Thing I Learnt:
Paulo Freire, drawing from his own experiences of poverty, argues that education can either domesticate or liberate students and teachers. He believes that education often perpetuates the existing power dynamics; and needs to be challenged and transformed.1 He emphasizes the importance of considering power in education and suggests that the goal is not to obtain power but to reinvent it.
The Robbers Cave experiment, a well-known study supporting the contact hypothesis, involved teenage boys divided into two groups.2 Each group was given a task to defeat the other, leading to increased hostility between them. However, when they were given a cooperative task, their relations improved significantly. This experiment demonstrates that contact between conflicting groups can promote cooperation and even reconciliation.3
I have learnt that it’s crucial that education focuses on creating common bonding instead of differences.
Question/ Provocation I Have
Even though I completely agree on the approach of bonding-creating education, I believe it’s good for the students to have a sense of competition. Especially in art, a healthy sense of competition is a good motivation for the students to improve yourself. The question now becomes: How to cultivate a sense of competition without making them diminish the others?
Thing I Learnt:
The critique of Social Identity Theory (SIT) highlights the challenges associated with group identities. Merely informing someone that they belong to a particular group, even if they have no previous connection or exhibit characteristics of that group, can trigger biases towards that group and against others. This phenomenon is known as the minimal group paradigm.4
I think this is not only true in Israeli-Palestinian conflict; but also true in Chinese-Taiwanese conflict/ Russian-Ukrainian conflict. The students might tend to embrace their own identities (social identities) at the expense of others. Very quickly, they would fall into the “oppressed” and “oppressors” boxes. Oppression is created by asymmetrical structures built around power and identity. Thus, it is critical to explore more aspects of identities. Intersectionality is sophisticated and multi-perspectival. A good social justice education should deepen students’ awareness of the social inequalities and the complexities of conflicts.
Question/ Provocation I Have
Say if I lost my loved ones in the Russian-Ukrainian war, then it’s almost impossible to engage in the three-stage practise (good manner stage, group struggled stage, and intensive dialogue stage). I think the author, Aaron, also acknowledges this reality, emphasizing the significance of being mindful of the specific context. We should be aware of the feasibility and effectiveness of the mentioned stages.
1 Rozas, C. 2007. “The Possibility of Justice: The Work of Paulo Freire and Difference.” Studies in Philosophy and Education 26:561–70.
2 Sherif, M., O. J. Harvey, B. J. White, W. R. Hood, and C. W. Sherif. 1988. The Robbers Cave Experiment: Intergroup Conflict and Cooperation. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
3 Billig, M. 1976. Social Psychology and Intergroup Relations. New York: Academic Press.
4 Tajfel, H., M. Billig, R. Bundy, and C. Flament. 1971. “Social Categorization and Inter-Group Behavior.” European Journal of Social Psychology 1:149–78.
SIT really stood out for me, in the sense of building a connection back to individualism, I find teaching (in western institutes) we are just robotically shifting out taught down lessons and box ticking and that identity is missing from the curriculum or even encouraged. It is interesting to see how the body of SITs is seen amongst different peers and how they interpret that body of work.
It did come to me at all, that the reflective sociopolitical movements of today can also dominate the classrooms/workshops in an oppressed versus oppressor sense! a different outlook to consider for my own personal research! thank you for this insight!
In this blog, I think the sandwich structure of reflection, where you ask further questions while you learn, is really wonderful.
It was also very interesting to see the development of what was learnt from specific examples of the contact hypothesis and how they were linked to the sense of competition between students in the arts. This can be a good stimulus, but as you ask, “How do you cultivate a sense of competition without making it diminish others?”, we need to avoid arguing with others in the shadow of competition. I think that the degree of regular communication with students is one of the keys to how a tutor can supervise or play a coordinating role.
In this blog, I think the sandwich structure of reflection, where you ask further questions while you learn, is really excellent.
It was also fascinating to see the development of what was learnt from specific examples of the contact hypothesis and how they were linked to the sense of competition between students in the arts. This can be a good stimulus, but as you ask, “How do you cultivate a sense of competition without making it diminish others?” we need to avoid arguing with others in the shadow of competition. I think the degree of regular communication with students is one of the keys to how a tutor can supervise or play a coordinating role.