PARALLELS OF PROGRESS IN RELIGION AND EDUCATION∗

The careful distinctions in this article assist in clarifying the tasks of educators     

Early years teachers and the influence of Piaget: evidence from oral history

In studying the historical development of early years provision, a clear factor in raising its profile was the growth in scientific study of children, especially the reception and interpretation of Piaget's research. For an understanding of how the mediation of new thinking and new discoveries influenced students and teachers, textbooks provide an important documentary source, but evidence is also available through oral history in the living memories of practitioners themselves. This paper draws on the testimony of early years teachers who began their careers between 1927 and 1955 and continued teaching into the 1960s and 1970s. The account below begins with reflections on psychology and education in the early decades of the twentieth century drawn from a 1936 conference organised by the Nursery School Association of Great Britain, and from a widely used textbook that represents the gradual trend towards ‘fragmentation’ of educational theory into a multiplicity of disciplines. Reference is then made to two popular textbooks by prominent Froebelians, Brearley and Hitchfield, and by Ruth Beard illustrating the growing influence of Piaget as a post facto rationale for a pedagogy that was proceeding by instinct. Walkerdine, Lister and Hall are researchers who have investigated from various angles the impact of Piagetian psychology on primary practice, but the process whereby this translation from the laboratory to the classroom takes place is one that demands further investigation. Vital evidence lies in the living memories of early years teachers whose careers spanned the 1930s to the 1970s and a rich quality and personal texture of the data is apparent as retired early years teachers recounted their professional careers. It offers a more complex account than the grand narratives that historians have traditionally compiled from purely documentary evidence centring on great thinkers, key texts and policy initiatives. The role of in‐service education was clearly important in the experiences recalled in this paper. Above all we find evidence of a distinctive shift in teacher–child relationships over that historical period and of the contribution made to this by psychological theory, epitomised in the figure of Piaget and in his focus on the individual learner.     

‘Fractured communities’: uncertainty,stress, and (a lack of) communal coping in Palestinian refugee camps

This study examined how communal coping reveals itself in Palestinian refugee camps and the conditions that promote or prevent its occurrence. Individual and dyadic interviews were conducted with 40 mothers and one of their adolescent children living in Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. The results revealed that communal coping existed within the mother–adolescent dyad to a certain extent, but was rare within the larger context of the refugee camps. While families and neighbors did not typically verbalize their hardships and actively cope with them as a group, there was often an implicit recognition that they were all experiencing the same uncertainty and stress. Acting upon their uncertainty as a collective, however, was greatly hampered by mistrust within and outside the camps, due to widespread violence, privacy violations, vying for scarce resources, and disloyalty. Parents and adolescents also engaged in protective buffering whereby they attempted to reduce the stress of the family by keeping stress and fears to themselves rather than communicating about them. Even though protective buffering helped the refugees cope with chronic uncertainty and maintain a sense of normalcy, it prevented them from acting upon the problem as a group. Finally, parents emphasized that the child’s education provided hope for the future. Practical implications are discussed.