{"id":167,"date":"2012-09-20T12:43:12","date_gmt":"2012-09-20T12:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/?p=167"},"modified":"2012-09-20T12:43:12","modified_gmt":"2012-09-20T12:43:12","slug":"social-change-and-developmental-change-a-social-theory-of-homeschooling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/?p=167","title":{"rendered":"SOCIAL CHANGE AND DEVELOPMENTAL CHANGE: A Social Theory of Homeschooling"},"content":{"rendered":"

Record<\/strong>: \u00a0Patricia M. Greenfield, \u201cLinking Social Change and Developmental Change: Shifting Pathways of Human Development\u201d in Developmental Psychology<\/em> 45, no. 2 (March 2009): 401-418<\/p>\n

Summary<\/strong>:\u00a0 Greenfield is a luminary in the field of psychocultural research, the comparative study of psychology across geographic and ethnic boundaries.\u00a0 She is Distinguished Professor of Psychology at UCLA and Associate Director of the Children\u2019s Digital Media Center, Los Angeles <\/a>(CDMCLA).<\/p>\n

In this fascinating article Greenfield constructs a broad theory to explain how changes in society interface with changes in child development.\u00a0 In this review I will briefly summarize her theory and then explain how it connects to homeschooling.<\/p>\n

She begins by rehearsing the familiar distinction of Ferdinand T\u00f6nnies<\/a>\"\" between gemeinschaft <\/em>and gesellschaft<\/em>.\u00a0 The distinction is a convenient way of naming the difference between rural, pre-industrial societies and modern, industrialized ones.\u00a0 She parallels it to Redfield\u2019s<\/a>\"\" contrast between folk and urban societies.\u00a0 We might also note its similarity to Maine\u2019s Status and Contract societies or Riesman\u2019s<\/a>\"\" Tradition and\u00a0Inner direction.\u00a0\u00a0Discussion of the\u00a0merits and demerits of this basic dichotomy has been\u00a0an obsession of cultural anthropology and sociology since their beginnings.<\/p>\n

Greenfield accepts the distinction and understands recent human history to be mostly the shift from gemeinschaft<\/em> to gesellschaft<\/em> as societies move away from subsistence agriculture and village life to a more urban, industrialized economic order.\u00a0 Importantly for homeschooling, she does acknowledge that minority factions within a given society sometimes resist the shift and seek self-consciously to maintain or return to the more communal, familial ways of gemeinschaft<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Her particular concern in this article is with how the shift described above affects child psychology.\u00a0 Greenfield summarizes many interesting anthropological studies conducted among a wide range of population groups and finds that in general as societies move away from communal village norms to urban, industrial ones family practices shift significantly, profoundly affecting child development.\u00a0 Family size shrinks.\u00a0 Nuclear family is less connected to extended family.\u00a0 Formal schooling increases.\u00a0 Literacy rates climb.\u00a0 IQ scores go up.\u00a0 Children\u2019s individuality is nurtured even as familial commitments (such as that older children care for younger or that children care for elderly relatives) wane.<\/p>\n

This process does not occur overnight.\u00a0 It has a generational component.\u00a0 Adults who were raised in a more gemeinschaft<\/em> context often try to parent\u00a0in the old way\u00a0even though the broader social context has shifted.\u00a0 This can lead to tensions within families.\u00a0 For example, parents may seek to perpetuate the ethos of a subsistence village by requiring all sorts of chores of their children when what the children really want is remunerative work so they can buy consumer goods.<\/p>\n

As the cultural shift takes place, children change.\u00a0 Gesellschaft<\/em> children become better at recognizing abstractions (as opposed to memorizing details), handle novel situations more nimbly, think of themselves more as individuals (especially the girls, whose life choice options\u00a0are significantly expanded), value sharing less and ownership more.<\/p>\n

Greenfield concludes the article by contrasting her theory to several other theories, most notably modernization theory.\u00a0 She makes it clear that she is not celebrating the move toward gesellschaft<\/em> nor does she see the shift as progress or an historic inevitability.<\/p>\n

Appraisal<\/strong>:\u00a0 So what does all of this have to do with homeschooling?\u00a0 Two things.\u00a0 If we were to assume Greenfield\u2019s account of social change we would come up with two explanations for why homeschooling happens.<\/p>\n

For one group of people, homeschooling may be one of the vestigial parenting patterns adults have inherited from their own more gemeinschaft<\/em> upbringing.\u00a0 As these adults join the money economy and\u00a0move to areas with more population diversity and density, they may nevertheless still hold on to older village values like the sanctity of kinship relations, the need for children to\u00a0have disciplined character (as opposed to autonomous personality<\/a>), the evils of exposure to foreign customs, ideas, or people groups, and so on.\u00a0 Homeschooling becomes a strategy used to soften\u00a0the impact and slow the transition of the family from gemeinschaft <\/em>to gesellschaft<\/em>.\u00a0 Children who grow up in this way will likely have to deal with inner struggle as they seek to navigate between this traditional home life and the openness of individual autonomy that beckons from outside.\u00a0 The struggle is likely to be even more intense the more the parents themselves rely on the industrial money economy for their livelihood.<\/p>\n

For a second group of people homeschooling may be one strategy among\u00a0several used to try and overcome perceived deficits of the gesellschaft<\/em> society.\u00a0 Consumerism, self-referential morality, absence of communal norms and relationships, hunger for family, history, religion\u2013these and many other critical reactions commonly occur among the denizens of gesellschaft<\/em> who often feel lonely amidst the crowds and rootless amidst the opportunities.\u00a0 Greenfield explains it like this,<\/p>\n

“Sometimes groups consciously try to maintain a more Gemeinschaft<\/em> milieu by forming homogenous, self-contained groups at the interior of a more Gesellschaft<\/em> environment. A case in point is urban Orthodox Jewish communities. The theory predicts corresponding differences in socialization practices and developmental pathways compared with the broader society. Such cases are small minorities and are reactive against the surrounding culture.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Seen this way, homeschoolers\u2019 predeliction for tight social networking (and the tendency of such networks to segment along ideological lines) makes a lot of sense.\u00a0 So does the gradual emergence of multi-generational homeschooling.\u00a0 Especially among the most conservative Christian homeschoolers, families with homeschooled children are increasingly betrothing their children to one another, moving closer and closer to being a truly self-contained alternative society rather like the Orthodox Jews or the Amish.<\/p>\n

Greenfield\u2019s model\u00a0predicts that\u00a0such children would likely do very well with tests and competitions that reward memorization skills (i.e. <\/em>spelling and geography bees) but less well with projects requiring synthesis or intellectual creativity.<\/p>\n

Greenfield\u00a0only mentions homeschooling in her text in passing as an example of one of these antimodern reactions, but the theory she articulates describes well what has driven much of the interest in homeschooling for the past\u00a035 years.<\/p>\n

What it fails to capture, however, is that other<\/em> sort of homeschooling that is also happening, a homeschooling that is itself entirely consistent with gesellschaft<\/em> society.\u00a0 Her account assumes institutional schooling to be a permanent part of gesellschaft <\/em>when it could be the case that it was<\/em> part during gesellschaft<\/em>\u2018s early stages but becomes increasingly ineffective as gesellschaft<\/em> ratchets up to the light-speed information economy we have today.\u00a0 Greenfield\u2019s account captures the traditionalist motives for homeschooling very well.\u00a0 But it misses the high end homeschooling of the Creative Class<\/a>\"\".<\/p>\n

Disclaimer<\/strong>:\u00a0 The views expressed in reviews are not the official views of ICHER or of its members.\u00a0 For more information about ICHER\u2019s Reviews, please see the \u00ab\u00a0About these Reviews \u00bb Section.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Record: \u00a0Patricia M. Greenfield, \u201cLinking Social Change and Developmental Change: Shifting Pathways of Human Development\u201d in Developmental Psychology 45, no. 2 (March 2009): 401-418 Summary:\u00a0 Greenfield is a luminary in the field of psychocultural research, the comparative study of psychology … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[9,19,16],"tags":[86,85,96,90,79,87,92,88,89,95,78,91,94,93],"class_list":["post-167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-parental-motivation","category-socialization","tag-cdmcla","tag-chidrens-digital-media-center","tag-creative-class","tag-david-riesman","tag-developmental-psychology","tag-ferdinand-tonnies","tag-folk-societies","tag-gemeinschaft","tag-gesellschaft","tag-inner-directed","tag-patricia-greenfield","tag-robert-redfield","tag-tradition-directed","tag-urban-societies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=167"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":179,"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167\/revisions\/179"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/icher.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}