International Foundation for the Advancement of Reflective

Learning and Teaching

Diploma in Social Studies Programme

Module Four: Guide and Assignment

International Foundation for the &
Social Problems Advancement of Reflective
Counselling Skills 4.1

Learning and
Introduction Teaching
to the Study of Education 4.2

The ARLT Foundation is a non-profit educational organisation (The Hague)

The International Foundation ARLT promotes reflective education to facilitate human rights for a more caring and empathetic world
which allows for respect and diversity and the humanity within all peoples.
[Type text]
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Welcome to the Study of Social Problem and Counselling Skills and to an Introduction to
the study of Education

“The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something.
That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may
lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see
the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of
baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what
wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured
by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you.”
T.H. White, The Once and Future King.

“The illiterate of the 21st. century will not be those who cannot read or write, but those who cannot
learn, unlearn and relearn. “ Alvin Toffler

Over the last few decades there has been huge growth of interest in the fields of social problems,
counselling and the aims and the analysis of education. This has manifested itself in many different
perspectives. Teachers have an increasing interest in issues that affect children in developing their
potential. Students have become more aware of their “rights” and their requirement to have their
problems listened to. Increasing sensitivity to the plight of the individual and to the need to
maximum potential of individuals has brought widespread attention to the value of understanding
societal and individual needs. It is now becoming recognised that coping skills can and should be
taught in schools. Thus, schools are beginning to recognise the value of having teachers and
personnel who have counselling skills and a sociological perspective of society to deal with a
substantial range of problems students present with.

While this module consists of two lectures; Social Problems & Counselling Skills and the
Introduction to the Study of Education, they are not unrelated for the following reasons:

Day to day life for the most resilient student can be stressful and even the most resilient
need skills to deal with issues such as racism, homophobia, family crises, peer pressure,
underachievement, social exclusion, bullying, substance abuse, sibling rivalry etc.
Schools can play a major role in understanding and preventing violence, suicide and mental
wellbeing.
School as an agent of socialisation can provide a context for supporting, nurturing and
facilitating moral and social development
The school ideally should be aware of the personal, social and emotional problems that its
students are experiencing
With home, community and other basic institutions undergoing rapid changes due to such
factors as globalisation and recession, the school needs to be aware of the difficulties such
as lack of security and self-realisation that all generations are facing. C. Wright Mill’s
sociological imagination discussed in the first lecture is as vital today as it was when it was
written (1959). It refers to the ability to see the connections between our personal lives and
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the social world in which we live. When we use our sociological imagination, we are able to
distinguish between “private troubles” and “public issues” and to see connections between
the events and conditions of our lives and the social and historical context in which we live.

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The International Foundation for the Advancement of

Reflective Learning and Teaching

Assignment Module 4 Diploma in Social Studies Programme

Certificate
Your assessment in Cultural
on module Anthropology
4 must be & Diversity
forwarded by email Skills
(See Guide-1 forfor Professionals
email address)

You are required to complete the assessment fully, all sections must completed, your work
must be neatly presented.
Ensure you place your name, module number, student number and address on your script.
Assessments must be submitted in English only.
All Sections must be completed.

Section 1 Education

Complete an essay on one of the following titles. The word count should be in the region of 2000
words. (40 marks)

1. Explain or discuss: “Education is not merely preparation for life; it is life” In what ways is
the “Bush” school in West Africa an illustration of this principle?

2. Describe “Character Education” as it was apparently maintained in the schools of the

former Soviet Union. Would it be wise for your country to undertake some such programme
of “moral training” in the schools?

3. Social institutions such as education, religion and the family are ways that society’s
members have developed to solve certain core problems and they represent society’s
values. Determine the core problems and major values underlying the education systems
presented in the three case studies. (The “Bush” school, the Buurri al Lamaab and the Character
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education of the former Soviet Union.)

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Section 2 Vocabulary
Complete the question. (10 marks)

1. Building a vocabulary to increase your power to articulate feelings and to clearly

describe a range of emotional states is an important skill in Counselling. For each word
below add five alternatives with subtle difference in feeling.

(a) Unhappy, (b) Indifferent, (c) Carefree, (d) Worried, (e) Broken-hearted, (f) Aloof,
(f) Eager, (g) Serene, (h) Energetic, (i) Reluctant, (j)Lethargic, (k) Gratified,
(l)Despondent, (m) Relieved, (n) Panicky.
For example:
i. annoyed: sulky, cross, perplexed, edgy, irked.
ii. absorbed: engrossed, thoughtful, attentive, spellbound, fascinated

Section 3 Personal Response Questions

Complete either a) or b) (10 marks)

a) In a page or more describe as honestly as you can what you have gained, if anything, from
the study of Module 4.

Or

b) In a page or more write an honest response to “Why I need empathy?” Do you think the
ability to give empathy to yourself assists you to be empathetic to others?

Section 4 Social Problems and Counselling Skills

Complete the question. (40 marks) (Word Count should not be less than 1000 words but students can
use their own discretion as to a limit)

1) You are asked to present a speech on the introduction to counselling concepts for a group of
second level teachers to help them assist their students in resolving or coming to terms with
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problems.

Your speech should be engaging and supported with sociological and psychological
concepts and theories.

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Module 4: Social Problems and Counselling Skills

Students who use counselling skills in their work situation or those who are interested in a
counselling career may find that a Counselling text book would be beneficial to their studies. One of
the following is recommended in that case.

Counselling Skills in Context, Sally Aldridge and Sally Rigby, Hodder and Stoughton, 2001 and later
editions

OR

An Introduction to Counselling, John Mc. Leod, Open University Press, 1998 and later editions

Module 4

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Social Problems and Counselling Skills

This module commences with a scenario in which there is an obvious generation gap in
values, beliefs and behaviour. We illustrate this conflict in terms of the C. Wright Mills’
the sociological imagination - a way of thinking which focuses on the effort to understand
the intersections of a person's biography and history within society. (Mills, 1959, p. 7). In other
words, to develop a sociological imagination is to develop a methodology for thinking about
one's social structural experiences and situations. The sociological imagination includes two
basic cognitive processes, both of which need to be carefully developed by the beginning
student. The first is theoretical thinking about social structure while the second is the place
of empirical inquiry in sociological analysis. Students might find it useful at this point to
refer also to their text book, Chapter 1, What is Sociology? To gain an insight into the
sociological imagination, see box 1 below.

Box 1

Chapter 1 in Giddens ‘ “Sociology” starts by giving the reader a feel for the scope of sociology and the use
of the sociological imagination. The sociological imagination helps us to move beyond the assumption
that our personal experiences are reliable evidence for understanding societies or the whole of social life.
This is illustrated in the discussion of an ‘everyday’ activity: drinking a cup of coffee. The text points to
five ways in which coffee drinking can be viewed afresh if we ‘think ourselves away’ from the ‘immediacy
of personal circumstances’:
(a) the symbolic value of coffee drinking as a social ritual;
(b) coffee’s status as an accepted Western drug which contrasts both with substances deemed anti‐social
in the West and the prohibition of coffee in other cultures;
(c) coffee’s availability as a commodity, the result of a complex system of production and distribution
operating across the globe;
(d) the relatively recent introduction of coffee into Western diets in the late nineteenth century on the
Students mightexpansion
back of colonial find it atinthis point
South helpful
America and to refer to their textbook Chapter 1, What is
Africa;
(e) the significance of coffee drinking as a ‘lifestyle choice’ in terms of the brands people choose, their
Sociology?
attitudes to the manner in which the product is manufactured and traded, and even where they choose
to sit and drink it.

Your module
The text includes
uses this theon
to move original
to onetext
of C.from Mills
Wright which
Mills’s should
famous be read
notion of thecarefully.
relationship between public
issues and personal troubles. This section invites readers to locate themselves
It is relatively easy for students to think psychologically, or at least to think in terms within
of wider social
relations by considering their own demographic characteristics. It also asks them to consider the
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relationship between freely willed individual actions and the patterning effect of social structure. The
chapter emphasizes the interrelationship between individual behaviour and the patterning effects of
social institutions and introduces Giddens’ own concept of structuration to describe this ongoing process
of social reconstruction.

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Module 4 presents the originals writings of Mills on the sociological imagination which is
crucial reading. It is relatively easy for students to think psychologically, or at least to think
in terms of individual actions and individual goal attainment. Many of our intuitive
explanations of why social problems exist, or why wars and other sorts of conflict occur, are
largely psychological. We say that these things happen because human nature is what it is.
But the sociological view is quite different. It looks at how organisations work, at how
people behave in groups as opposed to how they think they behave as individuals. It deals
with how they try to write constitutions for their societies and then run their politics
accordingly, how their markets work or why they do not work according to classical
economic principles, why some people are rich and many more are poor, why some are
powerful and may even abuse their power while many others, especially those who are
stigmatized as racially different or as deviant for other reasons, lack the power to advance
their interests in society. This final point will be dealt with in a subsequent module on Social
Problems and Deviance.

The next section deals with how do we define what a social problem is: as a condition;
affecting a significant number of people, in ways considered undesirable, about which
something can be done through collective action. To sociologists many problems that might
appear personal are in fact social, such as depression, suicide.

See text book; Durkheim’s study of suicide, p 16

David Émile Durkheim was a French sociologist and philosopher concerned with establishing the
domain of sociology, that is, how sociology is different from other academic disciplines. He was
also committed to establishing sociology as a science that could compare with the standing of
the natural sciences. Scholars regard Durkheim as one of the founders of sociology and one of
the most important sociologists in the history of the field of sociology. In Suicide (1897),
Durkheim examined the breakdown of norms regulating behaviour by analysing the suicide rates
of different groups, such as Protestants and Catholics. He posited that differences in suicide
rates are a function of differences in social cohesion. He demonstrated that suicide varies
inversely with the degree of social cohesion. Durkheim explained that when people are well
integrated into a group, they participate in activities and hold values that bind them together.
Hence, their integration serves as a kind of buffer from the stresses of life, and they are less
likely to commit suicide. Using this analysis, Durkheim explained the higher rates of suicide
among Protestants when compared with Catholics by noting that Protestantism had fewer
common beliefs and practices.

We then consider some factors or concepts that are part of the social scientist’s perspective
in studying social problems or in helping an individual, such as the (i) concept of cultural
relativity, (ii) behaviour is learned, (iii) society changes constantly and (iv) the concept of
multiple causation. The reasons for studying social problems is surveyed so that we begin to
understand our reasons for wishing to gain skills and knowledge in this area.
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We then move on to helping: Helping the Individual from the Social Scientist’s Perspective,
we consider the needs of individuals with problems and we outline some desirable and
undesirable characteristics of a social worker. Three aspects of the helping process are
considered: the problem, assisting and the outcomes and an illustration which provided

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evidence of active listening skills. To elaborate on these active listening skills, students are
given the opportunity to build their vocabulary for feelings and to develop accuracy and
effectiveness in naming emotions. The next section deals with some major issues faced by
the helper or counsellor as they embark in their career and some guidelines are given for
reflection on how to become and effective helper or counsellor.

Having now surveyed some basic issues in counselling we are ready to explore some of the
major theories of counselling. Counselling theories and therapies overlap considerably, they
can be organised into four broad groups. Each group is characterised by its emphasis on
background, behaviour, thinking and emotions.

Students will find it beneficial to refer to the relevant audios on theories of child
development.

Students are asked not to be unduly concerned with details of the specific theories but to
gain an overall understanding of the main concepts and to relate them when appropriate
to their own experiences.

The purpose of study of the theories is that you take with you aspects that you find
beneficial to your own personal or professional life.

There are over 400 approaches to counselling but they can be categorized according to their
emphasis on backgrounds, behaviour, thinking and emotions.

Theories emphasizing Background

Psychoanalysis; Sigmund Freud and his followers

Basic Assumptions:
 Based on Freud’s original theories.
 Classic psychoanalysis relatively rare but still practiced
 Approach that focuses on analysis of innate drives and transference issues. A person’s
history affects present behaviours and relationships.
 There is an unconscious mind that exerts significant influence over present behaviour.
 The personality is structured into various substructures, such as ego, id, and superego.
 A person’s personality is significantly impacted by early relationships in life, especially with
one’s mother.
 Insight into one’s personality and internal dynamics can help resolve various
psychopathologies.
 Clients project onto the counsellor interrelational patterns from earlier unresolved issues,
most often with the clients’ parents; the transference of these patterns can be analysed and
used to promote change in the counseling relationship.
Transference: Refers to when a client projects on the counsellor attributes that stem from
unresolved issues with primary caregivers; therapists use the immediacy of these
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interactions to promote client insight and work through these conflicts. Example; “When I sit
here quietly listening, you seem to think that I am judging you to be inadequate, much the
same way your father used to do when you were little.”

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Countertransference: Counsellors project back onto clients, losing their therapeutic

neutrality and having strong emotional reactions to the client.

Countertransference as unconscious projection: Especially early in training or around a

personal issue for the counsellor.

Free Association: Involves asking a client to “just say what comes to mind” on a given topic
such as “your mother,” allowing unconscious material to arise. The client may describe
recent events, memories, feelings, fantasies, bodily sensations, or any other material. The
analyst listens carefully for unusual connections, idiosyncratic logic, slips of the tongue, and
efforts to edit or hold back. After this process the analyst may provide interpretations to
help promote insight into the client’s process.

Dream Analysis: In the tradition of Freud, the dreamer—not the analyst—is the key to
symbolic meaning of the dreams; there are no predetermined meanings: “some times a cigar
is just a cigar!” Dreams have two layers of meaning: the manifest content: the literal
content of the dream the latent content: is the underlying, unconscious material that must
be interpreted to be accessed.

Structure of the Self

 Id. Das Es (“The It”): Unorganised part of the personality that is motivated by instinctual
drives; it inspires us to act according to the “pleasure principle.”
 Ego. Das Ich (“The I”): Operates according to the “reality principle,” striving to meet the
needs of the Id in socially appropriate ways. The part of the personality that involves
intellect, cognition, defense mechanisms, and other executive functions and serves as a
mediator between the Id and Superego.
 Superego. Das Über-Ich (The Over/Above-I): Always striving for perfection, the superego
represents ego and social ideals and generally prohibits the Id’s drives and fantasies that are
not socially acceptable.

Levels of Consciousness
 The Conscious mind includes sensations and experiences that the person is aware of, such as
awareness that you are tired, hungry, and/or currently following a long (hopefully not too
boring) presentation on psychoanalysis. Freud believed the conscious mind comprised a
small part of mental life.
 The Preconscious holds memories and experiences that a person can easily retrieve at will,
such as what you ate for dinner last night, or lines from your favorite song, or elements of
this presentation for your final exam.
 The Unconscious holds memories, thoughts, and desires that the conscious mind cannot
tolerate and is the source of innate drives. Freud believed this to be the largest level of
consciousness and focused his work on making conscious material conscious.

Early treatment: The counsellor confronts idealistic, positive transference and helps the client to
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distinguish wishing thinking from realistic expectations of the counsellor and counseling process.
Height of treatment: Past is explored to better understand current problems and transference
issues that arise in session; clients are encouraged to use new ways of relating both in and out of
session.

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Evidence of change: Clients begin to apply what they learn in session to everyday life.
Termination: Once goals have been reached, counsellors help them move toward termination rather
than look for new goals. Careful attention is paid to issues of loss and separation as treatment ends.

Erik Erickson Psychosocial Stages of Development (Ego Psychology)

Developmental crises that must be negotiated at eight significant points in life. If these crises
are not mastered, difficulties are encountered in subsequent stages.
 Trust vs. Mistrust. Infant stage: Applicable to the first year or two of life, infants in this stage
develop a healthy balance of trust and mistrust based on their experiences with early
caregivers.
 Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt. Toddler stage: During toddlerhood, children develop a
sense of autonomy and influence in their lives while also learning the limits of their abilities.
 Initiative vs. Guilt. Preschool and Kindergarten age : During preschool and kindergarten,
child transition through a developmental stage in which they develop a sense of initiative
and purpose tempered by guilt when their actions hurt others.
 Industry vs. Inferiority. School age: In the early years in school, children learn new skills,
developing a sense of competence from which they build their sense of self-worth; thus, the
task at this stage is to engage in industrious activities to build confidence in their abilities.
 Identity vs. Identity Confusion. Adolescence: Time of identity development when a person
first begins to answer questions, such as who am I and how do I fit in? Developmentally, this
is a time of exploring possible identities and social roles, which often takes the form of wild
outfits, colorful hair, rebellious music, rotating social groups, and other ways to
magnificently annoy one’s parents.
 Intimacy vs. Isolation. Young adulthood: person establishes intimate relationships in their
personal, social, and work life, developing their own families and social network.
 Generativity vs. Stagnation. Adulthood: The developmental tasks of adulthood focus on
feeling as though one meaningful contributes to society and the succeeding generations and
is often measured by whether one is satisfied with life accomplishments.
 Integrity vs. Despair. Late Adulthood: person balances a sense of integrity with a sense of
despair as they look back over their life and faces the inevitability of death.

General Goals of Psychoanalysis

 Decreased irrational impulses
 Increased ability to manage stress; decreased use of defense mechanisms.
 Increased ego strength, self esteem, and self cohesion.
 Increased insight followed by agency.
 Increased emotional maturity and intelligence.
 Decreased perfectionism.
 Decreased internal conflict and personality integration
 Increased ability to experience mature dependency and intimacy.

See also Piaget and Bowlby. (Professor Watson’s Lectures 18-21 and 12- 15)

Theories Emphasising Behaviour

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Behavioural

Behaviourists believe that an individuals’ internal world is unimportant as actions are

determined by external events. (Aldrigege& Rigby, p57) John B. Watson: Considered the

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grandfather of behaviourism. Believed that behaviour should be the sole focus of

psychology, arguing that since cognitions were outside the realm of observation they were
inappropriate for empirical study. Established a culture of scientific research for the study of
human behaviour

Ivan Pavlov: A Russian physiologist and pioneer in behaviour studies, Ivan Pavlov first
described what is now referred to as classical conditioning, the ability to elicit a response
(salivating) by pairing a natural stimulus (food) with a neutral stimulus (a bell).

B. F. Skinner: Building on Pavlov’s work, Skinner identified the principles of operant

conditioning, which are used to shape new behaviours using consequences and schedules of
reinforcement.

Albert Bandura; A leading social learning theorist who built on Pavlov’s and Skinner’s work.
Studied how people learn vicariously by observing others, their behaviours, and the
consequences of those behaviours. His early experiments examined how children learn
aggressiveness by watching adults act aggressively, a process now well-known as role
modeling. Advocated using behavioural methods not to control people, but rather to help
them develop their capacities for self-direction, sharing values similar to humanists.

Theories emphasizing Thinking

Cognitive and Cognitive-Behavioural approaches:
Aaron Beck: Research on depression, anxiety, substance abuse, eating disorders, and
personality disorders are considered some of the most significant in the field.

Albert Ellis: Articulated his highly influential rational-emotive behavioural therapy (REBT)
based on the A-B-C theory of change in 1955. His theory used cognitive, behavioural, and
affective techniques to help people make themselves less miserable

A=Activating event  B=Belief about A  C=Emotional

“I am depressed because my boyfriend broke up with me”
“I am angry because my boss favors my coworker.”

The counsellor’s job: help the client identify the “B” belief that the client does not put into
the equation: “I am worthless if a man decides not to be with me” “I need to be the best in
the office.”

Schemas and Core Beliefs (Beck):

1. Automatic Thoughts: These thoughts are “knee-jerk” reactions to distressing
situations that run through a person’s mind and that the person can generally
identify.
2. Intermediate Beliefs: Extreme or absolute rules that are more general and shape
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automatic thoughts.
3. Core Beliefs: Global and absolute, core beliefs are about ourselves. Two general
unifying principles or themes that underlie most core beliefs: a) autonomy: beliefs

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about being effective and productive vs. helpless, and b) sociotropic: beliefs about
being lovable or unlovable.
4. Schemas: Cognitive frameworks in the mind, organizing and shaping thoughts,
feelings, and behaviours. Developed in childhood and informed by numerous other
factors, including family, culture, gender, religion, and occupation, schemas may lie
dormant until triggered by a specific event.
Example:
1 Automatic Thoughts:
“If my friend does not return my call in 24 hours, she does not really like me.”
2. Intermediate Beliefs:
“Good friends always return calls quickly.”
3. Core Beliefs:
“I am worthless.”
4. Schemas:
“I am utterly worthless if even my best friend won’t take the time to call me; no one really
cares about me at all; what is the point of even trying to have friends if they only call when
it’s convenient for them*.”
*Even when the friend calls apologizing that she didn’t call back sooner because she felt ill,
this is only seen as an excuse and further confirmation of being unlovable.

 Schemas are the deepest of four levels in Beck’s conceptualization of cognitions.

 Dysfunctional thinking or dysfunctional schemas are the root source of psychopathology.
 Counseling process must modify core schemas, not just specific thoughts.

Distorted Cognitions
1. Arbitrary Inference: A belief based on little evidence. Example: assuming your partner is
cheating on you because she does not answer the phone immediately.
2. Selective Abstraction: Focusing on one detail while ignoring the context and other obvious
details. Example: believing your boss/supervisor/instructor thinks you are incompetent
because they identified areas for improvement in addition to strengths.
3. Overgeneralisation: Generalizing one or two incidents to make a broad sweeping judgment.
Example: believing that because your son listens to acid rock he is not going to college and
will end up on drugs.
4. Magnification and Minimisation: Going to either extreme of overemphasizing or
underemphasizing based on the facts. Example: ignoring two semesters of your child’s poor
grades is minimizing; hiring a tutor for one low test score is magnification.
5. Personalisation: A particular form of arbitrary influence that is especially common in
intimate relationships where external events are attributed to oneself. Example: my spouse
has lost interest in me because she did not want to go for a romantic weekend.
6. Dichotomous thinking: All-or-nothing thinking: always/never, success/failure, or good/bad.
Example: if my husband isn’t “madly in love” with me, then he really doesn’t love me at all.
7. Mislabelling: Assigning a personality trait to someone based on a handful of incidents, often
ignoring exceptions. Example: saying one’s husband is lazy because he does not help
immediately upon being asked.
8. Mindreading: Believing you know what the other is thinking or will do without any
supporting evidence, and becomes a significant barrier to communication, especially when
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related to disagreements and hot topics, such as sex, religion, money, housework, etc.
Example: before your spouse says a word, you are defending yourself.

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Dysfunctional schemas that are commonly associated with specific personality disorders:
 Dependent: “I am helpless.”
 Avoidant: “I might get hurt.”
 Passive-aggressive: “I might get stepped on.”
 Paranoid: “People are out to get me.”
 Narcissistic: “I am special.”
 Histrionic: “I need to impress others.”
 Compulsive: “Errors are bad.”
 Antisocial: “People are there to be taken.”
 Schizoid: “I need plenty of space.”

Socratic Method and Guided Discovery: encourage clients to question their own beliefs, cognitive
counsellors use open-ended questions that help clients to “discover” for themselves that their
beliefs are either illogical (contrary to obvious evidence) or dysfunctional (not working for them).
1. What is the evidence that the automatic thought is true? Not true?
2. Is there an alternative explanation for the situation?
3. What’s the worst that could happen? Could I live through it? What’s the best that could
happen? What’s the most realistic outcome?
4. What’s the effect of my believing the automatic thought? What could be the effect of my
changing my thinking?
5. What should I do about it?
6. If _____were in the situation and had this thought, what would I tell him/her? (or what
would he/she do)

Donald Meichenbaum: Cognitive behavioural modification approach focuses on changing

clients’ self-talk, intervening to help clients interrupt their negative internal scripts and
replace these with more realistic thoughts. He is one of the few cognitive-behaviouralists
who grounds his work in postmodern assumptions that people construct their realities
through language, informing a greater “discovery-orientation” than other cognitive-
behaviouralists

Problem Solving (Meichenbaum):

1. Identify problem
2. Identify potential solutions
3. Select and act on a solution
4. Evaluate the effectiveness of the solution.

Mindfulness Based Cognitive Approaches

 The accepting of difficult thoughts and emotions in order to transform them. Changing how
clients relate to their problems with curiosity and acceptance rather than avoidance.
 Based on the premise that emotion precedes the development of thought
 Most common form of mindfulness involves observing the breath while quieting the mind of
inner chatter and thoughts. Understanding the loss of focus as part of the process. Helps
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clients be present with, tolerate, and accept strong emotions in order to transform them.
 Process involves helping clients learn to increase balance in their lives by better managing
the inherent dialectic tensions in life.

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Theories emphasising emotions

Focus on Subjective Reality: assessments and interventions of these approaches focus

primarily on the client’s inner experience and inner world more so than the outer world.

Warmth and Empathy: Empathy is the primarily vehicle for therapeutic change. In warm and
genuinely empathetic environment clients would have the courage to identify, experience,
and critically reflect upon their emotional inner experiences.

Self of Counsellor: counsellor provides a) a role model and b) a genuine person with whom
to have an authentic human encounter. Client is the focus of the conversation and process.
Self Actualisation: humble acceptance of the positive and negative aspects of being human
(existential realities) and of who one is individually. (subjective reality).

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs ( See Introduction to Social Studies)

Self Actualisation

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs

Trust vs. Mistrust (Infant stage)

Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt (Toddler stage)
Initiative vs. Guilt (Preschool age)
Industry vs. Inferiority (School age)
Identity vs. Identity Confusion (Adolescence)
Intimacy vs. Isolation (Young adulthood):
Generativity vs. Stagnation (Adulthood)
Integrity vs. Despair (Late Adulthood)

Person-Centered Counseling (Rogerian) is one of the most influential theories in the field of
counseling. Process-focused approach to helping people become more fully themselves.
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Based on the proposition of three necessary and sufficient elements of therapeutic change:

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 Congruence or genuineness of the counsellor: Rogers describes it as being freely and deeply
one’s self while being able to accurately “take in” what is experienced and simultaneously
remaining aware of one’s internal processing of that experience.
 Unconditional Positive Regard: valuing your clients no matter what they say or do. Still
accountable for their past and current decisions yet have compassion and hope for their
current situation and future.
 Accurate Empathy: ability to accurately perceive the internal world of the client and to
meaningful share this understanding with the client.

The relationship is the vehicle for change. Carl Rogers’ ideas are used for working in
business, education, group leadership, and other health professions

What Person-Centered Counsellors Do Not Do

 Using Reassuring Clichés: “In the end, it will be ok”

 Giving Advice: they rather encourage client to look inward and find their own inner advice
and answers.
 Requesting an Explanation: person-centered is a “right brain” activity; asking for
explanations is a “left brain” intrusion into process.
 Agreeing with the Client: it ends client’s internal dialogue, less likely to speak up when
feelings change, and undermines process of self-actualisation.
 Disagreeing with the client: does not help convey a sense of empathy. Circumvents the
more critical inner process of self-actualisation.
 Giving Approval: the goal should be to encourage clients to determine the value and
appropriateness of their own emotions rather than look to the counsellor for approval.
 Expressing Disapproval: it undermines client’s autonomy

Stages of the Change Process (Carl Rogers)

First Stage: A person’s personality seems fixed, personal problems are not acknowledged, there is a
remoteness of experiencing, and there is little desire to change; the person is not likely to voluntarily
enter counseling.
Second Stage: If a person in the first stage is able to feel “received” by the counsellor, they begin to
loosen up and are more open to seeing problems, which are viewed as external to the self (“bad
things happen to me”), with little sense of personal responsibility.
Third Stage: If clients continue to feel accepted and understood by the counsellor, they become
better able to express past feelings and personal meanings.
Fourth Stage: If the client continues to feel safe with the counsellor, they begin to become more
open to reconsidering their constructs about self and others and are increasingly able to verbalise
deep emotions.
Fifth Stage: As clients continue to explore themselves in the safety of the counseling relationship,
they are increasingly able to verbalise in-the-moment emotions and experiences and an increasing
desire to be the “real me.”
Sixth Stage: Rogers describes a distinct shift in the sixth stage where the person is now able
experience difficult emotions as they arise in the present moment with acceptance rather than fear,
denial, or struggle. Once this change happens, it tends to be irreversible, meaning that the client will
continue to accept even the most difficult emotions rather than deny them.
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Seventh Stage: In this stage it is no longer necessary for the client to be received by the counsellor to
self actualise, although it is still helpful, because the client has learned how to sustain the process of
self actualisation without outside help. This stage generally occurs outside the counseling
relationship.

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The Introduction to the Study of Education

This lecture introduces the student to the study of education. Mass education is a
phenomenon of the recent past, dating from the 19 th century in most industrialised
countries. The Module presents a number of readings on education systems, and the
contrasting stories raise a question of primary importance: What is education for? You will
also find the stories of Sakina from rural Nigeria and Shaun from an urban area in the UK in
your text book, (Chapter 19. p.831-833) highlights two national contexts and problems
associated with them. In hunter-gatherer societies, people’s survival depended on learning
as much as they could about plants, animals and their environment. As agrarian and
industrialisation grew societies, a demand grew for literacy. In some developing countries
of central Asia and central America religious organisations play an important part in
education and in other regions, such as Europe, US, Canada, Australia etc. the state
regulates the majority of schools. All low-income countries have limited access to formal
education. However, the total number of children in school has trebled worldwide, in the
last 50 years. (See ARLT Resources for Fact Sheets). Despite the world growth in education
illiteracy remains a major issue, even among high-income countries. Ivan Illich (1973) and
others argue that the solution to illiteracy is not to transpose Western style education into
the rest of the world, Illich suggests people in developing countries need knowledge and
skills to provide for their basic life needs in a changing natural environment and they need
skills that are sensitive to cultural norms and values. (See text book, p837-838).

We are using a different methodology for the study of education. This introduction to the
study of education in this module is concerned with raising questions and the answers you
will have to seek from your own experiences. We all have had experience, however, brief or
extended with the education system. By reflecting briefly on the education systems
presented in this module you will gain an understanding of how education systems are
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shaped by other institutions and social forces. You will see how the educational systems
presented transmit values, maybe even values you may not agree with.

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There is a general agreement that education is a good thing, but beyond that there is little
agreement about what education is, what it is for and what it should achieve for the
individual and the society. Is education a means to turn children into useful members of a
society? Is it a means of providing a labour force? Is it the means of providing equal
opportunities for all? All the studies provided here seek to educate in very different ways.

Before we embark on the sociological study of education, you are given the opportunity to
consider what you think education should achieve. Increasing numbers of people spend
more and more of their lives in formal education and training. Well, here you are taking
part in it and hopefully finding it beneficial and enjoyable. You are asked for this lecture to
reflect on the purpose of education and to attempt to develop you own personal philosophy
of education. The essay titles on education will allow you to uncover some of your
preconceived ideas about education. If you wish you can refer to your text book Chapter
19 on education and included here is a summary outline of the chapter. But it is not
compulsory to do so for the completion of this module.

In the initial reading, you are introduced to the philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum,
Professor of Law and Ethics in the Philosophy Department, Law School, and Divinity School
at the University of Chicago. She is the author of many books, including, Cultivating
Humanity. Martha Nussbaum makes the case for three values which she regards as crucial;

 critical thought,
 knowledge of the heterogeneous world
 and narrative imagination

“Anxiously focused on national economic growth, we increasingly treat education as though its
primary goal were to teach students to be economically productive rather than to think critically and
become knowledgeable and empathetic citizens. This shortsighted focus on profitable skills has
eroded our ability to criticize authority, reduced our sympathy with the marginalized and different,
and damaged our competence to deal with complex global problems. And the loss of these basic
capacities jeopardizes the health of democracies and the hope of a decent world”. (Nussbaum, Review,
Not for Profit, Why Democracy needs the Humanities, 2006).
In response to this dire situation, Nussbaum argues that we must resist efforts to reduce education
to a tool of the gross national product. Rather, we must work to reconnect education to the
humanities in order to give students the capacity to be true democratic citizens of their countries
and the world.”

The discussion with Professor Nussbaum raises such issues as teaching compassion, demonisation of
the “out-group” and parenting, equal rights for girl, cultural differences in child rearing and values
and faith based schools. The discussion on these issues force us to think not just about education
but the foundation of all educational goals - the meaning of life. The rapid change in society which
undermine our security and makes us vulnerable to despair or anxiety compel us to seek meaning
and to rethink what we value, find significant or purposeful. The study of education is an ideal
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opportunity to begin this journey to explore and to question, and for each one of us individually to
attempt to answer.

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Education

Text Book Resource: Sociology, Anthony Giddens

Summary: Education, Chapter 19

Students who wish to read further may find their textbook useful at this stage.

The chapter makes a distinction between education and schooling before turning to competing
theories of education.

Functionalists like Durkheim and Parsons see education as essentially part of socialization. For
functionalists, education systems do not simply teach knowledge and train children in skills; they
also inculcate central social values, often in latent rather than manifest ways. In addition, education
helps to sift the available talent so that society’s necessary jobs are filled. Functionalist theorists saw
mass education as part of a process whereby the child moved from the family and close kin as its
reference points and where it is assessed on particularistic criteria into the wider world of shared
values and assessment against universalistic benchmarks.

A kind of ‘conflict functionalism’ can be seen in the work of Marxists such as Bowles and Gintis, who
argued that indeed, schools do prepare young people for later life and work, but in the context of an
unequal capitalist society. In this setting, mainstream schooling ‘corresponds’ to the workplace,
teaching children discipline, obedience and deference to authority figures. Hence, the system is not
meritocratic and instead of making use of the available talent in society, the education system
actually wastes it.

Both functionalists and Marxists agreed that there is a hidden curriculum in education
systems and this idea was pursued by Illich in his argument that young people are effectively
deskilled rather than up‐skilled. For Illich, schools are not the best place to conduct education for life
and he argued for the full scale de‐schooling of society in order to facilitate genuine education and
knowledge acquisition in a variety of other settings.
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The next section concentrates on cultural reproduction and covers some important theories. The
importance of language in educational achievement is approached through Bernstein's distinction
between elaborated and restricted codes, which is presented as a Classic Study. This is interpreted
not as an example of cultural deprivation but rather as an incompatibility between the restricted

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code of the (typically working class) child and the elaborated code of the school. A second (but not
boxed) Classic Study, Willis’s Learning to Labour, documents the active contribution students can
make to the reproduction of the social order and the maintenance of their place within it. By
forming and becoming part of rebellious school counter‐cultures, children fail at school and thereby,
albeit unwittingly, do what the system requires them to do anyway. This example is brought up to
date through Mac an Ghaíll’s study of the production of masculinities. Macleod’s study of male
gangs in Boston, USA is included as it shows that subjective perceptions such as whether people
believe it is possible for them to succeed or get a decent job are very effective in the production of
positive and negative post‐school outcomes. Most of the early research on school sub‐cultures
focused on boys, but there is a body of work relating to the experiences of girls and young women.
McRobbie, Lees and other feminist researchers found that part of the hidden curriculum was the
reproduction of ‘appropriate’ feminine norms and the ‘streaming’ of girls into subjects deemed
suitable for domesticated roles, whilst Spender argued that many textbooks, perhaps unwittingly,
were replete with sexism and traditional gender roles in which women were portrayed as secondary
beings to men. The section concludes with a detailed discussion of the work of Pierre Bourdieu on
exchangeable forms of capital. The emphasis here is of course on cultural capital, transmitted and
acquired via education systems. Bourdieu’s theoretical framework also includes the key concept of
habitus, the learned disposition, such as bodily comportment, which play a crucial part in self
perception and can be observed in the studies of macho lads in Willis and Mac an Ghaill’s research.

Turning to social divisions in education, the next section begins with a Box on the inappropriately
named British ‘public’ schools. It then moves on to examine debates on IQ which have been central
to educational thinking in various periods and across social contexts. In turning to debates on
intelligence, the chapter moves towards individual differences. Students will probably find the
argument that IQ measurements show that some are born more intelligent than others and that this
accounts for differential educational outcomes appealing. The discussion of the ‘Bell Curve Wars’
should demonstrate how politically loaded such arguments can be. Equally, though, the argument
that intelligence needs to be viewed as a far from one‐dimensional phenomenon has a strong
common‐sense appeal. We all know ‘bright but idle’ students who ‘underachieve’ and ‘reliable but
unexceptional’ students who ‘doggedly do well’. The work of Gillborn and Youndell brings debates
about labelling and self‐fulfilling prophesy into the new century by considering the ways in which the
notion of ‘ability’ has replaced IQ in the rhetoric of teachers and schools, a notion crucially shaped
by the publication of schools’ league tables, where the number of candidates receiving grades A–C is
seen as a particularly significant marker, and one which informally shapes the distribution of
resources, including the best teachers, within schools.

Perhaps the notion of multiple intelligences, including the importance of emotional intelligence, can
help explain and challenge the prioritization of certain kinds of intelligence inherent both in
education policy and in the ways in which students are viewed by both themselves and others.
Gender differentials in educational attainment are considered. Whilst in the past, concern had
centred on the underachievement of girls, it is now clear that in many developed societies young
women are outperforming young men right through to degree level. The problem of ‘failing boys’ is
being linked to broader concerns about a supposed ‘crisis of masculinity’ in labour market conditions
where there is no place for the values of ‘laddism’. It could then be that the ‘crisis’ is really a specific
working‐class phenomenon. Areas of disadvantage for women remain with few following courses in
science and technology, which lead to some of the best‐paid careers. Within higher education
institutions huge inequalities remain, with men occupying higher‐grade posts and being better paid
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than their female colleagues on the same grade.

Ethnicity and class remain significant factors in educational inequality. For example, taken as

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a whole, young people from ethnic minority groups are not underrepresented in British higher
education, but this fact disguises large differences between ethnic groups. Young people from the
Indian and Chinese communities have high participation rates whilst both men and women from
black Caribbean groups and women from Bangladeshi and Pakistani communities are
underrepresented. Social exclusion is linked to the process of exclusions from schools. Young men,
especially young black men, are those most excluded from schools, possibly contributing to their lack
of integration into broader social life.

Wright’s studies of racism in the education system in the UK provide some evidence of racism
operating in even primary school environments. International comparisons are difficult in the area of
education as countries organize their provision and qualifications very differently. However, one
comparative measure is purchasing power parities (PPP) which allows comparisons to be made on
national education spending relative to national GDP. Unsurprisingly, PPPs are highest in North
America and Western Europe. A further measure of education is seen as primary school enrolment
and on this measure, globally things are improving, with some 86% of the relevant age range in
primary education by 2004. The pattern is very unequal however, with sub‐Saharan Africa, South
and West Asia still having some 50 million primary age children not in any form of education.
Although the global literacy rate is improving, the absolute number of illiterate individuals is
increasing as the world population grows.

The text now turns to ‘the changing face of education’ and presents a brief history of UK education
as its historical case study. The kind of mass education taken for granted in developed nations is
located as a product of nineteenth‐century industrialization and urbanization. As societies progress,
the knowledge passed on becomes increasingly abstract and qualifications become important
stepping‐stones. An overview of the development of mass education in Britain is provided,
introducing the key landmark changes of the Butler Education Act, 1944, comprehensivisation, and
the Education Reform Act, 1988. ‘New’ Labour surprised many by retaining both grammar and
grant‐maintained schools (in the form of Foundation Schools) and rejecting many traditionally
left‐wing arguments about social disadvantage and educational attainment. Rather, it has
concentrated on teaching styles and management within the individual school through initiatives
such as the literacy and numeracy strategies and promoting variety and competition between
different types of school such as city academies and specialist schools. All developed nations are
seeing an increase in participation in post‐compulsory education. Social class background continues
to have a profound effect on the chances of receiving higher education.

An increase in student numbers became part of a broader crisis in the funding of higher education in
Britain, often conceptualized as a debate between funding via the general tax payer because of the
collective social and economic benefits of an educated population as opposed to funding directly
from the student, who will individually benefit from increased lifetime earnings as a result of higher
education. Student maintenance grants were abolished and tuition fees and student loans
introduced.
The government in the UK is pledged to expand the participation in higher education of groups
traditionally underrepresented; the shift to individuals having to fund themselves through higher
education was seen as a threat to this objective. The shift from education to learning and from
schools to lifelong participation marks a major move for developed nations within the global
knowledge economy. The impact of new information and communications technologies both reflects
and informs the speed and scope of change. Both governments and private companies continue to
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respond to these changing conditions and the chapter draws to a close with a discussion of the role
and place of so‐called, ‘e‐universities’ in the twenty‐first century.

Copyright ARLT Foundation, The Hague, 2013.