Conference Agenda

This research paper explores how academics construct and teach intuitive reasoning to undergraduate and post graduate students studying to enter Social Work.

As a qualified and experienced Child Protection Social Worker, now working as an academic, I have developed a keen interest in how the habitus and fundamentals of knowledge of Social Work are taught to aspiring students. This paper specifically examines how academics construct and teach intuitive reasoning to their students. According to numerous scholars, intuition is regarded as a “below awareness” method of reasoning information which is then brought to the consciousness, allowing for rapid judgements (Cook, 2014 and Fook, 2012). It is viewed as a pillar of human thought and action, and is a profound aspect of decision making across a range of professional boundaries. Social Workers are uniquely situated at the forefront of working with children, young people and families where there can often be high levels of stress, high risk and profound vulnerabilities. As such, accessing and being taught a broad range of knowledge is critical. Whilst the literature presents convincing theories on methods, approaches, and evidence-based theories for working with individuals, little has been written on how aspiring students are taught to employ System 1 thinking (Kahneman, 2012), ergo intuitive reasoning.

According to literature the work of Social Workers has attracted a significant amount of attention, emphasised by tragic high-profile child death cases, observed across counties and countries. Indeed structural, sociological, and economical changes have resulted in many aspects of Social Work being based on objective, observable facts as “evidence” (Samson, 2015). Furthermore, Social Workers present with a greater level of confidence when they have concrete objective evidence, with many dismissing intuitive cues as improper to “evidence based Social Work” (Sicora, 2010., Sicora et al, 2021 and Ferguson, 2021). This notion has permeated into the teaching on Social Work programmes. This often brings into question how and what students are taught on their courses and how well they are taught about utilising intuition. Whilst this may be the case it would be erroneous to suggest that the answer to enhancing the rigor of Social Work decision making lies simply in the teaching of intuition.

Evidence suggests that Social Workers often feel uneasy about drawing on and listening to intuitive reasoning (Sicora, 2010; Sicora et al, 2021), opting for more analytical reasoning, particularly noticed within Social Work practice (Ferguson, 2021). And yet, access to “more and better information about the problem situation… meaning social workers are more easily able to recognise crucial patterns and critical situations” de Groot (1992). Indeed, Lannello et al. (2011) argue that intuition can enable individuals to overcome the limitations of the simplicity of analytical thinking. Nevertheless key themes emerging from historical Serious Case Reviews and the more recent Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews have continue to demonstrate missed opportunities for professionals to think and act in different ways that may have identified risks earlier on, thus potentially preventing the harm incurred by children (Rawlings et al, 2014). This has brought into question how Social Workers are taught to develop intuition and draw on a range of sources of knowledge from the moment they enrol on their courses.

I report on the findings from phase 2 of the study

This communication argues that education in care is a necessary element of emancipatory education. To this end, we engender a dialogue between recognition theory and critical pedagogy in light of the ethics of care. We conclude by arguing that an emancipatory education is an education that has relationships at its core and care as its foundation.

Cortina (2007) proposes that the notion of justice - as rights and duties - is insufficient for the society to reach its main ethical goals. This justice ethics need to be complemented by a cordial ethics, that emerges from the heart and established bonds that unite one person to the other, to their care and happiness: an ob-ligatio. The recognition of this ob-ligatio between people, and consequently acting based on care, would be the goals of an ethical education that’s coherent to our times.

Care paradigm determines that we are all part of one indivisible all and that, as a consequence, one’s ill is everyone’s ill. It proposes a care ethics: for the spiritual and material, the close and the distant, the recognised and the incomprehensible. And, for that, it is necessary we actively search for the Other.

For Levinas (2002), the existence of the Other is the condition for rationality. Without our relationship to the Other, we would be forever submerged in a bubble of selfishness, unable to access anything but our own equalities. The Other questions us and introduces to us what we did not know before. The Other also invites us to responsibility, to ethics.

Only by listening to the Other is it possible to build situated ethical practices, in which concrete decisions take into account contextual reality. Warren (according to Rosendo, 2012, p. 66) defends theory as a quilt, a single piece constructed by many hands from the union of different fabrics, which arrives at a unity. Grosfoguel also presents, in the same sense, the questioning walk of democracy of the Tojolabal people, where a concrete universalism is built from the inclusion of "the particular demands of all subjects and epistemes" (2007, p. 75).

Care ethics is a hot topic nowadays, especially after the appearance of global events that affect everyone's lives but especially the lives of vulnerable communities, such as climate change and the emergence of epidemics and pandemics. However, the relationship between ethics of care and education does not seem to be on the agenda yet, despite the fact that the need for a transformative education is already a common agenda.

Freire (1970) explains how conventional education is a form of cultural reproduction, of inculcating, for example, passivity through a banking form. The only way, for him, to create a transgressive, humanizing, and emancipatory education is by drastically changing the relationships established in the educational context: the person who educates, educates with, and never stops; he accomplishes his mission when the person being educated critically interprets the world and even his own educational process.

Part of this inculcation, though, is that of a detached relationship to others. There is no way to think of human development without considering relationships, and that dehumanization is what takes the person out of the neutralizing and anesthetized state, of a "mere succession of instantaneous gifts that leave no marks" (Horkheimer & Adorno, cited in Ferrarese, 2021, p. 35, own translation). Care (Adorno, quoted in Ferrarese, 2021) is an attitude of breaking with the everydayness of barbarism.

bell hooks (2008), in other words, argues that love is what breaks the oppressive and colonizing dynamics of traditional education. An emancipatory education, therefore, is not only, but is necessarily, an education in care.

As climate change accelerates, the vulnerability of our planet is becoming more evident and many societies are in crisis due to inequality, social exclusion and political extremism (UNESCO, 2016). Guattari (2000) refers to the link between the 'Three Ecologies' - mental, social and environmental - arguing that changing one ecology requires changing the others. Hence, to solve environmental and social problems, it is necessary to change people's mindsets. UNESCO (2016) proclaims that tackling global challenges requires a new approach to education: "comprehensive, holistic, ambitious and universal, inspired by a vision of education that transforms the lives of individuals, communities and societies, leaving no one behind" ( p. 24). However, what does holistic education mean?

Holistic education is a movement that began to emerge as a recognised field of study and practice in North America in the mid-1970s (Mahmoudi et al., 2012). Holistic education has been defined as transformative, postmodern, ecological, cosmic and spiritual education that addresses global issues (G.A.T.E., 1990). The basic principle of holistic education is the development of the whole child (physical, intellectual, social, emotional, aesthetic, spiritual), with a balance between the different domains of education (Miller 1988, 2005, 2010, 2016, 2019, 2021). In this study, modern holistic education is defined as a purposeful process of developing the whole person through the principles of interconnectedness, balance, inclusivity and spirituality, through holistic teaching, an integrated curriculum, in a holistic school with holistic teachers.

Holistic education has been extensively described at a theoretical level around the world (J.P. Miller, 1988, 2005, 2010, 2019; R. Miller, 1991; 2000; Heshusius, 1989; Hutchison, Bosacki, 2000; Nava, 2001; Taggart, 2001; Clark, 2005; Hare, 2006; Giraldo, 2007; Oberski, 2007; Andrzejewski, 2009; Ergas, 2011; Mahmoudi et al., 2012; Lovat, 2011, 2020; Di, 2020; Pang et al., 2021). A systematic literature review conducted by Miseliunaite et al. (2022) found that there is a lack of quantitative and comparative empirical research on holistic education. Moreover, Miseliunaite et al. (2022) found that holistic education is most extensively researched on the North American and Asian continents, with only a few isolated studies in Europe. It is recommended that comprehensive quantitative or mixed-methods studies be carried out to draw generalised conclusions about holistic education's prevalence, need and benefits.

This study aims to determine what and how the features of a modern holistic education paradigm are manifested in Lithuanian primary schools.

The case of Lithuania was chosen because 'The Lithuanian General Framework for Primary Education' (2008) states that primary education is organised according to the following educational principles: 'child-centred; integral, holistic; differentiated and individualised; contextual; oriented towards interpretive rather than reproductive thinking; the process of education is active; and the process of education is attractive and joyful' (p. 13). What is more, in Lithuania, holistic education is also discussed more on a theoretical level, highlighting its benefits for the spiritual and value education of individuals and society in the context of globalisation and the ecological crisis. A review of empirical work by Lithuanian researchers (Stulpinas, 1997; Aramavičiūtė, 2003; Kvieskienė and Vyšniauskaitė, 2017) leaves unclear how much and what features of holistic education are present in the Lithuanian education system. This raises a scientific problem - how and which features of a modern holistic education paradigm are manifested in Lithuanian primary schools?