EAEN Research Activities
Members and groups of members of EAEN have been involved in a number of projects investigating one or other aspect of affective education. One such project is briefly described below.
The project set out to explore teacher and student attitudes to affective education in 11 European countries and Israel. Due to budgetary and other logistical constraints the research was survey based; the instrument used was a questionnaire specifically developed for the project and subjected to rigorous cross-cultural scrutiny. Three aspects of the educational process that are considered to be of particular relevance to affective education were investigated:
a) affective responsibilities of teachers and designated others in the school,
b) feelings of satisfaction and dissatisfaction associated with the schooling experience, and,
c) values and qualities that should be promoted in an educational context.
A number of interesting patterns emerged from the analysis of the completed questionnaires, which amounted to 3,737 (1,507 coming from teachers, the rest from students). The general trend that was identified indicates that teachers across the study countries do not consider teaching to reside solely in the delivery of the academic curriculum, and also that students expect their teachers to be concerned with their affective development as well as their intellectual growth. Secondly, notwithstanding variations between countries, genders and sub-groups, the general tendency across Europe appears to be that teachers see affective education as part of their role rather than the responsibility of others. This is especially true for aspects such as the promotion of effective communication skills, the preparation of students for responsible citizenship in a democracy and the raising of awareness with regard to environmental, cultural and equality issues; the only area where respondents felt that designated others rather than themselves should take responsibility for appropriate action is that of responding to abuse.
The project showed that it is possible to define and operationalise affective education, and to develop a dialogue about its practices and scope across radically different educational systems. It was probably unsurprising to discover in each study country teachers who professed an interest in and commitment to the well-being of children, yet the results suggest something more systematic than this: the affective dimension proved to be a central component of teachers' professional identity in all the participating countries, whilst learners across nations and cultures see their teachers' commitment to affective education as an important ingredient of the educational process.
The following publications provide a more detailed discussion of the project findings:
Katz, Y. J., Kontoyianni, A., Lang, P., Menezes, I., Neill, S., Puurula, A., Romi, S., Saccone, C., Vasileiou, L., Vriens, L. (2002). The north and south contrasted: Cultural similarities and differences in affective education. In Torres, A. and Antikainen, A. (Eds). Sociology of Education: A Handbook of International Perspectives. Boulder, CO: Rowman & Littlefield.
Puurula, A., Neill, S., Vasileiou, L., Husbands, C., Lang, P., Katz, Y. J., Romi, S., Menezes, I., Vriens, L. (2001). Teacher and Student Attitudes to Affective Education: A European Collaborative Research Project. Compare, Vol. 31, No 2, pp. 165-186.
For more information about this project, and other research activities of the EAEN contact the co-ordinator,
Dr Peter Lang at harlang@btinternet.com