Time: Thursday, 29/Aug/2024: 15:45 - 17:15 Session Chair: Wilfried Datler |
Location: Room 011 in ΧΩΔ 02 (Common Teaching Facilities [CTF02]) [Ground Floor] Cap: 56 |
Paper
Early Childhood Teachers in Situations of Uncertainty. Considerations on Practice-governing Moments and their Meaning on Professional Work
University of Graz, Austria
Presenting Author:When asking early childhood teachers to describe specific work situations with children in kindergarten, they often talk about situations, where they have to deal with different aspects of uncertainty. They talk for example about everyday microtransitions like going outside into the garden with 25 3-three-year-olds – having the task to help all of them getting into their shoes and jackets quickly. Other early childhood teachers describe for example situations when the whole group of children sits together to sing a song. And suddenly a child starts getting quite wild and aggressive, boxing other children and taking their toys away. Or one can think of settling-in-processes – when the little ones start attending kindergarten for the first time and all the emotions that go along with this experience. One cannot predict how an individual child or a group of children will act or react in such complex and dynamic situations. How can kindergarten teachers deal with such everyday working situations – highly characterized by aspects of uncertainty?
Against this background we want to pick up on considerations formulated in the Network 21 special call that every pedagogical encounter remains unpredictable and one has to deal with the lack of certainty. This in mind, it becomes clear that all our knowledge can hardly help us avoid experiencing uncertainty and accompanying feelings like anxiety, frustration, maybe even anger and shame (Puget 2020). In our paper we will focus on early childhood teachers, how they experience situations of uncertainty in their everyday work and how such experiences affect their professional work. Therefor, we want to discuss the following research question: Which practice-governing moments on part of early childhood teachers are decisive for shaping their relationships with small children in situations of uncertainty?
Practice-governing moments are understood as those inner-psychic conditions that are decisive for the way a person acts in a certain situation. Focused on the context of the work of early childhood teachers, practice-governing moments are understood as those inner psychic conditions that are decisive for how early childhood teachers act and shape relationships in specific situations in which they are faced with the task of acting professionally (Datler, Trunkenpolz, 2009).
With reference to psychoanalytical theories, it is assumed that the formation of practice-governing moments is based on a complex interplay of sensory perceptions, affects and cognitive processes that permanently cause people to make decisions in a conscious and unconscious manner under the aspect of affect regulation. In this context “emotional processes are particularly important because people strive to bring about, stabilize or increase pleasant emotional states in the best possible way and to eliminate, alleviate or prevent the occurrence of unpleasant emotional states” (Datler, Wininger, 2019, 359). These basic psychoanalytical assumptions underline that not only aspects of experience, that can be verbalized, guide professional work. Similar considerations are also taken up in works on implicit knowledge. Neuweg (2020, 299) understands implicit knowledge as a type of knowledge that is rather expressed in behavior in the broadest sense, without the person acting being able to express this knowledge fully and adequately in words. Actions based on implicit knowledge have an intuitive character and a high degree of flexibility, in which the execution of a task comes to the fore and explicit, verbally formalized thinking about it loses importance. In the work context, this enables a sensitive response to specific situations with increasing professional experience, while planned, rule-based action gradually diminishes. In contrast to the concept of implicit knowledge, the desire for affect regulation is given central importance in connection with the concept of practice-governing moments.
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used
Regarding to the research question and the psychoanalytically-orientated idea of practice-governing moments, a methodological approach is required to gradually come closer to inner psychic conditions that guide the actions of early childhood teachers. As part of an ongoing research seminar in the Master's degree program in Elementary Education at the University of Graz stimulated recall interviews are discussed in this context.
The stimulated recall interview is a research method to gain access to pre-actional innerpsychic processes (Messmer, 2015). The use of this method is suitable if the research interest is aimed at reconstructing thoughts and beliefs, wishes and desires, phantasies and emotions that are decisive for a person's actions (Dempsey, 2010; Trunkenpolz, 2018). This interview form is characterized by the fact that interviewees are invited to report on a specific, recent work situation. With reference to this situation, the interviewees are then asked to reflect on what guided their actions in this specific situation. This enables the interviewee together with the interviewer to gradually come closer to pre-actional, action-guiding innerpsychic processes (Messmer, 2015).
In the just above mentioned Master-course a group of students conducts stimulated-recall inter-views with early childhood teachers. The focus of these interviews is on the professionals’ description of a specific work situation that has just occurred. Based on this situation, the early childhood teachers are invited to think about what made them act in this specific way in this situation and what was going on inside them. The aim of these interviews is to reflect on a specific work situation to gain insights into the individual cognitive and emotional processes of the early childhood teachers that guide their actions, particularly in situations characterised by uncertainty.
In a first step the interviews will be worked through using content analysis. So patterns of practice-governing moments in work situations of uncertainty can be identified (Flick 2000). Understanding practice-governing moments as presented above, in a second step the questions will be discussed, to what extent early childhood teachers are able to refer to the specific situation and/or the specific child in the description and reflection of their actions, and to what extent they include their own feelings as practice-governing (Rappich, 2010, 50). First results on this analysis of the material will be presented in the paper.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings
The research design presented so far is primarily aimed at gaining access to those practice-governing moments that can be put into words. First impressions of the interviews suggest that early childhood teachers find it unusual, but also enriching, to be given space to think about themselves and their own professional work including emotional dimensions. This may indicate that, due to the specific way in which the interviews are conducted, reflection processes are gradually set in motion, which make it possible to verbalize practice-governing moments that were initially not-conscious.
These preliminary results open up at least two further questions for discussion: 1) Limitations of the research design: The research design presented so far comes to its limits when thinking about rather unconscious aspects of practice-governing moments. Currently, it is discussed to interpret the interview material using deep hermeneutic analysis (tiefenhermeneutische Textanalyse) in order to gain insight in rather latent contents of the interviews. In this context further work is required with regard to the combination of different analysis methods. 2) Questions on vocational training: Although various models and approaches are developed internationally for preparing future kindergarten teachers for their work, few authors have addressed the manifold aspects of uncertainty when working with small children. The preliminary results mentioned above give reason for discussing how competencies of reflecting emotional experiences and their influence on professional relationships can be supported in vocational training of early childhood teachers (Rustin et al., 2008; Hover-Reisner et al. 2018).
References
Datler, W. & Wininger, M. (2019). Psychoanalytische Zugänge zur frühen Kindheit. In L. Ahnert (Hrsg.), Theorien in der Entwicklungspsychologie. Springer.
Datler, W. & Trunkenpolz, K. (2009). Praxisleitende Momente – eine Arbeitsdefinition. Unpubl. Projektmaterial
Dempsey, N. P. (2010). Stimulated Recall Interviews in Ethnography. Qual Sociol, 33, 349-367. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11133-010-9157-x
Flick, U. (2000). Qualitative Forschung. Theorie, Methoden, Anwendung in Psychologie und Sozial-wissenschaften (5. Aufl.). Rowohlt.
Hover-Reisner, N., Fürstaller, M. & Wininger, A. (2018). ‚Holding mind in mind‘: the use of work discussion in facilitating early childcare (kindergarten) teachers’ capacity to mentalise. Infant Observation. The International Journal of Infant Observation and Its Applications, 21 (1), 98–110.
Messmer, R. (2015). Stimulated Recall as a Focused Approach to Action and Thought Processes of Teachers. Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 16(1), https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-16.1.2051
Neuweg, H.G. (2020). Könnerschaft und implizites Wissen: Zur lehr-lerntheoretischen Bedeutung der Erkenntnis- und Wissenstheorie Michael Polanyis. Waxmann.
Puget, J. (2020). How difficult it is to think about uncertainty and perplexity. The International Jour-nal of Psychoanalysis, 101, 1236-1247.
Rappich, J.(2010). Praxisleitende Momente in Wiener Pflegeheimen. Eine empirische Untersuchung zur Erfassung praxisleitender Momente des Pflegepersonals in zwei Wiener Pflegeheimen. Univ. Wien
Rustin, M. , Bradley, J. (2008): Work Discussion. Learning from reflective practice in work with chil-dren and families. Karnac: London.
Trunkenpolz, K. (2018). Lebensqualität von Pflegeheimbewohnern mit Demenz. Eine psychoanalyt-isch-orientierte Einzelfallstudie. Budrich. Diss
Trunkenpolz, K. & Reisenhofer, C. (in press). Übergänge in der frühen Kindheit. Zur Ausbildung des pädagogischen Takts im Kontext von Work Discussion Seminaren. In M. Doerr & B. Neudeck-er (Hrsg), Psychoanalytisch-pädagogische Blicke auf pädagogische Praxis. Psychosozial.
Paper
Mentalize the Crocodile: On the Use of Educational Films in Mentalization Training with Teacher
1University of Klagenfurt, Austria; 2University of Education Luzern, Switzerland; 3University College London, UK; 4University of Education Ludwigsburg, Germany; 5University of Teacher Education in Special Needs Zürich, Switzerland; 6University of Applied Sciences Darmstadt, Germany
Presenting Author:Mentalization, understood as a human ability, plays a decisive role in the regulation of impulses and emotions, the promotion of the ability to reflect and social learning (Kirsch et al., 2024). This ability develops from childhood onwards through relationship experiences over the entire lifespan. An understanding of psychological processes arises when pedagogues perceive a child as an individual subject with their own intentions, feelings and motivations, i.e. mentalize them. Severe or prolonged stress in childhood can temporarily or permanently impair the ability to mentalize. The connection between mentalization and insecurity is outlined theoretically at the beginning.
Mentalizing relationship experiences can improve people's ability to mentalize and support the maintenance of mental health, cognitive and socio-emotional learning and social interaction. This is why mentalization also plays an important role in curative education (Schwarzer et al., 2023). Mentalization-based pedagogy is an innovative research approach whose basic assumption is that successful processes and interactions in the interaction between learners and teachers can be understood in terms of mentalization. This means that emotions, understanding, socio-cognitive learning and pedagogical relationships take centre stage and that dealing with uncertainty can be practised.
Competence-oriented (Baumert & Kunter, 2006) and professional biographicalunderstandings of professionalism emphasise the importance of individual characteristics of the teacher as adecisive prerequisite for successful pedagogical action. In particular, the teacher'sability to form relationships with the pupils seems to play a central role with regardto learning gains and development processes (Hamre & Pianta, 2001; Hattie, 2008). Mentalization theory (Fonagy, Gergely,Jurist & Target, 2002) is a relationship-based theory of developmental psychology, which in turn can provide important impetus for shaping relationships in childhood and adolescence. Mentalization describes the attachment dyad as a training and experiential space in which the ability to perceive and consider the psychological constitution in oneself andothers is developed (Taubner, 2015). The Mentalizing approach is of keyimportance for the shaping of interpersonal relationships in childhood, adolescence and adulthood - and this prove to be relevant for the pedagogical context in which educators shape relationships with children and adolescents on a daily basis.(Schwarzer, Link, Behringer & Turner, 2023).
The DFG research network MentEd aimed to apply this clinical approach to pedagogy and, after funding from 2016 to January 2020, established partnerships and collaboration with UCL. ERASMUS+ Strategic Partnership is currently facilitating practical-level transfer and training of educational specialists, impacting the professionalization of pedagogy.
The MentEd.ch project, funded by Movetia, adapts mentalization-based pedagogy in Swiss special needs education. Supported by an established network, the University of Teacher Education integrates it into the curriculum. Following successful funding phases, the project contributes to the quality and innovation of the Swiss education system. The transnational knowledge transfer focuses on professionalizing multipliers, ensuring sustainable dissemination of teaching materials, implementation options, and evaluation results beyond the funding period.
This paper discusses the current state of research based on empirical study results on the teaching of mentalization skills and the development, implementation and evaluation of a model curriculum for mentalization training for educational professionals. The structure with learning units, supervision, teaching materials, educational films and evaluation facilitates integration into university teaching.
In this paper, we focus on the following research question:
Which dimension of mentalization can be hermeneutically reconstructed in the interviews regarding the educational films?
In how far are situations in the educational films discussed in the tension between security and insecurity in pedagogical relationships?
Which interactions and sequences in the educational film are described by the participants as supporting and hindering mentalization?
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used
The focus is on the educational films/training films and the mentalization training. An educational film is used and presented as a source. In addition, a selection of the empirical quantitative-qualitative and theoretical/theory-building results will be presented so that a common basis or common denominator can be prepared for questions and discussion. As part of the mentalization training and curriculum developed for pedagogical professionalisation, educational films are visioned together with trainees. First, the educational film is watched together in full length and we discuss what was seen in it, what thoughts and feelings the film triggers and what what what was experienced and seen has to do with mentalization theory. In a second run-through, the film is watched again and each participant says "stop" if they have recognised something or want to discuss it. The film is then paused and a group discussion is initiated. The session is moderated by one or two instructors, who moderate the group discussion in a mentalizing position according to the research questions. This group discussion on the educational film was recorded during the training in Zurich, transcribed and analysed using depth hermeneutics.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings
Results of the research project from different stages of the research process are summarised and presented. This paper discusses the current state of research based on empirical study results on the teaching of mentalization skills and the development, implementation and evaluation of a model curriculum for mentalization training for educational professionals. The six-month curriculum serves as a model for training and further education courses designed to promote mentalization. The structure with learning units, supervision, teaching materials, educational films and evaluation facilitates integration into university teaching. Initial preliminary results of a pre-post study show changes with small to medium effect sizes in the desired directions.
The presentation will focus on the presentation and discussion of the findings from the group discussions on the educational films. The research questions will be addressed and key findings will be presented using examples from the discussions and a short film sequence.
References
Baumert, J., & Kunter, M. (2006). Stichwort: Professionelle Kompetenz von Lehrkräften. Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft, 9, 469–520. doi.org/10.1007/s11618-006-0165-2
Fonagy, P., Gergely, G., Jurist, E. & Target, M. (2002). Affect regulation, mentalization, and the developmentof the self. London, UK: Karnac Books.
Hamre, B. K., & Pianta, R. C. (2001). Early teacher–child relationships and the trajectory of children's schooloutcomes through eighth grade. Child Development, 72 (2), 625–638. doi.org/10.1111/1467-8624.00301
Hattie, J. (2008). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement. Abingdon, GB: Routeledge.
Kirsch, H., Link, P.-C., Schwarzer, N.-H., & Gingelmaier, S. (2024). «Nicht zu weit weg und nicht zu nah am Feuer». Mentalisieren und Emotionsregulation. Zeitschrift für Heilpädagogik (ZfH), 37–43.
Link, P.-C., Behringer, N., Maier, L., Gingelmaier, S., Kirsch, H., Nolte, T., Turner, A., Müller, X., & Schwarzer, N.-H. (2023). »Wer mentalisiert, versteht den anderen besser« - Mentalisieren als entwicklungsorientierte Professionalisierungsstrategie. In W. Burk, & C. Stalder (Hrsg.), Entwicklungsorientierte Bildung in der Praxis (S. 49–66). Weinheim: Beltz.
Mikulincer, M., & Shaver, P. (2016). Attachment in adulthood. Structure, dynamics, and change. New York: Guilford.
Schwarzer, N.-H., Link, P.-C., Behringer, N. & Turner, A. (2023). Theme issue: Attachment and Mentalizing as Aspects of Effective Pedagogical Skills and Relationship Competence. Call for Papers Empirische Pädagogik.
Schwarzer, N.-H., Dietrich, L., Gingelmaier, S., Nolte, T., Bolz, T. & Fonagy, P. (2023). Mentalizing partially mediates the associationbetween attachment insecurity and globalstress in preservice teachers.Front. Psychol. 14:1204666
Taubner, S. (2015). Konzept Mentalisieren. Eine Einführung in Forschung und Praxis. Gießen: Psychosozial.Terhart, E., Czerwenka, K., Erich, K., Jordan, F. & Schmidt, H. J. (1994). Berufsbiographien von Lehrern und Lehrerinnen. Frankfurt a. M.: Peter Lang.
Taubner, S., Sharp, C. (2023). Mentale Flexibilität durch implizites soziales Lernen- Metamodell für Veränderungsprozesse in der Psychotherapie. Psychotherapie
Turner, A. (2018). Mentalisieren in der schulpädagogischen Praxis: Work Discussion als Methode für mentaliserungsbasierte Pädagogik? In S. Gingelmaier, S. Taubner, & A. Ramberg (Hrsg.), Handbuch mentalisierungsbasierte Pädagogik (S. 188 - 199). Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
Paper
A Clinic of Coming Links
1UMR LEGS, Paris 8, France; 2University Paris 8, CIRCEFT, France
Presenting Author:We propose to reflect on the temporal dimension of the teaching experience, taking as our starting point the apparent paradox of a form of teaching that common sense leads us to consider as future-oriented ; in a context where our political commitments and a certain realism about the state of the world, from its tendencies towards fascization to its ongoing ecological destruction, place us in a difficult if not impossible projection towards a locked future. In this sense, educational spaces can echo the retrospectively premonitory slogan "no future" (Guesde, 2022).
We will question some of the “self-evident” aspects of pedagogy as a means of "transmission". One of those “self-evident” aspects is the idea that the classroom confronts: the past (the transmitted knowledge) ; the present (where pedagogy is a transformative time, more than an area of coexistences and becomings, (Deleuze and Guattari, 1980)) ; and the future (where the commitment to teaching is based on kinds of bets and debts, where knowledge is transmitted as a potential in the future of a student which we are trying to influence).
Revisiting Freud's quote in the Network 21 special call: '[...] education has to find its way between the Scylla of non-interference and the Charybdis of frustration.' (Freud, 1933), we will question the Scylla of non-interference by asking whether the latter should be interpreted as an absence of deliberate intervention or as a non-encounter. Indeed, if all encounters are interferences, Freud's quote seems to indicate a particular danger in education, if it "does not interfere", the center of this statement being the child as an object on which education does or does not interfere (Scylla), which is frustrated (Charybdis) or not. Now, from a more reciprocal perspective of education, we will be asking what reciprocal effects the encounter between students and teachers can have, when pedagogical devices undermine (without ever totally eradicating) the centrality of the teacher figure and his authority.
As we develop our pedagogical practices at university in France, with students in educational sciences, gender studies, future or current social workers, caregivers (some of whom are resuming their training), future teachers and educational team supervisors, we are also part of a pedagogical tradition that we might call "libertarian” (i.e. anti-authoritarian and cooperative), or at least one that questions power dynamics within the teaching situation, without excluding the unconscious dimension at play for each person involved (with reference, also, to institutional pedagogy).
Based on this reflexively analyzed "radical" position, we will try to imagine a “clinic of multiple links”, that could escape, at least partially, the canons of the educational bond. This epistemological openness to theories of multiplicity could open up a further subversive breach, following that made by works that recognize the unconscious dimension of pedagogy, as stricken with ambivalence, uncertainty and non-control.
This multiplicity is not programmatic, nor a rehash of an inherited past, but actualized in a moment and space, through an encounter.
Taking from queer feminist theories of multiplicity and interconnected modes of existence (Haraway, 2016), and their thoughts on non-filial and mutual temporalities and connexions, we will attempt to question what can be generated in pedagogical space when we move from certain normative readings of the students' projective failure or narrative non-affiliation (of a non-reiteration interpreted as non-affiliation). Rather than adopting a moral reading of the breakdown of meaning or of intergenerational ruptures, could we not question the "no future" that may resonate in educational spaces as a challenge to traditional narratives combining an overhanging past and an ideology of progress (Benjamin, 1940, 2023), leading us to consider other ways of investing temporalities, and therefore, narratives?
Methodology, Methods, Research Instruments or Sources Used
Our proposal is based on our reflexive dialogue around teaching situations experienced at university (with the previously mentioned audiences). We will present extracts from 3 "monographs", inspired by the method of institutional pedagogy (Dubois, 2019). In this way, pedagogical situations become research and analysis material for the authors. The idea is to take into account the unconscious dynamics at work in the situations, but also in the movement of their analysis.
The monographs are the result of a process of group elaboration, in the aftermath of situations, which allows both a narrative of practices, and a process of resonance and association between the researcher-practitioners.
In this sense, the materials presented derive from a posture of observation of what happens in pedagogical situations, assuming an element of uncertainty (i.e.: not knowing what we are doing at the time we are doing it). To a certain extent, this way of working with materials prolongs a refusal to think of pedagogy in terms of progress and technicality, favoring instead, sneakily, the creation of multiple bonding, in the context of institutional injunctions of efficiency and professionalization (which run through French, and beyond, European educational institutions).
Our theoretical references are rooted in a psychoanalytically oriented clinical approach in educational sciences (Blanchard-Laville et al., 2005), and we also work with feminist and queer theories (Dorlin, 2021).
Finally, we will take into account our different involvements, namely that we don't occupy the same institutional positions, and that we have previously shared certain teaching spaces.
Conclusions, Expected Outcomes or Findings
The place given to newness and creativity in teaching spaces will be examined in the light of our reflections on temporality (past-present-future) and the power relationships it induces: for example, what can be new when a course is "repeated"? How can we consider the sometimes old (or ancient) texts offered to students for reading, without conceiving them according to the logic of transmission? How much of a risk are we, as teachers, prepared to take in order to depose ourselves from the position of Master, regardless of our students’ perceived resistance ? (Rancière, 1987).
The issue of the context, identified in our introduction by certain specificities (climatic and political issues), does not seem to us to be detached from the challenges of temporality, of sequencing and of past-present-future articulation: more than a " background" to our reflections, and without pretending to be doing a historian's analysis, we take into account the fact that this very contextualization is part of a situated regime of historicity (Hartog, 2012). Last but not least, our use of psychoanalysis also contributes to our recognition of a non-linear, non-uniform temporality.
It is therefore by admitting a displacement of the usual coordinates of transmission that we could imagine, even speculate (in the sense of Haraway and science fiction), also, new conceptions of the clinic of links and bonding.
References
Benjamin, W. (1940, 2023). Sur le concept d’histoire. Klincksieck.
Blanchard-Laville, C., Chaussecourte P., Hatchuel F., et B. Pechberty. (2005) Recherches cliniques d’orientation psychanalytique dans le champ de l’éducation et de la formation. Revue française de pédagogie, 151, pp. 111-162.
Deleuze, G. et Guattari, F. (1980). Mille Plateaux. Capitalisme et Schizophrénie. Editions de Minuit.
Dorlin, E. (2021). Sexe, genre et sexualités. Introduction à la philosophie féministe. Presses Universitaires de France.
Dubois, A. (2019). Histoires de la pédagogie institutionnelle: Les monographies. Champ social.
Dubois, A., Geffard, P., Schlemminger, G. (2023). Une pédagogie pour le XXIe siècle: Pratiquer la pédagogie institutionnelle dans l'enseignement supérieur. Champ social.
Freud, S. (1933). Lecture XXXIV. Explanations, Applications and Orientations. In New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis (p. 135-157). The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud. Hogarth Press.
Guesde, C. (2022). Penser avec le punk. Presses Universitaires de France.
Haraway, D. (2016). Staying with the Trouble : Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press.
Hartog, F. (2012). Régimes d’historicité. Présentisme et expériences du temps. Seuil.
Rancière, J. (1987). Le Maître ignorant. Fayard.