1. Critical Reflection: choosing the path of most resistance
Good judgment comes from experience. And often experience comes from bad judgment”
(Rita Mae Brown)‏
Critical Reflection: choosing the path of most resistance
Robyn Kemp
ThemPra Social Pedagogy
Community Interest Company
Introduction:
My aims for today are to
Explore critical reflection from a social pedagogical perspective, giving a little of the historic backdrop to current critical reflection in social pedagogical practice.
Define and describe what critical reflection is and why we need it
Explore some of the influences on practice
Share some ideas about how social pedagogy can help us to develop critical reflection as practitioners, leaders and managers, organisations and educationalists
I am not here as an expert in critical reflection, but as a relatively new UK social pedagogue who has a long career in UK social work, and for whom a social pedagogical approach to reflection and critical reflection has been uncomfortable, sometimes painful, eye-opening and transforming.

2. Social Pedagogy & critical reflection: an historic and a contemporary partnership
18th century Johann Pestalozzi – observation and reflection as essential components of the education of head, heart and hands
19th century, Karl Mager – social pedagogy as ‘the theory of all the personal, social and moral education in a given society’
Friedrich Diesterweg – ‘It forbids: arbitrary assumptions and manipulations of human nature; any encouragement to act blindly and mechanically; any kind of drill; rote learning; uniformity; force-feeding with subject matter that is not understood etc.’
20th century, Paulo Freire – promoted praxis (action that is informed) and the ‘problem-posing’ concept of education: ‘must abandon the educational goal of deposit-making and replace it with the posing of the problems of human beings in their relations with the world.’
Social pedagogy has been and continues to be shaped by many key thinkers across the ages, I have chosen four to illustrate how critical reflection is at the heart of social pedagogy.
Pestalozzi was an educational reformist in the 1700s; he argued for an education of not just the head, but also the heart and hands. Observation and reflection were important bedfellows of what he saw as the kind of holistic education that draws out the most from children and helps them to imagine and achieve their potential.
The 19th century, the renaissance period, was when the term social pedagogy was first coined by Karl Mager . At the turn of the 19th century, what we now know as Germany was made up of 314 independent states or monarchies, with different laws, tax systems, languages and dialects. The fragmented nature of these states and monarchies brought additional social problems as battles between them increased disease, poverty and hardship (Mollenhauer, This was a period of social unrest in Germany that sparked the 1848 revolution; philosophers, politicians, educationalists and others saw the need to create and develop a ‘good society’ that could maximise the intellectual, economic and physical resources of the group of states and monarchies. ). In 1840 Karl Mager founded the journal Pädagogische Revue and four years later in this journal he put forward the notion of social pedagogy as ‘the theory of all the personal, social and moral education in a given society’ (quoted in Eichsteller & Holtoff, 2010, p22). It was within this context that Diesterweg, another educational reformist, described social pedagogy as ‘educational action by which one aims to help the poor in society’. Diesterweg warned that the theory and action of social pedagogy forbids…arbitrary assumptions and manipulations of human nature; any encouragement to act blindly and mechanically; any kind of drill; rote learning; uniformity; force-feeding with subject matter that is not understood etc. Critical reflection therefore is a way of checking these things out.
In the 20th century Paulo Freire, a community and educational reformist, rubbished what he called the ‘banking form of education’ where knowledge is deposited, in favour of ‘problem-posing education’. Problem-posing"education, responding to the essence of consciousness - intentionality - rejects communiqués and embodies communication’.
So it can be argued that social pedagogy was founded through processes of critical reflection on a troubled society that needed a coherent theory of personal, social and ethical education, and its contemporary development relies upon critical reflection to ensure relevance of the approach for the modern age.

3. Modern Social Pedagogy
SCIENCE
Academic discipline
Branch of research
Social pedagogy can be found in most continental European countries, and although it differs in different societal contexts this diagram shows what it is. There is an equality (illustrated through an equilateral triangle) between the science, education and practice of social pedagogy, which draw from a number of different professional and academic disciplines – e.g. sociology, psychology, education, medical sciences, art, music, anthropology, politics & economics.
Understanding of social pedagogy in the UK is new but growing, supported by the work of academics over the last years, and more recently by practitioners and professional curiosity about this intriguing discipline. Claire Cameron of the Thomas Coram Research Unit, who talks about social pedagogy as where care and education meet, was recently awarded the chair of social pedagogy, making her our first professor. Cause to celebrate I think! And an indicator of it’s roots taking a firm hold, although we still have a way to go.
EDUCATION
PRACTICE
Profession
Prof Hamalainen, 2014,

4. Developing Modern Social Pedagogy
Badry & Knapp, 2003

5. Defining Critical Reflection Oxford English Dictionary
Reflection - ‘Serious thought or consideration ’
Critical – ‘Involving the objective analysis and evaluation of an issue in order to form a judgement ’
Indicating critical reflection is a process, and a process that has many methods

6. UK descriptions of critical reflection
Jan Fook and Fiona Gardner, 2007
‘unsettling individual assumptions to bring about social changes.
Emphasises that:
Reflection is deeper than popular notions of thinking
Critical reflection is based on an understanding of the individual in societal context and links between the individual and society
Critical reflection is both a theory and a practice
Critical reflection links changed awareness with changed action’ (p16)

7. UK descriptions of critical reflection
Gillian Ruch, 2007
‘Critical reflection … seeks to transform practice by challenging the existing social, political and cultural conditions that promote certain ‘constitutive interests’ at the expense of others and the structural forces that distort or constrain professional practice.’ (p661)
Neil Thompson, 2008
‘looking beneath the surface of the presenting problem and situation (critical depth), and more widely at the social circumstances in which practice is taking place (critical breadth)’. (p1)
Is a meaning making process, paying attention to why questions, curious about the complexity and unpredictable nature of practice, with ethics firmly at the centre of the process.
For me, these all chime with a social pedagogical understanding of critical reflection, but with an additional dimension: social pedagogy contributes the notion of critically reflecting not only on problems, but also on positive aspects and events, for sometimes the solutions to problems lie in what’s going well.

8. Contexts of social pedagogy and critical reflection
Empowerment
Societal
Geographical, Political, Social, Cultural,
Economic
Power?
Participation
Control ?
Rights
CRITICAL REFLECTION
Institutional, Organisational
Dominance ?
Learning
Critical reflection examines the complexity of relationship between individuals, between the individual and society, and between theory and practice. It examines different levels, spheres and aspects of society and how they impact on what happens in practice.
Reflection and critical reflection is a process that informs planning, relationship development, action, review and evaluation, and in some countries this is at all levels.
Influence?
Individual
Relationships

9. Why should we critically reflect?

10. 1. Professional responsibility
Centrality of ethical practice in social pedagogy
Code of SW ethics, Ireland & UK
Respect for the inherent dignity and worth of persons / human rights (UK)
Pursuit of social justice (UK)
Integrity of professional practice / professional integrity (UK)
Confidentiality & competence in professional practice
We have power and must understand and use it responsibly
As I hope to have illustrated, critical reflection is tightly woven into social pedagogy – it is a central aspect of practice. But I think it is also inherent in existing codes of practice in both UK and Ireland, the headlines of which are noted here. For example, in order to uphold human and children’s rights in practice, professionals must demonstrate their knowledge and understanding, and have ways of scrutinising this.
I am often surprised by the lack of knowledge and understanding about children’s rights in UK practice circles. Article 42 is a child’s right to know their rights – for me this means we have a duty and responsibility, under law and ethics codes, to know what children’s rights are in order to uphold them in practice.

11. 2. To learn, adjust & develop
Comfort Zone
Learning Zone
Panic Zone
The aim of critical reflection is to identify learning and change how we act accordingly.
The process of critical reflection, by its very nature, is uncomfortable and this is where the learning zone model underlines an important aspect for me.
For those not familiar with this model – I think its value lies in its simplicity – Senninger argues that we all have these three zones, comfort, learning and panic.
The comfort zone is where we are most familiar, relaxed, comfortable – we know what we know, little in the way of learning goes on here
In order to learn, Senninger argues we must choose to step out of the familiar comfort zone and into the uncomfortable learning zone. By choosing to enter the learning zone and clarifying what we are learning, we expand what we are comfortable and familiar with, and expand the area of the comfort.
Forcing or pushing against an individual’s will, or finding oneself in an unfamiliar situation, can take us straight out of comfort into panic where it is impossible to learn, or to function effectively, as we are too concerned with our own safety and getting back to the comfort zone.
Senninger also argues that there is a risk that remaining in our comfort zones, not choosing to enter the learning zone, causes the comfort zone to shrink.
Learning through critical reflection helps to raise awareness through identifying welcome and unwelcome influences.
The Learning Zone Model, Senninger (2000)

12. 3. Lazy brains!
The human condition is predisposed to take the path of least resistance Automaticity ‘the control of one's internal psychological processes by external stimuli and events in one's immediate environment, often without knowledge or awareness of such control…, despite good intentions’, Bargh & Williams, 2006:1 Social constructivism ‘we don’t see the world as it is, we see it as we are’ Anais Nin ‘the hearer, not the speaker, determines the meaning’ Heinz Von Foerster
Social constructivism is a core theory of social pedagogy that acknowledges the Anais Nin quote here. Social constructivist Heinz Von Forster, offers statements that can expand our curiosity horizons –
Truth is the invention of a liar, urges us to question what is characterised as truth And The hearer, not the speaker, determines the meaning of an utterance, urges us to question how we communicate and understand other’s communications.
Automaticity
This is a relatively new field of research and one which is being examined and re-examined under a wide variety of conditions, results showing that we are perhaps not as in control of ourselves as we might think. For me the research highlights how complex and precarious the human condition is, and as such underlines the crucial role of critical reflection in social care practice. We are, whether we like it or not, influenced by a wide range of factors.
Automaticity refers to control of one's internal psychological processes by external stimuli and events in one's immediate environment, often without knowledge or awareness of such control [my emphasis]; automatic phenomena are usually contrasted with those processes that are consciously or intentionally put into operation… [and are those] that might occur without the person's awareness or despite his or her good intentions.’
Bargh & Williams, 2006:1
This and other research shows how we are wired to take the path of least resistance, to succumb to cognitive ease – our brains tend to be rather lazy and we’re not inherently predisposed to critical analysis, rather we tend to seek or highlight information that supports our existing view.
For example, hunger and fatigue. A study of parole board members in USA, a group committed to making impartial judgements on the evidence before them, found that parole was granted more frequently at the beginning of the day and immediately after lunch, less frequently before lunch and towards the end of the day, and indicating we are likely to view information less favourably when hungry or tired.
Another study examined how priming (that is to prepare or make ready for a particular purpose or operation) works by priming one group of research participants with the word library. They found that when joined by the control group who had not been primed, the research group spoke more quietly. Research participants largely denied the influence of the word library and some were not aware of speaking more quietly.
In another study three groups were given a number of words that they were asked to organise into sentences –one group was given vaguely positive words, another was given neutral words and the third group vaguely negative words. All the individuals were asked to take their results to a researcher, but who was talking to another person when they arrived and who asked them to wait for a few minutes. The researchers found that those who had positive and neutral words were generally fine about waiting, but those who had had the negative words were put out or even angered by needing to wait. Most denied the influence of the words on how they saw the request to wait.
Other studies have found that even minor threats to self esteem automatically caused an increase in research participants’ tendency to stereo-type others. Automaticity is not all negative though - studies have identified the ‘equality or egalitarian goal’ in some, and that this automatic goal can counteract stereotyping tendencies.
These are a few examples of this research – and it is worth noting that there are numerous studies researching automaticity in a wide variety of circumstances.
So what relevance does this have for critical reflection? And for us as individuals and as members of teams, services, organisations, professions?
How do we know when our thoughts or actions are being unduly influenced, and what can we do about it?

13. Influences on practice
What influenced how you experienced and evaluated the activity?

14. Some societal level influences
Neoliberalism: ‘a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can be best advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterised by strong private property rights, free markets and free trade’ (Harvey, 2005:2).
Consumerism: the promotion of the consumer’s interests;  the theory that an increasing consumption of goods is economically desirable; a preoccupation with and an inclination toward the buying of stuff and things
Individualism: favouring freedom of action for individuals over collective or state control.
Communication: s, video conferencing, social networks
And more…

15. Some institutional level influences
New Public Management – emphasis on the 3Ms:
Markets: free trade in public services; commodification of children
Managers: top down managerialism, increased bureaucracy
Measurements: outcomes/target-driven policy & practice
Recession & austerity: increased need vs decreasing funds
Dominance of certain theoretical perspectives, e.g. attachment, behaviourism
Reductionism, simplification – ‘social workers should do the simple things properly’ Laming, 2003
Markets – the introduction of the free market economy into welfare services began some 25 years ago, private sector grows, while voluntary sector shrinks, certainly in residential child care. A few years ago I met a local authority commissioning and procurement officer who was responsible for children’s homes, street lighting and bins. Prof Steph Petrie Liverpool university argues that children in need have become commodities to be traded. We have no boundary for the level of profit to be made – continual growth is desired in a free market economy – and when profits are down, the first thing to be cut, according to a report from the ICHA a few years ago, is most likely to be learning development/training. Powerful companies now dominate certain parts of the social care sector – for example over 70% of the in English residential child care ‘market’ is from the private sector where 5 big companies dominate (most funded by US private equity). The biggest provider of children’s homes in England is funded by US private equity, has an aggressive strategy to keep growing by squeezing out or buying up small and medium sized providers. Evidence in England points to small and medium sized organisations providing the highest standards of care, but the power is held by the large companies. I’m not saying they are all charlatans, there are private companies with great staff doing sterling work, but how might these institutional level influences shape what happens in practice, how a child experiences their childhood in care?
For me, the profit motive is highly controversial in health and social care. An unpopular subject, ‘dangerous’ I’ve been told by more than a handful. In private businesses, the first responsibility is towards the share holders profit share. This is problematic
Managerialism – central government set targets and dictates to local government, councillors to senior managers, to managers, to practitioners – top down control. Managerialism favours detailed procedures to guide and control practice; speaking as someone who started my residential child care career in the 1980s when we had inadequate policy and procedure, I am not against procedures per se. Changes in policy and procedure, for example, brought about better recording practices in residential care (in my first children’s home, recording for the 20 children in the home was undertaken for all in an A4, page a day diary, so not much was recorded at all). And it brought about greater scrutiny when appointing and supporting staff (the Warner report 1991). However, in our attempts to make good practice easy to understand and follow, the complexity of relational work lost out to reductionism, and following procedures has become synonymous with good practice, the first rule of which in many areas is now ‘ first cover your back’. As Eileen Munro identified in her systemic review of child protection,
‘…in child protection work, flowcharts now map out the ideal management of a case. However, such an approach provides an incomplete account of the intricacies of working with children and families for the many professions involved in child protection. It undervalues the fact that the work is done in a relationship with children and family members so that the importance of continuity in human relationships is overlooked, causing considerable distress to children and parents. The assumption that records provide an adequate account of a helping profession has led to a distortion of the priorities of practice. The emotional dimensions and intellectual nuances of reasoning are undervalued in comparison with simple data about service processes such as time to complete a form. (Munro, 2011:20)
Measurements
Relationships have long been seen to be difficult things to measure, so the UK system, policy and procedure has either ignored the relational or reduced it to a one size fits all approach. Perhaps its no wonder that behaviour modification approaches dominate UK child care practices, they’re relatively easy to understand, administer and monitor.
Michael Sandel (prof) argues that in the current dominant discourse around profit and growth, ethics have been crowded out.
Evidence Based Practice (process) and evidence based practices (as tools for intervention)
Started in field of medicine, not meant to be reductionist but has become so.
Formulate an EBP question,
Search for studies providing evidence about that question,
Critically appraise the evidence,
Select and implement an intervention that is supported by the best evidence, and then
Monitor client progress
1 ‘A well-formed question describes the client, alternate course(s) of action, and intended result’ (Gibbs and Gambrill, 2002, pp. 453–4). Clients should be part of the process of designing the question – how do you get them in a place to be able to meaningfully participate/ what do you do if you have different views – does your decision take precedence, is this appropriate use of power and what unintended effects may there be?
2 & 3 Requires access to databases; time; support, commitment to keeping up with new research etc; new research is often years old/outdated by the time it goes to press
4 what if you and the client select different interventions; how do you determine what is best evidence?
5 if the progress doesn’t follow the expected path of the EB intervention, can we judge that the intervention or the client has failed
Although EBP has some laudable aims, in practice it has some heavy challenges, and in practice has rather become a shortcut to planning.
Deficit - the protect-treat-control agenda dominates; diamond model as antidote
Consequences of recession - increased need vs ever decreasing funds and rising thresholds

16. Individual level influences
Private
Personal
Professional
Others & own needs
Own needs
Other’s needs

17. Some individual level influences
Organisational targets, goals, values, preferences
Culture, leadership styles, systems, structures, methods and practices
Workforce morale, perceptions of own and others’ power, status, position “first, cover your back”
Organisational and personal image of the child and social welfare client
Physical and emotional states, e.g. hunger, fatigue, stress
Own experiences, values, cultures, prejudices, assumptions, preferences
Our ability to observe without judgement
And more…
Goal and target setting - key feature of managers but researchers from the Harvard Business School identified in their paper, ‘goal setting can induce unethical behaviour’. Ordonez, Schweitzer, Galinsky, Braverman (2009) harvard business school, Goals gone wild: the systemic side effects of over prescribing goal setting, working paper no , feb 2009
Goals work but when imposed by others they can have dangerous side effects, narrow our focus (D Pink p49) Significant difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivators.
‘ if-then motivators resemble prescription drugs with potentially dangerous side effects, and some scientists believe they’re more like illegal drugs that foster a deeper and more pernicious dependency’
The Guardian and CAFCASS survey of social workers:
87% excessive paperwork stops focus on what mattered
83% not enough time for clients
52% thinking of quitting

18. “By asking me the question, you’re telling me I’m wrong!’’
How can we develop as critically reflective practitioners, organisations and educationalists?
By asking me the question, you’re telling me I’m wrong!
There is another definition of critical and that is
‘Expressing adverse or disapproving comments or judgements’
Given the significance of automaticity and the tacit messages we receive as practitioners, managers etc it’s perhaps no wonder that questions can be interpreted as judgement
I have heard this comment from a number of people expressed in a variety of ways over the years, when asked what seemed to be a relatively innocent question. For me it illustrates a system that is unfamiliar and uncomfortable with questions. Ironic…
To disturb, to unsettle - the process of critical reflection induces discomfort
How can we encourage this uncomfortable practice?

19. The learning zone and the sea
To me, practice is my learning zone and my learning zone is the sea –
Aberdeen beach on a rare sunny day…
It’s a good, but doubtlessly questionable analogy, please bear with me
The sea ranges from mirrored calm to crashing waves. To an extent we can predict how it will behave, but not with great certainty, just as with practice.
We tend to need to choose to enter the sea, just as we need to choose to enter our learning zones. Being pushed into it against our will, or experiencing a sudden change can send us toward or into panic.
We expand our comfort zones by gaining experience of exploring the sea, building knowledge and understanding, developing skills and a wide ranging toolkit. In modern western countries, we would expect any decent shipping company to provide navigation tools for its employees. I’m playing with the idea of critical reflection being an ethical compass as it helps us to get our bearings and plot the best course.
However, the responsibility for critical reflection has long been left at the feet of the individual practitioner. In order to gain from its full benefits, critical reflection needs to be woven into institutional and organisational integrity and everyday practice. For example, critically reflective supervision, regular facilitated groups, weaving it into existing meeting structures and processes. We don’t have to set up a whole new set of meetings necessarily; instead we can apply critical reflection to what’s already there, and establish lines of consultation and feedback to and from critical reflection groups. This would truly establish structures that ensure the organisation is continually learning and adjusting to the needs of those we serve.
Back to the sea metaphor, these organisational systems and structures I see as rocky islands in the sea of practice. Islands with time limited appeal, but where I can be on dry land to take a different view, settle a little, gather my thoughts, gather the views of others. Here we can take our bearings together and plot the best route to our destination. Here too we can alert the shore or the lighthouse to what we are learning, so that changes can be made outside the group too.
Critical reflection benefits from transformational leadership styles (leadership that seeks understanding, empowerment and values not having all the answers), policy connections, allocated time and structures, evaluated training, and processes for critically reflective knowledge building.
Structures and systems for critical reflection in practice are a welcome island where practice can develop at all levels

20. Social pedagogical approach to critical reflection
Central values include Equality, Respect, Empathy, Curiosity
Process of deconstruction for holistic scrutiny
Actively concerned with the relational
Asks critical questions, analyses assumptions, challenges prejudices
Participants are open to:
New information & learning
Accommodating a range of perspectives alongside own
Making and owning mistakes
Letting go of old ideas
Sitting with uncertainty & complexity
Culminates in identifying learning and the associated necessary changes to practice
Scrutinises and asks critical questions about e.g. the roles of power, control, dominance in what has occurred and how it has been presented; choice of applied theories, dominant values, prejudices: values, assumptions, stereotypes, language, behaviour, feelings; relevance of original aims and chosen methods

21. Critical Topics & Questions
Power – who has it, who doesn’t, who wants/needs more?
the most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any – Alice Walker
Why were certain theories, models or methods chosen?
Whose perspective dominates and why?
Joy (is relational vitamins, Berit Bae) – how does the person experience joy, what opportunities have been created?
How have I listened? Have I fully utilised all my senses?
How could relationships be affected by this course of action?
What damage /unintended consequences could result?
What roles do optimism and hope play in how we are talking and thinking about this person/case?

22. I have learned over the years that when one’s mind is made up, this diminishes fear
Rosa Parks

23. References Fook & Gardner, 2008 Ruch 2007, 2011 Thompson 2008
Mager, 1844
Friere, 1970
Bargh & Williams
Kahneman
Ordonez, Schweitzer, Galinsky, Braverman (2009) harvard business school, Goals gone wild: the systemic side effects of over prescribing goal setting, working paper no , feb 2009