Ewa Narkiewicz-Niedbalec: A Comment on the Book Review
All information about someone reading a book is for its author pleasant informa-tion, if only for the reason that among nu-merous books that are published, it was this one that someone chose. Moreover, a review of a book informs about a thorough read-ing, which is necessary for the review to be written. If the reading evokes numerous questions – which is implied by the review-er – or even doubts, for the author it is a rea-son to be rather pleased. I will let myself refer to three issues for discussion specifi ed by Tomasz Leszniewski in the review. He doubts whether the process of socialisation can be reduced only to the aspect of knowl-edge, and whether the emphasis on specify-ing modern societies as knowledge societies is a suffi cient legitimisation of such a nar-rowing of refl ections on socialisation. Well, I am perfectly aware of the original mean-ing of the term socialisation refers mainly to the transmission of values, norms, mod-els of behaviour, in their wide understand-ing. However, considerations of the nar-rowed to some areas (political, emotional, economic, cognitive) types of socialisation have already been performed. Such types of socialisation are enumerated in the text book Neues Handbuch der Sozialisationsfor-schung, edited by K. Hurrelmann and D. Ulich (Beltz Verlag, Weinheim und Basel 1991). In the eighties and nineties of the twentieth century, a few book devoted to a chosen type of socialisation were also written. Among others, the topic of
cogni-tive socialisation is discussed in the work by Marek Ziółkowski Wiedza, jednostka, społeczeństwo. Zarys koncepcji socjologii wiedzy [Knowledge, Individual, Society: Out-line of the Concept of Knowledge Sociology] (PWN, Warsaw 1989), in which the author even defi nes the term of cognitive socialisa-tion. It is true that in my work I suggested another understanding of the same term, but the involvement of sociologists of rec-ognised esteem in such problems only strengthened my interest in these issues. Moreover, the arguments of economists are convincing for me, who characterise mod-ern societies of highly developed countries as societies of knowledge. Just like once it was military superiority that decided about the position of particular states and nations, their extensive fl eet which made it possible to conquer and acquire colonies rich in various resources, today it is knowledge and its applications that decide about power. Whether we like it or not, societies’ eco-nomic position is determined by highly processed products introduced to the mar-ket, which are protected by patents and pro-vide profi t from every item of such a crea-tion sold on the global market. Computers and mobile phones are good examples of such phenomena. Without scientifi c knowl-edge it would be impossible to produce them, and such knowledge would not exist if people did not have the ability to think hypothetically, which is convincingly de-scribed by Eugeniusz Grodziński in the book Myślenie hipotetyczne. Studium na pograniczu ontologii, fi lozofi i języka i psy-chologii, [Hypothetical Th inking: Study on
the Verge of Ontology, Language Philosophy, and Psychology] (Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, Wrocław–Warszawa–Kraków– –Gdańsk–Łódź 1986). Th e fact which socie-ties derive profi ts from the use of knowledge depends to some extent from how they edu-cate members of their society at schools, what encouragements they design for the ones that, educated somewhere else, are willing to work in these and not other coun-tries, building their position. Th e European Union makes eff orts to build a strong eco-nomic position, which would be a counter-weight for the economy of the United States and the Asian countries, by such means as aiding research projects of high technolo-gies and developing engineering specialities at higher schools. It can be discussed which type of knowledge is important for the as-sumed goals, or the attitudes presented by some circles or people of recognised au-thority can be considered. If we want to be economically competitive in the globalised world, I consider the right one the attitude as to the importance of skills taught at schools adopted in the programme of inter-national research PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) con-ducted under the auspices of the Organisa-tion for Economic Co-operaOrganisa-tion and Devel-opment (OECD). In the edition of the re-search of 2006, the most important was reasoning in nature studies (namely: con-cluding, explaining – which was also the subject of my research). To other skills were solving mathematical problems and reading and reasoning in humanistic sciences. Jer-ome Bruner, quoted by the author of the
review, emphasises the importance of two general ways of organising and teaching knowledge about the world, he talks about the paradigmatic and narrative mode of thinking. Th e fi rst one is more suitable for considering physical “things”, the second – people and relations with them. Both are important, I chose one of them to my own analyses. Th e choice of the object of study does not have to mean that I consider it the most important matter (here a skill), yet un-doubtedly as one of the salient ones. Th e question remains of how to study the “ef-fects” of the formation of the narrative mode in thinking, whether through an eval-uation of written essays, telling stories (nar-ration), or examining whether an individu-al owns a formed identity?
Th e reviewer also notices that I assume that cognitive socialisation is a process which ends when formal education ends, and he provides the page I express such an opinion. He also recalls a claim from an-other page which is supposedly contrary with the one mentioned earlier. For the sake of argument, as I specifi ed above, cognitive socialisation can be defi ned in various ways. M. Ziółkowski understands it as shaping individual convictions and this process can indeed take the whole life, which I write about on the recalled by the reviewer page 146, above the claim with which the review-er argues. My projecting defi nition of cogni-tive socialisation refers the process of shap-ing cognitive competences – language, way of thinking, cognitive attitudes (including the curiosity of the world and people), knowledge on relations among phenomena,
features, states of the matter, and abilities to use it. Th ese abilities are recognising the el-ements of a language that communicate about such relations appearing in an objec-tive way, concluding from the given reasons, explaining and forming practical directives (p. 150). I believe that with such an under-standing of cognitive socialisation, it is a process in which some skills, attitudes are shaped precisely during formal education and this process basically ends when this education fi nishes (individual cases of dis-covering in oneself some curiosity of the world can happen, which was not there in a human before, as well as of learning the procedures of logical thinking which have not been mastered before). Proverbs are a rather weak argument in a scientifi c dis-course, yet I would like to refer here to one that talks about little Johnny and the same, but adult John. [What little Johnny doesn’t learn, the adult John won’t know. (transla-tor’s note)]. Th e fact which language code we learn will determine the way of our cog-nitive functioning in our adult life. Our abil-ity to conclude properly will depend mostly on the fact whether we will have mastered it and have it available in the arsenal of tools serving to view reality and solve problems. The authors of the last Polish edition of PISA research wrote in the conclusions re-ferring to the reasoning in nature studies, “Primary school and junior secondary school are the most proper places to form in their students the habit of such [scientifi c] thinking, due to the fact that aft er junior secondary school, only the students of com-prehensive high schools improve their skills
to recognise problems and pose scientifi c questions. In other types of schools aft er junior secondary school, the level of such skills remains practically the same” (Th e re-sults of the 2006 PISA research in Poland, MEN, p. 32). Florian Zaniecki, whose opin-ion on this matter is presented by me on page 147, claimed that the function of uni-versities is to “create the minds” of students, and for those who fi nished their education earlier, the process of mind formation end-ed also.
Apart from that, the reviewer quotes such words from the discussed book; “I share the view that cognitive develop-ment is a process that lasts the whole life”, yet he does not provide the rest of this sen-tence, which claims, “and [today I would write “but”] the main frameworks of cogni-tive functioning are shaped in the period of childhood and youth”. Th e second part is quite important for the main thought ex-pressed in this sentence. Th e use of the term “cognitive development” in the presented claim is closer to the understanding of cog-nitive socialisation of Marek Ziółkowski than to my own.
Tomasz Leszniewski pities the fact that, understanding socialisation as a process, I have not studied the process itself, though. Th e nature of some processes is quite oft en concluded from the research of the assumed, expected eff ects. Th is happened also in the case of my research. In consecutive stages of school education, specifi c portions of knowl-edge are taught, and new skills are practised (e.g. learning to read and write, solving mathematical problems, designing
experi-ments, etc.). What are the mental skills that particular kinds of tasks develop and what is the age that they are possible to do was spec-ifi ed in such studies as the ones by Piaget. An analysis of tasks from school books would certainly enrich our knowledge of which skills such tasks develop, and analysing the eff ectiveness of mastering such skills would be just as interesting. However, as the book 45 minut. Prawie cała historia pewnej lekcji [45 minutes: Almost the Whole Story of a Les-son] (Warszawa 1993) by Krzysztof Krusze-wski shows, an analysis of one school lesson is quite an extensive study. I do not know whether to capture the most important stag-es of the procstag-ess of cognitive socialisation (in my understanding) it would be better to register all the cognitive development of an individual by someone from his or her clos-est environment (mother, a teacher), or to perform some auto-registering, or maybe to make a retrospective note. Th e realisation of such an idea in research with a few dozens of cases seems hardly realistic. I do not know whether even such thorough intellectuals as Leszek Kołakowski would be able to specify in detail what and to whom they owe in their intellectual formation. Th e author of 13 ba-jek z królestwa Lailonii dla dużych i małych [13 Fairy Tales from the Kingdom of Lailonia for the Big and the Little Ones], in the volume in which his texts read on various occasions are collected, devoted to his colleagues and friends whom he considered to be wise and worthy, recollects for example his academic teachers. This is what he writes about Kotarbiński family, “We were taught logic mainly by Janina Kotarbińska. […] She put
a lot of pressure on us wanted not only to transfer to us knowledge on formal logic and semantics, but to practice us in general rules of integrity in thinking, of responsibility and preciseness. Tadeusz Kotarbiński […] was a genius teacher; he expected a lot from us – in a very friendly, yet unyielding way – to follow his example in trying to keep all the conditions that make thinking precise” (Kołakowski, Wśród znajomych. O różnych ludziach mądrych, zacnych, interesujących i o tym, jak czasy swoje urabiali, Kraków, 2004, pp. 18–19). He also recollects many other professors he had met. Is it possible to defi ne their exact contribution to the shap-ing of the mind of this outstandshap-ing philoso-pher? Can his colleagues, who listened to the same lectures, use a similar cognitive appa-ratus?
Ludwik Stomma reminded himself once about his high school, his mathematics teacher and wondered whether it was thanks to him that he and his friends constantly improved their essays in Polish. Solving such problems, especially by a researcher from “the outside” would be very diffi cult, if possible.
Th e second area specifi ed by the review-er is the issue of choice of the surveyed peo-ple. It is true that the research evolved, from the initial idea of a panel research only of pedagogy students, to surveying additional groups of young people – high school and university students. Th ey all had one com-mon feature – they spent more less the same time in mass schools, but the deliberately selected groups diff ered in some features, which I hypothetically considered
impor-tant for the explanation of the results achieved in the fi rst phase of research. To-day, I am still convinced about the reasona-bleness of such a selection. I have a similar view of the developed hypotheses – I be-lieve that the empirical material that I col-lected gave me the right to check such de-pendencies as the ones specifi ed in the hy-potheses. Taking into consideration the hypothesis referring to the connection be-tween the level of intelligence (measured with a non-verbal test by Raven, which sists of sixty tasks) and the ability to con-clude, which is indeed often included as a part of the feature that is defi ned as intel-ligence, in the research tool used by me, the ability to draw conclusions was measured with a task consisting only of three exam-ples. I would never dare to claim that this is the way I study intelligence of the ones that fi ll in the test, therefore it does not seem to me that I committed some abuse in this re-spect. Th ere have been some instances of checking the reliability of new tests (e.g. to measure intelligence) by counting the rates of correlation with the results of the tests that measured the same quality, of renown diagnostic value, and nobody has accused such a procedure of tautology.
Th e third aspect the t the author of the review renders an area of his considerations, refers to the questions about Polish system of education, about what is the knowledge and skills that Polish school should teach. Tomasz Leszniewski is somewhat disappointed that i do not specify my attitude to this matter. I am truly interested in these issues, yet if I wanted to present my particular attitude,
I would have to perform an intricate analysis of such aspects as the so-called “nets” of hours for specifi c types of schools, to point in the area of which subjects it is possible to teach the knowledge highly valued by me – on the relationships that exist objectively in reality, mainly the reality of nature. Namely, to state how many hours of physics, chemistry, biol-ogy, and mathematics should be taught. How-ever, I specify in the book that the attitudes as to whether schools should teach more math-ematics, and if this subject should be an ob-ligatory “Matura” exam [high school gradua-tion exam], or not, are divided (p. 22). My preferences lie on the side of mathematics, which I have unquestionably considered until recently as contributing to the formation of logical thinking. Th e view has been weakened after reading a claim of J. Potworowski – a mathematics teacher of various stages in England, who has in the last years become involved in Polish educational reforms (see J. Potworowski, Angielski program krajowy – wspólne problemy, odrębne rozwiązania [in:] Konarzewski, Reforma oświaty. Podstawa pro-gramowa i warunki kształcenia, Warszawa 2004, p. 123), who states that there is no evi-dence that mathematics teaches logical think-ing. To support his opinion, he reminds us that once it used to be believed that teaching Greek and Latin contributes to logical think-ing. I will try to deepen the analysis of this issue in the future. Even provided that my conviction of mathematics teaching logical thinking has been a little undermined, I still believe that it teaches a particular “order” in reasoning and I strongly vote (even though it has no implementing power and this is one of
the reasons I do not articulate such postulates in the book) for increasing the number of hours and the importance of this subject in school education.
Taking into consideration standards of teachers training and logic teaching: it makes no diff erence on which level of edu-cation we will teach logic to students, it is more important to do it just like Leszek Kołakowski was taught, so that the convic-tion of advantages coming from order in reasoning was characteristic for numerous graduates, not only of pedagogy.
Evaluations should not be discussed with, but I believe that another endeavour to verify empirically the theoretical assump-tions of renown researchers also carries spe-cifi c value, especially when the results do not confi rm all the assumptions. To illustrate, the hypothesis of psychological generalisa-tion of life experiences and the socialisageneralisa-tion hypothesis, formed by Melvin L. Kohn and Carmi Schooler (Class, Occupation, and Ori-entation, “American Sociological Review” 1969, no. 34, pp. 659–678), have been veri-fi ed in numerous countries, including Po-land, by sociologists of recognised scientifi c position (K. Słomczyński, K. Janicka, B. Mach, W. Zaborowski, Struktura społeczna a osobowość. Psychologiczne funkcjonowanie jednostki w warunkach zmiany społecznej, IFiS PAN Warszawa1996). Perhaps the cul-tural contexts are quite important for the theories in the area of social sciences, and the assumptions of the British, French and Swiss researchers can be and should be ver-ifi ed in culturally distinct societies.
Finally, one more charge provided by the reviewer – he claims that the work lacks gen-eral conclusions, which would constitute an important contribution to the theory of so-cialisation. For the sake of argument, by showing the level of skills necessary to use knowledge on relationships that pedagogy students represent, where pedagogy is a uni-versity speciality that does not attract the most intellectually active graduates of high schools, but rather the ones who represent a given average level of ability and of skills acquired in previous schools, I simultane-ously showed what are the tools of intellec-tual functioning that Polish educational sys-tem equips above-average students (yet not the best ones) with, students that are admit-ted to university. In this work I emphasise, and I do so in a few places, the meaning of logical culture, which can be shaped on var-ious levels of education, but apparently it is not. I did not want to be more literal. To be able to teach something, you have to know it yourself. In my opinion – it is worth teach-ing logic to teachers and pedagogues, but reading another version of educational standards for pedagogy and teacher training specialities, I cannot see much attention de-voted to this formal science by the authors of these standards. Preferences lie rather on the side of narrative education, rather than on the paradigmatic mode of thinking. Per-haps it will result in an improvement of the quality of inter-human relations, since to the construction of a knowledge society it will not contribute much.
