Psychology, Sociology and Education

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Adult Learning on the Edge of a Precipice: an ecology of living and learning
(2022-12-23) Bainbridge, Alan
This article considers adult learning from a ‘long-life’ perspective. Stepping out of con-temporary frames that position adult learning as ‘life-long’ or even ‘life-wide’ enables a discussion of adult learning as an evolutionary informed, ecologically meaningful activity. In taking this approach, the paper shows how adult learning has evolved and been maintained by trouble, indeed how the human condition is under continual existential threat. The paper will draw on writings that discuss the evolutionary origins of adult learning, particularly the paradox that humans are both part of, and separate from, the ‘more-than-human’ world (Abram, 1997). The focus of this paper will be on the experience, conscious or unconscious, of living under the continual threat of annihilation and how this may have provided the motive for adult learning behaviours in both our hominid ancestors and contemporary society.The paper begins with a discussion to highlight the nature of human life as one that is always under threat by drawing on religious symbolism, poetry and (in the UK at least) an ever-expanding genre of ‘nature writing’. Having explored what it may feel like to live a life where survival is uncertain, the paper then draws on ecological and evolutionary principles to provide a theoretical ‘long-life’ understanding of adult learning. It is admitted at the outset that the route set out here may appear contradictory, even confusing, but the author asks the reader to first enter into an uncomfortable and troubling world, before the author, finally – despite what might sound like a bleak prospect for humanity – provides resources of hope grounded in the paradoxical potential provided by adult learning.
Beginning teaching: The theory/practice divide
(2011-10) Bainbridge, Alan
Bridging gaps
(Routledge, 2012) West, Linden; Bainbridge, Alan; Bainbridge, Alan; West, Linden
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts covered in the preceding chapters of this book. The book explains the gap between mainstream psychology and psychoanalysis. It describes psychoanalytic ideas can contribute to a renewed relationship with education, at a practical level as well as in research. The book focuses on half-education, in which integration and conformity to an established order. It provides a view of human experience and struggles for selfhood that is responsive to physiological, neurological, psychological, social, and cultural dimensions, while foregrounding the experiencing self. There is clearly a parallel to be drawn between the clinical world of psychoanalysis and observational studies or conducting biographical narrative research of a clinical style in educational settings. Psychoanalysis can provide a fuller understanding: it could revolve around the difficulty, perhaps, men like Jack face in expressing rage alongside, maybe, an unconscious desire to hit women.
Building a world unfit to live in: The deception, distraction and disavowal of the fetish
(Siped, 2016) Bainbridge, Alan
This account proposes that the impact of secondary neoliberal violence on education has promoted the development of learning as a fetish. It is within this context that human learning, the ability to respond to and not simply seek to control, is in danger of being destroyed. The context of environmental degradation and particularly the English badger cull, provide evidence that the ability to learn, to think has been sadly depleted. This paper makes the claim that education has emerged from violent acts and has violence inherent within it. For learning to take place the learner must be confronted with a disruption between what is already known and how this knowledge or skill base must be modified to adapt to the new conditions. Likewise, the role of the teacher/parent is to offer a violent disruption that requires a response form the learner.
Child development and psychology
(Routledge, 2007-02-26) Bainbridge, Alan; Nurse, Angela D.
It is ironic that, despite the fact that adults and children have been present, sideby-side, in human societies from the beginning of time, there is still a need to learn more; surely by now the mature, experienced and rational adults will have gained enough insight to enable them to understand childhood experiences. It is, potentially, here that the first difficult issue in studying child development arises, as it seems logical that if we have all experienced this process we should all appreciate what it involves. Yet the search for meaning continues. The essential problem is how to investigate the experience of children in such a way that their voice, thoughts and feelings are made clear. If we were to rely on adult memories and reflection then no doubt a whole array of different experiences would be presented, interpretations given, fantasies conjured up and difficult memories ‘erased’. If we next consider some historical insight, then the road to the influence of psychological thinking within child development will be made clearer.
Children’s learning
(Routledge, 2007-02-26) Bainbridge, Alan; Nurse, Angela D.
CHILDREN’S LEARNING IS an enormous topic and has been well studied and documented for many years. Ironically, rather than the picture becoming clearer, it now seems more confused than ever. As we endeavour to gain more insight into the process of children’s learning, what becomes apparent is the complexity of the situation and this complexity only serves to create distractions in our thinking, to an extent that at times it is difficult to really know what it is that we are sure about. The focus of this chapter is to provide a means of thinking about the learning events that young children are involved in. By the end of it you will not have an in-depth knowledge of all the major theories; instead, you should have a number of academic ‘hooks’ to inform your own debates on children’s learning.
Deceptively difficult education: A case for a lifetime of impact
(Routledge, 2020-06-10) Bainbridge, Alan; Howard, Patrick; Saevi, Tone; Foran, Andrew; Biesta, Gert
This chapter seeks to answer the deceptively difficult education question - ‘Why did Jill learn, or not learn?’ It does so by positioning education within an ancient and current ecology that disrupts human flourishing, leading to a language infused response facilitating the containment of existential anxiety and human world building. The educational act is argued to centre on the desire towards self-activity to provide an existentially meaningful existence by constructing and controlling an ‘open’ external world. The development of language to support ‘communication about communication’ provides the means for semantic dialogue, enabling the self and other to make meaning in an educational giving and receiving of knowledge and skills. A Marxian and Freudian analysis of education and the impact of neoliberal accountability technologies provide the basis to discuss the role of unconscious, or unknowable, processes and the associated unintended fetishized negative consequences of education. Ultimately, it is proposed that the deceptively difficult question can be best answered, not by the application of sociological or psychological syntactic rules, but instead, by considering an education that accepts and manages the anxiety inherent in learning and by focusing on individual semantic particularities.
Developing an education professional identity: The role of agency at an unconscious, individual and social level
(2016) Bainbridge, Alan
Digging our own grave: A Marxian consideration of formal education as a destructive enterprise
(Springer, 2020-10-17) Bainbridge, Alan
The negative impact of human activity has been known throughout history. The epic tale of Gilgamesh, Koranic and biblical texts all make clear the potential that humans have to destroy the world in which they live. Climate breakdown, biodiversity collapse and zoonotic diseases such as COVID-19 have also been predicted well in advance. The “wicked problem” (dilemma) to address is: “Why do humans still persist in ‘digging their own graves’ by damaging the environments they inhabit?” The author of this article argues that the motive to engage in education can be understood as an ancient human response to ecological change. This has led to a range of behaviours, including teaching and learning that serve only to further disrupt the relationship between the human and the “more-than-human” world. When formal education structures are viewed through a Marxian lens, it soon becomes clear that the unsustainable impact of humans on the more-than-human is the result of capitalist entrapment. Karl Marx’s proposition of a metabolic rift helps make sense of the nonsensical, while a discussion of use and exchange value shows how formal education has become ensnared in the mire of capitalist productivity, concealing from view the educationally-induced destruction of planetary systems that support human flourishing. Fortunately, a more sustainable and sustaining education is possible – this is an education for a “long-life” that is no longer influenced by the machinery of neoliberalism.
Digital technology, human world making and the avoidance of learning
(Association for Learning Development in Higher Education (ALDinHE), 2014-12-08) Bainbridge, Alan
Despite the widespread application of digital technologies in higher education there is scant evidence to suggest that these have had a significant impact on student learning. A contemporary psychoanalytic model of teaching and learning is offered, which suggests this lack of impact may be the result of an unconscious avoidance with the difficult thinking human learning requires (Kahn and Hasbach, 2012). Anxiety is a component inherent within the process of education, as it continually threatens what is known about the self (Bainbridge and West, 2012). As such, effective human learning requires a Ã¢â¬Ëholding environmentÃ¢â¬â¢, originating in the natural world, where anxieties can be managed (Winnicott, 1964). Paradoxically, digital technologies further separate humans from holding environments and possess an internal logic which leads to an Ã¢â¬Ëuntenable violationÃ¢â¬â¢ (Glendinning, 1995). Consequently, to prevent teachers and learners being overwhelmed by anxiety, unconscious defences are mobilised to avoid difficult thinking. This results in the seductive influence for simplistic solutions to complex problems. Digital technologies therefore become fetishes as they assume power and value beyond their objective state (Berger, 1967; Marx, 1867). The power of the fetish is to confuse and deceive, and in the context of learning, digital technologies continue to enforce the separation of teachers and learners from relational holding environments. The role of the learning developer is to acknowledge the complex nature and difficult nature of education and to not remove the anxiety this creates.
Discourses, Dialogue and Diversity in Biographical Research: An Ecology of Life and Learning
(Brill, 2021-05-31) Bainbridge, Alan; Formenti, Laura; West, Linden; Bainbridge, Alan; Formenti, Laura; West, Linden
This book explores how narratives are deeply embodied, engaging heart, soul, as well as mind, through varying adult learner perspectives. Biographical research is not an isolated, individual, solipsistic endeavor but shaped by larger ecological interactions – in families, schools, universities, communities, societies, and networks – that can create or destroy hope. Telling or listening to life stories celebrates complexity, messiness, and the rich potential of learning lives. The narratives in this book highlight the rapid disruption of sustainable ecologies, not only ‘natural’, physical, and biological, but also psychological, economic, relational, political, educational, cultural, and ethical. Yet, despite living in a precarious, and often frightening, liquid world, biographical research can both chronicle and illuminate how resources of hope are created in deeper, aesthetically satisfying ways. Biographical research offers insights, and even signposts, to understand and transcend the darker side of the human condition, alongside its inspirations. Discourses, Dialogue and Diversity in Biographical Research aims to generate insight into people’s fears and anxieties but also their capacity to 'keep on keeping on' and to challenge forces that would diminish their and all our humanity. It provides a sustainable approach to creating sufficient hope in individuals and communities by showing how building meaningful dialogue, grounded in social justice, can create good enough experiences of togetherness across difference. The book illuminates what amounts to an ecology of life, learning and human flourishing in a sometimes tortured, fractious, fragmented, and fragile world, yet one still offering rich resources of hope. Readership: All those interested in using narrative, life history and biographical research methods to explore the education of adults particularly in relation to building meaningful dialogue, grounded in social justice to create good enough experiences of togetherness across difference.
An ecology of transformative learning: A shift from the ego to the eco
(2019-08-06) Bainbridge, Alan; Del Negro, Gaia
This article argues that the phenomenon of a genetic/cultural “adaptive-lag” is both the motive for the human predisposition to engage in transformative learning and the origin of anxiety and associated ego-defences that mitigate against the likelihood of transforming epistemic assumptions. Dodds’ (2011) ecopsychoanalytic interpretation of Winnicott’s concept of a holding environment provides the conditions to reduce the impact of ego-defences by containing anxiety and therefore supporting the transformation of epistemic assumptions. Such holding environments are conceived to extend from intimate familial and social relationships to include wider ecological interconnectedness. Narratives, literature, and evidence from clinical psychedelic drug studies highlight how an increased sensitivity towards the natural nonhuman world diminishes ego-defences, enhancing the possibility for transformative learning. The implications for educational settings are that complex and difficult learning should not be ameliorated and that conditions enabling learners to recognize and manage their own anxieties will enhance epistemic transformation.
Education as gift: Challenging markets and technology and celebrating the spirit of education Damian Ruth. Brill, Leiden, 2024, 282pp. Education, Culture, and Society series, vol. 7. ISBN 978-90-04-68947-3 (hbk), ISBN 978-90-04-68946-6 (pbk), ISBN 978-90-04-68948-0 (eBook) [Book review]
(Springer, 2025-03-06) Bainbridge, Alan
Education then and now: Making the case for ecol-agogy
(Routledge, 2018-08-30) Bainbridge, Alan
The processes, settings and outcomes of human education have distinctive impacts on the human and non-human world. This paper sets out to discuss what may have motivated the initiation of human education, how it has been maintained why the outcome has wide-ranging, and often negative, planetary impacts. The analysis offers a multi-disciplinary account of education, from pre-history to the present, noting that humans, past and present are born into an ‘open world’ that requires world building or, niche construction. As a result, cultural and genetic evolution are out of synchronisation instigating an existential threat and the anxious experience of ‘adaptive-lag’ leading to the motive for continued niche construction. Education is presented as a particular type of niche construction requiring teachers and the use of symbolic verbal language to help learners move from simplistic ‘split’ thinking to the more mature position where the needs of self and others can be met.
Good (higher) education in a fragile world
(Routledge, 2023-12-18) Kemp, Nicola; Bainbridge, Alan
Health and well-being
(Bloomsbury, 2021-01-28) Bainbridge, Alan; Ekins, Alison; Soan, Sue
How Members of Parliament respond to evidence in relation to secondary selective education
(Education Publishing Company, 2021-03-24) Bainbridge, Alan; Bartley, Joanne; Troppe, Tom
The Impact of Research Evidence on Education Policy: How Members of Parliament respond to evidence in relation to secondary selective education, by Alan Bainbridge, Joanne Bartley and Tom Troppe, published by Comprehensive Future on Tuesday 23 March 2021.
‘I didn’t think I would ever recover from failing’: tutoring to reduce the poverty-related student attainment gap.
(Sage, 2025-04-10) Oates, Catriona; Bainbridge, Alan
This article adds to the developing contemporary research base on the provision of 1:1, or small group tutoring, to overcome the academic attainment gap for under-resourced young people. Using open-ended interviews this research explored the rich lived experience narratives of participating students, tutors, and stakeholders. The tutoring programme was designed and delivered against the background of COVID-19 and the policy focus, in Scotland, on the poverty-related attainment gap. Students reported a number of benefits; such as being able to make mistakes and ask questions they might not in the classroom; and the pace and atmosphere of tutoring was more conducive to their learning, compared to the classroom. This article adds to the developing contemporary research base on the provision of tutoring, to m the academic attainment gap for under-resourced young people. Using openended interviews, this research explored the rich lived experience narratives of participants in the programme. Analysis reveals that students were highly appreciative to be offered tutoring; that the importance of effective learning relationships between tutor and tutee is paramount; that good tutor/tutee/stakeholder relationships enabled misconceptions to be identified, monitored and individual learning needs met and supported. Attendance and engagement were particularly high for care-experienced, or previously non-attending students.
The impact of research evidence on education policy: How Members of Parliament respond to evidence in relation to secondary selective education
(Education Publishing Company, 2021-04) Bainbridge, Alan; Bartley, Joanne; Troppe, Tom
A detailed analysis of Hansard transcripts was undertaken to explore the dialogue used in parliamentary debates and committee meetings where reference was made to grammar schools between October 2015 to March 2019. During this period, the first new grammar school for 50 years had been approved along with the establishment of the £50 million Selective School Expansion Fund. Detailed qualitative analysis highlighted the widely disproportionate use of the term ‘good’ in relation to grammar schools. It is argued that ‘good’ instead of ‘outstanding’ or ‘excellent’ is chosen in relation to grammar schools as ‘good’ has moral overtones that go beyond reported educational standards. Proportionately the number of comprehensive schools rated good or outstanding, would need to be referred to in conjunction with ‘good’ 6698 times, not the 49 times this actually happened. Campaigners for comprehensive education need to reclaim the discourse of ‘goodness’ for all schools.
The impact of research evidence on education policy: How Members of Parliament respond to evidence in relation to secondary selective education
(Lawrence and Wishart, 2021-06-01) Bainbridge, Alan; Bartley, Joanne; Troppe, Tom
A detailed analysis of Hansard transcripts was undertaken to explore the dialogue used in parliamentary debates and committee meetings where reference was made to grammar schools between October 2015 to March 2019. During this period, the first new grammar school for fifty years had been approved, along with the establishment of the £50 million selective school expansion fund. Detailed qualitative analysis highlighted the widely disproportionate use of the term 'good' in relation to grammar schools. It is argued that 'good' instead of 'outstanding' or 'excellent' is chosen in relation to grammar schools as 'good' has moral overtones that go beyond reported educational standards. Proportionately, the number of comprehensive schools rated good or outstanding would need to be referred to in conjunction with 'good' 6698 times, not the forty-nine times this actually happened. Campaigners for comprehensive education need to reclaim the discourse of 'goodness' for all schools.