5Berger and Luckmann, op. cit. Much of the analysis in this chapter draws extensively on the Berger and Luckmann book. 9O Interactionist notion that society is composed of selves helps us to see society in dynamic terms. A society com- posed of selves is not an aggregation of automatons that can be programmed to behave as the "Great Programmer" chooses. The active self-~a redundancy used here for emphasis--is not a passive victim of some sort of exter- nal agent. A society of selfing6 individuals is one that is capable of examining its social institutions. As the self interacts with the agent or agents of socialization, the new member of the community is engaged in a dialecti- cal or interactive process by which new institutional forms will be created. A society that is made up of human beings engaged in self behavior is one that is only partially integrated. Institutions have a history. It is important that we do not forget that. There is a tendency to account for change in the social system by employing the incomplete socialization argument. This argument states that people behave differ- ently because the socialization process is not perfect, that is, it does not manage to inculcate all of the expected and accepted ways of thinking, feeling, and acting. This argument is largely predicated on the assumption that the socialization process is merely an internalization of established role and norm definitions. 6The terms selfing and self behavior are used to give a dynamic or processual emphasis to the notion of self. The use of the terms is elaborated on in the chap- ter on selfing. 91 If socialization is no more than the internalization of norms and roles, we seem to be saying that man is con- ditioned to act as others have in the past. The changing and problematic aspects of society are awkwardly explained by the claim that the socialization process is incomplete. We ought at this point in our intellectual sophistication to be able to go beyond this incomplete socialization explanation to an understanding of-alternative formula- tions and the process by which they gain their viability. The remarks that follow attempt to do precisely this. Sociologists have long maintained that all dis- tinctly human behavior is learned, that is, that all com— plex behavior of humans is learned. By complex behavior we mean behavior that entails a specific series of acts. We would exclude from the scope of consideration reflexive behavior-~involving unitary responses--and the behavior of the autonomic nervous system. The behavior that we have chosen to deal with and explain is learned in interaction with other persons in a process of communication. It is evident that not all people behave in the same way. The chapter dealing with selfing will focus on the explanation of why we behave in some ways like no other person. This chapter is con- cerned with an understanding of why we behave like some other persons. 92 The term differential association7 has been fruit- fully used by Symbolic Interactionists to identify the process by which we form shared definitions. Our defini- tions of situations are learned in association with others. Society is to be best understood in terms of these patterns of association and more explicitly in terms of the interactions which take place with those with whom we associate and identify. It is essential that we note that men live in discrepant social worlds. It is appropriate to speak of having different symbolic universes. Indeed, the notion of discrepant social worlds suggests the existence of subuniverses of meaning. It is no longer accurate, if it ever was accurate, to speak of Mead's generalized other8 in depicting contemporary society. Society is character— ized by multiple reference groups. It is crucial that we approach the analysis that follows with the image of multiple universes of discourse in mind. For the Symbolic Interactionist, learning may fruitfully be understood as language behavior. This is held as true in a dual sense. We learn names for things, that is, we learn content or gain knowledge. Secondly, 7Edwin Sutherland and Donald R. Cressy, Principles of Criminology (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott; seventh edition, 1966). See chapter four especially. 8See George H. Mead, Mind, Self, and Society (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1943), pp. 152-164. 93 we learn to canalize our behavior in specific directions, that is, we learn motives or as the Symbolic Interactionist would express it, we learn a vocabulary of motives9 from others. Academic achievement has been conceived by at least one Symbolic Interactionist as a matter of learning the vocabulary of the various subjects from those who speak the language.10 Let us use sociology as an illustra- tion. The presumption is that one is not born a sociolo- gist. Nor does one have any genetic or psychological disposition to speak the sociological vocabulary. Rather, one learns the terms and the view of the world that they imply by association with those who speak the sociological vocabulary. The subuniverse of meaning that is particular to the sociologist is learned by association with sociolo- gists and by participation in their conversations. The same process is held to be applicable to the learning of the academic content of any other discipline. Perceived differences in academic achievement would not be taken as evidence of the inability of the individual 9See C. Wright Mills, "Situated Action and Vocabularies of Motive," American Sociological Review, V (December, 1940), pp. 904-913. lOWilbur Brookover has expressed this point of view most articulately. In addition to the sources cited in the bibliography, this writer has gained much from lectures by Professor Brookover and from the opportunity to engage in personal interaction with him. 94 to learn the language that he is being called on to demon- strate knowledge of. As argued earlier, we would inquire into the interpersonal biography of the learner. We would not expect a person to know a language with which he is presently not familiar. Nor would we expect the individual student to use the same language rules that we use if that person has grown up in association with others who employ different or inconsistent language rules in their conver— sations with him. Differential association is held to be the key to an understanding of the vocabulary one speaks. If we seek to foster higher academic achievement, we may devise an appropriate plan of action from a con- sideration of this perspective. The vocabulary that one has at or near entry to a program of formal schooling would be seen in much less fixed and limiting terms. Performance would be interpreted in terms of the student's social biography and not in terms of some inferred genetic factor. We would not confuse the present lack of high achievement by our standards with the presumption that this person is unable to learn. Sociologists have long maintained that what is learned may be unlearned. We recognize that if it is possible to socialize a person, it is possible to re- socialize him. If the student has learned a vocabulary that we consider inappropriate, it is possible to teach him a vocabulary that we regard to be more appropriate 95 though the task is by no means easy if the person con- tinues to operate in discrepant social worlds. The new words or new language rules would be most readily learned if we Were to completely remove the individual from his old world and put him in the total environment of the new one which we consider is desirable for him to learn. If we wish to change the individual, we need to change his pattern of associations. Goffman's comments on total institutionsll point to how this might most effectively be done. We will likely be able to only approximate the environment of the total institution even if we choose to follow the model. To suggest the context in which the child might most efficiently be taught the vocabulary one seeks to teach, is not to endorse that plan of action. The plan is of substantial use, however, if it merely enables us to better understand the differences we observe on the one hand and the difficulties we will encounter as we less closely approximate the model. It will be recalled that the strategy outlined above was prefaced by the statement, "if we seek to foster academic achievement" and did not take into consideration other ends which may be found to conflict with the focus on increasing academic achievement as an exclusive objective. The importance of 11See Erving Goffman, Asylums (Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, 1961. 96 these reservations should become evident in subsequent remarks if the reader has not already anticipated their significance. It will perhaps be easier to see in the discussion of changing motives. What a person learns is influenced by what he regards as important and by what is available to be learned. One may not learn something because it is not available to be learned or may not learn it even though available. We have explored in some detail what is effectively available to be learned in terms of the know- ledge or content (vocabulary) known to those with whom one is associated. Presently, we turn to a consideration of the process by which one assigns value to the resources that are available. The vocabularies of various groups are far from being neutral in judging the relevance of particular items of knowledge or bodies of information that form the curriculum in various schools. We are concerned here with the variations in school climates and their connec- tion with the norms of the various subsocieties which are to be found in any careful analysis of school composition. The Symbolic Interactionist perspective draws our atten- tion to these counter definitions of reality and the counter societies in which one learns a view of the world and in which the person obtains affirmation for the expres- sion of reference group values. 97 One major implication for those who note the exis- tence of various subsocieties within a school is that they quit treating students as if they were isolated individu- als faced with choices. To be effective, teachers and administrators would give at least as much thought to the matter of group differences in norms as they presently advocate giving to individual differences in performance. We would not expect any particular student to have con- tacts with only members of a single subsociety. An appli- cation of Sutherland's principle of differential associa- 12 to education would lead us to expect that the high tion achieving student would be one who has an excess of defi- nitions favorable to high achievement over definitions unfavorable to high achievement. This person is most likely to acquire an excess of definitions favorable to high achievement by association with others who have an excess of definitions favorable to high achievement. If our objective is to increase the academic achievement of low achievers, and we assume that they can become high achievers and that the functional limit on their achievement is the level of aspiration which they have learned in association with others who do not highly value academic achievement, we would attempt to change the pattern of association of low achievers to put them 12Sutherland and Cressey, op. cit., p. 81. 98 into association with individuals who favor high academic achievement. The objective in doing this is to foster identification with persons holding norms favorable to high academic achievement and not merely to put them into contact with high academic achievers as the expression differential association tends to imply without further elaboration on its intended meaning. If we desire to get more lower class students to speak the vocabulary of middle class children and define the world in terms of middle class norms, we would struc- ture the composition of our schools to put lower class children into schools and classes that are predominately middle class.13 This would increase the likelihood that lower class children would learn the vocabulary of terms, the vocabulary of motives, and the language rules of the middle class which we associate with academic success in our schools. There would probably need to be an explicit recognition that students learn from their peers and that the teacher is not the exclusive source of what is to be learned. l3See Racial Isolation in the Public Schools, Vol. I, a report of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1967). "The social class of a student's schoolmates--as measured by the economic cir- cumstances and educational background of their families-- also strongly influences his achievement and attitudes. Regardless of his own family background, an individual student achieves better in schools where most of his fel- low students are from advantaged backgrounds than in schools where most of his fellow students are from dis- advantaged backgrounds," p. 203. 99 We know that differential associations differ in frequency, duration, priority, and intensity.14 This places severe limits on what is likely to be achieved in the conventional school. A change in residential patterns would probably be required before low achieving lower class children would have significantly more frequent, longer, earlier, and more intense associations with high achieving middle class children. The frustration experi- enced in seeking a radical change in the social structure which would establish an optimum context for learning to take place ought not to negate the gains that are possible through the more modest and less embracing re-arrangements. Having lost faith in the "growing immesiration" argument as an impetus to change, this writer welcomes successive approximations of the ideal situation for learning. The thrust of the above remarks has aimed at the structuring of a situation in which the individual might be re—socialized into a particular segment of society. The implicit objective might legitimately be construed as one of integrating a member of a relatively de-valued sub- society into the dominant society. The mechanism by which this re-socialization would be accomplished suggests an application of social engineering principles. This makes the Symbolic Interactionist vulnerable to the charge that he is merely endorsing the conditioning of behavior 14Sutherland and Cressey, op. cit., p. 82. 100 that characterizes Skinner's Walden Two. It is important then to carry the interactionist's analysis further and demonstrate its point of departure from the behaviorist's conditioning of responses. Earlier this writer argued that society exists in process and is not a static structure. The focus for the Symbolic Interactionist then is on the moving present. The actors who make up a society are living and growing selves. They (the actors) are engaged in an on-going transactional or dialectical process in which society is continuously being re-constructed. The dialectical or interactional relationship between the established pat- terns of human action and the self will be elaborated on in the next chapter. This chapter is concerned with the formation of viable alternatives. We will presently note that the individual self in minded interaction may gener- ate alternative possibilities. Unless others come to share particular alternative formulations, however, they do not gain viability. A dynamic conception of society requires a con- sideration of the significance of subsocieties and their shared subuniverses of meaning. In a society of large organization, we may effectively ignore the solitary voice crying out in the wilderness. We need not be ter- ribly bothered by isolated instances of personal patho- logy. The single individual who protests against the 101 conventional wisdom or the prevailing ideology (prevail- ing mythology?) is but an insane fool if no one takes his mutterings seriously. Thus, it is imperative from the Symbolic Interactionist's standpoint that we become inter- ested in the making of counter cultures of subsocieties.15 We seek an explanation that takes us beyond the mere transmission of the old, established patterns. We reject as incomplete any formulation that is restricted to the analysis of mechanisms of system maintenance. Society is more than a recapitulation of established pat- terns. Society is more than a blind unfolding of the pre- ordained. It cannot adequately be understood as a for- mation from without. Society exists in action. It is characterized by growth. We are not restricted to long term evolutionary changes in the organism but are capable to changing our social institutions--the products of previous social interactions. We need to re-emphasize C. Wright Mills' observation that, "Only by an act of abstraction that unnecessarily violates social reality can we try to freeze 16 some knife-edge moment." Mills is emphasizing the importance of historical material in the study of society. 15See Theodore Roszak, The Making of a Counter Culture (Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, 1969). 16Mills, 0 . cit., p. 151. 102 He urges us to reject the notion of society as a static structure in favor of a dynamic view of society. It is vital that we contrast the pluralistic con- ception of society sketched above with the notion of a monolithic society. We need to be sensitive to the con- cern that centralized control will result in the reduction of diversity. Let us take into account the risks involved in attempting to re-socialize or re-condition members of diverse groups that they might conform to the expectations held by members of the dominant society. Let us project what might happen to the growth of a progressive society if we act in such a manner as to produce the stultifica- tion of individual variation. We reach a point in industrial society where full employment is no longer required for the society to meet the physical needs of its members. Advertising then serves as a mechanism for the creation of social wants.l7 Men work to fulfill socially acquired desires and not merely because it is necessary for their physical survival and that of their family. Let us examine an interpreta- tion of what this might mean. Where formerly it was neces- sary that members of society be disciplined that the society might survive, we find that basic or necessary 17See John K. Galbraith, The New Industrial State (New York: A Signet Book, 1967). 103 repression has been replaced by surplus repression.l8 The members of society in large measure engage in voluntary servitude. Their behavior is controlled largely from without. The social engineer attempts to use his tech- niques to manipulate and control their behavior. To the extent that the above interpretation is true, man is not free. He has not chosen the present course of action from among alternative modes of action. This is the danger of seeking to inculcate the vocabulary of motives considered appropriate by the rule definers or power elite. Laws or rules would then serve as the agent of those in political power.19 Those who control the machinery of socialization would have substantial power. Legitimized and certified experts would tend to maintain an orthodoxy. The present analysis suggests that counter defini- tions of reality require durable groups. The notion of democracy is empty unless its members are able to make reasonably "independent choices." To even speak of 18Herbert Marcuse, Eros and Civilization (New York: Vintage Books, 1955). 19"Law is the agent of those in political power; it is the product of those powerful enough to define right and wrong and to have that definition legitimized by 'law.' This is not to say that 'might makes right,‘ but it is to say that Might makes Law," p. 95, Stokely Carmichael and Charles Hamilton, Black Power (New York: A Vintage Book, 1967). 104 independent choices is to speak of an ideal type. This is how the expression is used when stating that reasonably independent choices are necessary for democracy. We do not hold that independent choices empirically exist. We do maintain that decisions vary in terms of the degree of independent choice exercised and that the construct is useful in the sense that we might judge the extent to which the ideal type is approximated. What is said in using the term is that where there is no choice there is no democracy. The manufacture of consensus is inimical to democracy as collective decision making. The manipulation of public opinion is a powerful means of social control in our estimation. It has often been said that the Symbolic Interactionist does not have a very adequate conception of power. The critics seem to forget that groups act on the basis of shared definitions of situations. This is not to suggest that the circum- stances do not exist, but to argue that "objective" con- ditions do not directly cause people to act. The power to define or interpret social conditions ought not to be underestimated. The potential for control of individual organisms by shaping their view of the world has long been recognized when the technique is employed by govern- ments which the U.S. State Department regards as evil and Communistic. It is time that we moved from a particular to a total conception of ideology, that is, that we note 105 the ideological content of all statements including our own. We must learn to recognize the propaganda that is being used on us. We might educate for choice. We may enumerate at least a partial list of alternatives. We may debate and call into question that which is presently accepted with- out question. The self may be asked to select and not merely follow orders. Choices are not made in a vacuum, however, they require counter definitions of reality. This writer has taken the position that counter defini- tions of reality or subuniverses of discourse require counter cultures or subsocieties if they are to be viable (make a difference) in an organizational society. The actor who understands the alternative consequences may choose to learn the vocabulary which the dominant society rewards or he may reject it in favor of a counter cultural or subsocietal alternative. CHAPTER VI SELFING Objectives for Chapter VI: (1) To explore the relevance of self behavior to human learning. (2) To integrate some existen- tialist notions into the Symbolic Interac- tionist's conception of self behavior and learning. (3) To explore the relationship between self behavior and the notions of growth and becoming. The Reinforcement theorist does not see self behavior as a relevant variable in his explanation of human learning. He would act toward students as if the "self" did not exist. This is diametrically opposed to the position taken by the interactionist. The variant assumptions of the two frames of reference have important consequences for their respective educational strategies. In the previous chapter, society was seen as being made up of selves. In this chapter, we will attempt to elaborate on the significance of viewing social situations in this way. The problem of delineat- ing the relationship between the individual and the 106 107 organization is a ubiquitous concern. Much of what fol- lows has certainly been anticipated in earlier statements. There is still much to be gained, however, by putting the Symbolic Interactionist's notion of the self in juxtapo- sition with alternative formulations. Herbert Blumer contends that ”society as symbolic interaction" is a continual flow of self indications. This means that the person is making notations of the things he is taking into account. This means that the person is conscious of these objects. The person may be said to engage in conversations with himself. The key element is the recognition that individuals engage in self behavior. Thus, Blumer's focus is on acting units rather than on structural categories. Structure is a product of social interaction and not something inherent in the organism or a fixed entity outside of the organism. The focus on acting units means a focus on selfing or the process of interaction as against paying attention to cultural artifacts--the products of the transactions with others. The terms selfing and self behavior are used to emphasize the idea of the self as a process. Often we speak of the individual having a self--this is an awkward expression that is difficult to get away from and such outstanding exponents of the position as Herbert Blumer lHerbert Blumer, "Society as Symbolic Interaction,‘ in Human Behavior and Social Processes, edited by Arnold Rose (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962). 108 and Manis and Meltzer do use the term in this way.2 When we write of the individual with a self we do not mean to have the reader think of the self as an entity. Note the emphasis on the continual flow of self indications. The self from this standpoint is not a fixed structure of traits. Neither is a society of selves a society of mindless role players. "The socialization of the human being both enmeshes him in society and frees him from society. The individual with a self is not passive but can employ his self in an interaction which may result in behavior divergent from group definitions."3 Both the trait and role conceptions of personality are rejected in favor of an existential becoming. For the Symbolic Interactionist, individuals when selfing are not simply determined. The emphasis is on a continuous stream of definition and redefinition. The self engages in internalized social communication. Inter- nalized social communication makes for the continuous reconstruction or re-organization of experiences. 2In "Society as Symbolic Interaction," Blumer states that "The key feature in Mead's analysis is that the human being has a self," Ibid., p. 181. In listing the basic theoretical prepositions of Symbolic Interac- tionism, Manis and Meltzer speak of "the individual with a self . . .," p. 495, Manis and Meltzer, op. cit. Mead spoke of "the human individual who possesses a self . . .," p. 272, Mead, op. cit. 3Manis and Meltzer, o . cit., p. 495. 109 Let us explore some implications of this view. We do not restrict our interest to the dialectic or inter- action between individual and society that takes place in our conversations with others. We extend our interest to the dialectic or interaction that occurs by virtue of our being a self. This is the dialectic between the "I" and "Me" that Symbolic Interactionists make reference to.4 The Symbolic Interactionist agrees with those who state that the self concept is learned. He further agrees with those who argue that there is no self without others. The self is not, however, shaped solely by others as one would shape a lump of clay. The self is not viewed as an inert object that might be written on as the teacher writes on a blank chalkboard. The self is active and not passive. We might cite Charles Horton Cooley's looking glass self5 as an illustration of the relatively subtle distinction that is being made here. Contrary to the understanding of many students, Cooley did not say that we see ourselves as others see us. It is how we think others see us that is relevant to our self concept and 4"The self is essentially a social process going on with these two distinguishable phases. If it did not have these two phases there could not be conscious respon- sibility, and there would be nothing novel in experience," p. 178, Mead, op. cit. 5Charles Horton Cooley, "Looking-Glass Self," in Manis and Meltzer, op. cit., pp. 217-219. 110 this may not be how they actually do see us. It is not what others think of us that affects our self concept. What we think others think of us is the relevant variable. The self concept is not determined even by what we regard to be the others' judgement of us, however. We react to what we take to be the judgement of others. We may accept what we take to be their judgement of us. We may reject what we take to be their judgement of us. The phenomenon of judgement or interpretation is integral to the Symbolic Interactionist's conception of self. This is what is meant by saying that the self is active and not passive. This is why we insist on a dynamic conception of the self. We cannot explain self behavior in predispositional terms. The sociologist's use of the term attitude pro- vides one with an illustration of how the social world might be viewed in predispositional terms. In "Attitudes and the Social Act," Blumer6 attacks the conception of attitude as a tendency to act. This conception implies a simple release of predispositions. It ignores the con- structional character of man's actions. Blumer talks about the developing act. Human behavior is thought by Blumer to be built up in the stream of definition and 6Herbert Blumer, "Attitudes and the Social Act," Social Problems, 3, No. 2 (October, 1955), pp. 59-65. 111 re-definition that has been spoken about previously. It is the defining process by which we forge our acts. The trait conception of personality maintains that man behaves as he does because of personal qualities or characteristics or some clustering of characteristics. The adherents of this position use the trait conception to account for the relatively enduring modes of behavior that are typical of a particular person. The proponents of the trait conception of personality have had great difficulty dealing with the variation in the behavior of the same individual as he moves from one social situation to another. Knowing the scale score of an individual would not necessarily enable one to predict his behavior in a particular situation. We would not know his defini- tion of the situation. Insufficient attention is given to the defining process. The traditional role conception of personality is no panacea. It is but another instance of predisposi- tional thinking. Here too there has been insufficient attention given to the process of definition and re- definition. Role theory has often been viewed as but another exercise in social statics. Indeed, role theory has frequently been equated with conformity theory. The dynamic element for the conventional role theorist has tended to be the phenomenon of incomplete socialization. We get an oversocialized view of the individual as an 112 unwitting role player. This is not the position taken by the Symbolic Interactionist. In our focus on the process of interaction, we reject the idea of non-interpretative role playing.7 The Symbolic Interactionist rejects the notion that individuals being selves are determined by social forces. Mead spoke of man as a role taker. Turner8 points out that role taking is indeed role making. To speak of role taking is to think in dynamic rather than static terms. One is not merely enacting previously prescribed and proscribed sets of expectations but is rather creating new expectations. Role making contrasts then with mere conformity in role playing. The matter of definition or interpretation is central to role taking. It is because man is actively involved in dialogues both internal and external that he has a degree of freedom not shared with non-symboling phenomena. In the chapter on levels of analysis, the socio- logist's analogue to the psychologist's stimulus response 7In our judgement Charles Reich does not give an adequate empirical account of the situation when he says that "No one at all is in the executive suite. What looks like a man is only a representation of a man who does what the organization requires. He (or it) does not run the machine; he tends it," p. 115, Charles A. Reich, TEE Greening_of America (New York: A Bantam Book, 1970). 8Ralph H. Turner, "Role Taking: Process versus Conformity," in Human Behavior and Social Processes edited by Arnold Rose (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962), pp. 20-40. 113 theory was mentioned. The sociologist's state rate for- mula is a mindless methodology from the interactionist's standpoint as it excludes the intervening process of interpretation. When the actor is selfing, he is not the mindless product of a societal assembly line. States or conditions do not directly impact on him. We need to know what the state or societal condition means to the self if we are to explain his behavior. Sociology as a science is a generalizing disci- pline. We should expect this would affect the sociolo- gist's View of society. The sociologist is sensitized to look for the regularities or recurrencies in social inter- action. This may lead to the neglect of the constantly changing and the failure to take note of the unexpected and unanticipated. The formation of general rules is sought by most sociologists that it might be possible to predict and consequently control human behavior. The analysis frequently proceeds as if the culture of society had a life of its own independent of its members. In contrast, the Symbolic Interactionist cautions us not to forget that the unity (order) used in making predictions is only a tentative unity.9 9". . . as long as men kept a sharp disjunction between knowledge and ignorance, science made only slow and accidental advance. Systematic advance in invention and discovery began when men recognized that they could utilize doubt for purposes of inquiry by forming conjec- tures to guide action in tentative explorations, whose 114 In a closed or closing system, prediction and con- trol are predicated on a social order that is highly determinate either at present or at some future date. A society composed of selves is far less predictable than a society of automatons that have no "wills" of their own. Symbolic Interactionist social psychology is much more dialectical in character. The outcome is much more in doubt as the individual ". . . can employ his self in an interaction which may result in behavior divergent from 10 The individual in the process of group definitions." self behavior may arrive at a definition of the situation quite divergent from the one he held only moments ago. The Symbolic Interactionist takes a relatively indeter- minate view of self. It is in this vein that this writer perceives a kinship between Symbolic Interactionism and existential- ism that he has not seen noted in the literature.11 No claim is being made that they are identical twins. Both share, however, this relatively indeterminate View of human behavior. This linkage is likely to blow the mind development would confirm, refute, or modify the guiding conjecture," p. 149, Dewey, Democracy and Education, op. cit. lOManis and Meltzer, op. cit., p. 495. 11In his discussion of existentialism, this writer draws extensively on Van Cleve Morris, Existential— ism in Education (New York: Harper and Row, 1966). Morris' explanation of the relationship of existence and essence in existentialist analysis is especially lucid. 115 of sociological mainliners who have attempted to appro- priate for themselves a natural science image. Metho- dologically speaking, their goal is to treat people as things. Things do not engage in mind/self behavior and thus changes come from the outside. This does not mean that the Symbolic Interactionist is not interested in prediction. It does mean that in the act of indicating things to oneself,change may come from inside the person. It does mean that self behavior is dynamic behavior. We might further contrast the notion of an inde- terminate dynamic with the idea of a determinate dynamic. In the indeterminate dynamic, existence precedes essence while essence precedes existence in the determinate dynamic. The idea that essence precedes existence means that one merely fulfills what it is in his nature to be and does not create what he is in the course of living. They would have us believe that we are discovering real- ity rather than creating it. They think that they are finding things as they look at what is. It seems that those who endorse a determinate dynamic are endorsing the Spectator theory of knowledge that John Dewey criti- cized with such vehemence. If this sounds absurd, this writer challenges the reader to offer an alternative explanation for radical behaviorism in sociology. Note that in the above remarks we are not speak- ing about "social behaviorism" which is the expression 116 that George Herbert Mead used to characterize his posi- tion. We are contrasting social behaviorism with radical 12 The radical behaviorism as a sociological standpoint. behaviorist regards the actor's definitions of the situa- tion as irrelevant. In fact, he tends to substitute his own inferences as to what is going on inside the indivi- dual organism while blithely proclaiming that he is not doing this. In contrast, the Symbolic Interactionist maintains that the actor reacts to his perceptions of others and that we need to know about the actor's percep- tions if we are to explain his behavior. The existentialist and the Symbolic Interactionist draw our attention to the social construction of reality. In contradistinction, the positivists' principle of veri- fication rests on the ultimate validity of the correspon- dence theory of truth. This is the idea that one can check the truth of a statement against evidence to be found in some sort of real world so that truth is estab- lished by checking its correspondence with reality. The world of the interactionist and the existentialist is void of all prior meanings--meanings are human inventions. 12John B. Watson, Behaviorism (Chicago: Phoenix Books, The University of Chicago Press, 1930), presents the case for what we have identified as radical behavior- ism. We would cite Homans, op. cit., as an exemplar of the application of the approach of radical behaviorism to sociology. An analysis of social behaviorism as a school of thought is to be found in Don Martindale's The Nature and Types of Sociolggical Theory (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1960), pp. 285-438. 117 The existentialist holds that man is his own designer, that is, he creates his own essence. The Sym- bolic Interactionist argues that man is active rather than passive. The interactionist's emphasis on the social act by which human behavior is constructed or built up is closely related to the existentialist focus on self determination. The existentialist maintains that we are our own playwrights since we make choices. The interactionist notes that the actor is an improvisor. Both perspectives show a concern for biography and his- (/ tory that is not evident in the trans-historical bias of the logical positivitst within sociology. They are look- ing for laws that govern behavior and neglect a sense of history.13 The individual as a selfing creature is in the u process of becoming. He is not becoming something that has been pre-ordained. He is not becoming what is in his nature for him to be. He is becoming what he chooses to be in interaction with his perception of others. Some speak of man as a rational animal. It is perhaps even more appropriate to speak of him as a choosing or valuing animal. l3Positivist sociology is basically 'social statics,‘ quite in keeping with the positivist doctrine that there is a 'true and permanent harmony between the various existential conditions in society,'" pp. 349- 350, Herbert Marcuse, Reason and Revolution (Boston: Beacon Press, 1941). 118 The individual being engaged in self behavior is engaged in growth. Growth for the selfing individual is much more than mere need reduction. Selfing makes the organism more than an organic machine. The human organ- ism cannot be adequately understood in terms of the satiation of organic needs which returns the organism to a quiescent state. The human being in interaction with Ii others chooses himself. To be human is to choose. The symbol enables man to bring his interpreta— tions of the past and his projections for the future to bear on his present choices. He is not the prisoner of prevailing modes of behavior to the degree that infra- human organisms are. This is evident in the notion that there is an ideal self (self aspiration) and an actual self (self perception). The individual selects what he might be and may use that as a standard in evaluating his perceptions of his actual performance. Indeed, we may experience disquietude as we contemplate the discrepancy between our ideal and our perceived selves . This means that the person engaged in conversations with himself can engage in a review of his own behavior and evaluate his perceptions of his "actual" behavior in terms of some standard or ideal. We need not confine ourselves to ask- ing ourselves who we are. We may ask the further question, why are we? We are speaking of a creature that can become self-fulfilling. The term self-fulfilling is used here 119 suggest a process of seeking to fulfill in practice the standards or expectations one sets for himself. In an earlier draft the term self-actualizing was used but it is not our intention to take on those additional meanings that have been associated with the expression "self- actualizing."l4 At this point we will examine that subclass of self-indications that we might term self-aspirations. The present focus is on those self conversations in which the actor establishes aspirations for himself and engages in reflections on the meaning or purpose of his existence. In this context, self-fulfilling behavior is behavior directed toward the achievement of those ideas established in interpersonal and ultimately self conversations. The converse of self behavior is non-reflective behavior. The behavior of S-R Programmed man may be explained without reference to selfing. S-R or Programmed man does not self-fulfill or seek to make his "actual" behavior con- gruent with the ideal he has set for himself. The self-fulfilling person is self directing, self moving. The self-fulfilling person is not be be explained merely in terms of physical deficiency motivation. He establishes ends toward which he strives. Teachers need to respect his independence. We must avoid making the l4Abraham H. Maslow presents his conception of the self-actualizing individual in Toward a Psychology of Being (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold; second edition, 1968). 120 learner dependent on authority for direction. We must cease and desist from treating students as inert things to be produced by shaping from without. We may engage in interaction with students but it is important to recognize the autonomy of the selfing individual. This means that the learner must choose or decide. Self behavior is non-conditioned behavior since judgement or interpretation is integral to self behavior. Indeed, we might actively seek to foster autonomy instead of plac- ing a premium on conformity to authoritarian commands. This would put an emphasis on self behavior and de- emphasize conditioned behavior. Students often act like sheep. Sheep unlike people do not engage in self behavior. Students often are not inclined to figure things out for themselves. Students often expect to be told what to do and how to do it. This writer takes the position that this behavior of students is a consequence of what would appear to be the destruction of self behavior that typically occurs in our schools. Students often appear to be conditioned to behave like sheep. Conditioned behavior is a consequence of Reinforcement principles of learning in contrast to Symbolic Interactionist principles. Note that we have said that the self appears to be destroyed in some school situations and that if often appears that students are conditioned to behave like 121 sheep. The appearance may be deceiving. This is a point that the radical behaviorist fails to appreciate. The student might present outward compliance to the directives of school authorities but this does not mean that the student has been successfully conditioned. The student may have decided that it is in his best interests to pre- sent a compliant posture. The student may have decided on a strategy of disengagement. While the student may appear to be responding in a non-interpretative fashion this is not necessarily the case. Let us examine in greater depth the notion that we can condition children to behave "appropriately" in schools. We train children to sit in orderly rows. We train them to speak only when given permission to talk. We train them how to stand in straight lines. We demand that they respect authority and insist that they not question the wisdom of our orders. We make it clear that their opinions do not count for much. They are expected to take notes on what we say--not on what other members of the class have to say. Students become dependent on authority. Does this mean that the self process ceases to operate? We may not assume that learners are not selfing in the school situation described above. We may not reward them for having opinions but this does not mean that they will not have opinions. They may not express 122 doubts about the wisdom of the teacher's directives, but this does not mean that they do not question the wisdom of what they are being told. This analysis calls into question the assumption that human conceptual abilities may be treated as if they were the same as those at the infrahuman level. This analysis calls into question the assumption that the human learner is passive rather than active in some school social situations. If selfing can— not be turned off by certain school procedures, then stimulus response or Programmed man is a fiction though perhaps a convenient fiction. There is a message in the medium of instruction that prevails in our schools. The structure of the classroom tells us a great deal about what students are likely to learn while they are in it. The teacher makes choices. The teacher establishes seating arrangements. The teacher determines the content of the curriculum. The teacher decides what the correct answers are. The teacher defines the situation. The teacher may be merely playing the teacher role as defined for him by someone “else. This too is a choice. Students generally do not have a gzmiIHZFUEEUIZHHityvto make effective choices. Students frequently are treated as things to be manipu- lated to behave in a fashion that the teacher programmer defines as desirable. The student is not expected to make important decisions. He can run for student 123 government and make decisions concerning trivial matters but he is not expected to make any important choices. In an earlier draft this writer argued that the student is engaging in no more self behavior than a tape-recorder. This writer further asserted that the student is no more selfing than a parrot. This is far to superficial an analysis. The individual is not a tape-recorder or a parrot even if we at times act toward him as if he were. Self behavior is not necessarily suspendable. Not only do we not encourage students to act on the basis of their convictions, we do not even encourage them to form convictions. The "self" is not expected to 15 Material be actively involved in the subject matter. is dealt with in the abstract. Facts are isolated from their context. It is no wonder that students currently tend to question the relevancy of the instruction they have been given. It is the position of this writer that learning involves a change in one's own perceptions. Learning changes the learner. The learner must perceive what meaning the items of information presented to him have for his own life if his behavior is to be changed by the 15"It is hardly an exaggeration to say that too often the pupil is treated as if he were a phonographic record on which is impressed a set of words that are to be literally reproduced when the recitation or examina- tion presses the proper lever," p. 261, John Dewey, 593 We Think (Boston: D. C. Heath and Company, 1933). 124 facts. The learner must see the personal relevancy of the facts if they are to make a difference in his life. This is why we persist in attacking the Spectator theory of knowledge. In interactionalist analysis, learning is more likely to take place when the material to be learned is seen as relevant by the learner. Interest in what is to be learned is a pre-requisite to learning. The indivi- dual person must want to know the answers to the questions that are being raised. Taking a personal interest is self behavior. The learner must consider the project worth doing. The learner must see the project as his project if the findings are to make any enduring difference in his life. The individual is not likely to sabotage his own project. We program machines. We write on blank slates. We fill empty containers as we choose and not as the con- tainer chooses. Let us not confuse these inert objects with human beings engeged in self interaction. Let us not fail to see the difference between a thing and a self behaving human. Teachers might wonder why they have so few teach- able days. Teachers might wonder why the student has not learned though the teacher has "taught." Recall that we have equated learning with changes in behavior. Why do students refer to schools as prisons as they frequently do? We question the assumption, however, that this means 125 that students are being acted upon rather than acting. If there are so few teachable days this suggests that students are responding toward the way they are being treated though the response is often not what the teacher had hoped for. We might ask ourselves why students take drugs in our schools. Can it possibly be true that drugs serve as a survival mechanism for students completely turned off with school? If this is the case then stu- dents are not passively taking in the stimuli presented to them. We may treat their interests as irrelevant in establishing the curriculum but this does not mean that their interests will remain irrelevant. Even disengage- ment is a way of interacting within a situation defined as irrelevant. If this is true then the answer does not lie in any alienation of the "self" from school activity though this writer formerly believed it did. In speaking of the alienation of self, we cannot convey disinterest on the part of the learner, nor can we express disengage- ment from the activity in all but a physical sense. Dis- interest may be seen as a definition of the situation and disengagement as a strategy for dealing with disinterest. It would seem that self behavior is much in evidence rather than being inoperative. We would argue that the individual is more likely to learn what he considers to be of interest or defines as relevant to his personal life. 126 Means get separated from ends. The student does not learn a skill because it is necessary before he can accomplish something he wants to accomplish. The child is asked to learn the skill because the teacher thinks it will be relevant to him at some future date--perhaps, it was his teachers who thought this information or skill would be relevant and the practice of teaching the skill has since become institutionalized. We seem unwilling to divest ourselves of the notion that education is only a preparation for life. The student is not expected to question why. The student learns to defer his interests. Eventually they do not seem to matter anymore anyway. The learner is not much changed by content that has no meaning for him. The learner is changed by the content that he has integrated into his on-going project. The learner will be interested in the acquisition of means relevant to his goals. We need to connect means and ends and not divorce the two. In interactionist analysis, means and ends are connected. But teachers get terribly concerned about cover- ing content as if it were an end in itself. They get upset at the prospect that they are not covering the material. The content becomes an end in itself and not a means to further growth. For the interactionist, know- ledge is essentially a means to further growth. Teachers often strive to get the gnpwers and forget the questions. W 127 The teacher's indication that a student has spoken the correct answer serves to terminate the episode. The student is asked by the Reinforcement theorist to make only a series of discrete stimulus-response connections. Stimulus response connections isolated from ends need have no meaning for the individual. In contrast, con- nectedness is of critical importance in interactionist analysis. Witness the difficulty that so many college students have when they are asked to make an application of the material that they have been "taught." Reinforce- ment theory trains students to make stimulus response connections. Interactionist theory seeks to enable the learner to use information to solve problems. Growth ends with death for the interactionist. Death is the only terminal behavior for him. The learner must be one who is immature because immaturity is neces- sary for openness to new experiences. Maturity implies a termination of growth.16 In interactionist terms, the learner is one who functions well in an ambiguous situation. In contrast, -R man is trained to follow programs designed for closed situations. We maintain that the learner must attach 16The conception of maturity and immaturity used here is drawn from the writings of John Dewey. See the chapter on "Education as Growth" in John Dewey's Democracy and Education, op. cit., pp. 41-53. 128 significance to otherwise undifferentiated experiences. This is to say that the learner must make meaning out of the various stimuli that impinge upon him. The experi- ence must be undergone if the learner's behavior is to be changed by the experience. The self process must be actively involved in the defining of the experience if it is to be undergone. This means that an experience can be had without being undergone, that is, that one might be oblivious to what is happening to him and thus he is not undergoing the experience. A situation that is pre- defined by someone else is not as likely to lead to growth. It too often becomes a game of trying to figure out what the teacher wants the students to say. If the student is trying to figure out what the teacher wants him to say he is interacting and not being conditioned. In interaction- ist analysis, the actor or learner is involved in defining the situation-—he is not merely repeating someone else's definition of the situation. The teacher who wants to foster inquiry on the part of the student might refuse to provide a definite answer to questions. The student would be asked to figure out how the problem might be examined. Established truths when dogmatically held stifle inquiry. The Symbolic Interactionist is against taking a dogmatic position. Where dogma ends inquiry, questions initiate inquiry. John Dewey was very critical of the quest for certainty. Dogma makes for a closed system. This is why 129 this writer believes that it is important to orient stu- dents to interact within ambiguous situations. The next chapter will stress that the perception of a situation as problematic is a prerequistie to thinking. The individual grows by doing and undergoing and not by being done for or done to. Both doing and undergoing are necessary for meaningful learning in the interactionist framework. Much of what goes on in schools violates Symbolic Interactionist principles. Self behavior seems irrelevant to much of what goes on in school. If we are correct in saying that it is not, it may be wise to quit acting as if it were irrelevant. The bureaucratization of the situa- tion has made it impersonal by design. We question that it is impersonal in fact. The Symbolic Interactionist says that learning is personal as well as interpersonal. School personnel speak of student roles rather than learn- ing selves when we should speak of learning selves. The Symbolic Interactionist says that self behavior is very important and that role behavior is transactional. In our schools, the role of student is often viewed as a segmented portion of the person. Similarly the teacher often tends to be merely a role player. The teacher is not explicitly selfing in the situation. One only deals with a part of the total being of teacher and student in the teacher-student role-counter role situation. Social distance is maintained. Status symbols such as the 130 male teacher's suit and tie are employed to maintain role clarity. The teacher avoids making himself vulnerable before his students. The teacher is not seen as a learner who might grow in interaction with his students. The teacher's role is that of expert or authority. By ignor- ing self behavior, the instances above illustrate how schools violate Symbolic Interactionist principles. Our schools teach the fragmentation of the self. ( What is learned in one class is separated from what is learned in another class. What is learned outside of school is separated from what is learned inside school. The separation of thought from action assumes a dichotomy 17 If learning means change in of knowing and doing. behavior, the clevage of thought and action limits learn- ing. We can teach a parrot the "right" words. A tape recorder will get the rhetoric right, that is, without modification. Once again self behavior is ignored. The interactionist is saying that we must not treat man like a parrot or a tape recorder. It is the human "self" that interprets and reinterprets material that has been pre- sented to it. The Symbolic Interactionist insists that we not ignore human interpretation. Non-interpretative behavior is random, reflexive, or conditioned behavior. 17We agree with Dewey. "Knowledge is not some- thing separate and self-sufficing, but is involved in the process by which life is sustained and evolved," p. 87, John Dewey, Reconstruction in Philosophy (Boston: The Beacon Press, 1920). 131 The organic machine can tell us what it knows. The human being, a self, can tell us how he proposes to live. Truth is something which has to do with statements for the Positivist. Truth is independent of the actor. It does not matter if the truth teller is a hypocrit. In contrast, the human individual is changed by what he regards to be true. Knowing is not sufficient. Knowing something serves to continue growth not to halt it. The individual uses the information in the construction of a way of life. The interactionist teacher would not be satisfied with knowing what the student knows. He would want to know what the student had made of the information-- what difference the facts made. We need to be concerned about what we have become. What has the person made of himself? We look for the meaning of a person's words in his own life. Weber's contrast between living for a pro- fession and living off of a profession18 remains one of the most articulate statements of what it means to invest one's self in something. Existentialists have a propen- sity to talk about death. They frequently ask us what we would be willing to die for. On the other hand, what do we choose to live for? Self behavior is a term used for the process of giving meaning to existence. To speak of self behavior is to speak of the obligation of the learner to be aware of 18Weber, "Politics as a Vocation," op. cit., p. 84. 132 his meaning making function. If the individual chooses to conform to an established definition of the situation that is no less of a choice. The social world is devoid of meaning except as man assigns meanings to it. The meanings are not inherent in the objects or arrangements of the objects. Our choices are ultimately baseless and arbitrary. We generally evaluate particular choices by making reference to other values which we currently do not call into question. Though we engage in joint action, each individual in the process of selfing decides to accept or reject the consensual definition of the situa- tion. Interactionism does put an emphasis on others, however, that is not generally evident in existentialist writings. The interactionist is probably much less inclined than the existentialist to see the individual's significant others as being chosen independent of struc- tural influences. Certainly the interactionist is inclined to talk about the restructuring of patterns of association as a vehicle to changing the individual's sig- nificant others. Association is seen as highly related to identification. One must select from the possibilities evident in the situation. It is likely that one's signi- ficant others will be of the same color in a racially isolated school. Changing the school composition to decrease racial isolation would increase the possibility 133 that the individual would have friends of a different color. The same principle would apply to changes in the social economic class composition of the school. Earlier integration of students would likely result in more changes than later integration. A variety of different others is important if the ”self" is to become relatively autonomous. There is no choice if there are no alternatives. We might expect that the individual would become less autonomous in a homogeneous situation--the individual would more likely merely internalize traditional norms. Selfing as the term is being used here operates dialectically. Identity emerges dialectically. This means that the self concept is maintained or modified in social relations. Selfing functions most meaningfully in a situation where there are multiple reference groups. The existence of multiple reference groups makes for alternatives. Without alternatives, the actor is merely enacting a pre- viously prescribed role. Counter identities are grounded in counter cultures or diverse reference groups. Choice does not make sense unless the individual is aware of alternative possibilities. The individual who has only one reference group from which to select significant others is not very likely to grow. We assume here that limiting possibilities, limits growth. Indeed, self behavior is non-existent when the defining or interpreting 134 process is external to the individual. This does not mean that we claim that self behavior is empirically non- existent in some situations but that it would be non- existent given the condition that the defining or inter- preting process be external to the individual. Others do not determine the individual but there is an interaction between the individual and others. The self concept results from the interplay of the "objective" definitions of others and the "subjective" reactions of the individual. To say that the individual must ulti- mately form his own self definitions is not to deny the significance of others in providing definitions that the individual must accept, reject, or modify. To the degree that we increasingly discourage independent self judge- ments, the influence of others on the self concept would be expected to increase in a deterministic fashion. To the degree that we stifle the critical spirit, the indi- vidual would come to be dependent on others. The next chapter will concentrate on the critical consciousness. The above ought not to be construed as suggesting that the teacher should withdraw from the situation. The child without alternatives is not free to choose. The child without options is likely to be the victim of his 19 0WD ill defined whims or of those others in the 19"It is easy to jump out of the frying-pan into the fire. It is easy, in other words, to escape one form of external control only to find oneself in another and 135 situation who suggest a plan of action. The child is not invulnerable to threats and pressures to behave in par- ticular ways. This does not mean that there needs to be a mora- torium on decision-making in the early years. It does mean that the child should be free to redefine the situa- tion. It does mean that the teacher can help the learner to understand the consequences of various decisions. We noted that the individual's self concept is not simply determined by others. The self concept is formed in interaction with others and thus we ought not ignore factors which are likely to influence an indivi- dual's self concept in a particular direction. A negative self concept is likely to stifle growth. The student who believes he cannot learn likely will not learn. The stu- dent who believes he cannot be a high achiever likely will be a low or mediocre achiever. The teacher must do his best to prevent possibilities from being stifled by a debilitating self concept. We need to be cognizant of the difference between performance and ability. Differ- ences in performance should not be used to influence the more dangerous form of external control. Impulses and desires that are not ordered by intelligence are under the control of accidental circumstances. It may be a loss rather than a gain to escape from the control of another person only to find one's conduct dictated by immediate whim and caprice; that is, at the mercy of impulses into whose formation intelligent judgement has not entered," pp. 64-65, Dewey, Experience and Education, op. cit. 136 self concept of ability in such a way that the learner feels that he cannot learn if he has not yet learned. The self concept must not set phony limits on achieve- ment. The individual must be free to grow and become. CHAPTER VII MINDING Objectives for Chapter VII: (1) To outline what is meant by reflective thinking. (2) To suggest a relationship between re- flective thinking and negative thinking. (3) To briefly contrast one-dimensional and multi-dimensional thinking. (4) To note the relevance of minding to social recon- struction. For the Reinforcement theorist, learning is re- flexive. For the interactionist, learning involves reflective thinking. Mechanical drill would be an appro— priate strategy in the former case. The interactionist rejects the assumption that human learning may be explained in the same terms as the learning of non- reflective animals. The interactionist sees man as a meaning maker. His educational plans are an attempt to take into account this image of man. In this chapter this writer seeks to outline an interactionist's conception of reflective thinking. We would maintain that a person who makes use of the 137 138 reflective mode of thinking would be more effective. It seems foolish to argue that one is dispassionately point- int to an effective way of thinking with no regard for the acceptance or rejection of this mode of thinking. This does not mean that we would not listen to our critics--we would hope to gain much from interaction with them. Perhaps, we can help them if they are as open as we hope that we are. First, we need to clarify some terms. Mind and self are not things having empirical properties that we can come to know through careful exami- nation. The constructions do not even stand for mutually exclusive processes. Minding is self behavior. The self exists in minding. Indeed, mind has been identified as the self in action. Claytonl combines the terms in using the expression minded self. This chapter will use the title minding to concentrate on reflective thinking. Mind is symbolic functioning. By symbolic we mean that a word or gesture is used to stand for, signify or indicate an object. Mind is a characteristic of an act. Mind is an act in which the individual tests out consequences in advance of overt completion of a behavior sequence. Mind functions when the individual is aware of different possible completions in advance of the actual lAlfred Stafford Clayton, Emergent Mind and Education, contributions to education No. 867 (New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1943). 139 completion of the act. Mind is a process in which we try out varying approaches in our imagination in advance of their execution. Mind is a process in which the indivi- dual points out meanings to himself as he points them out to others. When the individual uses significant symbols-- the meaning is shared--he calls out in himself the responses others would make to the symbol. Minded interaction is reflective thinking. The minded act is the delayed act.2 Minding makes for pur- posive behavior. This contrasts with the direct or immediate act of non—reflective animals. "Mead's beha- viroism differs from Watson's in that Mead distinguishes between the behavior of the 'biologic individual' and the conduct of the 'socially self-conscious individual,‘ between the acts of non-reflective animals and those of man."3 The reader will note that this writer has attempted to combine the ideas of reflective and critical or 2"Delayed reaction is necessary to intelligent conduct. The organization, implicit testing, and final selection by the individual of his overt responses or reactions to the social situations which confront him and which present him with problems of adjustment, would be impossible if his overt responses or reactions could not in such situations be delayed until this process of orga- nizing, implicitly testing, and finally selecting is carried out; that is, would be impossible if some overt response or other to the given environmental stimuli had to be immediate," p. 99, Mead, op. cit. 3Clayton, op. cit., p. 56. 140 dialectical thinking.4 Critical or negative thinking is seen as a vital part of the reflective act. This writer trusts that the analysis of critical thinking adds an important dimension to the interactionist notions of mind and reflective thinking. We see man as making a critical translation of his world. This contrasts with what will be identified as the one-dimensional thinking of S-R or Programmed man. Let us consider the genesis of reflective thinking. Reflective thinking begins with what has been termed a forked road situation. A forked road situation is one in which the actor must choose between or among alternatives. The situation is defined as ambiguous. In the situation 4“Dialectics comes from the Greek diale o, to discourse, to debate. In ancient times dialectics was the art of arriving at the truth by disclosing the contra- dictions in the argument of an opponent and overcoming these contradictions. There were philosophers in ancient times who believed that the disclosure of contradictions in thought and the clash of opposite opinions was the best method of arriving at the truth. This dialectical method of thought, later extended to the phenomena of nature, developed into the dialectical method of appre- hending nature which regards the phenomena of nature as being in constant movement and undergoing constant change, and the development of nature as the result of the devel- opment of the contradictions in nature, as the result of the interaction of opposed forces in nature," pp. 6-7, Joseph Stalin, Dialectical and Historical Materialism (New York: International Publishers, 1940). Stalin goes on to state that the principle features of the Marxist dialectical method are ". . . that no phenomenon in nature can be understood if taken by itself, isolated from sur- rounding phenomena. . . ." and that ". . . dialectics holds that nature is not a state of rest and immobility, stagnation and immutability, but a state of continuous movement and change, of continuous renewal and develop— ment. . . . p. 7. 141 the individual perceives that there is a dilemma to be resolved. The audience to which this paper is addressed is encouraged to applaud the lack of definitiveness which is an exceedingly important pre-requisite to the genesis of reflective thought. If we presently find ourselves in a state of perplexity, we ought to treasure this interrup- tion in the smooth flow of stimulus and response because it creates a readiness to entertain sundry possibilities of extricating ourselves from out present situation and moving us toward a more deliberate resolution of the problem. We must come to define the situation as proble- matic if we are to step back and project possible con- sequences of various alternatives. We must be uncertain as to the proper course of action. We must be aware of the difficulty of the choice we must make. We are faced with the unknown. The actor is in a state of suspense. We must complete the act but we are doubtful as to our selection of a plan of action. A closed system strategy is not applicable. There is no single, automatic response to a stimulus. The actor cannot terminate the episode by mechanistically following a prescribed recipe. He has no cookbook to follow. The actor is implicated in what he has defined as an open, on-going situation. 142 Those who run our school system tend to reward) behavior that is compliant to the directives of the teacher and other school personnel. They tend to value order and quiet in the classroom. The student is asked to do as he is told. When there is only one dimension to instruction, we need a subversive universe of dis- course. The teacher might be a rogue in terms of the prevailing dimension. The learners might be considered disruptive characters by the guardians of the status quo. Both would share a sense of adventure that is not present in routine classroom situations. Both would seek to generate alternatives and consider their relative merit. We should not anticipate being able to arrive at an inventory of all of the alternative possibilities in a situation. A more systematic specification of a greater number of options and their consequences is felt, however, to be more productive than a lack of awareness of even these limited alternatives. It is important that we avoid the danger of remaining stagnant at the inventory of alternatives stage in the process of reflective thinking. A listing of possibilities does not complete the reflec- tive act. It is vital that an exploration of the conse- quences of the various courses of action be attempted even if only in rudimentary form.5 5"We are obliged to act, in the first place, and in the second place to act intelligently, or as intelli- gently as possible, in a world in which, as I say, we 143 Intelligent action in the interactionist frame- work means that the individual makes use of likely conse- quences in guiding his behavior. Knowing the conse- quences, however, is not sufficient. Consequences are good to know but one needs to have a conception of good consequences. Knowing the likely outcomes of various courses of action is meaningless unless we know which outcomes are better. In choosing a career, for example, the actor may step back and judge the differences in various career possibilities. Our actor finds that he is likely to earn more money in some careers than in others-- he projects the probable consequences of selecting one career over another. Knowing that there are differences in income to be had does not help him to make a decision if these differences in income are unimportant to him. He may select a position on the basis of his being able to fulfill some abstract commitment to humanity that is more important to him than monetary incentives. It is at this point that we might suggest a revi- sion of the Reinforcement theorist's notion of reinforce- ment that would better explain human behavior. The individual in the above illustration certainly would make know very little, in which, even if the experts know more than we do, we have no way of knowing which expert knows the most. In other words, we are obliged to live out our lives thinking, acting, judging on the basis if the most fragmentary and uncertain and temporary information," p. 178, Holt, op. cit. 144 his decision on the basis of what he regards as rewarding. The Reinforcement theorist in his behaviorist orientation does not tell us the difference between rewards and punishments but seems to believe the difference is inher- ent in the nature of things. We need to substitute a notion of valuation that is inextricably tied to the notion of reinforcement. In programmed instruction only the programmer knows the good. The student is not expected to question the assumptions that the decision maker knows what is good for him. The learner is not expected to engage in self behavior. Teachers often expect all students to compete for grades. Perhaps, this is because a high grade was a good outcome for the teacher. Similarly teachers expect that students will seek to avoid low grades as the teacher sought to avoid low grades as a student. Those who speak of school climates and differences in subcultural norms draw our attention to the fact that high grades are not equally reinforcing to all individuals and groups. Some students have learned that it is important to study hard that they might get ahead in the world. Other groups of students do not consider "getting ahead" very important. Some students are rewarded by complimen- tary comments on their work by others--some perhaps by any others, most only by others who are important to them. Still other students are rewarded by a personal sense of 145 satisfaction that no longer depends on the remarks of particular others. A good word from the teacher may variously be defined as rewarding, absurd, or even as an insult in some instances. We strive for what we value. We seek what we regard to be the good society. The good may be something tangible that can be readily dispensed by someone who possesses it. The good may be something which no man has and which no man can give. As Dewey has argued, "All conduct that is not simply either blindly impulsive or mechanically routine seems to involve valuations."6 Reward and success must be explained in social psycholo- gical terms. We are reinforced by what we value. We cannot choose unless we have a conception of the good. Earlier we noted the Symbolic Interactionist's rejection of dogma or absolute truth. In place of state- ments held to be true for all people at all times and in all places we substitute a conception of truth that is tentative and situational. We rely on guiding conjecture. As we forge our course of action, we ought to anticipate that any quest for certainty that we begin with will likely not be quenched. Truth may be claimed in the "either" (thesis) or the "or" (antithesis) dimension of the dialectic of polarization or we may locate truth at 6John Dewey, Theory of Valuation (Chicago: Uni- versity of Chicago Press, 1939), p. 3. 146 some point of synthesis. We may claim truth to be located at any one of the myriad points in that often inchoate middle ground between polar extremes. It is important that we try to escape the intellectual wilderland, that is, that we negate prevailing myths. We may never reach the promised land of absolute truth. Still, Moses proba- bly served well even though he was not able to lead his people to the promised land. He was able to extricate them from a difficult situation. The critic must not refrain from speaking until he has formulated an alterna- tive to the present condition. The critic may bring us to a greater awareness of our predicament. This is no small achievement. We might ask ourselves what we are to do if we are not sure of what course of action to take. How are we to act if our knowledge of the various alternatives in a situation and their consequences is incomplete. This brings us to the relation of thought and action or of the "is" as we can best come to understand it and the "ought." It is of the utmost importance that we form a judgement on whether the material as incomplete as it may be is to be taken as instrumental to some end in view or regarded as of no further importance. We ask ourselves if we are prepared to modify our behavior on the basis of the con- clusions we form even though they are only tentative conclusions. As we sift the facts that we are able to 147 gather, is it our purpose to merely draw pictures in our mind or do we analyze and synthesize with a disposition toward growth, that is, toward the possibility of change in behavior? We have said that learning involves changes in behavior. To the degree that thinking is involved in human learning, it changes the learner. This writer takes the position that the reflections that we engage in should be more than an esoteric affair. Often it seems that we are paralyzed from the neck on down. This means that we pay lip service to ideas but do not act on them. Let us take an action orientation. We are speaking of principled action, that is, action that is informed even though incompletely so. John Dewey says it very well. "Pupils are taught to live in two separate worlds, one the world of out of school experience, the other the world of books and lessons. Then we stupidly wonder why what is studied in school counts so little outside."7 We are saying that reflective thinking ought to make a dif- ference in our behavior. We seem quite unaffected by Dewey's observation, however. He spoke about the interaction of the concrete and the abstract. He sketched a transactional relation- ship between the familiar and the theoretical. These are Iaot two separate worlds. A discourse on reflective ‘ 7Dewey, How We Think, op. cit., p. 259. 148 thinking is absurd unless it makes a difference in con- crete behavior in the classroom. If the abstractions prove inoperative in concrete situations they are empty statements devoid of empirical instances that they ought to relate to. Let us consider in greater detail this reflective way of thinking that has been introduced in the above remarks. Reflective thought is critical thought. This does not negate the formation and maintenance of a con- servative ideology though it does militate against the lack of ideology, that is, against a blind acceptance of tradition. Let us dwell for a few minutes on the impor- tance of the critical posture. Dewey has said that there is no thought without inference and that inference is a leap beyond what is given and already established.8 It is then necessary to disturb the equilibrium if thought and subsequent growth is to take place. We must call into question those principles which are conventionally held to be sacred. We challenge the conventional wisdom of those who define our present situation. At this point a synthesis of dialectical9 and reflective thinking is attempted. The dialectical mode of thought is here submitted as the vehicle by which we 81bid., p. 96. 9A useful analysis of the dialectic may be found in Reason and Revolution by Herbert Marcuse, op. cit. 149 may leap beyond that which is already established. What has been identified as dialectical thinking will then be of use in reaching one of the objectives Dewey set for reflective thinking--to leap beyond what is given and already established. Dialectical thinking suggests the negation of the prevailing modes of doing things. Dia- lectical thinking entails the denial of that which is immediately before us. The disruptive force of negative thinking is proposed as a potentially creative as well as a destructive instrument, that is, negative thinking is a truly dynamic element in the reconstruction of the status quo. It is more than an anti-authoritarian rebellion although it is certainly that. Negative thinking is a refusal to accept the rules of the game as they are pre- sently established. In the dialectic, we have thinking that is two- dimensional--every element is paired with its opposite. This can be seen in contrast to one-dimensional thought in which there is no alternative.10 The dialectic is seen as a mode of generating alternatives that are neces- sary for reflective thinking or minded behavior. The traditional conception of the dialectic with the estab- lished order (thesis) and its negation (antithesis) over- simplifies multi-dimensional thought by presenting only a 10See Herbert Marcuse, One Dimensional Man (Boston: Beacon Press, 1964). 150 two-dimensional image. There are multiple negations of the established order. A second modification of the traditional dialectic is in order if it is to make sense as an explanation of empirical instances of conflict in the social world. The traditional dialectic was thought to be a total negation of the status quo whereas we need not exclude partial negations from consideration. The principle of counter-vailing powerll illustrates this. The labor union organization, for example, is not the total negation of management. Indeed, the labor union organization supports the basic framework of the indus- trial system while seeking in its most radical moments only a mild redistribution of scarce values. Often the labor union does not even challenge the prevailing divi- sion of the income. Balance of power politics provides a second example. Governments sought to maintain the balance to protect its ideology against its opposite without calling the notion of the balance of power into question. Some of Dewey's students have said that he taught us not what to think, but how to think. They fail to fully appreciate the fact that one cannot learn how to think without finding that there is a concomitant delimi- tation in what one thinks. In learning how to think one llJohn Kenneth Galbraith, American Capitalism (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1956). 151 learns certain rules as to what constitutes valid evidence. Negative thinking must call into question not only the par- ticular historical content that is contemporaneously held as valid, but, also, the process by which these conclu- sions were arrived at. To be sure, this implies that the dialectic itself can and should be called into question-- that recognition, however, ought not to prove debilitating. We might consider at this point how interaction might lead to a new synthesis, that is, how interaction produces learning. Synthesis requires the recombination of elements into something that is an emergent form. It is something different than any of the old elements. The actor comes in the process of minding to form relatively independent judgements. This might be accomplished by a transfer of positions. The self considers the situation from multiple vantage points in the idea of transfer of positions. The individual seeks to put the various analyses of the situation in juxtaposition that they might be compared. The minded self seeks an intellectual confrontation of the adherents of conflicting universes of discourse. It is unlikely that the individual can become a free floating intellectual. The notion of a free floating intellectual is used to suggest the possi- bility of becoming objective by detaching oneself from particular interest groups. The university professor has sometimes been seen as filling this role as an 152 "independent" intellectual. The chapter on dysutopian consequences set forth the argument that the "free floater" is not actually free--he is the servant of any master who would choose to make use of the free floating intellectual's objective findings. The notion of a trans- fer of positions is the idea of systematically taking the role of others with diverse perspectives to try to see the world from each of a variety of orientations. It is most likely rather superfluous to make explicit the underlying conviction of this writer that we can do much better than we are presently doing. This con- viction, however, is taken as axiomatic by those who would foster growth in contradistinction to system main- tenance. These two concepts-—growth and system mainte- nance--are not necessarily, of course, mutually exclusive as can be seen in the discussion of those who speak about a dynamic equilibrium. Let us, however, focus our atten- tion on those situations in which these principles are in opposition to one another. We refer here to the possi- bility of non-linear growth. We would examine those situations in which growth is more than a mere extension of the present trend. Our concern is for situations in which the dynamic is other than the working out of some pre-disposition. Learning that is mechanical is not likely to lead to new interpretations. The method of drill is a method 153 of purposeless reproduction of content. The parroting of a prescribed formula is a mindless or thoughtless activity. "In manipulating symbols so as to recite well, to get and give correct answers, to follow prescribed formulae of analysis, the pupil's attitude becomes mechanical, rather than thoughtful; verbal memorizing is substituted for inquiry into the meaning of things."12 The memorization of isolated facts which Dewey says is falsely termed learning, is a process lacking in meaning. It is man's capacity to act in terms of his inter- pretation or definition of situations that enables him to act with an end in view. Distinctly human behavior is behavior that is intentional. Minding enables the self to try out an act in advance of its overt completion. The use of the symbol allows us to act deliberately, that is, in a purposive fashion. The naming or labeling of an object or person provides us with a plan of action toward that person or object. This is most evident in those situations in which our anticipations are unfulfilled. The interruption brought about by the failure of our expectations leads us to reflect on the relations that we believed were Operative. That which is presently routine need not be thought of as having always been routine. Routinization of behavior is here thought of as a 12Dewey, How We Think, op. cit., p. 238. 154 consequence of lengthy familiarity with a situation and its component elements. Our chief concern ought not to be with those behaviors which are readily programmable but with the relatively unfettered. We need to direct our attention to the liberation of the intellect. This means that S-R or Programmed man is not free. We need to substitute reflective thinking for one-dimensional thinking. The uniformity of a regimented order is anathema to the free- dom requisite to the construction of the greater good. "For freedom is power to act and to execute independent of external tutelage."l3 It is important that we identify the basic sources of external constraint. The assembly line style of production provides us with a rather graphic image of environmental domination of individual volition. An authority system in which the teacher fills the role of dictatorial ruler is a second major instance of external constraint from the point of view of the minded self. Objects and other persons do not, of course, exhaust the universe of "unconscious" controls. The individual may find himself at the mercy of his own whims and impulses as indicated earlier. The latter individual is no more free than the person who is the victim of external forces. 13Ibid., p. 87. 155 Since man constructs his behavior in the course of its execution, he need not respond dumbly to either external stimuli or internal forces such as drives or needs. Human beings are capable of creating new or diver- gent responses in the process we term minding. Inter- action with others and with self (self indications) is the dynamic agent we have been speaking about.14 The interactionist is very much interested in man's ability to question. The process of inquiry is a nearly ubiquitous concern of the interactionist. We do not mean to advocate that the teacher ask questions that he already knows the answers to just so he can "ask ques- tions." This is not inquiry. Indeed, the asking of questions that the teacher knows the answers to is an essential feature of mechanical drill. It is a matter of discovering what the teacher is thinking and not a matter of the learner being expected to do any thinking. Inquiry requires a problematic situation. The experimental method is seen by Dewey as the vehicle for our salvation. We are asked to put our faith in the empirical method. Certainly one must be acutely aware, however, that Dewey is not proposing a method of 14"The human being is not a mere responding organism, only responding to the play of factors from his world or from himself; he is an acting organism who has to cope with and handle such factors and who, in so doing, has to forge and direct his line of action," p. 55, Blumer, Symbolic Interactionism, op: cit. 156 blind fumbling or mindless trial and error. It would be more accurate to refer to Dewey's method as one of trail and check or of provisional trials. He has told us about the value of having a working hypothesis. Human behavior is intelligent when guided by tentative suggestion. We observe a reciprocal relationship between facts and ideas. We move from facts to ideas and back again. Thought need not be construed as invariably preceding action in minded behavior. The person may be brought to an abrupt halt while engaged in some activity and step back to make a sense of the activity. One may revise an on-going course of action in mid—stream. He does not have to figure it all out before he does something. The mind would come into play as the self examines what he is doing. Doing may come first and reflection during or after an action. Intensive analysis of John Dewey's position offers insight into his sublime contribution to the reso- lution of a most taxing dilema. The problem is that of charting a course between the unresolved and the settled. John Dewey's discussion of tentative conclusions illumi- nates for us the possibility of a canalization of our activity between the troublesome and the harmonious. Stimulated by the uncertain and the perplexing, we seek to transform a situation so defined into one in which we are able to forecast or predict future events and thus demonstrate our understanding of our present condition. 157 The synthesis of the determinate and the indeterminate in Dewey's framework is the tentative. We may simultaneously value and pursue anticipation (prediction) and the novel. The hypothesis directs inquiry but is not to be regarded as sacrosanct. The hypothesis is the possible and not the estab- lished. It directs inquiry without making one's thinking rigid. It is conceived of as a guide rather than as dogma. Thus, there is an important degree of the indefinite in the process of reflective thinking. Freedom is not, however, an unmixed blessing and one must be prepared to cope with the difficulties which it entails. The objection most commonly brought against the type of free social discussion here recommended is that it becomes aimless, and gets nowhere, that discussion is dispersive, children jumping from one thing to another, till unity is destroyed and pupils are left with a sense of futility. There is no doubt of the reality of the danger thus suggested. But if the young are to be prepared when they leave school to take an effective part in a democratic society, the danger must be faced and conquered.15 The solution lies not in the enactment of already prescribed roles but in the process of role taking which is, indeed, role making. Although this recognition fails to conquer the problem as set forth by Dewey, it does suggest the context in which fruition may be attained. The point that is being stressed above is that the human organism is active rather than passive. It is the 15Dewey, How We Think, op. cit., p. 270. 158 whole-heartedness--the enthusiasm that some interaction- ists have called our attention to--that is the dynamic or creative force. Interactionism draws our attention to the relative significance of the internal as opposed to external motivation. We are told about the driving power of curiosity. We are asked to consider the gains to be made if we can "awaken" the love of knowledge from within the individual. Knowledge that makes a difference for a minded self is knowledge that is integrated into a modified plan of action and is not merely a new item of information that is mechanically added to one's store of information. Knowledge that is separated from intent or purpose is miscellaneous junk.l6 Knowledge that is likely to change the learner must be a part of his on-going activity. The learner's perception of the world must be changed if he is to change his plan of action. Disconnected details have no significance for the learner. We must rid our- selves of our preoccupation with facts as facts. Facts must have a personal meaning. Perhaps, the difference can be expressed as being analagous to the difference between a motion picture and a series of still pictures each one of which has no bearing on the others. The mind l6"Research without an actively selective point of view becomes the ditty bag of an idiot, filled with bits of pebbles, straws, feathers and other random hoard- ings," p. 183, Robert Lynd, Knowledge for What? (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1939). 159 serves to make the connections. We perceive a series of unrelated and non-moving pictures but we connect these pictures in our mind in terms of concepts like cause and effect. We interpret what we see and it is our interpre- tation that makes the difference (or the similarity). We see social classes with our mind but only a number of individuals with our eyes. Unless we have a criteria of relevance to guide our selective perception, everything is on the same static, dead level. This is not to deny that objects have stimulus properties. The interactionist does not take a soliphis- tic position. The stress is on the ordering and re- ordering of what is available to be perceived. The dia- lectical focus is on the emergence through interaction of a new sensibility--a new way of interpreting the social world. It is by examining the various definitions of the facts that we might hope to achieve independence. The minded self is a notation that stands for man as an inquirer and not as an uncritical disciple. The minded self is our only hope that the experiment with democracy will not fail. CHAPTER VIII CONTEMPORARY TRAPS Objectives for Chapter VIII: (1) To indi- cate where the Symbolic Interactionist stands in relation to some of the remarks of contemporary critics of education. (2) To lend further precision to the inter- actionist position. In the previous chapter, this writer saw the con- tribution of negative thinking in formulating a plan of action as being analagous to the contribution of Moses in leading his people out of captivity though not being able to lead them to the promised land. This writer is not convinced that the critics will lead us to the promised land either. Using the Symbolic Interactionist perspec- tive, he points out some traps that he sees his contem- poraries falling into. Perhaps, they will reciprocate and point out the defects they note in this writer's analysis. In this chapter, this writer seeks to sketch a preliminary outline of what might serve as a basis for a dialogue with some of the popular critics of education. 160 161 In the preceding pages, we have come to share with them many of the criticisms of the traditional method of edu- cation which they have articulated. We disagree, however, with particular portions of their analysis and it will be our task in this chapter to make explicit our points of departure. This should serve to make our own position more precise. It is said that schools are dehumanizing and that we must seek to make our institutions including our schools more humane.1 This writer has said that the ends of education are not directly derivable from any concep- tion of the nature of man and it will perhaps prove fruitful to elaborate on that statement in this connec- tion.2 It seems that what we seek is a conception of the good man. If it is in the nature of man to be cruel to his fellow man, should it follow that education ought to teach man to be cruel? If we compare human and infrahuman behavior, we will likely conclude that there is much that we would not approve of. If war is a distinctly human 1"Our most pressing educational problem, in short, is not how to increase the efficiency of the schools; it is how to create and maintain a humane society. A society whose schools are inhumane is not likely to be humane it- self," p. 203, Charles E. Silberman, Crisis in the Class- room (New York: Random House, 1970). 2"The nature of man is always relevant; but just as relevant is our decision as to what we want to make of it, what we want men to become," p. 70, Hook, op. Cit. 162 behavior, does this mean that education ought to prepare learners to engage in war behavior? There is a tendency to speak in glittering gener- alities. We hear people say that black is beautiful when they may mean that black can be beautiful. We here people say that white is right when some whites may be right. The statement that we must humanize the schools might be seen as similarly over-stated. The people who argue that our institutions ought to be made more humane, need to make explicit what is good about being human or perhaps more precisely, it would prove insightful to have an explicit conception of when one is being a good human.3 We might then propose that education ought to foster that which is good in man. It is not enough to make our institutions simply more humane. Indeed, we need not assume that being more humane is necessarily an improvement. In saying this, we do not intend to imply to the reader that the Symbolic Interactionist can tell him when one is being a good human and when one is being a bad human. We mean to call attention to the importance of having a conception of good humanism. If it is important to make a distinction between the good human and the bad human, this does not mean that 3In our judgement, it is not enough to merely pro- claim ". . . that today education and consciousness are needed to humanize all the new forms of work, things, and experiences that are thrust upon us," p. 391, Reich, op. cit. 163 we should ignore that which is distinctly human in formu- lating ends for education. We have taken the Reinforce- ment theorist to task for his Ratmorphism--denying man faculties not found in infrahuman organisms. We object to this dehumanized View of man because of our conviction that one cannot make the assumptions made by the Rein— forcement theorist and have an adequate explanation of human behavior. Treating man as if he were a rat or a pigeon does not make him a rat or a pigeon. We claim that the Symbolic Interactionist frame of reference better explains human behavior. We may act toward man as if he were an organic machine as the Reinforcement theorist does, but this does not mean that man is an organic machine. We reject the notion that the complex behavior of man can be explained by crude analogies drawn from the conditioning experiments on rats and pigeons.4 You do not get rid of mind/self behaviors by acting as if they do not take place. One might narrow the scope of the experiments he conducts but this does not bring about a concomitant delimitation of the range of human 4"Mind makes it possible for the individual pur- posively to control and organize his responses. Needless to say, this view contradicts the stimulus-response con- ception of human behavior," p. 20, Bernard N. Meltzer, The Social Psychology of George Herbert Mead (Kalamazoo, Michigan: Center for Sociological Research, Western Michigan University, 1964). 164 interactions. We do not reject the dehumanized view of man because of any humanistic ideology. We reject the dehumanized view of man because it is a terribly inade- quate attempt at explaining human behavior.5 There is a tendency to argue that our schools make students passive and docile. This is one of the traps that this writer fell into. Because some tend to act as if students are passive creatures, it is easy to assume that they are passive creatures. We have noted that the Reinforcement theorist believes that he can con- dition behavior as one might mold a lump of clay. The Symbolic Interactionist holds that man is active rather than passive. It is our position that the Symbolic Interactionist better explains human behavior. We dis- agree with the pOpular critics who see students as being 0 O I I l 6 necessarily paSSive in some school Situations. Even 5"It is impossible to arrive at a diagnosis of man's predicament--and by implication at a therapy--by starting from a psychology which denies the existence of mind, and lives on specious analogies derived from the bar-pressing activities of rats," p. 18, Koestler, op. cit. 6In talking about classrooms in which "Everyone is turned toward the teacher and away from his classmates,‘ and classrooms in which ". . . seats are bolted to the floor or fastened together in rigid rows,” Jerry Farber says that "This classroom, like the grading system, iso- lates students from each other and makes them passive receptacles," p. 24. We wonder if he sees the expression clever robots as a contradiction in terms when he says that "Capitalist or socialist, a democracy cannot possibly function if its citizens are educated to be clever robots,‘ p. 37, Jerry Farber, The Student as Nigger (North Holly- wood, California: Contact Books, 1969). 165 rote learning ought not to be viewed as an inevitably me- chanical, mindless endeavor. The student may be mentally active though this would not necessarily be evident to the observer. The learner may be making all sorts of indications to himself though his response would perhaps seem to be direct and unmediated. The popular critics often speak of the loss of self in their efforts to convey the notion that man has become a passive, mechanical creature.7 If in the rote learning situation the teacher does not expect the learner to engage in reflective thinking, this does not mean that the teacher has in fact been able to stop the student from engaging in reflective thinking. The teacher may penalize divergent thinking but this does not mean that the teacher can prevent divergent thinking. If the student gives com- pliance to the teacher's commands, this should not be construed as meaning that the student is not selfing at all in the situation.8 7"The organizations of the Corporate State are empowered to confer and take away selfhood. . . ." p. 117. "The self within him is killed, and he walks through the remainder of his days mindless and lifeless, the inmate and instrument of a machine world," p. 141. Reich argues that the child is taught passivity (p. 142), Reich, op. cit. 8We disagree with Goodman's analysis of programmed teaching. "That is, the student has no active self at all; his self, at least as student, is a construct of the programmer," p. 80, Paul Goodman, Compulsory Mis-education (New York: Vintage Books, 1964). 166 In the situations we have been discussing, the interactionist views the learner as making a presentation of "self" to others. We are not defending the practice of acting toward students as if they were passive crea- tures engaged in no more self behavior than a mechanical man. We are saying that the assumption that man is not engaged in a continuous flow of self indications is invalid. The Reinforcement theorist is not going to explain very much human behavior if he assumes that mind/ self processes do not exist. The popular critics are in our judgement mistaken if they believe that the tradi- tional teacher has been able to destroy self behavior. This writer has come to belatedly regard Pro- grammed man as a fiction. This does not mean that he has come to embrace efforts to condition human behavior because he has come to judge them to be far less effica- cious than he formerly believed them to be. We fail to see any advantage to be gained from treating students as if they were passive organisms without selves. We do not see sufficient benefit accruing from the practice of rewarding passivity and docility to warrant its continua- tion. If we acknowledge that learners are not passive receptacles, we are likely to find that the range over which overt interactions occur in the classroom is readily broadened. We are saying that the Reinforcement theorist cannot prevent symbolic interactions no matter how hard 167 he might try to maintain that they do not exist. If the teacher would stop trying to circumscribe human interac- tions, however, interaction might "flower more freely." There is a tendency to see the individual as having an existence that is independent of others.9 We maintain that this is absurd. We reject the position that man has an essential inner nature or real self that is intrinsic or independent of social relations.10 We fail to see that the assertion that man has an essential biologically based inner nature has very much explanatory i a power. The concept lacks vulnerability, that is, it does not risk elimination. If we are correct in our analysis, we should call into question the literature dealing with the discovery of self as some sort of entity that may be known. In paying attention to the process of self defi- nition that typically occurs most dramatically in adoles- cence in our culture, we note some evidence for the hypothesis that one comes in interaction with others to 9"The group of thinkers who have been working with self-actualization, with self, with authentic human- ness, etc., have pretty firmly established their case that man has a tendency to realize himself. By implica- tion he is exhorted to be true to his own nature, to trust himself, to be authentic, spontaneous, honestly expressive, to look for the sources of his action in his own deep inner nature," p. 161, Maslow, op. cit. 10"I include in this essential inner nature in- stinctoid basic needs, capacities, talents, anatomical equipment, physiological or tempermental balances, pre- natal and natal injuries, and traumata to the neonate. This inner core shows itself as natural inclinations, propensities or inner bent," p. 190, Ibid. 168 define what he thinks he ought to be and what he thinks he presently is like. - While the existentialist gets away from the notion that there is an inner core of human nature, the existen- tialist tends to see man as much more autonomous than the interactionist does.11 This does not mean that we should abandon the term. It is useful perhaps to speak of becom- ing more or less autonomous. We do not perceive man, however, as making completely independent choices. The interactionist holds that individuality emerges in inter- action with others. Individuality is a social concept for the interactionist.12 Given the popular critic's emphasis on individual choice, it is crucial that we have an adequate conception of individuality and individual choice. The notion of the free learner pervades much of the contemporary popular literature.l3 One wonders if 11"But at base, freedom is absolute because it is existential. And this freedom is the freedom to set goals. It is absolute because there are no limits to the freedom to set goals for oneself; there are no goals that one cannot choose," p. 53, Morris, op. cit. 12"The idea of a natural individual in his isola- tion possessed of fullfledged wants, of energies to be expended according to his own volition, and of a ready- made faculty of foresight and prudent calculation is as much a fiction in psychology as the doctrine of the indi- vidual in possession of antecedent political rights is one in politics," p. 102, John Dewey, The Public and its Problems (Denver: A Swallow Paperback, 1927). 13For example, in describing visiting day, 2001 A.D., Leonard says that "While the children are on the 169 the free learner is not as much of a fictional character as Programmed man. We seem to be told more what the free learner is not, than what he is. It seems that the free learner is perhaps no more than the negation of Programmed man. If Programmed man is the victim of severely repres- sive forces, the free learner is liberated. One suspects that the liberation is not complete, however. Even if the teacher were to completely stop being authoritarian, this would not make the learner free. Parental expecta— tions would still likely be an important variable in influencing what the student would learn. Peer pressure is another variable that we should expect to have an impact on individual choice.14 The Symbolic Interactionist draws our attention to the network of interpersonal relationships in which the individual is implicated. We must insist that school composition factors not be ignored. It is important to pay attention to the learning environment. This does not mean that we cannot speak in terms of degrees of freedom. school grounds, they are absolutely free to go and do anything they wish that does not hurt someone else. They are free learners," p. 141, Leonard, op. cit. "A learn- ing community would be a community of free learners, none of whom had any power over others at all," p. 99, Don Robertson and Marion Steele, The Halls of Yearning_(Lake- wood, California: Andrews Printing Company, 1969). 14"But one must make sure that an authoritarian structure controlled by pupils does not replace the one the teacher has refused to impose," p. 23, Kohl, op. cit. 170 Programmed man and the free learner might be conceived as ends of a continuum and the choice that we make in a par— ticular situation might be said to more closely approxi- mate one or the other ideal type. Perhaps, the most serious problem with the concept of the free learner and the notion of individuality apart from others lies in the extent to which the advocate of these notions simultaneously endorses individual relativ- j ism. If one is free to choose, it follows that one is free to choose foolishly. One might learn from making foolish choices if one comes to see the choice as being foolish. In the case of individual relativism there is no theory of error. How then does the learner come to define error? It seems that we may not only have an unwise chooser but we may have a chooser who is unaware that his choice is unwise. We may question whether the foolish chooser is free or whether he is a slave to his own foolish choices. We may further question whether the popular critics are serious about fostering free learning if it means indi- vidual relativism. The ideals that the popular critics theorist. It seems that there is a tendency to view situa- tions in dichotomous terms: dehumanizing-humane, passive- advocate may be as narrow as those of the Reinforcement ' active, loss of self-recovery of self, and repression- l 171 liberation. It is easy to fall into this trap and View situations in either-or terms. The formulation of an adequate framework may extricate us from this situation. We need an adequate conception of mind, self, and society if we are to adequately comprehend human behavior. We might have a very good understanding of what is wrong with education without being able to articulate a viable alternative. We ought not tO assume that utopia is to be created by the mere negation of present ”circum- stances" that we deem mis-educative. Note that we have spoken of multiple negations of an idea. We have rejected a binary view of the world though we have advocated nega- tive thinking as an effective strategy. This writer has created a structure of Opposites as an analytic tool. No claim is made that nature is arranged in bifuricated terms. It is our contention that interactionist analysis will yield a more precise analysis of practices that are mis-educative. We further contend that interactionist analysis is most likely to lead to a statement of prac- tices that are educative. We maintain that this is so because the interactionist analysis proceeds in terms of a systematic analysis of mind, self, and society that has greater explanatory power than any alternative formula- tion. This is not yet demonstrated, but perhaps we have outlined the rudiments of a perspective that will do this. We think that we are at least on the right road. CHAPTER IX TENTATIVE CONCLUSIONS Objectives for Chapter IX: (1) To acknow— ledge the incompleteness of the analysis and the existence of inconsistencies that have yet to be worked out. (2) To state some implications for education in admit- tedly very general terms. The implications for education outlined in this chapter are presented in an attempt to provide the teacher with a general plan of action. If the teacher agrees with the interactionist's notions about human learning, these suggestions may prove useful. We expect that the details of any plan of action will be modified in the on-going process of definition and re-definition. We might expect that our plans of action will always be incomplete and undergoing development. This document is not an exception to that principle. This paper is not a finished product. It is an attempt to grapple with some of the significant issues in education using the Symbolic Interactionist perspec- tive as a reference point. It is conventionally 172 173 considered wiser to undertake an analysis of a more limited range of subject matter. Had this writer selected the latter course, a more definitive concluding statement likely would have been possible. The risk is that more cosmic questions would have been ignored. In electing to take the more comprehensive route, we find that even a tenuous unity is difficult to articulate. In endeavoring to do macroscopic analysis, we find in this instance at least no clear point of termination. This is perhaps as it should be. We have taken a dynamic View of man and society. Thus, it is fitting that there is no final resolution of the concerns expressed in the previous pages. Much is yet to be worked out. There are still inconsistencies in the analysis. There are still statements of questionable validity. We should be surprised if this were not the case. We have viewed society as constantly changing. In the process of interaction man becomes involved in the social reconstruction of society. The present understand- ing of the topics dealt with in this paper represents a critical revision of the formulations of a number of thinkers. As this writer has called into question the analysis of others so is his analysis to be called into question. Some changes have already been made as this writer has become convinced of the inadequacy of particu- lar points in his analysis. 174 This has been indeed an educative experience. This writer has sought to range widely and fit together materials that have never been fitted together before. Mistakes have been made but then we should be able to learn at least as much from our mistakes as from our successes. Perhaps, we need to take risks if we are to learn and grow intellectually. This writer finds it challenging to venture into controversial areas. No “1 absolute truths are revealed to the reader. In interac- tion with others, especially with his significant others, this writer has formulated the preceding interpretation. The prospect of definding these statements has made this writer acutely aware of the extent to which he shares a particular subuniverse of discourse that might have suf- ficed as an explanation of the social world had the jointly held definition of situations not been called into question. Then the panic sets in. Interpretations that seemed natural enough begin to look like no more than unwarrantable assertions. Imagined or otherwise, adversary interactions may provide impetus to reflective thinking. The analysis of stimulus response or Programmed man is an apt illustration of the above observation. Initially this writer maintained that schools could actually produce‘stimulus response or Programmed man and that the processes of mind and self do not occur in those . 175 school situations in which there is an attempt to condi- tion student behavior. Now it seems more accurate to consider stimulus response or Programmed man an ideal type or convenient fiction. Programmed man is still a useful creation for the sake of argument and conceptual clarity at least, even if he is a fiction. If one accepts our argument that the dialectical method contri- % butes to reflective thinking, the creation of the nega- ; tion of the interactionist's notion of man creates a i structure of contradictions that may at least lend empha— i E sis to our argument. It may be more accurate to contend that the radical behaviorist cannot explain human behavior than to maintain that we can produce this demon that is non-interactive. The analysis of Programmed man and self behavior tends to polarize Reinforcement and Interactionist notions. It is strategically important to develop con- trast conceptions in dialectical analysis. This does not mean that we endorse an either/or dichotomy as a valid empirical account of human behavior. The clash of "Oppo- sites" in this dissertation is used as a literary device to clarify the interactionist position. The implications we suggest for education are not new though the route by which we arrived at them is not characteristically familiar and that may make an impor- tant difference. We advocate an emphasis on dialogue in 176 our schools. If knowledge is constructed in the process of human interaction it is important that we give fuller attention to the social context. If we are treating stu- dents as isolated individuals, we need tO cease and desist from that practice. We believe that learners should participate in a meaningful exchange of ideas even if we find it difficult to state precisely what we mean by that expression. While it may be psychologically more comfortable to share truisms with friends, one should not underestimate the educational value of exposing oneself to individuals and groups of quite diverse orientations. This might prove to be a very liberating experience. We believe that inquiry must be encouraged. We have examined the negative utopia inhabited by Programmed man and suggested that inquiry is virtually non-existent in this "mythical" realm. We have written no recipe for inquiry that the reader might follow step by step. Rather, we have sought to stress the critical importance of fos- tering inquiry if man is to create new knowledge and not merely assimilate old truths. We have questioned whether much that passes for inquiry is indeed inquiry. The so- called discovery approach to learning can degenerate into a "guess what I am thinking" approach. We have argued that we should seek to increase the degree of independence and autonomy in our students. We have asserted that conditioning students inhibits 177 growth toward independence and autonomy. We have stressed the critical translation in a growth-oriented view of man and society. Perhaps, we have even created the demon Programmed man in our enthusiasm to make our point. In our view, contemporary education should be problem oriented. This has been especially stressed in the chapter on minding. It is in attempting to formulate the solution to problems that the connectedness of means and ends become evident in this writer's judgement. A pervasive concern of this paper has been with democracy and education. Man is seen as engaged in social reconstruction. Man is seen as jointly implicated in building or constructing his social world. New sensibili- ties are likely to emerge as we interact with one another. Institutions will be created and modified as we seek to build a better society. Some choices will no doubt be foolish but that is perhaps the price of freedom and responsibility. Those who share this dream of democracy must refuse to be programmed. We must resist attempts to mani- pulate consensus if this dream is to be fulfilled. We must act reflectively. We must move with intent or pur- pose. It is important that our decisions be as informed as they can be though knowing the facts is not sufficient. We need to know what our priorities are--the process of valuation is integral to the interactionist's notion of 178 decision making. If democracy is to work, it seems that we must practice democracy. SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 179 Berger, Blumer, SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Peter L., and Luckmann, Thomas. The Social Con- struction of Reality. Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1966. A treatise in the sociology of knowledge that is greatly influenced by George Herbert Mead and the Symbolic Interactionist school of thought. Herbert. Symbolic Interactionism: Perspective and Method. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1969. Blumer is probably Mead's foremost student. His lucid style does much to explicate the nature of Symbolic Interactionism. The influence of Blumer on this writer is substantial--Blumer says so much so well! This is an excellent source for Obtaining a statement of the point of view of Symbolic Interactionism by an outstanding propon- ent of the position. The implications of the vantage point are detailed as the key concepts are applied to the analysis of selected topics. Brookover, Wilbur B., and Erickson, Edsel L. Society, Schools, and Learning. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1969. An excellent analysis of the learning process utilizing the Symbolic Interactionist perspective. The authors attack the notions of limited and fixed abilities to learn and outline an interac- tionist conception of learning that is revolution- ary in its implications. If we seek to establish an educational system in which approximately 99% of the students learn what is important to be learned, we would do well to begin by giving care- ful consideration to the ideas presented in this book. Very well written. Carmichael, Stokely, and Hamilton, Charles V. Black Power. New York: Vintage Books, 1967. 180 181 The authors speak of the need to create a new consciousness among black people--the need to define their acts in their own terms. Group solidarity and identity are endorsed as neces- sary to the formation of a power base. Chinoy, Ely. Society: An Introduction to Sociology. New York: Random House, 1963. Chinoy has written a very readable book. Clayton, Alfred Stafford. Emeggent Mind and Education. New York: Teachers College, Columbia University, 1943. Clayton relates key elements in the thinking of George H. Mead and indicates their possible rele- vance for educational practice. "The educational implications of extreme behaviorism are more com- patible with the demands of an authoritarian society and political organization than they are with the demands of a democracy" (p. 54). Mead's emphasis on reconstruction, in contrast, makes the growth of self the task of education. "The mechanism of society that is reconstructing itself and the mechanism of the developing self are identical" (p. 142). An excellent source. Deutsch, Morton, and Krauss, Robert M. Theories in Social Psychology. New York: Basic Books, 1965. Psychologistic in style. The chapter on the Rein- forcement theorists is especially important to an understanding of the contrast between Reinforce- ment theory and Symbolic Interactionism. Dewey, John. Democracygand Education. New York: The Free Press, 1916. Education implies meaning, intent, or purpose. Training is not education. Animals are trained to respond unintelligently. The process of edu- cation is a continual reorganization, transforma- tion or reconstruction of experience. Routine marks the arrest of growth. "A knowledge of the past and its heritage is of great significance when it enters into the present, but not other- wise" (p. 75). Mind is intentional purposeful activity controlled by the perception of facts and their relationship to one another (p. 103). To have an aim is to act with meaning. 182 Intelligence means foresight of alternative con- sequences. Behavior without purpose is mechanical and slavish. Discipline is tied to interest in a developing course of action. We live in a world that is unsettled, unfinished. The self is some- thing in continuous formation. Dewey is critical of merely symbolic (verbal) knowledge that is mechanical. Often students acquire only a pecu- liar vocabulary divorced from a sense of signifi- cance. The products of human inquiry need to be connected with the questions and problems that gave rise to the answers and not separated from the process of inquiry. Dewey, John. The Public and Its Problems. Denver, Colorado: Alan Swallow, 1927. Dewey distinguishes between independent, self- moved individuals and standardized, interchange- able units. He says that "the invasion of the community by the new and relatively impersonal and mechanical modes of combined human behavior is the outstanding fact of modern life" (p. 98). Dewey, John. The Quest for Certainty. New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1929. Dewey attacks the spectator theory of knowledge. He concludes ". . . that standards and tests of validity are found in the consequences of overt activity, not in what is fixed prior to it and independently Of it" (pp. 72, 73). A condition in which there were no more problems would be the death of science. Ideas are hypotheses, anticipatory plans not finalities. Dewey urges the elimination of the separation of theory and practice. In doing this he endorses the princi- ple Of indeterminancy. Dewey defines intelligence as a quality of directed action. He argues that ". . . distinctively human conduct can be inter- preted and understood only in terms of purpose" (p. 246); ". . . action which is distinctively human is marked by intent" (p. 246T. Dewey, John. How We Think. Boston: D. C. Heath and Company; second edition, 1933. A clear statement of Dewey's position on the rela— tion of reflective thinking and education. The chapter on minding draws extensively from this source. 1%...» , ~... . 183 Dewey, John. Experience and Education. New York: Collier Books, 1938. Perhaps the most concise and readable statement of Dewey's thinking. Dewey uses the criterion of continuity to distinguish between experiences which are educative from those which are mis- educative. Dewey, John. Theory of Valuation. Chicago: The Univer- sity of Chicago Press, 1939. "All conduct that is not simply either blindly t! impulsive or mechanically routine seems to involve valuations" (p. 3). It is having ends-in-view that distinguishes human from non-human behavior. Dewey, John. Reconstruction in Philosophy. Boston: The Beacon Press; enlarged edition, 1948). 3} E— Dewey argues for critical scrutiny. We ought to subject ideas to the test of consequences. Exter— nal authority is often substituted for active experimentation. He says that soldiers qua sol- diers and most workingmen under present economic conditions are not notorious for being thinkers-- thinking is done for them, higher up. Dewey urges the deliberate reconstruction of experience. Indeed, "Knowledge is not something separate and self-sufficing, but is involved in the process by which life is sustained and evolved" (p. 87). Durkheim, Emile. The Rules of Sociological Method. New York: The Free Press, 1938. The classic statement of the social fact as the proper domain of sociology. Durkheim, Emile. Suicide. New York: The Free Press, 1951. Suicide is explained in terms of the social facts. Societal states or environments are cited as the explanation for the variations in suicide rates. Farber, Jerry. The Student as Nigger. North Hollywood, California: Contact Books, 1969. Farber argues that schools teach obedience to authority. In the classroom students learn to follow orders mindlessly--a slave mentality develops. 184 Galbraith, John Kenneth. American Capitalism. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1956. Galbraith's analysis of the management of demand is well done though not yet fully developed in this book. "The need and the opportunity to per- suade people arise only as people have the income to satisfy relatively unimportant wants, of the urgency of which they are not automatically aware" (p. 97). His theory of countervailing power in opposition to "original market power" presents an interesting model for industrial societies to which the competitive model of classical economics r1 does not apply. We need not agree with his empi- rical description of operating instances of countervailing power to make use of the notion as a way of dealing with monopoly or oligopolistic power. In an organizational society, unneutral- ized power could lead to the unhampered exploita- , tion of the public, of workers and of others who 2! are weak as isolated individuals. Countervailing é! power may be seen as a vehicle for increasing the likelihood of decentralized, democratic decision making. Galbraith, John Kenneth. The New Industrial State. New York: A Signet Book, 1967. Note especially Galbraith's analysis of industrial planning and the management of demand. He argues that "the need to control consumer behavior is a requirement of planning" (p. 211). Management must insure that people buy what is produced and the further products are from being "physical or survival" needs the more management must create wants or manufacture demand. This conditioning of attitudes need not be thought of as a process restricted to the economic sphere but may find application in other realms such as the political. Indeed, ". . . the line dividing the state from what is called private enterprise, or at least from the highly organized part of it, is a tradi- tional fiction" (pp. 241,242). The mature corpora- tion and its technostructure is seen as the domi— nant form in the new industrial state. The social impact of the mature corporation is seen as radically different than that of the Wisconsin dairy farm. Freedom and perhaps democracy become tenuous. It may be that "the individual and his preferences, in one way or another, will be sacri- ficed to the needs and conveniences of the apparatus created ostensibly to serve him" (p. 403). 185 Goffman, Erving. Asylums. Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, 1961. Goffman makes an important statement about the process of re-socialization. Goodman, Paul. Compulsory Mis-education. New York: Vintage Books, 1962. The chapter titled "Programmed" contains a num- ber of incisive comments. Goodman asks how we can expect students to exercise initiative after we have conditioned their behavior. Goodman, Paul. The Community of Scholars. New York: A Vintage Book, 1964. Goodman considers this book to be a treatise in anarchist theory. Gross, Llewellyn, ed. Sociological Theory: Inquires and Paradigms. New York: Harper and Row, 1967. The reader's attention is directed to the papers by Rose ("The Relation of Theory and Method") and Horowitz ("Mainliners and Marginals: The Human Shape of Sociological Theory"). Hickman, C. Addison, and Kuhn, Manford H. Individuals, ‘Groups, and Economic Behavior. New York: The Dryden Press, 1956. The first chapter, "Toward a Unified Theory of Human Behavior," critically sketches Freudian theory, Field theory, Learning theory, and Self theory. Self theory is Kuhn's branch of the Symbolic Interactionist orientation and serves as the theory on which the remainder of the book is based. A very succinct statement of his posi- tion. Very well done. Holt, John. The Under—Achieving School. New York: A Delta Book; Dell Publishing Company, 1969. John Holt's thinking is well expressed in this book. He argues that if we want to raise sheep-- make people timid, docile, and easily driven or led--our schools are perfect as they are. His position is that the child should be the planner, director, and assessor of his own education. 186 Homans, George C. The Human Group. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1950. Homans identifies himself as a sociologist but takes the position of ultimate psychological reductionism. Homans, George C. Social Behavior: Its Elementary Forms. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1961. Homans' thinking illustrates the application of Reinforcement principles to sociology. Hook, Sidney. Education for Modern Man. New York: . Alfred A. Knopf; new enlarged edition, 1963. ”n A very well written book by a student of John Dewey. The analysis is excellent. "An education which stresses conditioning students in their responses, or their adjustments to what appears like the status quo, can only succeed by inhibit- ing the creative moment, the potentially redirec- tive phase of normal behavior" (p. 29). "In the end, the good teacher makes himself superfluous and the good student learns the art of self- education" (p. 229). Hook says we must strengthen the powers of independent reflection--we must build a critical sense. Hook uses the terms "cri- tical method" and "scientific method" interchange- ably. He is against the technique of conditioning. We need the active competition of vital options. Horowitz, Irving Louis, ed. The New Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1964. The introduction to The New Sociology by Horowitz and the papers by Willhelm ("Scientific Unaccount-' ability and Moral Accountability") and Gouldner ("Anti-Minotaur: The Myth of a Value-Free Sociology") offer a number of important insights into the sociology of knowledge. Koestler, Arthur. The Ghost in the Machine. Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1967. The chapter titled "The Poverty of Psychology" is a very well documented critical analysis of Behav- iorism. Koestler argues that in denying man faculties not found in lower animals, the Behav- iorist takes a ratomorphic View of man. ". . . the Skinnerians claim that the bar-pressing experiments with rats and the training of 187 pigeons . . . provide all the necessary elements to describe, predict and control human behavior-- including language ("verbal behavior"), science and art" (p. 9). Kohl, Herbert R. The Open Classroom. New York: A New York Review Book, 1969. Kohl views the public schools as being authori- tarian and oppressive. Controlling the children is the most essential factor in measuring a teacher's success in public schools today. He observes that most children are used to doing what they are told in school and it takes chil- dren quite a while to discover their own interests when given the opportunity. Children ought not, however, be expected to make choices in a vacuum. The corollary of "objective" knowledge is regarded as obedience to authority. Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1962. The notion of science as cumulative is questioned and attention is drawn to subversive novelties and non-cumulative developmental episodes. Aware- ness of anomaly is seen as a dynamic element in calling into question the prevailing paradigms or theoretical conventions. Lederer, William J. A Nation of Sheep. Greenwich, Connecticut: Fawcett Publications, 1961. A nation of sheep from a Symbolic Interactionist's standpoint is a nation of people conditioned to respond uncritically to external stimulation. Lederer speaks of the lack of involvement of the American people in foreign policy decision making. Leonard, George B. Education and Ecstasy. New York: Dell Publishing Company, 1968. "To learn is to change. Education is a process that changes the learner" (p. 18). ". . . learn- ing is what human life is" (p. 10). Most of the teacher's time, however, seems to be spent on classroom control. Leonard maintains that we squelch a great deal of learning in the early elementary grades. Children learn that following instructions is what really counts. He says we must move away from the mechanistic and establish learning environments where an individual may I-“ . I“?! 188 function as a free-roving seeker. Leonard attempts to go beyond the mere negation of pre- sent evils. He outlines existing learning environments that he regards as viable models. Lindesmith, Alfred R., and Strauss, Anselm L. Social Psychology. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, third edition, 1968). Written by two of the most articulate spokesmen of the Symbolic Interactionist orientation. Very readable. Highly recommended to anyone unfamiliar with the orientation but desirous of obtaining a clear statement of the position and a well devel- oped elaboration of the point of View. Lynd, Robert S. Knowledge for What? New York: Grove Press, 1939; by Princeton University Press, first Evergreen Black Cat Edition, 1964. Lynd's analysis of values and the social science is classic--deservedly so in this writer's esti- mation. Manis, Jerome G., and Meltzer, Bernard N., eds. Symbolic Interaction: A Reader in Social Psychology. Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1967. A compilation of previously published materials. Contains a wide range of contributions to Symbolic Interactionist theory. The editors have made some excellent selections. Perhaps, THE source for a representative sampling of Symbolic Interactionist thinking. Certainly, contains a large number of very well done articles. Mannheim, Karl. Ideology and Utopia. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1936. Mannheim's work in the sociology of knowledge is classic. Marcuse, Herbert. Reason and Revolution. Boston: Beacon Press; second edition, 1954. Marcuse writes this book in the hope that it will make a contribution to the revival of the power of negative thinking. Negative thinking is held to have a liberating function. Dialectical thought is critical thought. "For Marx, as for Hegel, the dialectic takes note of the fact that the negation 189 inherent in reality is 'the moving and creative principle'" (p. 282). In contrast, "Comte expli- citly stated that the term 'positive' by which he designated his philosophy implied educating men to take a positive attitude towards the pre- vailing state of affairs. Positive philosophy was going to affirm the existing order against those who asserted the need for 'negating' it" (p. 327). Marcuse concludes that positivist sociology is fundamentally social statics. Marcuse, Herbert. Eros and Civilization. New York: F Vintage Books, 1955. Surplus-repression designates controls over and above those indispensable for civilized human association. Scarcity has justified institution- alized repression. At the present stage the possible conquest of want makes a relatively "non- repressive civilization" possible. Marcuse, Herbert. One Dimensional Man. Boston: Beacon Press, 1964. One dimensional thought is uncritical. Indeed, the expression would seem to be a contradiction in terms. One dimensional man is conditioned to the prevailing consciousness by those who define situations for him. Marcuse proposes critical thinking--the negation of the established universe of discourse. The dialectic is seen as a dynamic process in which alternatives are generated. This paper has sought to formulate a synthesis of Marcuse's notion of negative thinking and Dewey's concept of reflective thinking. Martindale, Don. The Nature and Types of Sociological Theory. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1960. Martindale devotes a chapter to the ideas of some of the major contributors to the Symbolic Inter- actionist school of thought. More recent works by Symbolic Interactionists such as Manis and Meltzer are more complete and yet parsimonious. Martindale does not draw together the "essential" features of the orientation nor does he provide a "taste" for the orientation. A rather dispas- sionate work of scholarship. Puts the orientation into context. 190 Maslow, Abraham H. Toward a Psychology of Being. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company; second edition, 1968). A well written book in the Humanistic or Third Force Psychology stream of thought. The Symbolic Interactionist can find much of value in his cri- tique of deficiency motivation. His notion of self-actualization gets us away from S—>R man and the "need-is-a-nuisance" homeostatic psychology. We may endorse the notion of growth that tran- scends physical needs without the stipulation that the growth is directing the organism to become what it is in the nature of the organism to be. The Symbolic Interactionist rejects Maslow's assumption of man having an essential inner nature, inner core, or real self. It is possible to reformulate the concept of self- actualization divesting ourselves of its biolo- gistic tinge. We may speak of an ideal self conception that serves as an end-in-view and point of measurement that transcends the defi- ciency motivation of S-R man. Mead, George Herbert. Mind, Self, and Society. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1934. This book is based mainly on lecture notes taken by students in Mead's social psychology course at the University of Chicago. Mead's lectures were delivered without notes and he never systemati- cally put in writing an extensive exposition of his thoughts. Mead, Dewey, and Cooley are regarded as the founding fathers of Symbolic Interactionism. Mead has been described as a seminal thinker of the first order. This outline of Mead's system of social psychology is classic. Difficult reading. Meltzer, Bernard N. The Social Psychology of George Herbert Mead. Kalamazoo, Michigan: Center for Sociological Research, Western Michigan University, 1964. Meltzer presents the main elements in Mead's think— ing. He seeks to summarize and clarify Mead's thought in this essay. This task is very well done by Meltzer. Valuable material on Mead's career and intellectual antecedents is included. An excellent source. 191 Mills, C. Wright. The Sociological Imagination. New York: Grove Press, 1959. Note especially Mills' criticism of abstracted empiricism. Research tends to deal with trivial and microscopic matters. Methods tend to deter- mine the problems the social scientist studies. Mills speaks of the methodological inhibition and loss of autonomy of the intellectual techni- cians--abstracted empiricism is used bureaucrati- cally. Mills is concerned that we may be creating the cheerful robot. George H. Mead's "I" is set against the notion of alienated man. Abstracted empiricism is not well suited for a democratic political role. The research technician available for hire does not contribute to making society free and democratic. Mills contends ". . . that if men do not make history, they tend increasingly to become the utensils of history-makers and also the mere objects of history-making" (p. 181). Morris, Van Cleve. Existentialism in Education. New York: Harper and Row, 1966. Each man is asked to ponder the reason for his existence. Man is his own designer or essence- giver--he creates his own essence. Morris holds that the choice of desired outcomes is arbitrary and without ultimate justification. Man is the chooser, the value maker. Choice is a distinctly human phenomenon. Meanings are human inventions. The world is void of all prior meaning. Know- ledge is viewed from the standpoint of the actor. The self is a choosing agent, a free agent, and a responsible agent. The existentialist mode of teaching seeks to "produce" an individual who "breaks loose and swings free of the teacher and becomes self-moving" (p. 153). This book is very well done. The analysis is excellent and the style is most interesting. Reich, Charles A. The Greening of America. New York: Bantam Books, 1970. Reich argues that "Power rests on control of con- sciousness" (p. 331). He speaks of the prospect of revolution by consciousness. 192 Robertson, Don, and Steele, Marion. The Halls of Yearn- ing. Lakewood, California: Andrews Printing Company, 1969. Robertson and Steele conclude that the present educational system is crippling, enslaving, frag- menting, and deadening. Schools are viewed as places where children are made into quiet, medi- ocre, and conforming adults. Students become dependent on authority. The critical spirit is stifled. Teaching that is "facts“ oriented tends to consist of bits and pieces. An ideal teacher in their terms makes himself dispensible as soon as possible. A community of "free" learners is held to be ideal. Robertson and Steels seek to avoid having schools produce programmed perform— ers. Rose, Arnold M., ed. Human Behavior and Social Processes. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1962. In the foreword, Meyer F. Nimkoff says of Rose and his collaborators, "They have given us in this book the fullest available account of the theory of Symbolic Interaction. They have pro- vided us with more of its facets, nuances, and implications than we have had before” (p. v). There are some valuable papers in this book. Note especially the Turner paper on "Role-taking: Process versus Conformity." Rosenberg, Morris. The Logic of Survey Analysis. New Roszak, York: Basic Books, 1968. An excellent analysis of variable relationships and levels of analysis. Very readable. Good use of illustrations. One may not agree with the author's conclusions but it is clear how they are formed. Rosenberg does a superb job of explaining the reasoning behind the analysis of survey data. Theodore. The Making of a Counter Culture. Garden City, New York: Anchor Books, 1969. The education of the technocracy's children is seen as a process of machine-tooling the young to the needs of the various baroque bureaucracies. Roszak warns of "democracy“ that is no more than a yes or no to prefabricated alternatives and "debate" that is between equally noncommittal candidates. The experts have learned to manipu- late our acquiescence. He maintains that this 193 generation has lost control of the institutions that hold sway over our lives. "What the tech- nocracy requires, therefore, is men of unques- tioning objectivity who can apply themselves to any assignment and deliver the goods, with few qualms regarding the ultimate application of their work” (p. 270). Roszak speaks of a counter culture that makes a radical rejection of scien- tific and technological values. Some members of the counter culture are certain only what the new society must not be like while others have for- mulated a more definitive alternative life style. Shibutani, Tamotsu, ed. Human Nature and Collective Behavior: Papers in Honor of Herbert Blumer. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1970. _..ur:\.'(:_ . .3‘ ’ e. (P. _ The papers generally make use of the Symbolic Interactionist perspective instead of elaborating on the perspective pgg se. The Meltzer and a Petras paper on "The Chicago and Iowa Schools of Symbolic Interactionism" makes a vital contribu- tion to Symbolic Interactionism theory with its lucid analysis of the major differences between the two schools of Symbolic Interactionism. Shostak, Arthur B., ed. Sociology in Action. Homewood, Illinois: The Dorsey Press, 1966. The reader's attention is directed to the arti- cles by Lindesmith ("Social Problems and Sociolo- gical Theory") and Horowitz ("The Life and Death of Project Camelot"). Silberman, Charles E. Crisis in the Classroom. New York: Random House, 1970. This book constitutes Silberman's report as Director of the Carnegie Study. The Carnegie Corporation of New York provided the funding that enabled Silberman to devote three and a half years to the research and writing of this report. Skinner, B. F. Walden Two. New York: The MacMillan Com- pany, 1948. In this novel, Skinner describes an utopian com- munity in which the techniques of behavior engi- neering are used to condition the behavior of its members. 194 Skinner, B. F. Verbal Behavior. New York: Appleton- Century-Crofts, 1957. Skinner does not seem to find it necessary to study human behavior in order to explain human behavior. Stalin, Joseph. Dialectical and Historical Materialism. New York: International Publishers, 1940. Stalin's analysis of the dialectical method is excellent. Sutherland, Edwin H., Cressey, Donald R. Principles of Criminology. Philadelphis and New York: J. P. Lippincott Company; seventh edition, 1966. Sutherland's principle of differential associa— tion is classic. An excellent model for anyone who is interested in the application of Symbolic Interactionism to a particular field of human behavior. Thompson, James D. Organizations in Action. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967. Thompson takes the position that the rational model of organizations involves a closed system strategy whereas the natural system model entails an open-system strategy. A closed system is determinate while an open system is indeterminate or incompletely understood. Variations on these models are discussed. Toffler, Alvin. Future Shock. New York: Bantam Books, 1970. The chapter on "Education in the Future Tense" provides an excellent illustration of how notions of the future might enter into our present plans of action. United States Commission on Civil Rights. Racial Isola- tion in the Public Schools. A report. U.S. Government Printing Office, 1967. "The social class composition of schools is the single most important school factor affecting student performance and attitudes" (p. 89). Racial isolation in the schools tend to lower [Negro] students' achievement, restrict their 195 aspirations, and impair their sense of being able to affect their own destiny" (p. 114). Commis- sioner Freeman takes an interactionist position when he concludes that ". . . it is the interac- tion with advantaged children which appears to be the single most effective factor in narrowing the learning gap" (p. 214). The quotations cited above are contained in Volume I of this report. Vernon, Glenn M. Human Interaction: An Introduction to Sociology. New York: The Ronald Press Company, 1965. h A very readable introductory sociology text written from the Symbolic Interactionist stand- - point. Watson, John B. Behaviorism. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press; revised edition, 1930. A superb statement of the behaviorist's position. at Excellent reading. "The rule, or measuring rod, which the behaviorist puts in front of him always is: Can I describe this bit of behavior I see in terms of 'stimulus and response'?" (p. 6). "The premises of the behaviorist contain no proposi- tions about meaning" (p. 249). Man is thought of as an organic machine. Change for Watson is a pro- cess of unconditioning and then conditioning. Weber, Max. From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology. Trans- lated and edited by Hans Gerth and C. Wright Mills. New York: Oxford University Press, 1946. Further exposition of Weber's classic notions about the bureaucratic organization may be found in Weber's The Theory of Social and Economic Organiza- tion, translated by A. M. Henderson and Talcott Parsons; edited by Talcott Parsons (New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, paperback edition, 1964; New York: Oxford University Press, 1947). White, Leslie A. The Science of Culture. New York: Grove Press, 1949. White's analysis of the symbol and of mind as minding is especially well done. His culturology seems more static than at least the Chicago school of Symbolic Interactionism. There is much in the book that is well said and he offers much in the ' way of articulate expression. His thinking might ! fruitfully be reconstructed in a Symbolic Interac- I tionist framework without major modification. 1 I GENERAL REFERENCES 196 GENERAL REFERENCES Allport, Gordon W. Becoming. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 1955. Creative becoming is contrasted with the defini- tion of socialization exclusively in terms of conformity. Relative freedom depends upon mul- tiple possibilities for behavior. One-channeled minds do not comprehend this. Note the connec- tion with Dewey and Marcuse. A psychology of becoming is a psychology of meaning. It deals with people who ". . . strive not so much to preserve life as to make it worth living" (p. 18). The individual is continually undergoing change. Man is in process and not a finished product. Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. Perceiving, Behaving, Becoming. Yearbook. Washington, D.C.: ASCD, a department of the National Education Association, 1962. A very articulate statement of educational pur- pose written from the point of view variously termed phenomenological, perceptual, interac- tional, existential, or third force psychology. Papers by Earl Kelley, Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow and Arthur Combs provided the yearbook committee with its working base. They argue that ". . . learning has not really occurred until some change takes place in the child's own per- sonal and unique perceptual field" (p. 69). There is a difference between knowing something and being something. They reject the notion that man is static, inert. "Creativity depends on problem solving rather than static answer find- ing" (p. 149). The emphasis is on the process of becoming. Birmingham, John, ed. Our Time is Now. New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1970. The material cited in this book is written by high school students and people who have just graduated. The high school experience is 197 198 defined by students involved in the high school underground. The high school overground is thought not to provide a similar opportunity in most instances. Brookover, Wilbur B.; Erickson, Edsel; and Joiner, Lee. Self-Concept of Ability and School Achievement, III. Three volumes. East Lansing, Michigan: Educational Publication Services, Michigan State University, 1967. ExtenSive research using the Symbolic Interaction- ist framework is reported in this volume. This ’1 report serves as a very good model for anyone ~ interested in the application of Symbolic Inter- actionist principles. Combs, Arthur W., and Snygg, Donald. Individual Behavior. New York: Harper and Row; revised edition, 1959. “[1“ The authors take what they term a perceptual approach to behavior. "It is only when events are perceived as having some relationship to self that behavior is changed as a result of perceiv- ing" (p. 149). While the authors are not Symbolic Interactionists, the Symbolic Interactionist may find that their analysis offers a great deal. Dewey, John. Liberalism and Social Action. New York: Capricorn Books, 1935. Intelligent action is seen as the alternative to drift and casual improvisation or the coercive force of unintelligent emotion and fanatical dog- matism. Freed intelligence is viewed as the method of directing change. The task is one of organized, intelligent social reconstruction. Friedenberg, Edgar Z. The Vanishing Adolescent. New York: Dell Publishing Company, 1959. Friedenberg concludes . . . that society has done a formidable job of creating institutions which mold other-directed and adjustable charac- ter structure" (p. 24). Molding conflicts with the dialectical process by which a youngster might otherwise come to define himself. Adoles- cent growth is not nourished when students become objects for manipulation. In our schools, oppor- tunities for self-determination are infringed upon and obedience is demanded instead. 199 Friedenberg, Edgar Z. Coming of Age in America. New York: Vintage Books, 1965. "Today, as always, the school is the instrument through which society acculturates people into consensus before they become old enough to resist it as effectively as they could later" (p. 170). Friedenberg observes a lack of student initiative. He says that the prime developmental task of adolescence is self-definition but this conflicts with the assumptions and arrangements on which a mass society depends. Galbraith, John Kenneth. The Affluent Society. New York: Greene, A Mentor Book, 1958. The chapter on "The Concept of the Conventional Wisdom" makes a highly articulate contribution to the sociology of knowledge. Conventional wisdom is always in danger of obsolescence and the stu- dent conditioned to the accepted view is not likely to challenge the established framework even when it is no longer appropriate to changed circumstances. Maxine, ed. Existential Encounters for Teachers. New York: Random House, 1967. The editor's introduction and epilogue provide a good concise statement of what existentialism is about. Her comments on the selections included in the book often make some very difficult material much more apparently comprehendible. Hilgard, Ernest R. Theories of Learning. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts; second edition, 1956. This book is psychologistic in perspective. The contributions of some of the key behavioral psychologists are outlined in this book. Sepa- rate chapters are devoted to Thorndike, Guthrie, and Skinner. This source is not especially easy reading. Holt, John. How Children Fail. New York: Dell Publish- ing Company, 1964. Holt argues that blind recipe—following, parrot speech, and "word swallowing" is not real learn- ing as blind imitation is a meaningless process. He maintains that "the only answer that really sticks in a child's mind is the answer to a 200 question that he asked or might ask of himself" (p. 153). Means to an end tend to become ends in themselves in our schools. He says that children come to school curious and become conditioned like Pavlov's dogs. Holt, John. How Children Learn. New York: Dell Publish- ing Company, 1967. Holt seeks more to describe effective learning than to explain it. His description fits the Symbolic Interactionist framework. This is dra- matically evident in his chapter on talk. Johnson, David W. The Social Psychology of Education. Chicago: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1970. Johnson has written a reasonably comprehensive analysis of the social psychology of education. A number of important problems and issues are dealt with in the book. He makes effective use of the analytic tools he outlines in the early por- tions of the book. There is much of use to the Symbolic Interactionist in this book. Kneller, George F. Existentialism and Education. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1958. Kneller states that the sole unifying principle of existentialism is that "existence precedes essence." Man is conceived of as a self-conscious being. Existential life is held to be a continu- ous dialectical struggle. "The process of impart- ing information is not education" (p. 134). The function of living is to grow-~to become. The person is regarded as being responsible for creating himself. Kohl, Herbert. 36 Children. New York: The New American Library, 1967. "The time has passed when the school-marm, equipped to teach the three R's by rote and impose morality by authority, has something useful and important to give children" (p. 54). Kohl realized ". . . that any successful classroom has to be based upon a dialogue between students and teachers, both teaching and being taught, and both able to acknowledge that fact" (p. 107). 201 Marcuse, Herbert. An Essay on Liberation. Boston: Beacon Press, 1969. There is much in this essay that can be reformu- lated in Symbolic Interactionist terms. A sub- versive universe of discourse is seen as the negation of the established universe of discourse. The clash of ideas is held to lead to a revolu- tion in perception and ultimately to a liberated consciousness. McLuhan, Marshall. Understandipg Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: The New American Library, 1964. McLuhan argues that fragmentation is the essence of machine technology. He states that technology requires that we behave in uniform and continuous patterns and that ". . . our testers assume that uniform and continuous habits are a sign of intel— ligence. . . ." (p. 32). There is a tendency to relate ourselves to our technology in such a way that we become "servomechanisms" to our technology. "Gutenberg technology" is characterized in terms of uniform and repeatable processes. Automation is regarded as a way of thinking as much as it is seen as a way of doing. The electric age no longer follows the Gutenberg pattern of homoge- nation and uniform training. "The custom-built supplants the mass-produced" (p. 305). Somehow the electric speedup produces not greater uniform- ity and potential for manipulation and control but instead electric feedback and a dialogue pattern. It is not clear how. It is not clear why electric energy creates patterns of decentralism instead of greater centralization. Perhaps, contrary to McLuhan, the medium is not necessarily the message. Mills, C. Wright. The Power Elite. New York: Oxford University Press, 1956. A classic study of mass powerlessness. Mills speaks of the alienation of those who live in a time of big decisions and yet who know that they are not making any of these decisions. The power elite consists of the leading men in the corpo- rate, political, and military domains. There is a centralization of the means of power. Power is obtained in the major institutions. There is a class of rule makers or rule definers. . . . the very rich have used existing laws, they have 202 circumvented and violated existing laws, and they have had laws created and enforced for their direct benefit" (p. 99). Mills states that "there is no effective countervailing power against the coalition of the big businessmen . . . and the ascendant military men. . . ." (p. 267). The elite give the orders. The elite determine their duty as well as the duties of those beneath them" (p. 286). Mills, C. Wright, Sociology and Pragmatism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1964. Mills edited doctoral dissertation, Sociolpgy_and Pragmatism, has several chapters devoted to John Dewey. A good source to obtain insight into Dewey's personal life, his intellectual associates such as George H. Mead, and the context in which Dewey wrote. The contact with Mead was one of the most significant influences on Dewey. Mills pro- vides a critical analysis of Dewey's thinking. Postman, Neil, and Weingartner, Charles. Teaching as a Subversive Activity. New York: Delacorte Press, 1969 O Postman and Weingartner discuss the behavior of the inquiry teacher. Most school practice in their opinion is based on the assumption that the student is a receiver of subject matter. The structure set up to inculcate subject matter does not foster inquiry. The authors endorse the notion that the medium is the message. They hold that education is a process. Minding is meaning making. In the classroom students are generally expected to sit and listen to the teacher. The authors think students should learn to ask ques- tions and that schools should foster question asking and problem solving. The form of educa- tion they advocate is student centered, question centered, and language centered. "The idea that the study of any subject is essentially a study of language seems to be recognized everywhere except in school. A moment's reflection on what constitutes inguiry will reveal that practically the entire process consists of language opera- tions" (p. 115). Presthus, Robert. The Organizational Society. New York: Vintage Books, 1962. 203 The chapter on "The Social Dysfunctions of Organi- zation" raises some serious questions concerning the social consequences of our organizational forms. The fact that the author's normative bias is implicated in his conception of the dysfunc- tional need not diminish the value of his analy- sis. This writer's own conception of the dys- utopian shares many of Presthus' reservations articulated most forcefully in this chapter. We both see creativity and autonomy endangered by the pressures for conformity that maintain within many large scale formal organizations. A system designed for the mass production of standardized products may prove an impediment to innovative thinking. Indeed, we must examine the conse- quences for a democratic society of an educational system that is patterned after a military- industrial organizational model. Ridgeway, James. The Closed Corporation. New York: Ballantine Books, 1968. A very well documented criticism of university Operations. Northwestern has entered into liai- sons with large corporations providing them with a loophole to avoid paying property taxes. Pro- fessors serve as lobbyists for corporations advanc- ing his clients interests with testimony at $400 a day. Law journals serve as publicity releases for impending legislation. Inventions resulting from public financed research are turned over to private interests. Cornell has detailed statis- tics showing the defects in different makes of automobiles--the information is not make public but the details are sent to auto companies. The Human Resources Research Office at George Washing- ton is interested in teaching combat soldiers how to kill more efficiently. Instances such as those cited here are related. Ridgeway concludes that Universities ought to serve the public and not special interests and that they should be con- cerned with education. The Closed Corporation does not serve the interests of a free society. Rosenthal, Robert, and Jacobson, Lenore. Pygmalion in the Classroom. Chicago: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1968. Rosenthal and Jacobson's demonstration of the operation of the self-fulfilling prophecy in the classroom has become a classic. The research find- ings support a Symbolic Interactionist interpreta- tion of academic achievement. 204 Shibutani, Tamotsu. Society and Personality. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1961. Shibutani takes an interactionist approach to social psychology. Society is held to exist in concerted action. In a sense, society is communi- cation. Society like man is becoming (an on- going process) and not in a state of being. Men are not merely at the mercy of external stimula- tion. Men are not automatons blindly acting out conventional roles. Individualistic explanations of human behavior are necessarily incomplete. Society, however, is not independent of human beings. Communicative transactions are the vehicle for the formation of consensus or common understandings. Consensus is not static, however, and ". . . each act in itself constitutes a modi- fication of the situation, however slight the change may be" (p. 174). This book is not easy reading. Spitzer, Stephen P., and Denzin, Norman R., eds. The Mental Patient: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1968. A reader in the area of the sociology of mental illness which uses the Symbolic Interactionist framework. Provides an excellent model for those interested in the application of the Symbolic Interactionist orientation to particular fields of inquiry. Strauss, Anselm, ed. The Social Psychology of George Herbert Mead. The University of Chicago Press, 1956. Contains selections from the works of George Herbert Mead. The introduction by Strauss is well done. Strauss does an excellent job of describing the context in which Mead developed his key formulations. Mead's ideas are expressed as alternatives to other ideas and not in isola- tion from other perspectives. A very concise statement of Mead's major contributions. Strauss, Anself, ed. George Herbert Mead on Social Psy- chology. Revised edition of The Social Psychology of George Herbert Mead. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1964. The introduction by Strauss is an important source for those seeking to get the gist of Mead's social Wilson, 205 psychology. Those already familiar with Mead's work should find Strauss' analysis useful. A good brief summary of Mead's thinking and its relation to other schools of thought. Colin. Introduction to the New Existentialism. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1966. The "new existentialism" is held to be more opti- mistic than the "old existentialism." The focus is on what Maslow has termed peak experiences. While all lifeless objects are said to be wholly subject to contingency, human consciousness is intentional and consciousness is not passive. Wilson seems to feel that this somehow extricates existentialism from the notion that man is free to choose but that the world is absurd. "‘llllllllll“Ill“