From Individual Choice to Social Good

UALL 2012Dr Hazel Wright

Anglia Ruskin UniversityCambridge and Chelmsford, UK

Overview

• To discuss findings from a doctoral study of mature women studying childcare in an English Further Education College

• To demonstrate the personal and broader social benefits deriving from this strand of lifelong learning

• To identify how individual choice can lead to social good: a win-win situation

Rationale for study

• To capture what was happening in adult education at a time of swingeing cuts

• To explore events in Early Years education during Margaret Hodge’s ‘silent revolution’

• To give voice to students seldom heard• To challenge the commonly held view that

childcare workers are undereducated underachievers – these held a level 3 Diploma

Research design• 10 cohorts of students (enrolled 1997-2006) sent

background questionnaires (170 of 150 replied)• 33 students chosen for interview• Asked about their experience of education and

what it means to them• Emergent methodology

– Psychosocial interviews, fully transcribed– Conversation analysis coding, clarified meanings– Immersion in data, enabled holistic analysis– Analysis-through-writing, uncovered themes

‘Contentment’ in the dataWomen drift into childcare training: from volunteer helper to paid worker to student

needing a qualification.

• Being able to put their children and families first makes childcare work attractive but limits other work options.

• Childcare work and training minimises cognitive dissonance.

• Convenient hours matter more than higher pay.

• Part-time work is maximally flexible – fuzzy boundaries allow additional tasks to be completed from home.

• Learning about children is relevant to family as well as work.

• Childcare work is seen as a means of integrating life and work choices and education supports this process.

• Rewards like status and altruism compensate for poor pay.

Occupational typologies © Wright 2009

(Static and hierarchical indicators of entry to childcare)

Sampler One who drifted into childcare, found it lacking and quickly moved on

Stager One who found childcare work convenient when the children were small

Settler One who chose childcare as a career after experiencing a range of alternatives

Switcher One who chose childcare as an alternative career to a previous one

Step-upper One using childcare work to access an associated, better paid position/career

Attitudinal typologies © Wright 2009

(Later used as indicators of agency)

Accepter One with a relaxed, opportunistic approach; a reactive decision-maker

Agonizer One who reflects intensely before making decisions; may analyse guilt

Accumulater One who steadily acquires qualifications and experiences; maybe with a focus

Asserter One with goal-oriented behaviour; a striver to ‘get on’

Integrated Lives Model © Wright 2009

• Contrary to many other research studies, enrolling on the Diploma is neither an escape from domesticity nor an acceptance that this is all the student can do – it is a positive choice to integrate home, work and study

• Student forges reciprocal links with the family, the college and the childcare setting

• Further reciprocal links between family, college and workplace tie the student into the model

• This ‘triple triangle’ can be seen as the childcare workers’ capability set – the framework within which coherent choices can be made

A stable structure

• Family, Education and Childcare are all ‘greedy institutions’ (Coser, 1974) – tensions keeps triangle in stasis

• Allows orchestrated change – life in a ‘slowly shifting present’ – in parallel with families’ needs

• Challenges to more than one point causes rapid instability

Capability approachAmartya Sen (1999) Development is Freedom, Oxford: Oxford University Press

• Real freedom lies in being able to choose to live the life that you want to live

• Current ‘beings’ and ‘doings’ matter more than promises for the future

• Governments should make resources available that facilitate individual choice

• Pre-selecting ‘the best option’ for people disadvantages many – equality does not lie in treating everyone the same

Freedom to Choose

• Choice is neither rational nor random, but bounded.

• People have a range of ‘capabilities’ (the potential to be or do something) and from these they make choices about what they do (‘functionings’).

• Choices are determined by ‘capability sets’, clusters of choices that are mutually compatible.

Operationalisation

In policy terms:•This research demonstrated the validity of a concept that is often hard to operationalise•The validity is greater because the connections were found retrospectively rather than initially sought•It also demonstrated the validity of CA in a Westernised context

Individual choices

• Women valued:

– ‘The best of both worlds’– Part-time involvement in family, education, work– Avoidance of cognitive dissonance– Flexible and localised working– Life in a ‘slowly shifting present’– Gradual transition to the world of work

Social good – direct outcomes

• Government sought:

– Potential to increase childcare provision

– Greater number of qualified women in childcare workforce

– Raised standards in the workplace

Social good – indirect outcomes• Children cared for by people who like them• Parents in settings – limits scope for abuse• Supports intergenerational learning• Supports hard-to-reach to access education• Supports women to return to work• Promotes lifelong learning – FD/BA/ EYPS/ MA• Encourages parental involvement in schools –

Helpers, TAs, Governors, Informed enquirers• Social meshing (micro-level social capital)

But….

• Diploma course now replaced by a standardised option focused on practice

• Government calls for a “Big Society” but seems unaware that successful voluntary capacity:

• Stems from grass roots self-help movements• Evolves to suit the needs of users• Is flexible, inclusive, self-governing and accepting of

good and bad aspects• Spirals upwards NOT downwards

Further information

Wright, H.R. (2011) Women Studying Childcare: Integrating Lives Through Adult Education, Stoke

on Trent: Trentham Books

Additional publications – see ARU website

Contact: Hazel.Wright@anglia.ac.uk