Reply to Allison Halpern's Review of Coulson's Market Education By Andrew J. Coulson

Reply to Allison Halpern's Review of Coulson's Market Education Andrew J. Coulson Editor, www.SchoolChoices.org           Alison Halpern's review of Market Education contains two sorts of criticisms: efforts to challenge the book's findings on empirical grounds, and sophistries. While I am happy to respond to the former category of criticisms, I am disappointed to find so many crude rhetorical devices littering what purports to be a scholarly review. Nevertheless, I respond to all of Halpern's points below, in the order in which she made them.           In the third sentence of her review, Halpern refers to the historical case studies presented in Market Education as "anecdotes." An anecdote is by definition a detached incident, or a single event. In contrast to that definition, each case study I present is a broad based and thoroughly integrated account of the educational system in question, the milieu in which it developed, and the cultural and economic achievements of its society. The sources on which these studies are based are either primary or reputable and widely accepted secondary works. Halpern makes no attempt to defend her outrageous mischaracterization of these case studies as anecdotal.           Halpern then criticizes the book's historical treatment of state-run school systems, saying that I pay "only lip-service to the successes of the public systems." This is false. I spend considerable time and care examining the most notable claims for the successes of state-run school systems, such as their being responsible for bringing schooling and literacy to the masses in post reformation Germany and 19th century England and America.           Rather than glossing over these claims, as Halpern alleges, I show that in general the historical evidence contradicts them. The spread of education and the rise of popular literacy in Germany, for example, began before the state-run school systems advocated by Luther were established, and in fact it would have been difficult for the Reformation to have proceeded with such speed and scope were it not for the fact that so many of the German people were already able to read Luther's missives. In England and America, the evidence shows that majority literacy was achieved under the largely market-based systems of the early 19th century, and that the spread of completely tax-funded state-run schools did not accelerate that pre-existing growth in literacy. Furthermore, the U.S. Census Bureau's own figures show that the enrollment level of white children actually went down between 1850 and 1900 (p. 84), despite the fact that this was the period in which state-run schooling expanded across the country and the majority of states introduced mandatory attendance laws. Though African American enrollment rose substantially after the Civil War, this was principally due to the abolition of laws forbidding them from receiving an education. The bulk of the schools serving newly emancipated black children appear to have been private ventures.           Market Education describes few dramatic successes of state-run school systems because there have been few dramatic successes under those systems, particularly when they are compared to competitive educational markets. Halpern fails to mention even a single purported success of government-run schooling which is not discussed and confuted in Market Education. Nor does she challenge any of those confutations. I am open to the possibility that I have missed some significant historical achievement of a government school system, and will gladly look into any that are suggested to me.           Next, Halpern fallaciously trivializes the arguments presented in Market Education, alleging that they equate to the simplistic formula: "public equals bad and private equals good." This criticism is patently unjustifiable given the repeated discussions in Market Education of the shortcomings of private schooling and competitive markets. The century-long stagnation in U.S. private schooling is described at length in Chapter 8, the flaws of voucher programs and private contracting arrangements are catalogued in Chapter 10, and the weakness of free markets (absent an effective subsidy mechanism) when it comes to serving low-income families is noted throughout the book and emphasized in Chapters 9 and 11. Furthermore, a substantial part of Chapter 6 deals with public school success stories. I cannot imagine why Ms. Halpern chose to deny the existence of these subtleties.           With regard to the several chapters documenting the unsatisfactory performance of U.S. public schooling, Halpern states: "unlike many educational researchers who critique the practice of public education while remaining committed to the idea of it, Coulson simply condemns both the practice and the idea of public education." First, a clarification. I draw a distinction between the ideals of public education (e.g. that all children should have access to good schools) and the institution of public schooling, which is only a mechanism for advancing our ideals. I am a vigorous supporter of public education, and have dedicated the past six years of my life to improving it. I do, by contrast, condemn our state-run "public" school system for its gross deficiencies in providing public education, and its inferiority to parent-driven educational markets.           That said, I will assume that Ms. Halpern is referring to my condemnation of the institution of public schooling, which she dismisses as "simple." It is inexplicable how Halpern could hold in her hands a 170,000 word book supported by well over a thousand source citations and call it "simple." Market Education meticulously documents the fact that state-run school systems have been inferior to market systems in their ability to serve the public. It would be nothing short of scholarly malpractice to cling to such a deficient institution when a superior alternative exists.           Halpern's very first effort to provide evidence backing up one of her criticisms comes almost half-way through her review, when she touches on the subject of reading instruction. She writes that Market Education "relies heavily on the work of Jeanne Chall but ignores the thorough critique of her work by Marie Carbo." I draw Ms. Halpern's attention to the list of endnote references at the back of the book, where she will find more than thirty citations on this topic. Of those thirty or so references, only three are to works authored by Chall. That is not heavy reliance. Contrary to Halpern's allegation, studies showing success with whole language instruction are factored into this section, as they are considered by all the major research syntheses in the field (for example, M. J. Adams, Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning About Print, and R. Anderson, E. Hiebert, J. Scott, and I. Wilkinson, Becoming a nation of readers: The report of the Commission on Reading). I also cite several works by leading proponents of whole language instruction, such as Constance Weaver, and address their arguments head on.           The plain fact, as I write in Market Education, is that the preponderance of reputable studies shows the superiority of structured early phonics instruction. As new evidence continues to accumulate, that consensus is only strengthened. After Market Education went to press, the Scottish Office of the U.K. released the results of a 5 year, large scale study (Watson and Johnson, 1999) comparing the effectiveness of various early reading instruction methods. This study found yet again that a synthetic phonics-first approach produced the highest achievement in reading and spelling overall, and the fewest under-achieving students.           No discussion of reading instruction techniques could mention every article and book written on such a popular topic. It is nevertheless possible to present the consensus of rigorous experimental trials and that is precisely what is done in Market Education. Even the American Federation of Teachers, hardly considered an organization of reactionary anti-progressives, is now championing the need for early phonics instruction. To present a single outdated article (Carbo, 1988) as a supposed refutation of this consensus is preposterous.           Halpern decries the book's treatment of public school teachers, saying that its assessment of teachers as generally having poor academic abilities and a lack of interest in academics is "condescending." Indeed, she dismisses these conclusions as "opinions." But indignation is not an argument and my conclusions are not mere opinions. In reputable surveys, teacher candidates themselves report much less interest in academics than do other college students, as a group their verbal and mathematics SAT scores are consistently the worst or second-to worst of students in all ten discipline categories identified by the College Board (which administers the SAT), teachers stress the importance of academic achievement over other educational goals only a third as often as do parents, they view the "nurturing and interpersonal aspects of a teacher's role as more important than the academic aspects," and the list goes on (p. 140). In is hard to see how these research findings could be honestly construed as "opinions."           Halpern then moves on to critique the book's treatment of the experimental evidence on school vouchers. Her criticisms are inconsequential. Voucher experiments are treated only in passing in Market Education and then only because of their high profile in the current debate. Because they represent such tiny numbers of schools and students, because they separate payment from consumption, because participating schools are rarely if ever operated for profit, and because whole categories of schools (most often religious schools) have until recently been prohibited from participating, these programs do not constitute truly competitive markets. A large portion of Chapter 10 is devoted to explaining how and why existing voucher programs fail to constitute true educational markets. The sections discussing empirical evidence from existing voucher experiments could thus be removed entirely from Market Education without affecting its conclusions, which rest instead on the modern and historical evidence of actual educational markets.           But no such revision is necessitated by Halpern's off-target criticisms. She faults my rejection of the Witte study of Milwaukee's voucher program, but that rejection is entirely justified. Randomized experiments are overwhelmingly recognized in the scientific community as superior to experiments in which control groups are cobbled together by experimenters. While the Greene/Peterson/Du and Cecilia Elena Rouse studies analyzed the randomized experiment, Witte failed to do so. Criticisms of the statistical significance of the early Greene/Peterson/Du findings on Milwaukee are interesting, but do not apply to the Rouse study that also found academic improvements in Milwaukee.           Halpern also fails to note that I do discuss the vigorous disagreement between the Cleveland voucher studies performed by Green, Peterson et al. (which showed academic gains), and by researchers from Indiana University (which did not). She is almost certainly unaware of the latest research in this field by the Indiana University team (which was unavailable at the time of Market Education's writing). According to the IU team's most recent work (Metcalf, 1999), students participating in the Cleveland voucher program enjoy significant improvement in their scores over those remaining in the public schools. So a consensus among formerly opposed scholars is now developing around the positive academic effects of vouchers. Note that there has never been any disagreement over the fact that voucher programs lead to significantly higher parental satisfaction and parental involvement in their children's schools.           Halpern's last argument is equally ineffective. She faults Market Education for failing to assess the works of writers such as Henig, Whitty, and Meier. This is a fallacious appeal to authority. To the best of my knowledge, none of the individuals cited has conducted either a comparative historical analysis of school governance structures or an analysis of contemporary free market educational systems (e.g. the Japanese juku). In other words, these "experts" are not expert in the subject matter of Market Education. Though some, such as Henig and Meier, have studied and criticized quasi-market education reforms (e.g., charter schools, the New Zealand model, government-funded vouchers), Market Education does not advocate these quasi-market reforms. In fact, it criticizes them as well.           Though I don't doubt that Ms. Halpern meant well, her review consists almost entirely of linguistic gestures rather than rational arguments. Her few attempts at offering supporting evidence or appealing to dissenting authorities are specious, and her sweeping conclusions are thus unfounded. I look forward to a more substantive review of Market Education. References Metcalf, Kim K., 1999. "Evaluation of the Cleveland Scholarship and Tutoring Program, 1996-99," Unpublished Manuscript, Indiana University. Watson, Joyce E., and Johnston, Rhona S., 1999. "Accelerating Reading Attainment: The Effectiveness of Synthetic Phonics." Government report, Scottish Executive Education Department - Educational Research Unit (ERU).

Coulson, Andrew J. (1999). Market Education: The Unknown History. Reviewed by Allison Halpern

Coulson, Andrew J. (1999). Market Education: The Unknown History. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. 470 + x pp. $54.95 (cloth)         ISBN 1-56000-408-8 $24.95 (Paper)         ISBN 0-7658-0496-4 Reviewed by Allison Halpern University of Wisconsin-Madison                 In Market Education, Andrew J. Coulson applies an historical perspective to argue that the current public system of education is inherently flawed and should be replaced by a privatized educational market. As a former employee for the Microsoft Corporation, Coulson brings to this topic an "outsider's" view; perhaps this association with such an immensely financially successful company partially explains his optimistic view of not only private schools, but also for-profit schools.                 Using selected anecdotes from world history, Coulson builds an argument against the efficacy of government-run schools. He describes the shortcomings of public educational systems in societies such as Sparta, Rome in the Common Era, Germany during the Reformation, and England, France, and the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries. These examples are meant to support his assertion that governmental systems of education are inferior to private systems such as those in ancient Athens, pre-Common Era Rome, and Japan's juku system of the present.                 For example, Coulson juxtaposes the free-market elements of Athenian education with the state-controlled schools of Sparta. He attributes the success of the former society's educational system to its few government regulations and marketized structure, in which any man could teach whatever subject he desired. Instructors had to compete for students and thus keep their fees affordable while offering attractive curricula. Spartan education, on the other hand, was entirely state-directed; boys were schooled away from home in a strict learning environment. The curriculum focused on physical activity in order to prepare them for careers as warriors. Coulson ties the harsh education of Sparta and the low level of literacy among its citizens to high levels of government intervention.                 One of the strongest aspects of this book is in this application of history to policy. For too long, policy makers have ignored the lessons of history when developing policies. Coulson makes a strong contribution to the field of educational policy when he argues that by studying the past, we can make more informed decisions. History can suggest what has worked, what hasn't, and why. As noted by David Tyack and Larry Cuban, "History provides a whole storehouse of experiments on dead people" (Tyack & Cuban, 1995, p. 6). In Market Education, Coulson demonstrates the utility of examining of past events in order to help shed light on current policy decisions.                 But while historical comparisons are undoubtedly instructive in educational policy, they must used in a subtle and complex manner. The differing contexts and meanings need to be explored carefully to enhance our understanding of the similarities and differences between the past and the present. Alongside his descriptions of each society, Coulson needs a more nuanced analysis of the particular governmental, social, and educational structures, and how these factors, separately and together, influenced the success or failure of their respective systems of education. The author pays only lip service to the successes of the public systems in his historical comparisons outside of their ability to indoctrinate young minds and bodies. The monolithic nature of his argument leaves little room for Coulson to expand his analysis beyond a simple "public equals bad and private equals good."                 Coulson devotes a large portion of the book detailing the shortcomings of public education in the United States. There is little in this section that will be unfamiliar to most scholars of education, except perhaps his heavy reliance on standardized tests, including the SAT, to measure student achievement and school performance. But unlike many educational researchers who critique the practice of public education while remaining committed to the idea of it, Coulson simply condemns both the practice and the idea of public education.                 Included in the censure of public schools is a prolonged discussion of methods of literacy instruction. Although Coulson does not seem to have a background in literacy, he easily dispenses with whole language instruction (or, as he and other critics refer to it, "look-say") as "pedagogical oblivion" (p.167). He too easily navigates the complicated waters of reading research, admitting that the goals of whole language are admirable, but claiming that there is no empirical evidence of its success. He relies heavily on the work of Jeanne Chall but ignores the thorough critique of her work by Marie Carbo. In fact, he is silent on the body of research demonstrating the effectiveness of whole language instruction. Whole language approaches, like phonics-based methods, are not without their flaws; in Reading Lessons, Gerald Coles ably discusses the complexities of the debates over literacy and some of the problems with various forms of literacy instruction, particularly the depoliticization of literacy practices.                 Coulson's critique of public education goes beyond curriculum and pedagogy; he also attacks public school teachers as "anti-academic" and schools of education as "intellectually bankrupt" (p, 140, 144). While "not all government school teachers are low achievers with no interest in academics," it seems clear that in his opinion those teachers are the exception, not the norm (p. 141). With such condescending attitudes toward teachers, it is no wonder so many teachers complain of low respect and status in their field, a complaint that has led many to withdraw from the education profession.                 Once Coulson has finished his condemnation of public education, he turns his attention to the solution, market education. Perhaps the strongest aspect of the book, the section on privatized alternatives explores a variety of options, including charter schools, voucher programs, tuition tax credits, private administration of public schools, and a national curriculum. Each one is analyzed according to the five characteristics he believes are most closely linked with a successful educational system: parental choice, parental responsibility for education, freedom for schools to operate as they wish, competition among schools, and a profit motive for these competing schools. Not surprisingly, all of these factors are aspects of a free-enterprise-based system of education. Coulson's conclusion, then, is that the most effective educational system is that which most closely resembles free enterprise: for-profit schools with private scholarships for low-income students.                 While Coulson's case for privatized education may be convincing for readers who have not followed closely the debates over school choice, it is seriously flawed. For example, he dismisses John Witte's study of the Milwaukee voucher program as "suspect" because he disagrees with the composition of the control group. Instead, he relies on the study conducted by Jay Greene, Paul Peterson, and Jiangtao Du, which concludes that the voucher program is a success. However, this latter study, like the former, is highly controversial; most of its results are not statistically significant by accepted social science standards, although the authors conclude that the voucher students learn more than public school students. None of the shortcomings of this study are discussed in the book, even though they would contribute greatly to the readers' comprehension of the issues.                 Coulson also neglects important works in school choice research, most notably Geoff Whitty's comprehensive review of studies from the United States, England, and New Zealand. In this article, Whitty concludes that choice reforms "that trade on the 'market metaphor' are likely to increase rather than reduce inequalities in education" (p. 6). This finding is supported by Trading in Futures: The Nature of Choice in Educational Markets in New Zealand, a longitudinal study of choice in New Zealand which demonstrates that the educational market deployed there exacerbated inequality in the schools. The omission of influential research by Whitty and Lauder et al., as well as of other prominent scholars such as Jeffrey Henig, Sharon Gewirtz, Kevin Smith, and Kenneth Meier, leaves the book incomplete.                 The educational system that Coulson envisions is one with as little government regulation as possible. All but the poorest families would pay for their children's education themselves; those that do not have the money to do so would receive private scholarships. Under this system, wealthy families could send their children to the most expensive schools, while middle-class families would have to make do with whatever they can afford, and low-income families must rely on the benevolence of private organizations. There would be no regulation to guard against discriminatory policies and procedures. Instead of a democratically elected body governing the educational system, we would rely on the market to provide a just system. Given the market's abysmal track record with regard to social justice, it is imperative that concerned citizens reject this scheme, and instead stand up for the idea of public education and work together to make the practice of it more effective for our children. References Carbo, M. (1988). Debunking the great phonics myth. Phi Delta Kappan, 70, 226-240. Coles, G. (1998). Reading lessons: The debate over literacy. New York: Hill and Wang. Greene, J. P., Peterson, P. E., & Du, J. (1996). The effectiveness of school choice in Milwaukee: A secondary analysis of data from the program's evaluation. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association (San Francisco, CA, August 30, 1996); Harvard University Occasional Paper 96-3 (ERIC Document Reproduction No. ED 401 597). Kasten, W. C., & Clarke, B. K. (1989). Reading/writing readiness for preschool and kindergarten children: A whole language approach. Sanibel, FL: Educational Research and Development Council (ERIC Document Reproduction No. ED 312 041). Lauder, H., Hughes, D., Watson, S., Simiyu, S., & Waslander, S. (1995). Trading in futures: The nature of choice in educational markets in New Zealand. Wellington, NZ: Ministry of Education. Manning, M., Manning, G., & Long, R. (1989). Effects of a whole language and a skill-oriented program on the literacy development of inner city primary children. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Mid-South Educational Research Association (New Orleans, LA, November 8-10, 1989) (ERIC Reproduction Document No. ED 324 642). Stahl, S. A., & Kuhn, M. R. (1995). Does whole language or instruction matched to learning styles help children learn to read? School Psychology Review, 24, 393-404. Tyack, D., & Cuban, L. (1995). Tinkering toward utopia: A century of public school reform. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Whitty, G. (1997). Creating quasi-markets in education. Review of Research in Education, 22, 3-47. About the Reviewer Allison Halpern Allison Halpern is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Her dissertation examines the educational activities of a youth evangelical organization in the post-World War II era in the United States.

Butchart, Ronald E. and McEwan, Barbara (Editors). (1998). Classroom Discipline in American Schools: Problems and Possibilities for Democratic Education. Reviewed by David J. Flinders

Butchart, Ronald E. and McEwan, Barbara (Editors). (1998). Classroom Discipline in American Schools: Problems and Possibilities for Democratic Education. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press Pp. 287 $59.50           ISBN 0-7914-3617-9 (Cloth) $19.95           ISBN 0-7914-3618-7 (Paper) Reviewed by David J. Flinders Indiana University August 16, 1999           The motives for creating this volume stem from what its editors view as an erosion of critical dialogue on issues of classroom management. Butchart and McEwan attribute this erosion to experts who currently "huckster books, seminars, videotapes, programs, packages, and even computer software, with confident claims of educational peace and tranquility" (p. 1). Eschewing fads and gimmicks, Classroom Discipline in American Schools seeks to promote a dialogue that cherishes doubt and contributes to inquiry. In particular, the book pursues three stated aims: 1) to suggest lines of research that will inform this dialogue, 2) to build a case against mainstream, behaviorist practices (those based on rewards, punishment, manipulation, or control), and 3) to propose democratic alternatives.           Supporting this agenda, Butchart's introduction underscores the tendency for discipline issues to receive less scholarly attention than most other aspects of schooling. Compared with curriculum or methods of teaching, for example, discipline is something of a poor relation; acknowledged as a family member but rarely talked about. This neglect may be surprising given that the primary concerns of classroom discipline--attitudes, behaviors, and ways of interacting with others--are a significant part of what schools teach. Dewey (1938/1967) referred to these non-academic lessons as "collateral learning" which, he argued, "may be and often is more important than the spelling lesson or lesson in geography or history that is learned" (p. 48). Discipline understood as central to this not- so-hidden curriculum is an intellectually powerful theme. It provides a compelling rationale both for the book and for the study of classroom discipline as a field at large. The following review is divided into three parts. First, I will briefly describe the contents of the book in order to suggest its scope, organization, and main ideas. The second part of the review identifies a concern that cuts across many of the chapters, thus representing a possible limitation for the book as a whole. Finally, I will suggest a type of analysis that the book overlooks, but which may be useful in guiding future studies of classroom discipline.           Butchart and McEwan have grouped the nine chapters of their book into three sections. The first section, "Historical and Political Perspectives on Classroom Management," includes a chapter by Butchart and one by Beyer. The aim of this section is to introduce "the larger context" that gives classroom discipline its significance across time and place (p. 17). Butchart's chapter examines the historical dimensions of this context. Beginning at the end of the colonial period and galloping (albeit gracefully) through more than two centuries, Butchart outlines the rise of bureaucratic and developmental means of keeping order in early American schoolhouses, trends that were followed during the progressive era by mixing bureaucratic discipline with a faith in the principles of modern psychology. In surveying these trends, the chapter debunks a common assumption that discipline's own history is captured largely, if not solely by the decline of corporal punishment. Beyer's companion chapter is billed as addressing the political dimensions of classroom discipline. It does so by critiquing behaviorist approaches as a way to realign discipline with an alternative conception of professionalism based on social justice, cultural understanding, and egalitarian ideals.           The second section of the book groups four chapters under the title, "Ethnographic and Personal Perspectives on Classroom Management." These chapters focus largely on the particulars of classroom discipline, and as a result, they unavoidably end up struggling with its familiar tensions. Blount's chapter, which opens the section, vividly illustrates the personal challenges that teachers face as they navigate between the individual needs of students and the collective needs of a class. The next chapter is a case study in which McCadden raises several contradictions embodied in the complicated work of a kindergarten teacher. In many ways, this teacher is a traditional disciplinarian, strict in her style of classroom management, but she is equally caring toward her students and highly respected throughout the school. McEwan's chapter raises paradoxes as well, including a curious yet common dissonance between the values that teachers embrace and some of their discipline practices. In the final chapter of this section, Henry and Abowitz report a study that focuses on how a particular approach to discipline, Glasser's Control Theory, is used in one school. By examining practice, these authors find themselves in an intellectual struggle over different ways to conceptualize the aims of education and the needs of students.           The final section of the book, "Toward a Curriculum of Democratic Civility," is devoted to exploring critical alternatives to mainstream approaches. In particular, two chapters focus on "Judicious Discipline." Gathercoal's chapter explains how this approach draws on basic constitutional rights and legal principles. "Justice," he writes, "is concerned primarily with due process and deals with basic governmental fairness" (p. 199). Questions of implementation are taken up in a separate chapter where Nimmo recounts the successful use of Judicious Discipline in several Minnesota schools. This chapter offers examples of what various components of the framework look like in the context of school policy and day-to-day classroom teaching. In the book's final chapter, Stanley shifts the focus by making a general plea for educators to acknowledge the human dimensions of classroom discipline. In reviewing styles of discipline at large, she also questions the narrowly cognitive and legalistic basis for Judicious Discipline in particular, recommending instead the ethical principles of professional caring and empathy. Although brief, Stanley's critique begins to characterize the type of critical dialogue that the book sets out to achieve.           In the spirit of that dialogue, I want to suggest one limitation that stands out across several chapters. This limitation is the tendency to simplify or ignore the diversity of perspectives represented in the recent "mainstream" scholarship on classroom discipline. Many of the contributing authors do not refer to this literature at all, and those who do consistently overgeneralize its behaviorist orientation. Beyer's chapter, for example, presents a well-developed and articulate case against behaviorist approaches, citing Assertive Discipline in particular "as expressing the conventional wisdom concerning classroom discipline" (p. 63). To some degree, Assertive Discipline may represent conventional wisdom. However, Beyer moves from examples to what he terms "the nearly wholesale embrace of behavioral psychology as a basis for mainstream approaches to classroom discipline" (p 73). While this statement gives the impression that all mainstream approaches are cut from the same cloth, a survey of the field suggests otherwise. Charles' (1999) book, for example, a source that Beyer cites in one of its earlier editions, reviews twelve distinct models of classroom discipline, plus the work of Barbara Coloroso and Alfie Kohn. Besides representing a wide range of perspectives, and thus contentious debates within the field, only a small minority of these models can trace their roots to behavioral psychology. A tendency to dismiss the diversity of recent scholarship, however, does not prevent the book from breaking new ground, or at least pointing to areas in which the field now seems poised for innovative research. Specifically, several authors (e.g., Stanley, Blount, and Beyer) suggest approaching classroom discipline as a form of moral and ethical practice. Given this premise, scholars of classroom discipline may find a valuable source of guidance in the formal study of ethics and the various ethical systems proposed by philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, or Immanuel Kant. Many of the concerns raised in Butchart and McEwan's book seem to represent tensions between the type of ethical systems identified by these renowned figures. One agenda of the book, for example, can be viewed as an effort to move away from utilitarian ethics (those based on the consequences of an action) toward either deontological ethics (those based on principles such as fairness and justice) or, in Stanley's case, relational ethics (those based on regard for others). Not all issues conform to this type of analysis, but understanding alternative ethical systems may help educators see beyond the immediate practice of classroom discipline to the values and principles on which it is grounded. References Charles, C. M. (1999). Building classroom discipline. (Sixth Edition) New York: Longman. Dewey, J. (1938/1967).Experience and education. New York: Collier Books. About the Authors Ronald E. Butchart is Professor and Program Director of the Education Program at the University of Washington, Tacoma. He is the author of Northern Schools, Southern Blacks, and Reconstruction: Freedmen's Education, 1862-1875 and Local Schools: Exploring Their History. Barbara McEwan is Coordinator of Elementary Education at Oregon State University. She is the author of Practicing Judicious Discipline and On Being the Boss. About the Reviewer David J. Flinders is a faculty member of the School of Education at Indiana University. He teaches courses in qualitative research methods, curriculum theory, and models of teaching.

King, Patricia M. and Kitchener, Karen S. (1994). Developing Reflective Judgment: Understanding and Promoting Intellectual Growth and Critical Thinking in Adolescents and Adults. Reviewed by Jan van Aalst

King, Patricia M. and Kitchener, Karen S. (1994). Developing Reflective Judgment: Understanding and Promoting Intellectual Growth and Critical Thinking in Adolescents and Adults. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers 351 pp. $37.95           ISBN: 1-55542-629-8w99 Reviewed by Jan van Aalst, Simon Fraser University                     Steven Katz, OISE/University of Toronto August 11, 1999           The intended audiences of this book are educators who work with college students and who attempt to promote critical thinking among high school and non-college students, those who teach about college students in higher education programs, faculty and administrators with responsibility for the assessment of college outcomes, and developmental psychologists who seek to understand the nature of cognitive development (pp. xviii-xx). The book discusses more than 15 years of theory building and research on what King and Kitchener call the Reflective Judgment Model (RJM)--a stage model of how assumptions about knowledge and concepts of justification develop throughout adolescence and (young) adulthood. Chapters 1 and 2 describe reflective judgment and previous work on it, distinguishing it from critical thinking, and provide a preliminary account of the model; a fuller description of the epistemic assumptions and concepts of justification for each stage of the model is given in chapter 3. In chapter 4 a set of criteria is proposed for assessing reflective judgment; the authors argue that extant practice in the assessment of critical thinking and postformal thinking does not meet these criteria. In chapter 5 the Reflective Judgment Interview (RJI) is described as an alternative assessment instrument, and validation studies are discussed. Chapter 6, which the authors view as the centerpiece of the book, discusses research on reflective judgment. This chapter was written in collaboration with Phillip K. Wood. Chapter 7 examines the relationship of reflective judgment to critical thinking, and chapter 8 to character development. The final chapter describes some possible educational strategies. The book has a number of extensive appendices which provide further details on the RJI and the studies discussed in the main text.           King and Kitchener begin their argument (after a brief interview transcript excerpt) with a discussion of John Dewey's writing on reflective thinking: [Dewey] observed that true reflective thinking is initiated only after there is recognition that a real problem exists. Such real problems, he argued, cannot be solved by logic alone. Rather, they are resolved when a thinking person identifies a solution to the problem that temporarily closes the situation. True reflective thinking...is uncalled for in situations in which there is no controversy or doubt, no concern about the current understanding of an issue, or in which absolute, preconceived assumptions dominate. (p. 6) Thus the development of thinking King and Kitchener are interested in has more to do with such issues as the ability to recognize that there is a problem and that some problems may not be stated with certainty, than with logical argument. Problems that require reflective judgment--they call these ill-structured problems--go beyond such problems as "figuring out the circumference of a circle," "translating a set of instructions into a computer language, or playing a game of chess," which, the authors claim, can be solved "quite adequately" on the basis of mathematical formulae, logic, or rules of play (pp. 6-7). The choice of examples here is unfortunate. For example, any design problem involves an evaluation of competing design constraints which cannot be done on the basis of logic alone; nor can one know with certainty with which move, consistent with the current board configuration and the rules of the game, a player's opponent will respond. (Figuring out the circumference is a well-defined problem, but does not seem to require formal thought.) The authors seem to oversimplify problem solving. Nevertheless, there are many problem solving situations in which the uncertain nature of knowledge is not evident, such as items on the Cornell Critical Thinking Test (CCTT) and the Watson- Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (WGCTA). These tests, they claim, invoke cognitive or metacognitive processes rather than epistemic assumptions of the respondents. (p. 12). Description of the Reflective Judgment Model           The model is based on Perry's (1970) work on reflective thinking (Note 1), as well as works by a variety of philosophers (e.g., Popper, Lakatos, Dewey), and has undergone further development since the authors' first study of reflective judgment (Kitchener & King, 1981). According to the current model, there is a progression of seven distinct sets of epistemic assumptions about knowledge and how knowledge is acquired; each set has its own logical coherency, and is called a stage. Each successive stage is "posited to represent a more complex and effective form of justification, providing more inclusive and better integrated assumptions for evaluating and defending a point of view. ...The more advanced sets allow greater differentiation between ill-structured and well-structured problems and allow more complex and complete data to be integrated into a solution" (p. 13). The stages, they claim, are traversed in an invariant order, but "homogeneity associated with stagelike development decreases with age" (p. 22), and people at any time operate in a range of stages, depending on, for example, the problem context. The stages can be mapped onto the seven levels of Fisher's ( 1980) skill theory. In this theory, seven levels, marked by qualitative differences in the skill structures an individual can control, occur between ages 2-30. Further, a person's best performance in a familiar domain improves sharply when a new level is emerging. Optimal performance requires that performance is induced and supported by the environment (p. 34). During the plateau the new skill structure is elaborated and applied in new areas. King and Kitchener hypothesize that the assumptions associated with each RJM stage develop concurrently with the corresponding skill level in Fisher's theory.           We summarize (the authors' account of) the seven stages of the RJM. The stages fall into three groups indicative of pre-reflective thought (Stages 1-3), quasi- reflective thought (Stages 4 and 5), and reflective thought (Stages 6 and 7). Stage 1: Students use single, undifferentiated categories; no justification concept is needed because there is assumed to be an absolute correspondence between what is believed to be true and what is true. Students do not see discrepancies between two views or see that two people disagree on an issue (pp. 48-50). Stage 2: There is a true reality that can be known with certainty but is not known by everyone. (p. 51). Certain knowledge is seen as the domain of authorities, and those who disagree with authorities are wrong. Defending one's point of view is not done to explain the reasons for beliefs but rather to show (by stating them) that one's own beliefs are right and those who believe otherwise are wrong" (p. 52). Underlying the Stage 2 belief system is the ability to relate two or more instances of something, but the individual "considers knowing in relationship to concrete issues and not as an abstraction" (p. 53). Knowledge is assumed to be available directly through the senses or via authority figures. Students also often try to align evidence with their own views by distorting evidence. When they do perceive differences, they assume these can be resolved simply. Stage 3: Although in some areas even authorities may not have the truth, at some point in the future there will be knowledge from concrete data. In cases where authorities do have answers, beliefs continue to be justified on the basis of the word of an authority. This stage involves further differentiation of stage 2 categories into simple concrete systems. Where authorities do not know, people can believe what they want (p. 55). Assumptions do not reflect an understanding of evidence as an abstraction, a relational concept (p. 56). Stage 4: This is the first of the quasi-reflective stages. One cannot know with certainty, and there is the emergence of knowledge as an abstraction, not limited to concrete instances. However, knowledge and justification remain poorly differentiated from each other. (p. 58). Although students may acknowledge that opinions do not form sufficient basis for developing an argument, "they are not consistent in their use of evidence for this purpose" (p. 58). Students are likely to be unable to differentiate a theory from evidence for the theory, thus "they cannot perform the necessary mental operations that would allow them to evaluate the theory on its own merits" (p. 60). Stage 5: While people may not know with certainty or directly, what is known is always limited by the perspective of the knower--a position sometimes referred to as relativism. The underlying concept of this stage is the ability to relate two abstractions. In this stage, students can differentiate an event from the interpretation of the event. However, knowledge remains context-bound--the individual has not yet developed the ability to relate several abstractions into an abstract system. Students do recognize that there are alternate theories and that some evidence does not support one theory, but what is missing is "the ability to coordinate the two in a well-reasoned argument" (p. 64). Nevertheless, while students are unable to perform the above coordination, they are "trying on one frame of reference after another" (p. 66), and this provides the basis for synthesis. Stage 6: Knowing is a process that requires action on the part of the knower, and that knowledge must be understood in relationship to context and evidence. Students are now able to coordinate the subtle similarities and differences of abstract relationships into intangible systems; they make decisions on the basis of compelling evidence rather than for idiosyncratic reasons. Stage 7: While "reality is never a given, interpretations of evidence and opinion can be synthesized into epistemically justifiable conjectures about the nature of the problem under consideration" (p. 70). People in Stage 7 take on the role of inquirers; they are agents involved in constructing knowledge (p. 70); they recognize that their knowledge claims may later be superseded by others. There also is an ability to integrate several Stage 6 systems (knowledge and justifications about scientific issues, social science issues, etc.) into a general framework about knowing and justification. This allows for a generalization of assumptions and a clarity of judgment that were not present at Stage 6. This stage goes beyond Perry's model--the idea of being committed to a point-of-view does not fit in this stage (p. 71).           One example may illustrate how the stages map onto the Fisher levels. In Level 4, two or more representational systems are related to produce a new way of thinking--single abstractions. This is the first of the abstract levels, and represents the ability to construct and operate on intangible categories; Fisher claims this occurs early in adolescence. In a single abstraction about knowledge, in the RJM, a person can coordinate concrete observations that different people draw different conclusions on the basis of their own circumstances and biases (p. 32). Evaluating Reflective Judgment           Chapter 4 turns to evaluating reflective judgment. The authors present a set of seven "desirable features of a measure of reflective thinking:" (a) Ill-structured tasks should be the focus of the assessment task; (b) assessment should elicit information about the rationale for a response as well as its content; (c) thinking should be sampled across a variety of issues; (d) the content should be generally familiar to a wide range of individuals; (e) the content should not constrain the instrument's use to individuals in educational settings; (f) the reading level should be such that it can be used with a wide range of potential test-takers; and (g) if the measure is based on a model that purports to describe the development of reflective thinking, the theoretical model on which it is based should be validated. As already mentioned, on the authors' view tests of critical thinking such as the Watson- Glaser test do not have the desired focus on ill-structured tasks.           The Reflective Judgment Interview (RJI) discussed in chapter 5 typically consists of four ill-structured problems and a set of standard follow-up questions. Each question focuses on at least one major concept of the Reflective Judgment Model (i.e., the assumptions about knowledge and concepts of justification). The four standard problems cover a range of issues; each problem is defined by two contradictory points of view and is designed to focus on problems in the intellectual domain. An example is a problem on the safety of chemical additives to foods: There have been frequent reports about the relationship between chemicals that are added to foods and the safety of these foods. Some studies indicate that such chemicals can cause cancer, making these foods unsafe to eat. Other studies, however, show that chemical additives are not harmful, and actually make the foods containing them more safe to eat. (p. 101)           A fifth problem on nuclear waste has also been used. All five of the standard problems, as well as several discipline-based problems (in chemistry and psychology), and instructions for conducting and scoring the interviews are provided in an appendix.           The second part of chapter 5 addresses the validity and reliability of the RJI. The authors insist that trained and certified people must be used for conducting and scoring the interviews. After a presentation of verbatim discussions of one standard problem (two interviews), interrater reliability and agreement, test-retest reliability, and internal consistency (between the standard problems) are examined. This part of the chapter provides an informative account of the kinds of issues one must attend to in test development; it should be of interest to graduate students.           King and Kitchener consider the scores of two raters to be in agreement when they are discrepant by less than one stage (p. 110). Most of the 32 studies that used the standard RJI problems report (Pearson) correlations between ratings given by two blind raters, as well as percentage agreement; Cohen's kappa, which corrects percentage agreement for chance agreement, is not reported. Almost 40% of the studies reported an agreement of at least 87%, and 25% an agreement of at least 90%. The authors conclude that trained raters can score RJIs consistently; from four studies in which there was less than 70% agreement they conclude that "some raters may be differentially evaluating cues in the transcripts from adult students or that older students may be responding in more diverse ways to the interview questions" (p. 111). Test-retest reliability was .71 for a three-month interval, and .87 for a two-week interval (p. 112). For 14 studies that met the criteria of using all four problems and reported (Cronbach's) alpha, the median alphas were .79 and .85. A second measure of consistency across problems used was the inter-problem correlations (problem 1 with problem 3, etc.). These correlations ranged from very low to very high, typically falling around .40. Problem-Total correlations (scores for any given problem with the average of the scores for the other three problems) were typically .60 and varied little from problem to problem. Thus, the authors conclude, the problems are remarkably consistent.           Preliminary data on three domain-specific problems are also discussed. Average scores on these were "almost identical" to averages on the standard problems done by the same respondents, leading the authors to conclude that the RJI taps people's underlying assumptions about knowledge, and not knowledge about the discipline (p. 118). A test of the hypothesis based on Fisher's theory that spurts in performance in cognitive skills occur between ages 14-15, 18-20, and between 23-25 is reported. Respondents were presented with two prototypical responses to a problem for each of Stages 2-7 and asked to summarize the statements in their own words. The study (Kitchener, Lynch, Fisher, and Wood, 1993) found evidence for spurts and for improved scores due to practice, as well as a ceiling effect-- students younger than age 23, even with support and practice, did not accurately paraphrase the statements that reflected Stage 7 reasoning (p. 122). Research on Reflective Judgment           We focus our review on chapter 6, describing the findings reported in chapters 7 and 8 very briefly. Chapter 6 asks six questions about reflective judgment (pp. 124-25): Does reflective judgment develop between late adolescence and middle adulthood? How do high school, college, and graduate students reason about ill-structured problems? Does student reasoning improve with additional exposure to and involvement in higher education? Do adult learners differ from traditional-age students in their reflective thinking? How does the reasoning of adults who have not participated in higher education compare to the reasoning of those who have earned a college degree? Are there gender or cross-cultural differences in the development of reflective thinking?           The first part of the chapter deals with a 10-year longitudinal study which traced the development of reflective judgment of 80 individuals between 1977 and 1987; interviews were conducted in 1977, 1979, 1983, and 1987. At the first three testings, the four standard problems of the RJI were used; the problem on nuclear waste management was added at the fourth testing (p. 129). The authors are careful to point out limitations of the studies that arise from the fact that not all individuals were interviewed at each of the testings (p. 131). They analyze three groups of individuals: (a) 38 people who participated in all four testings, (b) 13 who missed only one testing, and (c) 80 who participated in any one testing. Consistent patterns of increasing RJI mean scores are reported for all three groups at each subsequent testing (Note 2); RJI mean scores of former high school junior students showed the largest gains, 2.9 to 5.5. Examining this gain in more detail, the authors conclude that the greatest amount of growth--3.9 to 5.3--was over a four-year period between 1979 and 1983, and that no other group came close to this "spurt." The period in question coincides with college attendance for 75% of the participants, and is predicted by Fisher's theory; thus, King and Kitchener conclude, the spurt may be due to a combination of education and development (p. 136).           Also discussed is a study of the variability of the scores over stages, that is, of the extent to which individuals in the 10-year study were operating in a spread of stages. The study (Wood, 1983) re-analyzed data from 15 studies, calculating the proportion of time each stage was represented in an individual's rating across four standard problems, referring to this as the 'stage utilization score'. Wood performed a spline regression of these scores against the overall reflective judgment score. As King and Kitchener discuss, the analysis showed that the spread over stages increases with the dominant stage, the stage most frequently assigned at scoring. (For example, it is smaller for scores with the highest percentage utilization score at Stage 3 than for scores for which it is at Stage 6.) The authors point out that for Stages 2 and 7, the slopes of the curves may be distorted by the fact that only one adjacent stage is used (p. 140), which is another example of the care the authors take in qualifying their claims. The section concludes with a discussion of two examples of verbatim RJI transcripts, which helps to illustrate the various changes in RJI scores over time (p. 141-146).           To examine the influence of age on RJI scores, all data in the 10-year study were pooled to calculate the modal (in some cases bimodal) frequencies for each stage over 5-year intervals. For Ages 16-20 the model stage was 3, for Ages 21-25 Stage 4, for Ages 26-30 Stage 5, for Ages 36-40 Stage 6, and above Age 40 Stages 6 and 7. There was a strong relationship between age and the stage of development, but the authors caution that the subjects were in a variety of educational pursuits at the times of the testings (p. 150).           The second part of chapter 6 deals with data found across six other studies that use the RJI, using 12 different samples and 214 individuals. In all samples tested, scores either stayed the same or increased with time; and with two exceptions, the mean scores increased significantly for all groups tested in 1-4 year time intervals. (The exceptions were adult college freshmen and advanced doctoral students.) Another finding across the studies is that the amount of change over time is strongly related to the duration of time between testings (p. 146). The authors examine not only increases with age, but also "regressions," (decreases with time). The conclusion from the analysis of reversals is that "stability rather than development characterized the thinking of some participants at some of the longitudinal testings suggest[ing] that the rate of change across stages varies across individuals" (p. 157).           Next, several cross-sectional studies are discussed--in different regions and across 10 educational levels. The aim of their analyses was to discover how individuals at different age and educational levels think about and resolve ill-structured problems, but as the authors point out, age and educational level are often confounded--age brings with it access to a greater range of educational opportunities. (p. 160). The mean score for undergraduate students (traditional-age and non-traditional) is 3.8; for graduate students it is 4.8. Scores increase, but so does variability. As with the 10-year study, scores are not representative of US high schools--of 11 the samples examined, 7 were from academically talented students (p. 162). An analysis of 20 cross-sectional studies of traditional-age college students that used standard RJI scoring techniques showed that only one sample of 44 averaged above 4.0. The authors comment that the prevalence of stage 3 reasoning "means that like the high school students, many of the college freshmen articulated the belief that absolute truth is only temporarily inaccessible, that knowing is limited to one's personal impressions about the topic (uninformed by evidence), and that most if not all problems are well structured (defined with a high degree of certainty and completeness)" (p. 165). Nevertheless, it is apparent that 2/3 of freshmen reasoned between stages 3 and 4, "suggesting that other freshmen were beginning to accept the concept that uncertainty may be an ongoing characteristic of the knowing process. Consequently, they are beginning to accept the idea that some problems are truly ill structured" (p. 166). In addition, although there is only a small difference during college (3.6 for Freshmen to 4.0 for seniors), the stage 4 reasoning prevalent among the senior samples is "clearly more adequate and defensible" than the reasoning it replaced.           An analysis of reflective judgment of 196 graduate students distinguished between students in the first two years of graduate studies and those beyond that (labeled 'advanced doctoral'). The authors observe that graduate students were the first to consistently demonstrate the use of Stage 5 assumptions on the RJI; moreover, there was a 0.7 stage increase from beginning to advanced doctoral levels, and only at the latter level was there there evidence of the consistent use of Stage 6 assumptions on the RJI (p. 172). They point out that graduate admissions committees may select students who have already demonstrated advanced reflective thinking skills, and that it may be no accident that students who scored high were in programs that required a thesis (p. 173). One study showed disciplinary differences (King, Wood, & Mines 1990): Graduate students in social science disciplines scored significantly higher than did their counterparts who were enrolled in the mathematical sciences (p. 173).           King and Kitchener discuss gender effects for the 10-year study as well for the studies in the second part of the chapter. At the first two testings (1977 and 1979) of the 10-year study, no statistically significant effects were found, although a Time by Gender effect "approached significance" (p. 147); in the fourth testing, men scored higher than women. Of the 14 studies discussed in the second part of the chapter, 6 reported higher scores for men and 6 reported no statistically significant effects. The authors state that the available research that used the RJI is inconclusive about gender effects.           In chapter 7, two studies are discussed that examined if development of reflective judgment could be due to increases in logical reasoning skills. From the first (Brabeck, (1983a), King and Kitchener conclude that "while only those scoring high in critical thinking scored above a Stage 4 in reflective judgment, high WGCTA (Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal )scores did not uniformly lead to high RJI scores." (p. 191). There also was more variability among RJI scores for the high critical thinking group. The second study (Brabeck & Wood, 1990) retested 25 high school students from the original Brabeck (1983a) sample on both the RJI and WGCTA. No differences were found on the WGCTA scores, although differences were found for the RJI scores. King and Kitchener suggest that "while the development of critical thinking skills may not continue into the early college years, development in reflective judgment clearly does so" (p. 192).           The chapter continues with two longitudinal studies of the relationship between reflective judgment and verbal reasoning. In the first study, three groups of students were tested at two-, six- and ten-year intervals, using the RJI and Terman's (1973) Concept Mastery Test (CMT). There was development over time on both measures, but the amount of development differed by group, the youngest group (Age 16) showing the largest increase on both measures. Changes in RJI scores could not be accounted for statistically by changes in CMT scores. The second study led to a similar conclusion. Finally, one study (King, 1977) is discussed that examines the relationship between formal reasoning and reflective judgment. King's sample included graduate students, college juniors, and high school students who were matched on scholastic aptitude. While there were significant differences between the three groups' scores on the RJI, there were no differences in the scores on the formal operational tasks; the correlation between the two measures was also "extremely low" (p. 201).           Chapter 8 examines the relationship between reflective judgment and character development. Here, King and Kitchener argue that moral questions are different from other questions requiring reflective judgments: Epistemological issues that would correspond to the moral question of whether to discontinue life supports include evaluating the prognosis for recovering and estimating the long-term financial and emotional effects on the family. Part of the ill-structured nature of moral problems derives from different values or conceptions of the good rather than from epistemological issues about the nature of knowledge. (p. 206)           But still there is a structural similarity in development of the two kinds of thinking. In a longitudinal study that was concurrent with Kitchener and King's (1981), a moderate correlation was found between RJI scores and the Defining Issues Test (DIT; Rest, 1979). The data is summarized by the claim that the development of reflective judgment is necessary but not sufficient for the development of moral thought, as measured by the DIT (p. 210). King and Kitchener suggest that the structural similarity implies that "there may be mechanisms underlying development in both domains...that may affect how the individual operates on both sets of tasks" (p. 207).           In the final chapter, King and Kitchener make several suggestions based on the research they discuss that instructors can use to help students question their assumptions about knowledge (p. 223). They detail each of the proposals in several exhibits (pp. 231-255). The proposals range from tolerance for and awareness of the epistemelogical assumptions students bring to learning tasks, to proposals for acting on such knowledge. For example, in proposal 2 the authors observe that students differ in regard to their epistemic assumptions, and in proposal 7 that students may view learning tasks differently as a result. Naturally, the proposed teaching strategies involve practice with considering ill-structured problems from different viewpoints. These proposals repeat, at another level, similar calls for taking students preconceptions into account in teaching (e.g., Ausubel, 1968; Diver & Easley, 1978). Discussion           We end with some observations about this book and the research it discusses. First, it is an excellent account of a large body of research. It is well written, and the authors have clearly made much effort not over-generalize from the studies. The authors conclude each chapter with a succinct summary, which is useful for readers who need a quick reference. Moreover, readers of the full text will benefit from reading the summaries prior to immersion in the chapter specifics, a practice that the authors and we especially advocate for the detail-rich chapter 6.           Although King and Kitchener argue in chapter 2 that the RJM is noticeably distinct from other models of epistemological development, we suggest that such differences lie in the details of the models, the most obvious of which deal with terminology. In their review of models of epistemological development in late adolescence and adulthood, Hofer and Pintrich (1997) point out the structural similarities which exist between the RJM and the work of other theorists such as Baxter Magolda (epistemological reflection), Belenky et al. (women's ways of knowing), and Perry (intellectual and ethical development). We reference this not to criticize King and Kitchener for a lack of originality, but to validate what is emerging from diverse arenas as a cogent and important domain of human development. Indeed, Kuhn (1999) has recently argued that the popular critical thinking movement has much to gain by considering the development of epistemological meta-knowing in relation to its subject matter, a lacuna that King and Kitchener's work can help to fill.           From the standpoint of applied educational research, the RJM, like other recent models of epistemological development, makes its greatest contribution in offering a way of knowing that bridges the apparent gap between absolutism and relativism. We refer here to stages 6 and 7, to what the authors call "reflective judgment." Olson and Katz (in press) document the ways in which practicing teachers are challenged to both meet the demands of a fixed school curriculum and the individual needs of children with their varied interests, backgrounds, and understandings that make up a class. Such bipolar concerns, they argue, are problematic because the poles tend to collapse onto the orthogonal epistemological positions of absolutism and relativism respectively. Stage 7 offers a potential solution to this pedagogical and epistemological paradox because it purports that knowledge, although constructed, can be constructed from multiple viewpoints, and that insight gained from each perspective must be synthesized into a knowledge system (see also diSessa, 1996; van Aalst & Scardamalia, in preparation). Olson and Katz explain that the "known" and the "knower" can be recognized and related this way; they believe that is what Dewey (1902/66) had in mind in The Child and the Curriculum.           King and Kitchener point out that the data they discuss are drawn from a predominantly white population in the Mid- West, with high school students matched to participants who enrolled in doctoral programs on scholastic aptitude; therefore, this population is not representative of American college students. Further, in relation to generalizability, the emphasis on knowledge revision and abstract knowledge in Stages 6 and 7 is an artifact of Western culture, and may be less prevalent in other cultures (Bidell & Fisher, 1992).           Although the authors report that average scores for three discipline-based problems (in chemistry, business, and psychology) have been "almost identical to the scores earned by the same participants on the standard RJI problems" (p. 118), there is some suggestion from other sources, at least in science and mathematics, that assumptions about knowledge do vary with problem context and subject matter domain (Roth & Roychoudhury, 1994; Schoenfeld, 1992; van Aalst & Key, under review). We suggest that there is sufficient reason to reconsider the emphasis on epistemological issues in isolation from subject matter and problem solving contexts that runs through King and Kitchener's work.           An important issue that King and Kitchener leave open is the relevancy of reflective judgment to solving (ill-structured) problems. Although the claim that reflective judgment requires ill-structured problems is persuasive, it must also be demonstrated that developing reflective judgment benefits problem solving ability. Thus we would like to see longitudinal studies which document people's struggles with complex issues such as those used for the standard problems over a period of time, studies that can elaborate which aspects of reflective judgment enhance problem solving ability--or the converse. It could be argued that a single measure of reflective reasoning, such as the RJI provides, confounds issues that are better examined separately in connection with problem solving. For example, knowledge as authority-based versus uncertain knowledge is a separate issue from knowledge as isolated pieces versus knowledge as a coherent system (Hammer, 1994). Further, like all stage theorists, King and Kitchener are faced with the problem of having to explain the mechanism(s) by which individuals advance through the stages. Without a clear understanding of such mechanisms, little progress can be made in designing the interventions that the authors say are necessary for "optimal performances" (p. 34). In particular, the seemingly inviting effects of formal education await empirical investigation in a way that will untangle the maturation-education interaction. (This would require studies that involve younger children). Only then will the instructional recommendations that constitute the substance of chapter 9 move beyond the realm of rhetoric. Notes Perry observed a progression of nine points of view, which he called positions (p. 36). These positions traced out the evolution of students' thinking about knowledge, truth, and values. Initially, students used "discrete, absolute, and authority-based categories..." and "people did not perceive legitimate conflicts about knowledge" (pp. 36-37). In positions 3-4, which he called 'multiplicity', students began to acknowledge multiple answers to complex questions. He identified major changes at positions 5 and 6, which he called 'relativism', and hypothesized that students begin to see knowledge as contextual and not necessarily true, leaving students with the need to make a decision. Perry called positions 7-9 'commitment to relativism.' One exception were former doctoral students, who remained constant after 1989. References Ausubel, D. (1968) Educational psychology: A cognitive view. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Bidell, T.R., & Fisher, K.W. (1992). Beyond the stage debate: Action, structure, and variability in Piagetian theory and research. In R.J. Sternberg & C.A. Berg (Eds.), Intellectual development (pp. 100-140). New York: Cambridge University Press. Brabeck, M. (1983). Critical thinking skills and reflective judgment development: Refining the aims of higher education. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 4 (1), 23-34. Brabeck, M., & Wood, P.K. (1990). Cross-sectional and longitudinal evidence for differences between well- structured and ill-structured problem solving abilities. In M.L. Commons, C. Armon, L. Kohlberg, F.A. Richards, T.A. Grotzer, & J.D. Sinnott (Eds.), Adult development 2: Models and methods in the study of adolescent and adult thought. New York: Praeger. Dewey, J. (1902/1966). The child and the curriculum. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. DiSessa, A. (1996). What "just plain folk" know about physics. In D. Olson & N. Torance (Eds.), Handbook of human development and education (pp. 709-730). Cambridge: Blackwell. Driver, R., & Easley, J. (1978). Pupils and paradigms: a review of literature related to concept development in adolescent science students. Studies in Science Education, 5, 61-84. Fisher, K.W. (1980). A theory of cognitive development: The control and construction of hierarchies of skills. Psychological Review, 87 (6), 477-531. Hammer, D. (1994). Epistemological beliefs in introductory physics. Cognition and Instruction, 12, 151- 183. Hofer, B., & Pintrich, P. (1997). The development of epistemological theories: Beliefs about knowledge and knowing and their relation to learning. Review of Educational Research, 67 (1), 88-140. King, P.M. (1977). The development of reflective judgment and formal operational thinking in adolescents and young adults. Dissertation Abstracts International, 38, 7233A. King, P.M., Wood, P.K., & Mines, R.A. (1990). Critical thinking among American college and graduate students. Review of Higher Education, 13 (3), 167-186. Kitchener, K.S., & King, P.M. (1981). Reflective judgment: Concepts of justifications and their relationship to age and education. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 2 (2), 89-116. Kitchener, K.S., Lynch, C.L., Fisher, K.W., & Wood, P.K. (1993). Developmental range of reflective judgment: The effect of contextual support and practice on developmental stage. Developmental Psychology, 29 (5), 893-906. Kuhn, D. (1999). A developmental model of critical thinking. Educational Researcher, 28 (2), 16-25, 46. Olson, D., & Katz, S. (in press). The fourth folk pedagogy. In B. Torff & R. Sternberg (Eds.), Understanding and teaching the intuitive mind. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Perry, W.G., Jr. (1970). Forms of intellectual and ethical development in the college years:a scheme. Troy, MO: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. Rest, J. (1979). Development in judging moral issues. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Roth, W.-M., & Roychoudhury, A. (1994). Physics students' epistemologies and views about knowing and learning. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 31 (1), 5-30. Schoenfeld, A. (1992). Learning to think mathematically: Problem solving, metacognition and sense-making in mathematics. In D.A. Grouws (Ed.), Handbook of research on mathematics teaching and learning (pp. 334-370). New York: Macmillan. Terman, L.M. (1973). Concept mastery test manual. New York: Psychological Corporation. Van Aalst, J., & Key, T. (under review). Physics expectations of pre-professional students. Submitted to American Journal of Physics. Van Aalst, J., & Scardamalia, M. (in preparation). A comparison of radical constructivism and knowledge building. To be submitted to Science & Education. Wood, P.K. (1983). Inquiring systems and problem structure: Implications for cognitive development. Human Development, 26, 249-265. About the Reviewers Jan van Aalst, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., CANADA, V5A 1S6 Steven Katz, OISE/University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, CANADA, M5S 1V6

Atwell-Vasey, Wendy. (1998). Nourishing Words: Bridging Private Reading and Public Teaching. Reviewed by Denise Egéa-Kuehne

Atwell-Vasey, Wendy. (1998). Nourishing Words: Bridging Private Reading and Public Teaching. Albany: State University of New York Press Pp. xi + 246. $59.95         ISBN 0-7914-3631-4 (Cloth) $19.95         ISBN 0-7914-3632-2 (Paper) Reviewed by Denise Egéa-Kuehne Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge August 5, 1999 . . . a hush falls over the school classroom. . . . Used to finding words whenever and wherever they wanted or needed them in daily life, people crossing the bridge to school, experience the wind being knocked out of them and often find themselves silent, or wanly imitative. (p. 2)          With these words, Atwell-Vasey describes a problem which is prevalent in our schools. Moreover, she sees a gap between teachers' perception and use of language and literature in "private life," and in school. Actually, students or teachers do not really "find themselves silent," as anyone who has been in a classroom is well aware of. In fact, too much talking may be the problem. But this is not the kind of conversation or words Atwell-Vasey is concerned about.           In her introduction, she poses several questions and specifically announces what the focus of her book is: This book is about how language arts teaching, or English education . . . can be realigned to acknowledge that linguistic structure comes from within ourselves, and between ourselves, and not from outside ourselves. (p. 4) She addresses this book to teachers, as well as "anyone else who has spent a good deal of time in schools" (p. 16). She suggests that it may be of interest to readers in "English education, teacher education, reader response, and literary theory . . . gender studies and cultural studies, psycholinguistics" (p. 16). She also sees it as being a valuable addition to "graduate education classes in research, foundations, and curriculum theory" (p. 16).           I found this book to be of interest on three levels: the research design of the study on which it is based and its rationale, the broad theoretical overview framing the whole project, and the teachers' autobiographical accounts, widely used in the text, and reproduced in their entirety in an appendix. The Research           Atwell-Vasey reports on a study of three teachers' reading experiences and teaching practices. She designed it to explore the question she poses in her introduction: "If the flow and vitality of words are so prized in daily life, why are they constrained so harshly at school so that there results a kind of deafening silence?" (p. 2). With the intention of using feminist object relations theory both as a framework for her research and as "an interpretive lens" (p. 9), she engages several approaches in her research methodology. She combines narrative and ethnography, relying on the three teachers' autobiographical accounts of their personal experiences with reading and teaching, on her observation of what they do in their classrooms (teaching practices, syllabi, reading assignments, and examinations), and on the professional discourse prevalent in the field of English education.           Atwell-Vasley insists on several occasions that autobiography is the best approach for this kind of study. She acknowledges having learned this method from William Pinar and Madeleine Grumet (1978). She has relied on autobiographical narrative in her own teaching, whether working with undergraduate or graduate students, exploring personal experiences associated with course topics (e.g., education, but also forming communities, work and family, leadership, welfare and homelessness). She declares: "Methodologically, there are strong benefits to this autobiographical practice" (p. 13). Students' participation is engaged through the "efforts, investments, responsibility and freedom" elicited by their autobiographical contributions. Atwell-Vasey explains how their own narratives enable them to interact directly with theory and research, establishing "a dialogue" between their personal accounts and "what they read, view, and discuss in class" (p. 13). Later on in their programs of study, they can use these narratives to reinterpret theory as well as play theory against their own experiences to enrich them. However, in her research, she sees autobiographical narratives "more like raw data than explanatory evidence" (p. 14).           In this particular study, Atwell-Vasey involved three teachers of varying experience, teaching English in three different school settings. Jane teaches an eleventh-grade English Literature class in a large suburban school system. Philip works with a ninth grade English class, in an urban all- male preparatory magnet school, part of a large city public system. April is in her third year of teaching one eighth grade English class in a private school for girls. Atwell-Vasey asked them "to write [over the course of several months] multiple narratives of both their personal and school reading experiences" (p. 12). She was interested in their reading, as well as their learning how to read, literature. She asked the three teachers to reflect on the process of their autobiographical writing. She also looked at samples of their curricula which they deemed illustrative of their respective approaches to teaching literature.           These writings revealed that "teachers [represent] themselves in multiple and competing situations" (p.14). What is unique and "exciting about these pieces" according to Atwell- Vasey, is that they are so different from short stories, case studies, or other "published accounts of school problems by teachers" (p. 15). Unlike those, in autobiographical writings, "an individual and real person's divided subjectivity, unfinished thoughts, and contradictions are sought, tolerated, valued, and used to find space for change" (p. 15).           In addition, she sees this method of inquiry as a means to make her work more enticing and accessible to teachers. Her declared intention is to "construct a bridge . . . so that the teachers will see themselves in the larger cultural issues of our day [original emphasis]" (p.16). She hopes her readers--teachers and other people interested in or involved with education--will thus be encouraged to establish parallels between their own experiences and those described by her in this book. She also hopes that they bring to this text a very open mind, a "mind set of comparison, leaving spaces for reflection and conversation," especially when "dealing with [its] psychoanalytic theory" (p. 12).           According to Grumet, Atwell-Vasey managed to use her participants' autobiographies "without exploiting them because she . . . located them within a theoretical discourse that is rich and complex enough to embrace them without diminishing them" (p. x). This theoretical discourse is in fact multiple. From Theory to Practice           Atwell-Vasey gives a broad overview of the history and current theory of English teaching. Together with the presentation of an alternative theoretical approach to English teaching, it constitutes the first part of her book.           In that first section, Atwell-Vasey describes several theories. She opposes Kristeva's maternal theory to Freud's and Lacan's psychoanalytic theory. She stresses that the latter, embedded in a patriarchal context, ignores or distorts the role played by the mother and the many relations through which language comes to us. She sees Kristeva's maternal theory as closely linked to language learning theory, through "the need to nourish the speaking, reading, and writing student as a subject who was brought to reality and language by others through love" (p. 8). Atwell-Vasey points out that maternal theory challenges patriarchal assumptions, and their lack of consciousness of "the many aspects of the biophysiological and sociofamilial relations through which language comes to us" (p. 8). She believes that object relations theory, a branch of psychoanalysis, can help us recover our unconscious experiences through "naming, shaping, and researching these processes and limitations, and . . . locate the desires, losses, pleasures, and efforts that we constantly ask language to carry" (p. 8-9). In order to make the mother's role and influence more visible, she overlays those theories with feminist theory, calling on Habermas's emphasis on teaching as a self-formative process. She proposes a feminist object relations theory "with an emphasis on the maternal, as an alternative perspective for interpreting language arts and English teaching" (p. 9). Her declared intention is to use this psychoanalytic feminist object relations theory to represent the experiences narrated by the teachers involved in her study, "in Habermas's words, . . . schematically as a systematic generalization of what otherwise would remain pure history [original emphasis]" (Habermas, 1968, 259, quoted in Atwell-Vasey, p. 10). Through this interpretive framework, she hopes to accomplish a "translation," a transference of "the story's characters, who are children, parents, and significant others, . . . to the stories of teachers" (p. 11).           In Part II, Atwell-Vasey sets out to "[show] how English teaching practices could change" (p. 16). Relying on Kristeva's maternal theory, and her connection between language and desire, she points out that children do not learn by imitation only, but rather by "incorporation," through what Kristeva calls reduplication. She further explores the relation between the world and the body through Merleau-Ponty, who "unites sounds, structure and visuals with the body when he describes a word's effect on us" (p. 71). Teaching strategies taking this into account would include, for instance, Grumet's concept of "scoring," that is theater in education patterned after a musical score. Again, Atwell-Vasey quotes Merleau-Ponty, stressing that speech is not understood through a cognitive process only, but as a "reciprocity of my intentions and gestures with others" (p. 76). She makes a distinction between the "appealing teacher, who asks students to imagine the facts of a world or to imagine how our world could be different, and the charismatic teacher, who asks students to lose their own sense of the world in order to be dependent on and envious of his or her views" (p. 77). She believes that the responsive teacher is he or she who can offer pedagogical strategies enabling or requiring students to seek "immersion in the world of the text or of the lesson" (p. 77).           Combining maternal theory and object relations theory, Atwell-Vasey uses maternal object relations theory to discuss alterity. She looks for a model which would preserve one's identity while learning from what is strange or foreign. This intersubjectivity means that one can "negociate one's stance, positions, and perspectives with others, and . . . entertain theirs" (p. 81). She suggests that what she calls "a primary caretaker" (generally the mother) provides the child with a model for intersubjectivity through the following relations: assertion and holding; projection; introjection; and interpretation (p. 81- 82). It underscores knowledge as a process whereby it is constructed in relation to the other. Atwell-Vasey describes a parallel model of intrasubjectivity based on "divided subjectivity within the self," and its relation to the other within ourselves. In this context, students "can learn to nurture, tolerate, and enjoy their own divided opinions and responses and the diverse perceptions of others" (p. 83). Atwell-Vasey recalls that Kristeva suggests a balance between these differences, between self and others as well as within self, not merely "in restraint, but in enjoyment" (p. 87). For Kristeva, ethics is based on the love, mutuality and reciprocity which ensue. From these paradigms of intrasubjectivity and intersubjectivity, Atwell-Vasey draws pedagogical implications for the classroom and the curriculum, "especially in how we provide for interaction among readers and writers" (p. 91). Between Lacan, who sees language as "necessarily threatening" (e.g., evaluated structural grammar), and Kristeva, who emphasizes that "it must be attractive" (e.g., lived experience of language and literature), Atwell-Vasey believes that language teachers must make a choice. Acknowledging that, by tradition, the former approach is paternal, and the latter is maternal, she points out that Kristeva proposes a "third psychological influence," issued from her theoretical perspective and her psychoanalytic practice. Kristeva maintains that there is no need for the child to reject maternal relations in order to develop in language and agency. For her, the motivation and energy are to be found "in the deepening complexity of the former maternal relationship" (p. 105). Then the third influence is the paternal "support of maternal function" (p. 105). The Autobiographical Narratives           In the last section of her text, Atwell-Vasey applies the theories and practices she discussed in the previous chapters to specific problems raised by her participating teachers in their autobiographical narratives. In all accounts and observations, Atwell-Vasey found evidence of a gap between the personal language and literature experiences described by the teachers, and their public use of sometimes the very same texts in the classroom. She also found a great difference between the language they used to report these experiences in their journals, and the language they used in their teaching. Basically, the teachers found it "difficult to carry the emotion and imagery generated in personal reminiscence or personal reading to the more social and public events of teaching" (p. 117). For each one of them, Atwell-Vasey has some pedagogical suggestions based on the theories and practices she reviewed in the preceding chapters (e.g., theater, reading and writing studios, community research projects). The depth of analysis of the three teachers' autobiographical narratives is uneven. For instance, it is surprising to find, following the analysis of Jane's writings, almost ten pages directly quoting reading journals from Jane's students, with no comments from either Jane or Atwell-Vasey. Although one might find some interest in these students' reflections, the purpose of this section is not obvious to Atwell-Vasey's reader. Furthermore, since the entire texts from the teachers' autobiographical writings are available in an appendix, it may not be necessary to have such extensive quotes as appear in Part III of the book. This would keep the emphasis on the reflective aspect of the work, that of both Atwell-Vasey and her teachers. Also, at the end of this last section analyzing the teachers' autobiographical accounts, a synthetic analysis across Philip's, Jane's and April's narratives would be both helpful and productive. Concluding Remarks           Writing a review of a book which brings into question the whole project of writing on reading is a challenge on its own. This review does not pretend to be all encompassing, but focuses on some points which I deemed most important. In any case, I would recommend reading this book to teachers, teacher educators, and students. It is a book that I will use, at least in large parts, in working with my own students and teachers. It brings together some theories which should be helpful in eliciting questions and debates, and in articulating a reflection on problems not only in reading and English education, but also in education in general. It also offers some very interesting pedagogical suggestions which can be most useful, again not only in English studies classrooms, but in any classroom. However, this text contains some weaknesses of which the reader should be aware. Besides some very practical aspects including a need for a more thorough editing, and attention to details such as naming one participant both April and Robin, some problems were identified with deeper issues. The theories which are reviewed and developed are not problematized, yet rest on assumptions which may not be acceptable for all. For example, one has to buy into Kristeva's brand of psychoanalytic approach in order for Atwell-Vasey's theoretical framework to be supported. One has to accept the theories she presents on children's development and relations to mother, father, language and the world. However, though strong and unchallenged for many years, psychoanalytical models to understand human development are problematic, and no longer the authority they used to be. The language learning theories, including Merleau-Ponty's, referred to by Atwell-Vasey, rest on another set of assumptions, and should not go unquestioned. In fact, because of the theories she introduces, and the way she weaves them together, and layers them (Kristeva's maternal theory opposed to Freud's and Lacan's psychoanalytic theory, language learning theory, object relations theory, feminist theory, feminist object relations theory, psychoanalytic feminist object relations theory), this book might be an effective tool to encourage critical reflection, challenging these theories, and the way she combines them. Nevertheless, the conclusions she reaches, and the "revised logic" she develops seem appropriate and helpful to inform teaching practices. The implications she draws from Kristeva's maternal theory contain some valuable suggestions. Briefly summed up, they suggest more responsibility and autonomy for teachers to provide: increased opportunities for their students to bring into learning their "drives, passion, and intention;" contexts to promote "attraction to language;" opportunities to challenge, question, and develop dialogue; and a "third term" where the teacher's own "worldly and literary interests and desires" become visible to the students (p. 108).           In her Foreword, Grumet stresses Atwell-Vasey's "conviction that teaching and reading are both acts of communion, grounded in love and relation" (p. x). Indeed, Atwell-Vasey's work is rich enough to prompt us to further questioning and reflection, and believable enough to convince us that "the challenge for us as teachers is to both show our students our involvement in and excitement for the world beyond the classroom, and to still remain close and responsive to students' needs" (p. 109). References Freud, S. (1961). The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. London: Hogarth Press. (Original published 1911) Habermas, J. (1968). Knowledge and Human Interests. Trans. Jeremy J. Shapiro. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. Kristeva, J. (1986). The Kristeva Reader. Ed. Toril Moi. New York: Columbia University Press. Kristeva, J. (1991). Strangers to Ourselves. Trans. Leon S. Roudiez. New York: Columbia University Press. Lacan, J. (1968). The Language of the Self. Trans. Anthony Wilden. New York: Dell Publishing. Merleau-Ponty, M. (1962). The Phenomenology of Perception. Trans. Colin Wilson. New York: Humanities Press. Pinar, W. F. and Grumet, M. (1978). Toward a Poor Curriculum. Dubuque, IA: Kendall/Hunt Press. About the Reviewer Denise Egéa-Kuehne Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge