Educational Psychology Practice

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Cultural Psychology of Education 4

Thomas Szulevicz Lene Tanggaard

Educational Psychology Practice

A New Theoretical Framework

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Volume 4

Series Editor

Giuseppina Marsico, University of Salerno, Italy

Centre for Cultural Psychology, Aalborg University, Denmark Editorial Board

Jaan Valsiner, Niels Bohr Professor of Cultural Psychology, Aalborg University, Denmark

Nandita Chaudhary, Lady Irwin College, University of Delhi, India Virgínia Dazzani, UFBA-Universidade Federal da Bahia, Brazil Xiao-Wen Li, East China Normal University, China

Harry Daniels, University of Oxford, UK Nicolay Veresov, Monash University, Australia Wolff-Michael Roth, University of Victoria, Canada Yasuhiro Omi, University of Yamanashi, Japan

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This book series focuses on the development of new qualitative methodologies for educational psychology and interdisciplinary enrichment in ideas and practices. It publishes key ideas of methodology, different approaches to schooling, family, relationships and social negotiations of issues of educational processes. It presents new perspectives, such as dynamic systems theory, dialogical perspectives on the development of the self within educational contexts, and the role of various symbolic resources in educational processes. The series publishes research rooted in the cultural psychology framework, thus combining the fi elds of psychology, anthropology, sociology, education and history. Cultural psychology examines how human experience is organized culturally, through semiotic mediation, symbolic action, accumulation and exchange of inter-subjectively shared representations of the life-space. By taking this approach, the series breaks through the “ontological”

conceptualization of education in which processes of education are localized in liminality. In this series, education is understood as goal-oriented personal movement that is at the core of societal change in all its different forms—from kindergarten to vocational school and lifelong learning. It restructures personal lives both inside school and outside the school. The cultural psychology approach to education fi ts the global processes of most countries becoming multi-cultural in their social orders, refl ects the interdisciplinary nature of educational psychology, and informs the applications of educational psychology in a vast variety of cultural contexts.

This book series:

• Is the fi rst to approach education from a cultural psychology perspective.

• Offers an up-to-date exploration of recent work in cultural psychology ofeducation.

• Brings together new, novel, and innovative ideas.

• Broadens the practical usability of different trends of cultural psychology of education.

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/13768

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Educational Psychology Practice

A New Theoretical Framework

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ISSN 2364-6780 ISSN 2364-6799 (electronic) Cultural Psychology of Education

ISBN 978-3-319-44265-5 ISBN 978-3-319-44266-2 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-44266-2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016952410 © Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifi cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfi lms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.

The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifi c statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.

The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made.

Printed on acid-free paper

This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland Thomas Szulevicz

Aalborg University Aalborg , Denmark

Lene Tanggaard

Department of Communication &

Psychology Aalborg University Aalborg , Denmark

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v

Practice Encapsulates Theory, While Theory Illuminates Practice

Educational psychology is one of the cruellest frontline in contemporary psychology. It is a scientifi c arena overwhelmed by different social demands in our global- ized society. It has been asked to provide ready-made solutions to many different problems: from the inclusive education to the disruptive behaviour and lack of school discipline, from the increased competition between national educational systems to the reduced student learning outcome in the progressively outcome-based school system (Szulevicz and Tanggaard 2014), from the socially disadvantaged children to the new highly complex tasks in the modern workplaces, from the standardized testing to the need of cultivating creativity (Tanggaard 2014).

Very often, these social demands are formulated in terms of individual problems:

something is wrong/strange/weird with the student’s traits, characteristics and abili- ties. As a consequence, the pathologization of the school experience is the new tendency in the educational debates both among professionals, teachers and aca- demics and in the ordinary discourse.

The usual and pressing request from the school is of a resolutive and decontex- tualized intervention on the single problematic case minimizing, as much as possible, the interference with the regular school activity. Yet the educational psychologist does not have a magic wand, and this request of solving the educational problems of this or that student magically is inevitably and miserably doomed to fail. When this happens (and at a certain point in time, it surely happens), it produces a “boomerang effect”: the magic wand initially attributed to educational psychology suddenly turns into a stick to beat it for not having succeeded.

Educational psychologists do not have any magic powers, and even if it is appar- ently alluring and caresses our professional or academic narcissism, the side effect of these requests is too risky and ends up fl attening or, even worse, collapsing educational psychology in a patchwork of small interventions.

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Educational psychology is not a patchwork of practices but, instead, is an art- work where theoretical knowledge, methodological instances and culturally situated meaningful interventions (in a specifi c educational context) are indissolubly inter- woven (Marsico et al. 2015).

Thus, educational psychology deals with both practice and theory where practices not only are just a matter of actions but also encapsulate theory (even in a non- refl ective way), while theory illuminates the course of the actions and provides the general framework for understanding human conduct.

The practical usability of the different trends in educational psychology is only one side of the coin. What we need is a solid theoretically based, though still empirical, cultural approach to education that this book series is trying to promote (Marsico 2015b; Roth and Jornet 2016).

The pragmatic consultation approach proposed by Thomas Szulevicz and Lene Tanggaard in this book seems to answer this double-bonded issue. It is inspired by cultural psychology, social practice theory and John Dewey’s pragmatism.

According to the authors, it can be considered as a general conceptual framework on which educational psychology practice can be built. Based on a solid research tradition in Denmark, the volume offers a new perspective of educational psychology that combines creativity and innovation, theory and practice.

By analysing the concrete and situated educational intervention in a specifi c set- ting, we can learn a lot of what is the value-driven “philosophy” behind, what the established power relation between social actors is and, even, what ultimate idea of growing people, education and citizenship is promoted.

That’s why learning about educational practices settled in different sociocultural contexts has been always fascinating to me. They are a great source for understanding some “theatrical aspects” of what we call culture. It happens to me that while reading the manuscript of Szulevicz and Tanggaard, I have had some passionate discussions with a Chinese colleague about the work of schooling in her country.

How do we understand, for instance, the weekend home visit by the teacher at the beginning of the fi rst grade of primary school in China? Is it an assessment? Is it a form of consulting? Is it a strategy for promoting parents’ engagement in the child’s school trajectory? How would the current mainstream psychology in the fi eld of educational psychology (namely, the outcome-based school approach) interpret this kind of educational practice? Likely, it would even exclude this “non-school event”

from its analysis, but what I have heard from my Chinese colleague convinced me that it would be a terrible mistake.

The premises for a positive or negative child’s experience at school (and even his/her academic achievement) have much to do with this short time meeting outside the school.

A 6-year-old child, after being visited by his new teacher at home, commented to his mother: “She is OK, but she is strict”. From that moment on, the stage of any school “drama”, in Vygotskian terms (Vygotsky 1929/1989), has been settled.

Could any assessment system (batteries of tests, standardized measurements, objective index, etc.) grasp the complexity of this dramatic interaction between social

Preface of the Series Editor

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actors? What kind of abstract model can we elaborate by looking at the contextual set of practices?

Educational psychology is in crisis. No doubt! It loses its own “horizon” that is ultimately about the way in which we become human (Dazzani 2016) turning into a variety of small interventions subservient of this or that new trend, new request, new emerging problem. What we need is a new utopia instead of the current myopia of the educational practices. Cultural psychology of education calls for both the situat- edness of the human experience and the theoretical generalizations of the teleoge- netic nature of the psych e (Marsico 2015a; Valsiner 2014). The book Educational Psychology Practice: A New Theoretical Framework helps to move a step further in this direction.

Aalborg, Denmark Giuseppina Marsico

August 2016

Acknowledgement The discussions about Chinese educational practices with He Min from East China Normal University are deeply acknowledged. I want to thank her for having borne my insis- tent curiosity with a generous patience.

References

Dazzani, V. (2016). Education: The Process of Becoming. In J. Valsiner, G. Marsico, N. Chaudhary, T. Sato, & V. Dazzani (Eds.), Psychology as a science of human being: The Yokohama Manifesto (Annals of theoretical psychology, 13, pp. 337–348). Geneve: Springer.

Marsico, G. (2015a). Striving for the new: Cultural psychology as a developmental science.

Culture & Psychology, 21 (4), 445–454. doi: 10.1177/1354067X15623020 .

Marsico, G. (Ed.). (2015b). Jerome S. Bruner beyond 100. Cultivating possibilities (Cultural psy- chology of education, 2). Cham: Springer.

Marsico, G., Dazzani, V., Ristum, M., & Bastos, A. C. (Eds.). (2015). Educational contexts and borders through a cultural lens – Looking inside. Viewing outside (Cultural psychology of education, 1). Cham: Springer.

Roth, W.-M., & Jornet, A. (2016). Understanding educational psychology. A late Vygotskian, Spinozist approach (Cultural psychology of education, 3). Cham: Springer.

Szulevicz, T., & Tanggaard, L. (2014). Inclusion and budget cuts – The contours of educational psychology in the marketplace. Nordic Psychology . doi: 10.1080/19012276.2014.885762 . Tanggaard, L. (2014). Fooling around: Creative learning pathways . Charlotte: Information Age

Publishers.

Valsiner, J. (2014). An invitation to cultural psychology . London: Sage.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1929/1989). Concrete human psychology. Soviet Psychology, 27 (2), 53–77.

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ix

Part I Introduction to Part I: Educational Psychology Practice as It Stands Today

1 What Is Educational Psychology Practice? ... 3

Introduction ... 3

Educational Psychology Practice in a Time of Upheaval ... 5

The Status of Psychologists in the Educational Psychology Field Practice ... 7

Early Educational Psychology Practice ... 8

Prevention and Counselling Practice ... 10

Summary ... 12

References ... 12

2 Approaches and Methods Used in Educational Psychology Practice ... 15

Introduction ... 15

The Service Approach ... 16

The Consultation Approach ... 18

Consultation ... 19

The Origins of Consultation Theory ... 22

System Theory ... 22

The Question of the Expert’s Role ... 23

Facilitation and a Different Type of Knowledge ... 25

Circularity ... 28

Social Constructionism and the Signifi cance of Language ... 29

Prevalence of the Consultation Approach ... 30

Models of PPC Practice ... 32

Summary ... 33

References ... 34

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3 Inclusion as a (New) Priority for Educational Psychology? ... 35

Introduction ... 35

From Integration to Inclusion ... 36

Is the Curve Broken?... 38

The New Discourse of Powerlessness? ... 39

Inclusion Manifests Many Paradoxes ... 43

Educational Psychologists and Inclusion ... 45

Summary ... 47

References ... 48

4 Educational Psychology – Background Factors ... 49

Introduction ... 49

Pathologisation and Psychiatric Diagnosis ... 50

Tendencies to Individualise ... 54

Individualising Technologies? ... 56

New Public Management in Education ... 59

Increased Demand Management ... 65

Increased Conceptualisation of Pedagogical Practice ... 67

Summary ... 69

References ... 69

Part II Introduction to Part II: Educational Psychology Practice 2.0 5 A Pragmatic Consultation Approach ... 75

Introduction ... 75

Is Consultation Perhaps Not the (Only) Answer to the Challenges? ... 76

Uncertainty About Consultation ... 77

The Educational Psychologist as Handyman and Pragmatist ... 78

A Pragmatic Concept of Truth ... 80

A Pragmatic Consultation Approach ... 82

Conclusion ... 85

References ... 85

6 Educational Psychology Practice – A Divided Field ... 87

Introduction ... 87

Dualism in Educational Psychology ... 88

The Four Obvious Pairs of Opposing Elements ... 90

Freedom of Method as Opposed to Prescribed Method ... 93

Didactisation as Against Psychologisation ... 95

Psychologised Pedagogics ... 97

Shared Didactics... 98

Summary ... 99

References ... 100

Contents

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7 The Educational Psychologist as Everyday Researcher ... 103

Introduction ... 103

The Case of Lea ... 104

Pragmatic Educational Psychology ... 105

Situational Analysis ... 106

Why Use Situational Analysis in Educational Psychology Practice? ... 110

Observation as a Means of Being Closer to Practice ... 111

Why Observe? ... 112

Observation Gives Access to People’s Everyday Lives ... 113

Observation Yields a Better Understanding of the Individual’s Participation in Social Communities ... 114

Observation Reveals a Child’s Perspective ... 115

Observation Allows for New Understandings of an Issue... 116

Observation Challenges ... 117

Observation Is Time-Consuming ... 117

We Observe Simply to Please Teachers ... 118

Observation Rarely Leads to New Awareness ... 118

Observation Is Diffuse and Has Little Legitimacy ... 119

Breakdown and Abduction as Inspiration for Educational Psychology Practice ... 120

Why Use Abduction in Educational Psychology Practice? ... 122

Concluding Discussion of the Educational Psychologist as Everyday Researcher ... 123

References ... 123

8 Innovative and Creative Forms of PPC Practice ... 127

Why Is Creativity Needed at an Educational Psychology Service Centre? ... 127

Intensifi ed Requirements ... 128

A Psychological Approach to Creativity ... 129

How and When Are We Creative? ... 131

Psychology Work as a Creative Undertaking ... 133

The Organisational Preconditions for Creativity and Innovation ... 135

Summary ... 138

References ... 138

9 Concluding Thoughts on the Past, Present and Future of Educational Psychology ... 141

A Look at the Past (and a Glance at the Future) ... 142

Educational Psychology Practice in the Future ... 143

At the End of the Road ... 145

References ... 147

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xiii Educational psychologists play an important role in promoting inclusion and many school heads and PPC (Pedagogical-Psychological Counselling) managers have expressed the opinion that there seems to be a defi nite need for staff to use skills that go beyond those associated with traditional psychology. Schools are looking for people who can provide counselling from a didactic point of view. (Baviskar et al. 2013, 8).

The above quotation comes from a recently published report analysing the adjustments being made in Danish schools to achieve increased inclusion. The report argues that current challenges in relation to inclusion make completely new demands of educational psychologists with respect to their practices and work methods. But do these new demands mean that the role of the educational psychologist should be phased out, or greatly reduced, as part of schools’ and day-care institutions’ efforts towards more inclusive education? Or does it mean that forms of practice should be developed that differ from the existing and traditional professional practices of educational psychologists?

In several respects educational psychology practice seems to be in a transition phase or is even perhaps suffering an identity crisis: both educational establish- ments and education policy are looking for different skills than the profession of psychology traditionally provides, and people are generally questioning the relevance and applicability of pedagogical-psychological counselling. Internationally, educational psychology research literature confi rms these tendencies and frequently stresses that educational psychologists are being criticised for an approach that con- centrates too much on the individual and for being insuffi ciently equipped to discuss pedagogical practice with educational scientists and teachers (Ahtola and Niemi 2014).

In this book, we will set out a proposal for how psychological and pedagogical- psychology knowledge might be implemented to benefi t the work with children and young people and how some of the criticism aimed at pedagogical-psychology practice might be answered.

The book is intended primarily for students of psychology, school psychologists and other professional groups that provide counselling in schools, but it may also

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xiv

serve as a general resource for the various groups that use pedagogical-psychology tools and insights when working with children and young people.

The book has a fundamental premise that good professional work is contingent upon circumstances that allow the practitioner to apply his or her knowledge, experience and skills in the specifi c encounter with a specifi c task. For this reason, the capability to act pragmatically and creatively is, and will increasingly be, an important skill – here with specifi c reference to educational psychologists of the future but naturally of course in general, too. In other words, psychologists must be able to contribute to tasks in new ways and new contexts when required. It is not enough to have mastered certain methods for certain batteries of tests. Most of all, it is important to be able to help the people one is employed to help. When the above report states that there is a demand for didactic skills among educational psychologists, it is fi rst and foremost a question of needing professional staff who are capable of working formatively using their knowledge and skills. Such staff should be able to address the task they face without feeling bound to normative fi xed methods that dictate standard solutions. Such a formative, pragmatic and creative approach to the work requires training, domain-specifi c knowledge and courage. As Jan Lindhardt wrote in 1987 in his book on rhetoric, it is only when someone knows the script inside out that they can improvise. Thus, the above approach requires considerable experience of academic practice, training and a solid anchoring in psychological and pedagogical-psychology expertise.

This book has been written on the basis of empirical studies undertaken in Denmark by educational psychologists over the last 10 years; it is also grounded in other Danish as well as international research in the fi eld. As professors of educational psychology, we are both profoundly interested in the fi eld of practice and believe that this arena, as one of the main employment areas for psychologists, deserves more attention from researchers. We have taken the liberty of talking about a ‘formative approach’ to psychology – though fully aware that this is not a defi nite method but rather an understanding of what it means to help others. We follow threads through the developments and movements in the fi eld over recent years and show how, to a great extent, psychology has been portrayed in two opposing ways:

from the point of view of testing and from the point of view of counselling. Our aim in this book is in many ways to overcome this ‘either-or’ thinking and show that the decisive criterion for good psychological work is being able to contribute and to help others in specifi c situations and that the question of which methods or approaches one uses is therefore secondary. We affi x to this approach the general label of pragmatic counselling , whereby the core element of effective psychological work will be the ability to identify problems and opportunities from a psychological perspective. Sometimes, this necessitates the use of tests and at other times the use of different, more context-sensitive methods. In promoting a formative, pragmatic approach, we were inspired by, amongst others, Dewey and especially the way in which Dewey is interpreted by Svend Brinkmann (2013) and also the so-called impure pedagogy as developed by Rømer et al. (2011, 2014). In general, our thinking is closely linked to recent cultural psychology theory (Valsiner 2014), which emphasises a fundamental understanding of man as a creature that consumes and

Introduction

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creates culture. Here we should stress that the psychologist should be in a position to represent a skilled, creative force in meetings with children, parents, teachers and educational scientists where problems have arisen, and to use methods that are relevant to the specifi c context.

Over the years, we have had many instances of feedback from psychology students to the effect that the general fi eld of work of educational psychology is diffuse, complex and thus hard to capture in overview. Here we will attempt to address this complexity and to sketch the past, present and future of educational psychology practice. We examine past practice through a brief summary of historical tendencies of development within educational psychology practice. This will include various approaches to educational psychology. The present will be described through vari- ous analyses of current conditions, in which, for example, inclusion, an increased pressure for diagnosis, user orientation and neo-liberal control techniques charac- terise educational psychology practice. We will discuss and analyse future contours of educational psychology and outline several ways of addressing challenges in the future. We hope this book will refl ect the complexity of educational psychology practice, but we would also hope to identify several threads that help to provide an overview and that might suggest pointers for the future.

Chapters

The book is divided into two parts. In the fi rst part, consisting of Chaps. 1 , 2 , 3 , and

4 , we present the fi eld of practice of educational psychology. In Chap. 1 , we outline

the fi eld of practice of educational psychology by means of the historical application of psychology in schools. In Chap. 2 , we describe two superordinate approaches to educational psychology practice: (1) from the point of view of providing a service and (2) from the point of view of counselling. We conclude the chapter with a criti- cal discussion of the use of the counselling approach and demonstrate by means of various empirical investigations that counselling has achieved relatively little purchase.

In Chap. 3 , we describe how a concern to promote inclusion in day-care institutions and schools has in many ways changed the work of the educational psychologist. Today, educational psychologists are expected to be sparring partners and facilitators in connection with developing inclusive teaching environments. This means that educational psychology practice must to a greater degree address the development of general pedagogical learning environments rather than building on specialist pedagogical thinking and practice. This process of transformation has proven diffi cult in many areas and aspersions have also been cast to the effect that educational psychologists have insuffi cient knowledge about pedagogy and didactics to be able to act as advisers and sparring partners in the work on inclusion.

In Chap. 4 , we analyse ways in which the implementation of the counselling approach has been made diffi cult by a series of diverse background factors such as for example the general pathologisation of behaviour and general tendencies of

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xvi

society to individualise. Such tendencies have led to educational psychologists fi nd- ing themselves in the crossfi re between opposing interests and this has hampered the pursuit of the counselling approach.

The various circumstances described in the fi rst part of the book have brought about a kind of identity crisis in educational psychology practice today, in which a fundamental question mark is being placed against the question of relevance and the method of organisation of much educational psychology work.

The aim of the fi rst part of the book is generally to describe and analyse current underlying conditions for the practice of educational psychology. The second half of the book begins with Chap. 5 , which also sets out the framework for the second half. In this chapter we propose the counselling approach as a continued means of providing the main professional lifeline for educational psychology practice. But we argue for a more pragmatic perspective on the counselling approach: one that is adapted to the current situation in PPC. We call this the ‘pragmatic counselling approach’, a term that is inspired by the above theoretical considerations.

In Chap. 6 , we go on to analyse in more depth the way educational psychology practice is organised where opposing factors are involved, such as expert vs. facili- tator, closeness vs. distance, freedom of method vs. compulsory method, individual vs. community, pathologisation vs. resource orientation, etc. Should, for example, the psychologist be the expert who knows everything about certain problematic issues, or should he or she be someone who helps the person seeking advice to progress towards knowledge? Should the psychologist work in schools and day-care institutions or in special centres removed from these? Should the psychologist determine his or her own methods, or should there be common factors in the handling of tasks, which are laid down by individual school psychology departments and areas? Should one keep to individual counselling or establish communities?

Should we focus on the illness of the child or young person or on resources? We argue that such dichotomies or ‘dualisation’ are characteristic of a considerable part of psychological practice. We also maintain that the various opposing ideologies often inhibit educational psychology practice, and we propose ways of working to break down assumptions or formulate new preconditions for understanding these dichotomies. It is our belief that such a dissolution can improve the quality and effi ciency of work.

In Chap. 7 , we talk about ways in which the educational psychologist can draw inspiration from qualitative research literature on handling the complexity that char- acterises by far the majority of educational psychology issues.

In Chap. 8 , we introduce what we call creative educational psychology practice and explain why creativity and innovation are important considerations for the educational psychologist. At the same time, we show how psychology work in itself is creative, irrespective of shifting infl uences and trends in the fi eld. The discussion also touches on the need for future recruitment within the school psychology PPC fi eld and on the types of professional skills that will be required in the future.

We conclude with Chap. 9 and discuss the future of educational psychology practice. The aim of the second half of the book is in general to formulate a response that actively defends the relevance of psychology in educational psychology

Introduction

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practice. We accept much of the criticism aimed at existing educational psychology practice and can also recognise that this practice must develop considerably if it is to continue playing a role in addressing the challenges facing day-care institutions and schools. But we also believe that psychologists are still the best qualifi ed professional group to meet the challenges facing educational psychology practice now and in the future. We hope that this book will help cast new light on the discussions on the psychologist’s role in educational psychology practice.

The authors of this book are Danish researchers whose empirical work has been undertaken in a Danish context. Whilst they have referred to a large amount of Danish research literature, they have, of course, also used the resources of international academia. It is interesting to note that the challenges we face in the fi eld of educational psychology and which we address in this book are seen in many general contexts all over the world. We see the same issues and challenges in educational psychology practice in the majority of Western educational systems, and we feel therefore that the book will have theoretical and practical relevance internationally and generally.

References

Ahtola, A., & Niemi, P. (2014). Does it work in Finland? School psychological services within a successful system of basic education. School Psychology International , 35 , 136–151.

Baviskar, S., Dyssegaard, C. B., Egelund, N., Lausten, M., Lynggaard, M., & Tetler, S. (2013).

Dokumentationsprojektet: Kommunernes omstilling til øget inklusion pr. marts 2013. SFI og Aarhus Universitet.

Brinkmann, S. (2013a). Kvalitativ udforskning af hverdagslivet . København: Hans Reitzels Forlag.

Brinkmann, S. (2013b). Køn, køn, køn. Psykolog Nyt .

Rømer, T. A., Tanggaard, L., & Brinkmann, S. (2011). Uren pædagogik . Aarhus: Klim.

Rømer, T. A., Tanggaard, L., & Brinkmann, S. (2014). Uren pædagogik II . Aarhus: Klim.

Valsiner, J. (2014). An invitation to cultural psychology . London: SAGE Publications.

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Part I

Introduction to Part I: Educational Psychology Practice as It Stands Today

Educational psychology practice, as mentioned in the introduction, is in the midst of upheaval. Practitioners are expected to make adjustments to their approach to professional psychological work in a number of areas. These expectations for altered approaches are the result of changes in schools which include a new, more outcomes-oriented teaching philosophy, and of intensiﬁ ed ambitions for inclusion which demand a different kind of support from the school psychologist. But such expectations for changes in practices have also arisen following criticism over many years of school psychology, which sees the service and as having been too far removed from the everyday world of the child, too bureaucratic, too much focused on the individual, too pathologising, and too distant from users’ needs.

In the ﬁ rst part of the book we attempt to analyse and differentiate the new types of expectations and demands made of educational psychologists, starting with a historical view of educational psychology practice and a description of the dominat- ing professional and theoretical approaches. We tackle the suggestion that educational psychology practice has perhaps been affected by inertia and conservatism;

but we also suggest that the frequently occurring contradictory conditions in and around the practice must be taken into consideration when evaluating practitioners’

work.

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3

T. Szulevicz, L. Tanggaard, Educational psychology practice, Cultural Psychology of Education 4, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-44266-2_1

What Is Educational Psychology Practice?

Introduction

This book has been written with educational psychologists in particular in mind and with a speciﬁ c wish to elucidate ways in which expertise in psychology and new methods and skills can be relevant to the changing world of educational psychology practice. A brief deﬁ nition of educational psychology is as a sub-discipline of psychology with a particular focus on the meaning of psychological aspects in pedagogical practices as these are undertaken both within and outside the education system (Nielsen and Tanggard 2011 , 12). Educational psychology is thus neither pure psychology nor pure pedagogics, but rather a branch of psychology concerned with psychological aspects in and around pedagogical practice.

Educational psychology has both practice as its object and point of departure. In other words, educational psychology is one of several relevant ﬁ elds that may be drawn on in order to reﬂ ect on education practices, as we do here.

In general, educational psychology is thus about psychological and pedagogical processes involved in human learning and formation processes. This also means that educational psychology is concerned with everything, from the question of how children develop best in the nursery, through what types of intervention work best when dealing with socially disadvantaged children, to how best to motivate employ- ees in the modern workplace where tasks are becoming ever more complex and knowledge of and thus opportunities for action and intervention ever more compre- hensive and where new and different types of choice must be taken than were previously possible.

Educational psychology is also a very broad discipline with a wide range of objects. In this book we describe perspectives that are of general relevance to educational psychology practice. However we limit the range of objects in the ﬁ eld to interventions primarily within day care institutions and school.

In most places, educational psychologists are organised as a unit within a local authority educational psychology service centre. Here, parents, teachers, educational

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4

scientists, and institutions may turn for advice and guidance on issues relating to children and young people between the ages of nought to 18 years. In practice this means that the educational psychology service centre, together with parents and professionals working with children and young people, have the following tasks:

– To come to an understanding of educational psychology issues concerning children and young people who ﬁ nd themselves and are assessed to be undergoing various forms of difﬁ culty.

– To undertake an educational psychology assessment of the issues, taking into consideration the child’s social context at home, day care institutions and/or school.

– To advise and guide children, parents, day care institutions, schools and other institutions.

– To provide contacts to other services, for example in referring children and young people to psychiatric services, where this is deemed necessary.

In many countries educational psychologists work primarily on tasks within:

– Infants They provide counselling in cases where children have not yet begun their schooling.

– Special needs Counselling and psychological counselling is given in respect of special needs classes and special needs areas.

– General areas These are services for pupils within the normal primary and lower secondary system. Increased priority has been given to this area since educational psychologists have been working more and more on the development of inclusion strategies within the day care institution and school.

There can be signiﬁ cant differences in the organisation and administration of different educational psychology service centres. In Denmark, for example, the number of educational psychologists in relation to number of inhabitants in the municipality can differ. The ratio can vary from 0.83 to 4.71 for every 10,000 inhabitants (Nielsen 2014 ). Organisationally, there are also considerable differences between the various physical deployment methods of the educational psychology service centre. For instance in Denmark, we are now seeing that more and more educational psychologists have been given ofﬁ ces within the school and therefore spend less time at the centrally located educational psychology service centre in the municipal administration.

Finally, there are signiﬁ cant differences in the professional approach to work of the individual educational psychology service centre. On the one hand, there can be particular pride taken in freedom of method, which means that professional approaches can vary from one individual to another. On the other hand, we see more and more evidence of the provision of manuals and a the standardisation of psychology work. In Chap. 6 we will return to the discussion on freedom of method in educational psychology practice.

1 What Is Educational Psychology Practice?

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Educational Psychology Practice in a Time of Upheaval

At the present moment educational psychology practice is in upheaval; new demands are being made of services and of professional psychologists. The inclusion of children with problems in general teaching has become an absolute top priority for education and the expectation is that educational psychologists will prioritise this element so that they can reinforce the concept of inclusion of students experiencing difﬁ culties.

Today, most countries have endorsed the Salamanca Statement, which involves a signiﬁ cant reduction in the number of pupils being excluded from the mainstream of education.

Most countries have found adherence to the Salamanca Statement with its aims for increased inclusion challenging. In many countries, especially during the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s it was found that, despite intentions to the contrary, many students were excluded from general education and instead offered special needs teaching.

After observing a boom in the area of special needs teaching, the Danish parliament passed an amendment in 2012 and in connection with this the then Minister of Education, Christine Antorini, said

One of the implications of this amendment is that Pedagogical-Psychological Counselling in schools will be delivered differently. Your job will be to go to schools for counselling rather than to be occupied with case handling and individual psychological investigations.

The counselling will be delivered directly at the school. (Folkeskolen, (journal) no 10, 2012 ).

The new law on inclusion requires a different set of services from educational psychologists, including a more outward-looking and formative approach to the work. It also lays down new legal foundations for educational psychology practice, and there is no longer any need to involve the educational psychologist if a student is required to have special needs support for less than nine lessons per week. This contrasts with the former system whereby educational psychologists were involved every time the student was given special needs support. The change has several consequences. As Antorini makes clear, one consequence is that pedagogical- psychological counselling will move closer to pedagogical practice. Furthermore, the service units will move away from being the body which evaluates when and to what extent the child must receive special needs support towards being a body that promotes inclusion . In general, the move towards increased inclusion calls for both a change in thinking on the subject of children’s learning and development; but it also requires educational psychologists to work in new and different ways.

In the wake of expectations that educational psychologists act as inclusion sparring partners, we are increasingly also seeing the current organisation of educational psychological services being called in to question. For example, a school head wrote in a report in 2013:

The question is whether we need pedagogical-psychological counselling at all. This is how I see it: there are a series of tasks that must be addressed. But whether it is educational psychologists, schools themselves or other actors who address the tasks, is not so important.

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The most important thing is that tasks be addressed so that we can be successful with respect to the aim of inclusion. (KL 2013 : 3).

The same report sets out seven milestones for future educational psychology work, as follows:

1. A common model for inclusion work in day care institutions and schools

• This milestone aims to instil a uniform approach to inclusion in the various schools and day care institutions in a given municipality.

2. Supervision and counselling

• This milestone aims to meet the requirement of many users that more counselling and supervision be delivered locally at individual day care institutions and schools.

3. Services adapted to specifi c needs

• This milestone requires that educational psychologists provide more services that are adapted to the user.

4. Increased decentralisation

• This milestone aims to provide a different kind of educational psychology practice so that educational psychologists spend more time at the day care institutions and schools with whom they work.

5. Early response

• This milestone asks educational psychologists to prioritise preventive and non-invasive measures to a greater extent than they have in the past.

6. Preventive efforts for children and their families

• This milestone expresses the wish that educational psychologists make more preventive efforts as part of the services they offer children and their families.

7. Skills development across the board

• This milestone points towards the wish for educational psychology service centres to represent the body that provides skills development for the municipality. All professional groups in a local authority can for instance be included in the effort to establish a common basis for inclusion work (Ibid.).

In the wake of a new global migrants’ crisis, in which many families and unaccompanied children are arriving in Europe, there are new needs, to advise both teachers and pedagogues working with children; and to undertake speciﬁ c professional psychological interventions for the newly arrived children and families. Educational psychologists should play a vital and central role here.

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The Status of Psychologists in the Educational Psychology Field Practice

Traditionally, psychologists have been the largest professional group involved in connection with school psychology practice. But the various changes in the area mean that educational psychologists face competition from other professional groups. For example a relatively recent publication about educational psychology practice says:

The risk that other competent professional groups may replace psychologists will be signiﬁ - cant. This would be unfortunate for the profession, since psychology training is the only professional education that provides a basis for the evaluation of individual students in their general context as well as in the classroom and in the school as an organisation. Psychologists have been trained to enable them to act at the levels of individual, group and organisation.

Where schools are concerned, it is the teachers and ultimately the school head who in practice assess and decide the value of the psychologists’ work. (Nielsen 2014 : 97).

We are also seeing general doubts expressed as to whether psychologists are in fact the best equipped professional group to be on hand and to help teachers and pedagogues with many of the challenges they face on a daily basis. Similarly there are doubts as to whether the current organisation of much educational psychology practice is appropriate.

To sum up, some of the questions being posed on the subject of educational psychology practice are:

– What role do educational psychologists play in the pedagogical daily contexts of day care institutions and schools?

– For what purposes are schools and day care institutions actually using educational psychologists?

– Are educational psychologists in general sufﬁ ciently capable (of helping address the challenges of inclusion)?

– Why are educational psychologists not closer to pedagogical practice?

– Do we still need so many psychologists in schools?

– What is the best way to organise educational psychology work?

It is very interesting to note that these questions are common to most countries’

educational systems where educational psychology services are provided. (Dennis 2004 ; Cameron 2006 ; Farrell 2009 ; Forlin 2010 ; Gutkin 2012; Ahtola and Niemi 2014 ). For example, Cameron asks ( 2006 : 291):

What is that Eps bring to a situation that is different from what others bring?

And later in the same article:

Okay, then: what do EPs do? (Cameron 2006 : 291).

In another example, Ahtola and Niemi ( 2014 ) describe how the Finnish educational system has attracted signiﬁ cant attention since 2000 because of the country’s excellent results in the PISA programme. At the same time, they admit that the

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challenges of school psychology practice have not been tackled with the same degree of success as the challenges of attaining good results in PISA. They argue that school psychology practice in Finland, as in the case of many other countries, still battles with an approach that is individualistic and reactive and does not man- age to provide enough preventive and proactive measures. Ahtola & Niemi also maintain that such challenges with respect to optimal school psychology practice are generally applicable in the Nordic countries and that this is in fact a paradox, because most of the other welfare institutions in these countries work well.

We are seeing clear indications of a global critique of the beneﬁ t of educational psychology practice and of the role educational psychologists play in addressing the problems in day care institutions and schools.

The issue of the relevance and function of educational psychologists in relation to the well-being of children and young people in day care institutions and schools will be a central concern for the rest of this book.

But in order to better understand the background of the issues at stake, we will start with a historical outline in which we will describe some of the central developmental trends which have resulted in the educational psychology practice we are familiar with today.

The historical outline is based on Danish practice, which however reﬂ ects the general development of most countries’ educational psychology provision.

Early Educational Psychology Practice

The fi rst school psychological services offi ce was set up in Denmark in 1934. This was in the wake of a series of scientifi c studies that showed that there were signifi - cant differences between children at the same stage but in different classes, and even within the same class. As a result, intelligence tests were introduced as a compulsory exercise for all children who were candidates for special needs classes (Nielsen and Tanggaard 2011 ). After the creation of the fi rst school psychological services offi ce, the idea spread to all Danish conurbations. Many of the themes we encounter in our educational psychology practice today were general concerns even then. The psychologists of the time looked after children with various types of reading and learning diffi culties, children who were below normal or extremely gifted, children with behavioural diffi culties and children who lacked the maturity needed to enter school.

In 1949 it became compulsory to carry out psychological testing in the school where a student was likely to be put in a special needs class. Such psychological testing at school was also required for all children who were candidates for special pedagogical measures. According to the Danish Ministry of Education in 1955 on the question of psychological work content in schools, it was made clear that the counsellor in charge of special needs, in other words the school psychologist, should carry out … “ intelligence tests of the children referred to him .” (Bendixen 2009 : 204).

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During the 1950s, pupils in Danish primary and lower secondary education began to spend more time at school. The 1958 Education Act provided students who were not entering secondary school with the opportunity to stay on in eighth and ninth grades. The Act had immediate consequences. Between 1959 and 1960, 50 % of pupils in a school year were discharged after seventh grade, whereas the corre- sponding ﬁ gure in 1970 was only six per cent. (Ibid) At the same time, school classes became more academic and theory-based and whereas pupils had previously been divided into theory and practical streams there were now several categories, including in particular students who had trouble reading and writing.

The sudden growth in numbers of students in primary schools meant that the Binet intelligence test previously used was now inadequate because it could not fulﬁ l the increasing demands of having to take into account and support a steadily rising number of special needs students. Moreover, within the ﬁ eld of psychology in the 1960s there was a clash of opinions with regard to the psychometric basis of the intelligence test. This clash came about because of the rapid rise of cognition psychology and through Jean Piaget’s developmental psychology theories. Piaget insisted on the importance of delving deep into the child’s development potential;

his understanding of intelligence was characterised by a an orientation towards development rather than psychometric elements. At the same time this meant that Piaget’s understanding of children’s development was difﬁ cult to lay down in the form of an intelligence test; as a result of this, a practical pedagogics arose inspired by Piaget’s thinking which distanced itself from the psychometric basis of the intelligence test.

Some of the criticism of the intelligence test was countered in 1974 with a Danish standard employing the American Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) (Smedler and Tideman 2011 ). The WISC was to a greater degree than the intelligence test coined as an pedagogical tool that had to be capable of predicting the preconditions for an individual to do well at school and in society in general. The scale was thus an example of a pragmatic test tradition where the test’s practical applicability rather than theoretical analysis was the object of focus (Ibid). The WISC quickly became popular among educational psychologists and is continues to be a central part of the tool box of the educational psychologist today. Thus, despite increasing criticism of testing both amongst school psychologists and educational psychologists, the primary task of most educational psychologists from 1950 and for many years thereafter was to test children and to undertake psychological exam- inations of them.

During the 1970 and 1980s some of the results from the systemically oriented Palo Alto group found recognition amongst school psychologists (int. Ref.). Some of the basic assumptions of the Palo Alto group were that signifi cant potential for change was would derive in working, for example, with the whole family as a system, rather than intervening at the level of the individual with the isolated issues of that individual. The fi ndings of the Palo Alto group and others lead to the acceptance at several school psychology service offi ces of the idea that educational psychology practice should be more targeted towards systems of which the child is part rather than concentrating exclusively on the child itself. This movement also came to the

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fore internationally in school psychology circles. There was an emphasis on the consideration of the child’s broader network in order to understand that child’s way of working (Sladeczek et al. 2003 ). There were many different theories inﬂ uencing the school psychology practice of the 1970s but gradually, there arose increasing awareness of the fact that for example tests should play a less dominant role than previously, because traditional tests threw the problem back on the individual and thus were in danger of overlooking the contextual and relational dimensions of the make-up of certain psychological issues.

Prevention and Counselling Practice

In the 1970s, school psychological ofﬁ ces were expanded and services were established across disciplines with speaking-listening counsellors, clinical psychologists and top psychologists. The inclusion of clinical psychologists meant that the ﬁ eld of work had expanded to include, in a limited form, the treatment of children and families.

As the following quotation makes clear, questions were however being asked through the 1980s and 1990s, at political and other levels, concerning the intense focus in educational psychology on childhood reading difﬁ culties, without recourse to an overall evaluation of their life situation.

Following these questions, psychological work became far more preventive than previously, when the school psychologist’s task was often to assume the school’s responsibility for difﬁ cult pupils and preferably transfer them (from school psychology to Pedagogical- Psychological Counselling). (Danish Ministry of Education PPC project, Department for primary and lower secondary education, 1995: 15).

One of the reasons for this change was the sudden increase in the number of children being referred to various forms of special needs classes. Traditional school psychology practice had required psychologists fi rst and foremost to examine the individual child in order to identify cognitive, social or emotional problems; this was so widespread that the number of identifi ed problem children rose signifi - cantly. Added to this was a series of changes towards theory orientation in psychology, including inspiration from the above-mentioned system theory. This challenged the image and value of the psychologist as an objective and independent expert on childhood problems. Instead, focus was placed on the need for educational psy- chologists to increase the counselling input with a focus on facilitating rather than dictating change. This movement also found currency in most countries’ school psychological counselling sessions and a change took place, rejecting the former method of testing using psychometric scales with average values and standard deviations, and moving towards a more preventive, counselling-based outlook in children’s advisory centres from the 1970s onward. (Miller and Leyden 1999 ; Cameron 2006 ; Farrell 2009 ). Based on examples in Great Britain, Leadbetter ( 2006 ) writes that from the middle of the 1990s there was a growth in the use of

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preventive methods and consultation with teachers in educational psychology practice. From the 1990s onwards it became diffi cult to fi nd a job announcement for work in educational psychology advisory centres where counselling was not mentioned. She also maintains that signifi cant diversity arises in the understanding of what preventive measures in schools consist of and how they are practised;

Danish studies of the ﬁ eld also recognise this. Over several years therefore, approaches using counselling, ecology and more context-sensitivity have been placed on the educational psychology agenda with a focus on the need for a paradigm shift from a primarily services-oriented authoritative style to a style that advocates counselling, is more development-oriented and facilitates; whereby the counselling approach ideally should be the main professional approach to educational psychology work.

At the same time as the movements embracing more counselling, the subject of inclusion has in recent years become the overriding theme in the school environ- ment and thus also for educational psychology practice. Today one of the most important tasks for the educational psychologist is to help establish inclusive learning environments in day care institutions and schools.

Despite considerable political focus on inclusion, many teachers and educational psychologists report signiﬁ cant challenges putting inclusion into practice (Farrell 2009 ; Strand 2011 ; Szulevicz and Tanggaard 2014 ). A report by the Danish Evaluation Institute (EVA 2011 ) shows that a very large proportion of teachers do not feel themselves able to include more pupils with special needs and that they need more knowledge on inclusion and differentiation within teaching in order to implement this in speciﬁ c pedagogical practice.

Inclusion is thus the topic that places new and different requirements on educational psychologists, who today are expected to be a type of architect of inclusion whose primary task is to help pedagogues and teachers to create and design inclusive learning environments for children. The requirement for inclusion has made the counselling approach even more topical. This is because the counselling approach is often seen as the most appropriate method for facilitating inclusion (Farrell 2004 ; Baviskar et al. 2014 ). Several research results suggest that there are challenges to do with the establishment of positive cooperation around inclusion between teachers, pedagogues and educational psychologists and that there are considerable differences in the way the cooperation between schools and teachers works (Schaarup et al. 2009 ; Baviskar et al. 2014 ).

One of the most frequent criticisms levelled at psychologists is that they fi nd it too diffi cult to counsel and guide in school-related problems because they quite simply have too little pedagogical and didactic insight and experience. The need for a more pedagogical and didactic form of counselling has been further intensifi ed with the new requirement for inclusion, which means that professionals must focus more on the development of general teaching at the cost of special pedagogical counselling which has previously been the fi eld of the educational psychologist.

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Summary

The above short historical outline and delineation of current challenges in educational psychology shows that, over time, the core tasks of the educational psychologist have undergone change and have also been a subject of debate. The question as to how best to help children and young people and to support and advise professionals working with the child and other primary caregivers changes historically, just as the conditions of children and young people’s lives change. Moreover, school life covers several years of a child’s development. School practices change; so too do the tasks of the educational psychologist.

In the following chapter we will delineate the various theoretical and practice- oriented approaches that characterise educational psychology work and will then prepare to explain our perspectives on how such approaches might change for the better.

References

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Baviskar, S., Dyssegaard, C. B., Egelund, N., Lausten, M., Lynggaard, M., & Tetler, S. (2014).

Dokumentationsprojektet: Kommunernes omstilling til øget inklusion pr. marts 2014. SFI og Aarhus Universitet.

Bendixen, C. (2009). Intelligensbegrebet og intelligenstestning i folkeskolen. I: C. Bendixen og S. Kreiner (red.). Test i folkeskolen . Hans Reitzels Forlag. København.

Cameron, R. J. (2006). Educational psychology: The distinctive contribution. Educational Psychology in Practice, 22 (4), 289–304.

Dennis, R. (2004). So far so good? A qualitative case study exploring the implementation of con- sultation in schools. Educational Psychology in Practice, 20 (1), 17–29.

EVA. (2011). Undervisningsdifferentiering som bærende pædagogisk princip . Kbh.: Danmarks Evalueringsinstitut.

Farrell, P. (2004). School psychologists: Making inclusion a reality for all. School Psychology International, 25 , 5–19.

Farrell, P. (2009). The developing role of school and educational psychologists in supporting chil- dren, schools and families. Papeles del Psicólogico, 30 (1), 74–85.

Folkeskolen nr. 10. (2012). Udtalelse fra undervisningsminister Christine Antorini om omstillings- behov på PPR.

Forlin, C. (2010). The role of the school psychologist in inclusive education for ensuring quality learning outcomes for all learners. School Psychology International, 31 , 617–630.

Gutkin, T.B. (2012). Ecological Psychology: Replacing the Medical Model Paradigm for School- Based Psychological and Psycho-educational Services. Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation, 22 , 1–20.

Kommunernes Landsforening (KL). (2013). Pejlemærker for fremtidens pædagogisk-psykologiske rådgivning . Hellerup: Implement Consulting Group.

Leadbetter, J. (2006). Investigating and conceptualising the notion of consultation to facilitate multi-agency work. Educational Psychology in Practice, 22 (1), 19–31.

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Nielsen, B. (2014). PPR-Håndbogen . København: Dansk Psykologisk Forlag.

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Sladeczek, I. E., Heath, N. L., Blidner, A., & Lanaro, L. M. (2003). Canadian consultation in an international context: A review of the literature. In M. Cole & M. Siegel (Eds.), Effective con- sultation in school psychology . Cambridge: Hogrefe & Huber Publishers.

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T. Szulevicz, L. Tanggaard, Educational psychology practice, Cultural Psychology of Education 4, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-44266-2_2

Chapter 2 Approaches and Methods Used in Educational Psychology Practice

Introduction

As has emerged from the historical outline given in the previous chapter, school psychology practice has undergone signiﬁ cant changes over recent decades, often characterised by a general tendency towards two separate approaches to the work.

On the one hand, the psychometric legacy and the close association of educational psychology practice with testing have played a central role. This approach to psychology continues. On the other hand, however, the winds of consultation- and relation-oriented methods have made themselves felt in the fi eld of educational psychology. Szulevicz and Tanggaard ( 2015 ) are ones of several to discuss a two- pronged strategy which implies (1) measures to help the individual child who experiences considerable diffi culties and (2) measures directed at groups, institutions and systems. The fi rst prong involves direct intervention, typically in the form of an individual psychological examination of the child. The second prong com- prises actual preventive and pre-emptive measures whereby the psychologist inter- venes indirectly in respect of the individual child. Often, it is argued that it is necessary to develop an appropriate balance between the two main types of measure.

Testing and consultation are in many ways two widely divergent approaches to educational psychology work. Yet they can very often co-exist, which can be both a strength and a daily challenge in practical terms.

In the following, these two approaches to educational psychology work will be examined in more detail – with most emphasis given to the consultation approach however, as this is the form of professional approach widely believed to be the most appropriate in relation to the current challenges of educational psychology practice (Farrell 2009 ; Ahtola and Niemi 2014 ; Szulevicz and Tanggaard 2014 , 2015 ).

We will henceforth refer to the testing-oriented approach as the ‘service approach’.