Children And Their Primary Schools

A New Perspective

Andrew Pollard

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781317952404
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

First published in 1987. Several of the chapters in this book were presented at a symposium held at the British Educational Research Association Conference in Bristol in September 1986. This volume's title is a deliberate echo of the title of the Plowden Report (CACE, 1967). It is now twenty years since Plowden was published and the chapters in this collection constitute an attempt to present a new perspective on one of the central assumptions which underpinned the Report — on the 'nature of 'children'. Within the book there are two themes of particular importance. The first is focussed on how children themselves are perceived, bearing in mind new developments in child psychology and in sociological studies of children's perspectives and behaviour in schools. The second concerns the implications which such developments may have for teaching and learning processes in classrooms.

1 Child Care Ideologies and Resistance: The Manipulative Strategies of Pre-school Children

Sue Duxbury

DOI: 10.4324/9781315863672-2

Introduction

The care and education of young children during the twentieth century has been profoundly influenced by development of theories on motherhood, childcare, development and psychology. In this chapter I aim firstly to explore the emergence of these theories and to discuss their impact upon parents, educators and ultimately on children themselves in the 1980s. I will argue that theories which were intended to liberate and individualize children, and to professionalize motherhood, have come to oppress mothers and through them their children.

Secondly, the chapter will examine some distinctive forms of young children’s behaviour which are not adequately explained by much of the literature. Many children exhibit a range of manipulative strategies which both challenge the key features of childcare ideologies and establish children’s potential for complex behaviour, rather than perceiving it as a deficiency in normal development. This is significant as it demonstrates their competence and skill albeit for negative purposes, and reveals clear indications of the structural difficulties which dominant childcare ideologies place women and children in. Thus young children may be seen not merely as passive recipients of childcare philosophies, but as consciously reacting to the constraints which they and their parents experience in daily life.

The chapter will be illustrated by findings from a recent study of mothers and their pre-school children (Duxbury, 1984),¹ initiated after observing children’s behaviour on entry to nursery school. This behaviour was significantly different than the ‘norm’ perpetuated by child development literature, universal in teacher training. The study attempted to identify by principle social, economic and ideological constraints upon the lives of a group of working class mothers, noting the repercussions on their pre-school children. In particular it identified the consciously adopted manipulative strategies which the children utilized to make sense of their world.

The chapter concludes that if both the needs and rights of children and mothers are to be fully recognized, different types of childcare practices and philosophies will be necessary. These would need to challenge isolated privatized childcare performed principally by women within a society which undervalues children and childcare and perpetuates ideals of competitiveness, aggression and possessiveness.

Childcare Ideologies

This section begins with a brief historical review of the development of childcare ideologies.

The late nineteenth century witnessed a growing belief that high infant mortality was due to the inadequacies of the parents, particularly those of the working classes. The early twentieth century saw the eugenic orientation to pregnancy and the pre-natal period, and the development of a child and maternal welfare movement legitimated by medical jurisdiction over pregnancy and childbirth, (Lewis, 1980). The emphasis was on the authoritarian laws of health and scientific morality, in the belief that the new knowledge would result in the perfect health of all infants, (Graham, 1977). A by-product or accident of the movement was a final step in the male takeover of women’s reproductive activities which had begun in the seventeenth century² (Oakley, 1976).

Alongside theories of motherhood emerged childcare and education philosophies, and scientific studies of child development. Social poblems came under scrutiny and methods of cure and detection were sought, hoping to nip ‘degeneracy’ in the bud by regulating the development of children.

The resulting theories encompassed a variety of approaches. Behaviourists advocated an objective structural approach to learning which was popularized by Skinner and Watson in the early thirties. Maturational theorists focussed on the chronological development of the ages and ‘stages’ of a child’s life. This approach was particularly developed by Gessell and Piaget. The psychoanalytic school, emphasizing the interaction of the child with the environment and the development of personality, was associated with Freud.

Perhaps the most influential of these, particularly in relation to modern primary education, was the developmentalism of Piaget. He built upon the work of others such as Darwin, who had identified patterns of growth and patterns of mental functioning many years before. There was also a trend among educationalists, such as Montessori and McMillan, to reject previous authoritarian methods to teaching and to substitute a more child centred, individualized approach in the hope of achieving a more natural, free and ‘joyful’ type of learning. Thus physical, emotional and mental development were presented side by side in the same terms as newly established Tacts’ of child development. Parents and teachers were thought to require scientific training to ensure the normalized development of the next generation.

The rise of such expert opinion and scientific evidence greatly influenced the way children were regarded. For instance, ante-natal literature described in minute detail what normal’ babies would do at every stage of their life. What is of additional importance is the fact that it was implicitly assumed that part of the necessary provision for ‘normal’ development was the continuous presence of the mother and her unconditional love for the child. Thus, at the same time as childcare became increasingly professionalized, the responsibility for children’s development was placed firmly in the mother’s hands, stressing that she had the power to shape the child’s future, whilst observing childrearing techniques as an insurance for future healthy development.

In the period following the second World War, women became increasingly isolated from the traditional communities by changes in the family and labour market. The traditional sources of support from other women were thus disrupted and mothers had to learn the art of childrearing secondhand from the experts via books and manuals which, I would argue, reflected a particular childcare ideology which often contradicted working class women’s own experiences, (supported by Graham, 1977). This contradiction is similar in some respects to that identified by Walker-dine (1983).

Walkerdine points out that modern educational ideas about what is natural about children are not self evident, but are linked to a particular brand of psychological explanation whose theories and practices become self-confirming. She suggests that developmental psychology is premised on a set of a claims to truth which are not the only or necessary way to understand the child. The emphasis of child-centred education upon observation, classification and monitoring the individual assumes that there exists a set of observational and empirically verifiable facts of child development (Walkerdine, 1984).

In fact, much of Piaget’s work has now been questioned as he placed little emphasis on the social context of learning, commenting …

lived experience only plays a minor role, since these structures do not exist in the subject’s consciousness but in their operational behaviour (Piaget, 1968, p. 58).

Piaget is criticized by Borke (1978), for his notion of egocentricity, that young children can only see their own point of view. She concluded that children from 3 to 3½ from very different cultural backgrounds could identify happy and sad responses in other people and that to some extent, the ability to recognize sad and fearful situations appeared to be influenced by social class and cultural factors. Borke suggests …

that rather than being egocentric, children as young as three years of age show an ability to take another person’s perspective (Borke, 1978, p. 35)

This is supported by my own observations of nursery age children who frequently sympathize with another child if hurt or upset, and readily take on another person’s role in dramatic play (see also Donaldson, 1978).

Boden (1979) also felt that, despite Piaget’s undoubted contribution to child development, he was wrong to assume children of a given age were unable to carry out certain types of more advanced thinking. He suggests that the ‘stage’ concept has become increasingly dubious. In particular, he disputes Piaget’s prediction that the progression of stages would be the same in all cultures with or without schooling. Cross cultural evidence shows that where children are an integral part of the community they learn complex activities, take on responsibility and do not demonstrate negative forms of behaviour (Comer, 1974; Duxbury, 1986). Similarly, some historical evidence also suggests that since the turn of the century the capacities of young children have been progressively underestimated and distorted by the emphasis on the child’s dependancy on the mother (Thompson, 1972).

In addition to theories on motherhood and development was the post-war emphasis on the dangers of institutionalized childcare popularised by Bowlby. His Childcare and the Growth of Love (1953) implicitly attacked women for working outside the home since this was believed to result in maternal deprivation, despite women’s accepted role in the economy during wartime. As Lewis (1980) has stressed, the attack was more attributable to the belief that women should be in the home, rather than any specific proof that by working they caused deprivation or a higher infant mortality rate. However, the coincidence of maternal psychology acted to assist the transition of women back into the home and out of the economy. The maternal deprivation argument has constantly been reiterated when women have not been required in the economy or their unpaid labour has been required at home, (Deem, 1981). For instance, Kitzinger (1978), Leach (1978) and Kellmer-Pringle (1980), stressed the need for the mothers’ continuous presence and unconditional love to ensure the child’s healthy emotional development.

Such attitudes to childrearing are, according to Rutter (1972), based on little more than myth and propoganda and alternative approaches receive little publicity. Rutter argues that children can be ‘mothered’ by people of either sex, up to four in number and who may be biologically unrelated to the child. The available evidence shows that the most important factors are quality and consistency of care. Notably, paternal deprivation is rarely cited to deter men from working outside the home yet according to Andrey (1960), it has significant effects on emotional adjustment and delinquency. Maternal employment does not have the adverse effect on children’s stability according to the National Children’s Bureau³ and the NSPCC⁴. Oakley (1974) suggests that working parents may actually have more time and interest for their children after having a break from them, whereas a harassed mother forced to stay at home with her child against her wishes may actually become a threat to the child’s safety. It is also important to remember the very real financial need of many mothers of pre-school children. For many, paid employment is a necessity at a time of their greatest financial dependency on a partner or the state (Martin and Roberts, 1984).

The twentieth century has thus seen the emergence of prescriptive childcare philosophies which take little account of the reality of socioeconomic circumstances. In addition, ideological pressure for women to fufil their ‘natural’ destiny has built up within idealized definitions of what a ‘good mother’ should be. Such ideas have become particular constraints to women in the most disadvantaged groups in society who have to face the contradictions between the economic need to work and the guilt which ensues.

Such are the main ideological and material con...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents Page
• Acknowledgements Page
• Introduction: New Perspectives on Children
• 1 Childcare Ideologies and Resistance: The Manipulative Strategies of Pre-school Children
• 2 The Intellectual Search of Young Children
• 3 The Accomplishment of Genderedness in Pre-school Children
• 4 The Time of Their Lives: Bureaucracy and the Nursery School
• 5 Making Sense of School
• 6 Letting Them Get On With It: A Study of Unsupervised Group Talk in an Infant School
• 7 Becoming a Junior: Pupil Development Following Transfer From Infants
• 8 Child in Control: Towards an Interpretive Model of Teaching and Learning
• 9 Classroom Task Organization and Children’s Friendships
• 10 The Culture of the Primary School Playground
• 11 Goodies, Jokers and Gangs
• 12 Child Culture at School: A Clash Between Gendered Worlds?
• 13 Stories Children Tell
• 14 Towards an Anti-racist Initiative in the All White Primary School: A Case Study
• 15 Anxieties and Anticipations-Pupils’ Views of Transfer to Secondary School
• Notes on Contributors
• Index