Developing Creative Solutions to the Problems of Children and their Families: Communicative Reason and the use fo Forum Theatre

Building on Habermas’s conceptualisation of modes of reasoning, the authors proposed that an application of critical theory to the present bureaucratised nature of communication between state representatives and welfare recipients (Howe 1992) might open up ways in which social workers could reconceptualise their practice. In a subsequent edition of this journal, three of the present authors introduced the radical theatre of Augusto Boal as a methodology which might provide an expressive route for social workers seeking to build a practice combining the intellectual analysis of critical theory with new ways of working (Spratt et al. 2000). Boal’s method recognises the oppressed status of groups who come to the attention of agents of the state and, through the use of a range of theatrical techniques, introduces strategies to facilitate the conscious recognition of such collective oppressions and develop dialogical ways to address them. In the last paper, the authors presented one such technique, ‘image theatre’, and demonstrated its use with social workers in consciousness raising and developing strategies for collective action.

Experiences and expectations: the real reason nobody likes stats

Within undergraduate psychology courses, students often have significant levels of anxiety and negative attitudes toward the statistical element. This has been attributed to poor interaction with teachers, fears about mathematical abilities, and simply being unaware of that portion of the course or its relevance to psychology. To address this, 196 undergraduate psychology students completed a survey on statistics anxiety and attitudes. Additionally, 27 different students in similar situations took part in focus group to share their experiences of introductory statistics courses. Survey results showed that fewer than half were aware of the statistics portion of their course and that the expectation was a key factor in their experiences. Qualitative feedback from the focus groups revealed much about how the teaching may or may not improve attitudes nor decrease anxiety. Findings support various broad strategies (i.e. increase awareness of statistics in psychology and confidence in success in the course) as opposed to skill-specific (better ways of teaching probability or using games to increase participation, for example) classroom interventions to improve statistics education.

Developing critical social work in theory and in practice: child protection and communicative reason

This paper argues that a critical analysis of the ideologies that inform contemporary child care has been missing from the ‘re-focusing debate’. Such an analysis points up the necessity of reasserting a critical social work position in order to provide a basis for reconstructing practice and engaging with other social actors and their ideologies in an open and creative fashion compatible with Habermas’ aspiration of ‘communicative reason’.

Jamming the Law: Improvisational Theatre and the 'Spontaneity' of Judgment

Modern ‘nonscripted’ theatre (NST) clearly owes much to improvisation. Perhaps less obviously, and more surprisingly, so too does modern law. In this article I will contend that, despite all the rules of evidence and procedure, statutes and legal precedents that fundamentally govern the decisions and actions of a judge, it is only through ‘spontaneity’ that judgment can take place. This claim may appear strange to those well-versed in the common law tradition which proceeds on the basis of past legal decisions, or reason where no precedent exists. NST, on the other hand, is assumed to rely heavily on the unprecedented and unreasoned. Therefore, when the public watches a NST production, it places its faith in the belief that what is being observed is entirely new and is being produced ‘on the spur of the moment’.

Production and Productive Reason

This article explores two rival understandings of production and what it means to be a rational productive subject. Against ‘technicist’ models of productive reason, it defends a ‘phronetic’ model on both normative and pragmatic grounds. The discussion begins with a description of the general principles underpinning technicist theories of workplace organisation, principles which continue to inform work design approaches to this day. The technicist model is thereafter criticised on three counts: that it represents a specific managerial agenda which privileges sectional interests; that it is suspect morally for a number of reasons; and that despite its aspiration of arriving at ‘one best method’, it represents but one way of organising work processes. The phronetic model is then set out using the notion of ‘practices’ as a guide. This notion is important in providing a view of production in which technical reason is subsumed under a broader practical reason incorporating individual experience and judgement. Against the charge that this view is merely an instance of nostalgic craft romanticism having little relevance to present industrial realities, there are recognisable contemporary instances of phronetic production, one of the most interesting being Volvo’s innovations in automotive assembly systems.