Chapter Summary
2.2 Challenge to the Compass - And a Silent Response
2.2.2.1 Double Talk
Of primary importance is the different value placed on the code of communication in the two contexts. Universities value the written code, while the practice encounter is essentially dialogic (Eraut, 1994).
It will be recalled that in section 2.1.5 I listed Scollon and Scollon's (1995) six characteristics of Utilitarian discourse. In the text-valued context of the university, professional development occurs in a dominant discourse system that claims factual, logical and deductive approaches to the making of meaning. At the same time, there is an emphasis on individual and unique representation of 'these facts. Students are
encouraged to produce 'original' versions of thought (while acknowledging the sources of it), through essays, assignments and research. In addition, there are filters of appropriateness through which texts must be produced. There are codes of 'politeness' to be observed, and maintenance of 'respect' for other (academic) individuals. The respect, in this case, means an avoidance of emotive discourse. The goal of university discourse, therefore, is to build knowledge through segmented study of particular strands of specialist knowledge using, as its primary source, the written word. Most significantly, however, for the development of a helping profession based on human interaction, this goal is to be achieved using discourse that is fundamentally non- emotive. The valued discourse of the university system, and as reflected through its ideals and beliefs discussed in 2.1, is a logical, 'neutral', building on fact - not feeling.
In practice, however, the institutionalised rules of the dialogic encounter become primary. The aims of therapeutic discourse are to demonstrate care, responsibility, respect and knowledge (Fromm, 1956). Care for others in this context involves concern as to what mayor may not be happening to them, even though this does not necessarily mean personal affection. Responsibility means the cultivation of sensitivity as to the consequences of words and activities that occur within the dialogic encounter. Respect means perceiving the client as equal and worthy; as autonomous and having purpose.
The application of knowledge is seen as a consequence of care; a desire to use all talents, including the intellectual, in order to understand the situation and thus to help resolve it (Brandon, 1976).Itis, therefore, a discourse based on feeling.
The argument here is that the institutionalised rules of the university discourse system are different to those of practice. To understand what maintains this division of discourse, and how this division cOJ1tributes to the professional response of silence when challenge is directed at its model of professional development, the following section introduces gender as a central issue.
2.2.2.2 MaleTalk
As has been said above, the production and interpretation of talk needs to be understood as a collusional response to the complexities of an institutional setting. The discourse
rules of the South African university system, therefore, cannot be disassociated from the interests of the people who colluded to form and currently maintain them.
The historic non-participation of women in academic/intellectual life has been documented by various feminist researchers (Cameron, 1985; Rose, 1994; Spender, 1980). Until late in the last century, women were excluded by statute from university life. This has meant that the traditions of thinking, expressed discursively, have reflected the interests of men.Itmeans that women have been "deprived of the means to participate in creating forms of thought relevant or adequate to express their own experience" (Dorothy Smith, 1978, cited by Cameron, 1985; P146).
Recent statistics for the South African university system reflect the gender inequality, with 92% of the academic professors being male, and similarly significant gender inequities occurring down the ranks until the 'junior lectureship' level alters the bias in favour of women (De la Rey, 1998; p12). In effect, therefore, the control of knowledge production and transmission - carried by its favoured discourse style - remains in the hands of men (Primo, 1999).
Set against this, the SHT profession is sharply gendered, with 90% of its members being women, and four of the five heads of training departments being female. These women have, therefore, achieved significant success within a male-oriented, male-dominated environment. As the same time, however, and as stated in Chapter One (1.1), the training programmes are small, with approximately 80 nationally produced graduates per annum. Aron (1991) points to the sexism, indifference, ignorance and 'supercilious remarks' that she - and her colleagues - have had to endure over the length of their academic careers from university administrators and the (male-dominated) medical profession regarding the role and status of the profession, and its location within the university system and medical establishment. To survive in this context, and to maintain that survival, would suggest the necessity for a high level of collusion in the institutional rules governing the discourse of the university system! bio-medical model.
There is a growing body of literature concerning how women know and experience the world, and positing that it is not only different to men, but that male-structured institutions such as university education actually disadvantage the development of
women. The problem, however, is that womens' ways of knowing - in American and European societies at least - have only a 'man-made' language to express these experiences within. Influential researchers such as Luce Irigaray (1974), Belenky et al.
(1986), and Gilligail (1982), in revealing how womens' thinking develops over the life- span, have suggested a second, yet 'wordless', language co-existing within women.
Carol Gilligan (1982) found that women develop morality around notions of responsibility and care. Apart from challenging the notions of Piaget (1965) whose own research was mainly based on boys, Gilligan's (1982) findings suggest that most women will:
" ... argue for an understanding of the context for moral choice, claiming that the needs of individuals cannot always be deduced from general rules and principles and that moral choice must also be determined inductively from the particular experience each participant brings to the situation. They [women] believe that dialogue and exchange of views allow each individual to be understood in his or her own terms. They believe that mutual understanding is most likely to lead to a creative consensus about how everyone's needs may be met in resolving disputes." (cited by Belenky et aI., 1986; p8).IO
I would suggest that it is this type of moral development that underlies Fromm's (1956) use of the words 'care', 'respect', responsibility' and 'knowledge' in therapeutic discourse. The contextual location of training programmes, however, makes it possible to propose that the need to collude with the man-made institutional rules of the university system serve to de-legitimise the female characteristics of care and responsibility.
Itis also possible to propose that critical professional researchers, educated into a male version of morality via the university system, and basing the polemic around professional development upon the (largely male) concept of 'blind justice', (Belenky et aI., 1986) have engaged in the debate using a gender-influenced discourse. Educated like
10These findings have significance in relation to Narrative One, 'God's Child', and the dilemma of belief that occurred during this interaction.
men, finding value in thinking like men, it could be suggested that both academics~d researchers engaged in the curriculum polemic have unconsciously arranged NOT to talk about the issues of authentic caring, helping, respect and responsibility with regard to professional dev~lopment. Limited by the norms and beliefs of the educative system and its language, it could be argued that there is no voice with which to articulate these questions. And similar to other womens' experience of having their voices de- legitimised, the result has been silence - because of the lack of a discourse within which to frame the issues themselves (Belenky et aI, 1986; Gilligan, 1982; Cameron, 1985;
Irigaray, 1974;Ro~e, 1994).
From this perspective, the silence of professional power-holders in response to critique does not necessarily represent a polar denial by academics of the need for fundamental change to the professional model of development. When located in a gender-based framework, it could rather be that there exists no language - on either side of the polemic - with which to articulate the real nature of the change required.
Admitting that this is a possibility may form the first step in re-problematising the debate with regard to change to the model of professional development. If gender-based factors are negatively influencing the ability of insider-professionals to collude In
forming a common meaning as regards change to the professional model of development, it becomes important to ask what communicative opportunities exist that could contribute to its resolution? And, if such opportunities could be found, how could they additionally serve to challenge the core assumptions and beliefs currently maintained by the current model of professional development?
As was pointed out in Chapter 1, the central problem confronting the profession is its failure to graduate sufficient numbers of BAFL speaking students to prove its services as equitable to all South Africans. The following section suggests that by re-examining the core threads of discourse, context and knowledge from the perspective of current educational theory, a motivation can be offered for the introduction of the 'subject' of the polemic itself: the voice of a failing BAFL speaking student. At the same time, however, and in light of the critical discussions that have preceded it, the argument is presented for a fundamentally different approach to the listening of it.
2.3