Styles of Thinking and Learning in Education

Reported by Magnus Pike in The Listener, LXVII, No. 1715, 8th February, 1962.

Those who are concerned to close the gap between the “two cultures”, e.g. J. B. Bronowski, stress the similarity between aesthetic and scientific creativity. However, this view ignores that there are important differences between the kinds of exposition and learning required by the “two cultures”

This is not to say that social class in Australia is not different from elsewhere. In the matter of class-consciousness it certainly is different. But the matters I am concerned with are more to do with differences between occupational and educational levels. These certainly do exist. I have therefore used the terms “lower class”, “working class” and “middle class” as they appear in the studies I refer to—usually these terms refer to occupational groups, but since occupation is on the average usually a good indication of wealth, education, prestige, and economic power, I have not thought it necessary to employ a more precise terminology.

Social Implications of the 1947 Scottish Mental Survey, Scottish Mental Survey, London: University of London Press, 1953; Eells K. Intelligence and Cultural Differences, University of Chicago Press, 1951; Berdie, R. F., Manpower and the Schools, Melbourne: A.C.E.R., 1956.

“Early Leaving” (H.M.S.O.); Coster J. K. “Some Characteristics of High School Pupils from Three Income Groups”, J. Ed. Psych., 50, 1959, 55–62; Lasscock, E. D., “Some Factors Involved in the Prediction of Success in Public Examinations”, The Education Gazette (S.A.), LXXII, No. 844, 15th November, 1956, 308–311; Department of Public Instruction, Queensland—Research and Guidance Branch, Bulletin No. 13, “Reducing Wastage Among the Gifted”, February, 1957 (mimeo), and Department of Education, Queensland—Research and Guidance Branch, Bulletin No. 24 “The Wastage of Academically Talented Pupils in Queensland Schools”, July, 1962 (mimeo).

“Early Leaving”, op. cit.; Ministry of Education, Statistics of Education, 1961, London: H.M.S O., 1962; Queensland Department of Education, op. cit.; Berdie, R. F., op. cit.

McIntosh D. M. Educational Guidance and the Pool of Ability, London: London University Press, 1959; Higher Education (Robbins Report), H.M.S.O., 1963; Cotgrove, S. F., Technical Education and Social Change, George Allen and Unwin; Radford, W. C., School Leavers in Australia 1959–1960, Melbourne: A.C.E.R., 1962; Berdie, op. cit.

Glass D. V. (Ed.) Social Mobility in Britain, London: Routledge, 1954; Radford, W. C., op. cit.

Fifteen to Eighteen (Crowther Report), London: H.M.S.O., 1959; Queensland Dept. of Education, op. cit.

Floud J. Halsey A. H. Martin F. M. Social Class and Educational Opportunity, Heinemann; Berdie, op. cit.

Scottish Mental Survey, op. cit.

Coster, J. K., op. cit.; Halsey A. H. Gardner L. “Selection for Secondary Education and Achievement in Four Grammar Schools”, Brit. J. Sociol., 4, 1953, 60–75.

Floud J. , ii, op. cit.

Davis Allison . Social Class Influences on Learning, Harvard University Press; Eells, K., op. cit.; Bernstein, B., “Some Sociological Determinants of Perception”, B.J. Soc., 9, 1958, 159–174, and “A Public Language: Some Sociological Implications of a Linguistic Form”, B. J. Soc., 10, 1959, 311–326.

Glass D. V. op. cit.; Radford, W. C., op. cit.

E.g. Burt C. “General Introduction: The Gifted Child”, The Year Book of Education 1962, 1–59.

For a very useful review of this whole question, see Reissman, F., The Culturally Deprived Child, Harper and Row, 1963.

This view is challenged in Halsey A. H. “Genetics, Social Structure and Intelligence”, B. J. Soc. 9 March, 1958, 15–28; it is defended by Conway, J., in “The Inheritance of Intelligence and its Social Implications”, B. J. Statist. Psych., XI, Nov., 1958; see also B. J. Statist. Psych. XII, May 1959, for further rejoinders.

Eells. op. cit. See Porcheron R. F. “An Investigation into the Question of a Social Class Bias in Intelligence Tests”, The Forum of Education, XIII, 3, April 1955, 117–128, for an attack on this view. Porcheron argues that, if the Davis-Eells view is correct, children of different social class but matched for intelligence should reveal differences of performance on verbal and non-verbal items within intelligence tests and shows evidence that this does not happen. However, the only non-verbal items he used were numerical, i.e. highly symbolic, and he used no non-symbolic measure of intelligence in his matching procedures.

Haggard E. A. “Social Status and Intelligence”, Genetic Psychology Monographs, 38, 1947.

Eells op. cit.

Hoggart R. “The Uses of Literacy”.

Bernstein B. “Linguistic Codes Hesitation Phenomena and Intelligence”, Language and Speech, January to March 1962, and October to December 1962.

Nisbet J. D. “Family Environment and Intelligence”, Eugenics Review, XLV, 1953, reprinted in Halsey A. H. Education, Economy and Society, Free Press.

Op. cit.

Dufty N. F. “Occupational Status, Job Satisfaction and Levels of Aspiration”, Brit. J. Sociol., 11, 1960, 348–355.

Jackson B. Marsden D. Education and the Working Class, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1962, 213.

Holbrook D. English for Maturity, Cambridge: University Press, 1961.

Half Our Future. A Report of the Central Advisory Council for Education (England), London: H.M.S.O., 1963.