Individual Orientation in Education

85 Pages·1972·6.257 MB·English

by  M. Reuchlin (auth.)

INDIVIDUAL ORIENTATION IN EDUCATION
INDIVIDUAL ORIENTATION
IN EDUCATION
by
M. REUCHLIN
•
MARTINUS NIJHOFF / THE HAGUE / 1972
This study has been realized owing to the support of the
Shell Group of Companies and the European Cultural Foundation
© 1970 European Cultural Foundation, Amsterdam, Netherlands
© 1972 English edition by Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
All rights reserved, including the right to translate or to
reproduce this book or parts thereof in any form
ISBN-13: 978-90-247-1507-7 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-010-2418-1
001: 10.1007/978-94-010-2418-1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION VII
I. THE ACCUMULATION OF SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL KNOW
LEDGE 1
1. The accumulation of knowledge
2. The pace of progress
II. TECHNOLOGICAL AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND CHANGE 9
1. Changes in demographic composition
Age
Social status
The structure of the labour force
2. Changes in the concept of qualification
Qualification in the secondary sector
Qualification in the tertiary sector
3. Wages, salaries, and hours of work in the future
III. THE EVOLUTION OF SOME SOCIOLOGICAL AND BIOLOGICAL
FACTORS DETERMINING INDIVIDUAL ORIENTATION 25
1. Family status
The facts
Possible explanations
Possible evolution of some socio-occupational determinants
Evolution offamily and school influence
2. Geographic origin
3. Sex
4. Biological inheritance
IV. RESOURCES AND AIMS OF EDUCATION IN THE FUTURE 49
1. Educational budgets
Resources made available to education by general economic growth
VI Table of contents
The development of educational techniques and methods
Future evolution of pedagogic structures
Part played by teachers in orientation
2. Aims of Education
Criticism of traditional views
Propositions
v.
A SUMMARY OF FUTURE TRENDS IN EDUCATIONAL ORIEN
TATION 64
BIBLIOGRAPHY 73
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES 76
INTRODUCTION
When considering future trends in educational and vocational orientation
we must constantly bear in mind, in as concrete a way as possible, that
schools form an integral part of society as a whole. To point out that
education and society are inseparable concepts has of course become almost
a ritual statement in the majority of studies of future developments in
education. All too often however "society" becomes an allegorical figure
to which characteristics can be attributed varying with the tradition of
thought adhered to by each writer. This figure is given a part to play in
the plot which we are trying to unravel, but it remains allegorical. The
theatre is furthermore closed to the public. Teachers and taught, pedagogic
experts and philosophers of education, are alone together and share the
functions of author, actors, producer, audience, and critics. To seek a
better future for education is to try to improve the quality of a performance
given in camera, to give each character a role which is most satisfying to
the mind and above all to the emotions and in which the most noble
sentiments can be expressed in the cause of the highest ideals. The theatri
cal and gratuitous nature of university life, and lyrical statements about
the future of the universities, were characteristic aspects of traditional
frameworks. Opposition to the latter, such as the contestation in France,
has had the effect of modifying some roles in the drama of education, of
creating some new ones, and of giving "society" a bigger part, but the plot
remains gratuitous and the dialogue lyrical rather than factual, this often
more so than before. The debate has not moved out of its enclosed theatre.
A prospective study of educational orientation can only be of specific
value if we refuse to play these games, and in fact we cannot talk about
educational orientation if we restrict our frame of reference to the tradi
tions and conventions which govern the enclosed world of the school. We
cannot discuss what happens inside the schools without bringing in a
certain number of external realities. On a very prosaic level, we must ask
VIII Introduction
what are the functions which young people leaving school will be able to .
perform in the labour force as a whole. On a more general and broader
level, we must ask what type of man will be capable of making a valid
contribution to society in helping to find solutions to the extraordinarily
complex social problems with which we are faced "in real life."
Looked at in this way, the possible specific value of a prospective study
of educational and vocational orientation as a whole is in line with some
practices in other educational systems. In the USSR for example, a law
was passed in 1958 imposing a compulsory 2-year work period for young
people wishing to go on to higher education (MARKIEWICZ-LAGNEAu, 48).1
A similar system appears to exist in China. These work periods may well
give young people a certain amount of factual information about ~e
nature of the occupations open to them. Much more probably they enable
young people to avoid being sucked into the Byzantine or Utopian debates
going on today about the present and future organization of so many
universities.
No doubt those participating in these debates are, sometimes at least,
aware of just how divorced they are from reality. But anyone who has to
talk, in the present or future tense, about educational guidance, whether
to students, teachers, or educationalists, often has to be like the small child
in Andersen's story and be told enough to shout out that the Emperor's
new clothes don't exist!"
This study will also be concerned with educational and vocational
orientation in the widest sense, and not solely with probable future de
velopments in methods of guidance within the educational system. In
many countries these methods are applied, and the future expansion of
specialized staff and services in this respect is a foreseeable and desirable
aspect of the evolution of the problem, but clearly it constitutes only one
aspect of a much wider question which must be considered from two
points of view, and any prospective study must be based to a great extent
on an analysis of the inter-relationship between probable or foreseeable
developments on two levels, collective and individual.
On the collective level, we tend in 1971 to think of the population of
a given country as a whole. However, we could also consider a larger
community characterized by free and easy circulation of scientific and
technical information, of individuals (particularly those with a qualifi
cation), and of goods. It is possible that in 2000 Europe will be a com
munity of this kind, or be well on the way to becoming so. At this level,
orientation processes result in a particular pattern of distribution of pupils
1 Authors' names followed by a number refer to the bibliography.
Introduction IX
and students among different types of educational institutions, with differ
ent types of courses and varying lengths of courses, and with variations in
teaching methods used. There is a consequent distribution of the ages of
pupils reaching various levels in the various types of institution, deter
mining also the proportion of those who stop studying at various stages or
of those who continue to study whilst in employment. It also determines
the pattern of individual choice of occupation, in relation to the effect of
social and educational origin on career choice.
If on the other hand we look at the problem of orientation from the
point of view of the individual, we must ask what are the factors influ
encing any particular individual to choose one type of education rather
than another, or which determine his choice, and what are the factors
determining career choice and individual decisions to follow further
education courses of varying lengths.
Some of these factors have an identical effect on a great number of
individuals, such as sex or economic and cultural family background. We
could therefore formulate orientation problems by considering different
groups in the population, such as girls, children in rural areas, etc. There
are however good reasons for supposing that there is a gradual reduction
in the number of problems specific to particular sub-groups.
Other factors influencing individuals cannot be deduced from our
knowledge of the effects of belonging to various su~groups. Within each
group, individuals vary greatly in intellectual capacity, degree of mo
tivation, nature of interests, etc. In fact, as those influences imposing a
common lot on all individuals in a particular group are alleviated, the
relative effect of purely individual circumstances will increase.
In this study we ~hall examine various hypotheses in relation with edu
cational orientation in the future and the problems involved at collective
and individual level. We must also consider whether, over the next 30
years, there will be a conflict between individual needs and the require
ments of society as a whole which will dominate the situation.
The effect of the accelerated rate of scientific and technological progress,
and the consequent inevitable planning of the economy, among other
factors, has been that in a modern society, whatever the political regime,
the level and type of qualification required by young people taking up
careers is higher than before, and also that individuals working in various
sectors have to make a greater effort to remain qualified, in the sense that
they have to continually train themselves in new techniques. This trend
conflicts with the growing demand not only for the individualization of
education (made possible by developments in teaching techniques), but
x Introduction
above all for complete individual freedom in choosing a course of study.
As a result, there is a movement towards increasing flexibility within each
academic discipline, and towards a pluri-or inter-disciplinary organization
with no internal frontiers. The condemnation of the encyclopedic type of
education, and of selection, is another aspect of this demand for a school
and university system which is free of standardization and other con
straints.
If such a conflict does develop between individual and collective re
quirements, it will no doubt have a preponderant effect on educational
developments as a whole over the next decades. To reflect on educational
and vocational orientation can already help us to discern the extent of
this conflict, but the consequences of the latter will certainly not be limited
to problems of orientation alone.
This conflict is not the same as a conflict between a repressive state
system and liberal or libertarian aspirations. The conflict which may
develop between individual needs and social requirements is more funda
mental. Modern societies do not become more complex and exacting in
their requirements because they are capitalist or socialist, but because
they are technological societies and all, whatever their political regime,
want to make further technological progress. Although the constraints
brought to bear on the individual by the social organization in which he
lives differ greatly in form and intensity depending on political regime,
it must be admitted that aspirations towards total individual freedom
appear wherever it is physically possible for them to manifest themselves.
This has given rise to the idea, which must be considered here, that
this absolute individualism might be caused by the evolution of techno
logical society into more and more complex, restricting, and in one sense
more alienating, forms of organization. In such a case the conflict becomes
dialectical and if we accept this then it becomes possible to adopt a
"volitional" attitude towards the evidently desirable role which orien
tational guidance should play in education as an integral part of edu
cational systems over the next 30 years or so.
The first four chapters of this study comprise an examination of a
series of problems which are so closely linked to the problem of orientation
that the evolution of the latter depends greatly on the solutions which may
be envisaged for the former. A classification using the framework of the
traditional disciplines implicitly underlies this method. Some economic,
technical and scientific problems may be considered as determining to a
great extent sociological and educational developments. Sociological
developments also influence educational developments, of which orien-
Introduction XI
tation is one aspect. Chapter headings using such a classification are
however not used: each of the problems to be examined has aspects
relating to several disciplines and it is the interaction between these
problems which we shall try to grasp, perhaps at the cost of some repe
tition. Obviously all these problems will be dealt with from the point of
view of orientation, insofar as it is possible to isolate this aspect.
In a fifth and final chapter the working hypotheses set out in the
introduction will be examined in the light of the information collected
and predictions made in the first four chapters. Measures will then be
suggested which may influence foreseeable developments in a desirable
direction, some of these proposals necessarily concerning the school and
university system in its entirety, others being related more specifically to
the question of orientation.1!
2 Although the author of this study assumes sole responsibility for the ideas expressed in it,
he is indebted to the many people who have helped him in its preparation. Mr. J .-P. Dessard
analyzed a very great number of documents and works, providing syntheses which greatly
facilitated the task of the author, and was often an attentive and stimulating partner in
discussing the first drafts of this study. We sent questionnaires relating to problems of
orientation to a great number of people in this field, and we thank those who were kind
enough to reply, in particular Messrs. Bacquet, Bemelmans, Burion, Centre d'O.S.P. de
Chartres, Messrs. Chachignon, Courtheoux, De Coster, Demaret, Gustin, Hotyat, Mlle
Male, Messrs. Mauboussin, Panon, Piacere, Sorin, Walton. The suggestions which they
made have been of great value.