The School Community and Child Development—Notes towards the Formulation of a Theory of Educational Relations: Part II. The School as a “Transitional Community”

Eventually a considerable theory of what group membership means to individuals will be built up; and that which is applicable to the influence of school communities on their members will illuminate this tract of theory. “It is the group-analyst's conviction that he can procure field data not otherwise available to the social scientist” ( Foulkes S. H. Anthony E. J. Group Psychotherapy. Penguin Books, 1957, 195).

Rickman J. “The Development of the Moral Function”. Yearbook of Education, 1951, 67.

Oeser O. A. Hammond S. B. Social Structure and Personality in a City. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1954. On the pupil's estimation of frustration, cf. p. 216. Oeser, O. A., and Emery, F. E. Social Structure and Personality in a Rural Community. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1954, 189.

Milner M. “The Sense in Non-Sense—Freud and Blake's JOB”. New Era, 37, January, 1956, 40.

It must perhaps be taken on trust (by those who are not familiar with the clinical evidence) that the parental figures operative in the processes of psychic development bear little relation to the “real” father and mother.

Isaacs S. S. Intellectual Growth in Young Children. London: Routledge, 1938, 26–27.

This assertion is rather definitely phrased for the sake of contrast; in fact, latency-age pupils may be passionately interested in “local” social justice (e.g., the study and control of bullying) and this is a preparation for other forms of self-determination.

Neill's A. S. rather sensational description of the Free Child (the self-regulating child) may obscure the very serious and well articulated system of self-determination usually prevailing in his school.

Bantock G. H. Scrutiny, 15, 1948, 4, 300–301.

Ritualistic behaviour is discussed in Tanner J. M. Inhelder B. Discussions on Child Development. London: Tavistock, 1956, 209. Lorenz and others discuss the permissible analogies between, for example, ritual dances and ritual instinctive activities.

It is just here that the limitations of a summary treatment become the most serious handicap—detailed examples are the only safeguard against misinterpretation of projects of self-determination. Although one would wish to make some reference to the possibility of experimental evidence at several places in this analysis, this aspect also is ruled out, since it is not essential to this attempt at delineating a coherent theory of educational relations. However, a recent article in Human Relations (Jones, Howard. “A Contribution to the Evaluation of Some Methods of Residential Therapy”, 1958, XI, 1, 55–56) suggests that experimental techniques may ultimately be devised which will be adequate to testing some of the theory on self-determination in circumstances and on assumptions less artificial than the Lewin, Lippitt and White studies on social climate—even though there may be some serious criticisms to be made of the design and techniques of this particular study by Jones.

Tanner Inhelder , op. cit., p. 209.

Ford Boris . Scrutiny, XV, 3, p. 173. Also see Goodman, W. L. A. S. Makarenko. Routledge, 1949, Cap. IX. The teacher as stage-setter has probably never been better exemplified than by Makarenko. “Flags on the battlements” and others of his slogans not only illustrate Russian revolutionary histrionics but have the same spirit as all his educational acts (the procession of bezprizornie to their commune, “Social Labour”, the burning of the children's clothes and official papers, and even the famous “punch on the jaw”). These enabled the young members of the colonies to see themselves set in a symbolic pattern of their educational relations, and probably proved as useful for education as for therapy (for the particular adolescent group concerned).

Here again one is drawn to make a comparison wish some aspects of guild life in mediaeval European cities (Lewis Mumford in The Culture of Cities describes the symbolic choreography of municipal life with particular force). One is also led to consider the symbolic value that practical concerns may acquire in schools—particularly in rural education perhaps (cf. H. C. D. Somerset in Education (New Zealand), 7, 1958, No. 1).

Once a school has lasted more than five or six years, it can of course hardly avoid the function of transmitting traditions—if it is more than superficial, it must carry out this function because it is an institution intimately concerned with a large part of children's lives.

Mead M. New Lives for Old. London: Gollancz, 1956, 420–433.

Worsley P. M. “Margaret Mead: Science or Science Fiction”. Science and Society, XXI, 2, Spring, 1957.