Co-operation, Learning and Co-operative Values

Contemporary issues in education

Tom Woodin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780415725231
• eBook ISBN: 9781317695196
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The rapidity of change in education has intensified in recent years. With the emergence of 'co-operative schools' and a new framework focusing heavily on co-operation, a direct challenge to ways of thinking about education, at both school and university level, has developed.

Co-operation, Learning and Co-operative Values addresses the urgent need to describe, analyse and assess the growth of co-operative education. The relationship between co-operation and education is a complex process and this book critically reflects on the tensions and obstacles facing this movement. It brings together the contributions of academics and practitioners from a range of backgrounds, and explores topics including:

• Theories and histories of co-operative values and principles
• Critical views of the practice of co-operative education
• Case studies of processes in action from both schools and higher education
• Co-operative education in a wider context

This book provides an essential introduction to a new and expanding area of research with chapters by many leading commentators in education. It will be of interest to researchers and educators interested in education and social policy.

1 An introduction to co-operative education in the past and present

Tom Woodin

DOI: 10.4324/9781315778013-1

At a time of tumultuous social and economic change, co-operation is offering a vision and a strategy for transforming education. The emergence of co-operative education represents a potential alternative to the prevailing focus upon competition, choice and a narrow definition of standards. Understanding the role of co-operation provides unique insights into contemporary educational and social change. It helps us to resist the tendency to view the current situation in education as a Manichean struggle between two opposing camps because it engages with, while also challenging, the new educational order.

As a concept, co-operative education is under active construction and encompasses a broad church of practices. Co-operative values and principles have been applied to an array of educational institutions. Most notably, ‘co-operative schools’ have exerted a leading influence and have driven a wedge of co-operative values into the grain of education policy. The emergence of new types of schools such as trusts, academies and free schools have brought in external partners to contribute to and give direction to schools.¹ In the process, unexpected opportunities for shaping a more democratic and community-based education system, one which responds to the needs of all, have emerged. The numbers of schools involved, and the alacrity with which some of them have adopted co-operative values, has taken many by surprise. From the first co-operative trust in 2008, by January 2014 there were over 700 co-operative schools, primarily trusts and academies, in England. Their success has made the whole notion of co-operation more attractive to a wide range of educationists and learners. Co-operative models for the organisation of further and higher education are starting to receive attention as are new forms of partnership and curriculum development which reflect the real economic and social presence of co-operatives nationally and internationally. In the past, early years education and childcare were frequently organised along co-operative lines and new co-operatives have also emerged in this area (Co-operative Childcare 2013). This is clearly an agenda which speaks to modern times and could potentially lead to a major change in the ways that education is organised over the next century.

Education and co-operation have strong affinities, as social forces and as institutional formations. In using the values and principles of the international cooperative movement, educators have fashioned new institutional formations and pedagogical processes. The Statement of Co-operative Identity (see appendix) was written at a time of renewal in the mid-1990s, a process led by Ian MacPherson, a contributor to this volume and to whom it is dedicated following his untimely death. In summary, co-operatives subscribe to the values of self-help, self-responsibility, equality, equity, democracy, solidarity as well as ethical values of honesty, openness, social responsibility and caring for others. The key principles focus upon democratic member participation and control, autonomy and independence, care for the community and co-operation among co-operatives. The other principle is, crucially, education and training, although all of them are relevant to the concerns of this volume.

Co-operative and mutual enterprises have been seen as offering a solution to a variety of contemporary problems in public services, social inclusion and economic development (compare Woodin et al 2010; Julian 2013). Co-operation has been used to describe the mode of human development in a general historical sense as well as specific forms of togetherness and social interaction (Kropotkin 1987; Axelrod 1990; Sennett 2013; Sloan Wilson 2007). Although co-operative organisation existed in Roman times, from the late eighteenth century, distinctive co-operative organisations were formed by working people to meet their common needs as part of a process of changing society. Co-operation served both as a technical business mechanism as well as a force for social transformation through democratic fellowship. Today, co-operatives can be found in many sectors including agriculture, food, environment and education. Consumer, worker, producer and educational co-operatives have proliferated. Having germinated, co-operative and mutual enterprises thrive where they embed values and principles. They tend to cluster in geographical areas – an inherently invasive practice which manifests the principle of ‘co-operation among co-operatives’. It is for this reason that co-operative strongholds and clusters can be located around the world, including Mondragón in Spain, Trentino in Italy, Davis in California, USA and the network of Desjardins credit unions in French Canada (Briscoe and Ward 2005; Restakis 2010; Williams 2007; Bajo and Roelants 2011). While the largest 300 co-operatives have an economic power equivalent to the Canadian economy, it has been estimated by the UN that co-operatives have supported at least half the world’s population and this fact helped to justify designating 2012 as the International Year of Co-operatives.

Despite the innovative nature of recent developments, it is possible to identify a number of antecedent ideas and practices internationally. In Spain, where the state was historically unable to provide the resources for universal education, co-operative education became particularly important in areas with strong regional identities such as Andalusia, Catalonia and the Basque Country where the Mondragón co-operative complex has also established a co-operative university (Delgado 2013; Matthews 2013). In France, modern co-operative educational networks develop co-operative research and learning, especially in primary schools, with the blessing of the state (for example, ICEM 2013; OCCE 2013). Their origins lay partly with the influential pedagogue Célestin Freinet (1896–1966), whose educational ideas and practices were saturated in co-operative values and organisation. Freinet went on to have a widespread impact across France, Italy, Germany and Brazil although he proved less popular in Britain (Freinet 1990; Beattie 2002). In addition, Poland boasts over a century of co-operative activity in schools. Within co-operative movements themselves, education has played an essential role in nurturing new skills, identities and the capacity to work together. Co-operative colleges exist in Europe, North America, Asia and Africa where they service the broader educational needs of co-operatives (Shaw 2011). A number of research centres are also in existence which have been established to develop knowledge and understanding of co-operatives, for example, the European Research Institute on Co-operative and Social Enterprise (EURICSE) based at Trento University, the Co-operatives Research Unit at the Open University, the Centre for Co-operative and Community Based Economy at the University of Victoria and the Centre for the Study of Co-operatives at the University of Saskatchewan. In universities internationally, student unions have developed co-operative structures in order to offer services and a democratic voice to their student members (Wise and Erbmann 2009).

‘Co-operative learning’ is a further area championed by the International Association for the Study of Co-operation in Education (IASCE) that was formed in the 1970s. Emerging from the related fields of education and social psychology, co-operative learning has been presented as an effective and participatory educational approach. Researchers came together from Australia, the Netherlands, Canada, the Philippines, Mexico, England, the United States and Israel and developed ideas that were incorporated into the work of such advocates as Spencer Kagan (1994) and Robert Slavin (1995). Kagan’s Co-operative Learning argues for the interlocking principles based upon the acronym PIES: positive interdependence, individual accountability, equal participation and simultaneous interaction. Co-operative learning is commonly seen as a specific and effective pedagogical technique but has also been used to effect wider educational and democratic change beyond the classroom walls (see Gillies and Ashman 2003, Joliffe 2007, IASCE 2013).

Another incarnation of co-operative education is the mini-co-operative enterprises that have been established in schools, referred to as Young Co-operatives (2013). These small and sometimes temporary businesses are created by and for pupils in order to introduce a participatory and democratic business model based upon services, school supplies, fairtrade, musical performances and other pursuits. Moreover, curriculum projects have attempted to redress the historical exclusion of co-operation within schools and educational institutions, a process that has been charted in a number of countries, such as Finland and the USA (Hill 2000; Kalmi 2007). Finally, co-operative education can refer to collaborative forms of work-based education common in North America and elsewhere. Today, it is possible to identify the potential confluence of multiple streams of activity which are opening up new educational possibilities within policy frameworks which both limit and enable co-operative action. Surviving amid these social forces, while transforming them through the extension of a co-operation, is a demanding but necessary agenda that reveals much about the current context of education and learning.

Co-operation and neoliberalism

Paradoxically, the expansion of co-operative education appears to be predicated upon the erosion of assumptions built into the post-war public system of education. Co-operatives have added complexity to debates on the relative roles of the public and the private. The close engagement by co-operatives with trends which, in the eyes of critics, were moving in the ‘wrong’ direction has led to some criticism and confusion – was this simply ‘privatisation by the nice guys’ as the Anti-Academies Alliance claimed (Woodin and Fielding 2013)? Rather than providing a united front in opposition to current policies, co-operative schools appear to have broken ranks in pursuing a co-operative alternative (Benn 2012: 169).

In Britain, and more particularly in England, strong continuities in education policy have been evident since the 1988 Education Reform Act. An uneasy coexistence has developed in education between themes of centralization and conservatism on the one hand, and autonomy and diversity on the other. Each step in this process has cleared the ground for successive governments and secretaries of state to step further along a common path. On a wider canvas, changes in welfare, ownership and control have reconstituted the state, reducing direct service provision in favour of a more regulatory and co-ordinating role. Local education authorities have been consistently undermined, being viewed as inefficient and unresponsive. A direct political appeal to parents has been achieved partly through the mechanism of ‘choice’ within a diversifying educational ‘marketplace’. Greater autonomy for schools has been complemented with a tighter political control of curriculum and pedagogy which has been exerted through the national curriculum and Ofsted inspection regime. The prevalence of a neoliberal discourse has attached education to the presumed requirements of the economy, partly achieved by the introduction of ‘private’ partnerships and business methods. During the New Labour years, from 1997–2010, education policy took these assumptions on board and focused upon a narrow pragmatism, reducing the breadth of education to ‘what works’ (Chitty 2009; Ball 2013). In higher education, the speedy introduction and raising of fees now means that students are more and more viewed as consumers of educational services.

From 2010, the Coalition Government accelerated these trends which, ironically, resulted in considerable change. Michael Gove, the Secretary of State for Education, zealously extended a franchise model of ‘chains’ of schools, a major modification to the educational landscape. From 2012, Ofsted inspections were ratcheted up in such a way that failing schools could more easily be named and shamed and subsequently forced down a sponsored academy route. The fear, or hope, has certainly been expressed that, if enough schools can be brought together, for-profit players will enter state education (Stanfield 2012; Laird and Wilson 2012; Glatter 2012).

These educational reforms are embroiled in a number of momentous societal changes. Economic and educational inequalities have become more marked in recent years with harmful educational results (Wilkinson and Pickett 2010). A growing democratic deficit has led to lower levels of political participation and awareness across society. In certain respects, education has even contri...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Figures and tables
• Contributors
• Acknowledgements
• 1 An introduction to co-operative education in the past and present
• PART I Frameworks for co-operative education
• PART II Co-operative schools
• PART III Co-operative education in co-operatives and higher education
• Appendix: Statement of co-operative identity
• Index