Accentuate the Negative to Latch onto the Affirmative (How to Save Mockingbirds)

Role play is a potent, widely employed technique in the teaching of controversial issues. Attitude modification is often cited as a major reason for using role play. But how can we expect attitudes to change if students, either through teacher accident or their own design, are allocated roles which reinforce attitudes with which they already identify? One possible remedy is to organise groups so that students are required to identify closely with value positions and attitudes with which they may not sympathise. The purpose of this paper is to outline a simple values clarification technique which can be used to assess students’ attitudes towards a controversial issue. Once this assessment has been completed, its results can be used for group selection. Subsequently the same technique can be used to assess the degree of attitude change. The approach outlined has the virtue of being a pedagogical technique which can also be used for group differentiation, summative evaluation and research. This approach will be illustrated by referring to the study of a controversial issue in Scotland by fourth year B.Ed. (Primary) students from Moray House Institute. Theoretical questions about how role play contributes to attitude change are also examined in the paper.