Introduction
A second-order change took place in Latin TeachingFootnote i in the UK in the 1960s and 1970s, with effects reaching into the present day. This ChangeFootnote ii was a shift in attitude, values and methods which Forrest describes as, ‘curriculum change on an unprecedented scale’ (Forrest, Reference Forrest1996, p. 42) and the ‘transformation of Latin teaching’ (ibid, p. 146). This article explores the nature of this change and justifies categorising it as second-order. Secondly, it considers the process of how the change took place, looking also at changes within the wider social field and resistance to change within Latin teaching. Both a Bourdieusian theoretical framework and a metaphorical application of chaos and complexity theory are used to analyse this change and explain some of the conflicts and crises within and around the change period. The final section of the analysis considers issues affecting the communication of ideas and the effect of social capital within the system.
The Nature of the Change
The National Academy for Academic Leadership states that first-order change is reversible, non-transformational, and that it restores a homeostatic balance. Second-order change, on the other hand, is irreversible, transformational, and brings a new way of seeing things. I shall consider the following interrelated aspects of Latin Teaching to establish that the Change was second-order: 1) nature and methodology; 2) expectations and audience; and, 3) market forces. Each point is clearly closely related to the foregoing, but each benefits from receiving individual attention, and has a different sourceFootnote iii .
Nature and MethodologyFootnote iv
Latin teaching in the early 20th Century had changed little from Victorian times and its focus was purely linguistic. Even shortly pre-Change only the very best students, who would progress to A-level and beyond, would get any exposure to Latin literature (Forrest, Reference Forrest1996; Sharwood Smith, Reference Sharwood Smith1977). After the Change, the focus is no longer completely linguistic and reading literature, even at lower levels, is considered of great importance. Roman life and culture is now commonly studied in Latin classes from Key Stage 3, and even at Key Stage 2 (Lister Reference Lister2007; Bell, Reference Bell1999; Cambridge School Classics Project, 1998). Lister (Reference Lister2007) clearly contrasts traditional and new methodologies in Latin teaching: the traditional method was focused on written translation from Latin into English and from English into Latin, and Latin prose composition. Extended prose passages for reading were rare, and Latin prose composition and English to Latin translation were valued (Forrest, Reference Forrest1996). Post-Change, with regard to English into Latin translation, the unanimous opinion of the 22 attendees at a course for Latin teachers in St Catherine's College, Oxford, 2014 (in which I participated) was that it should not be re-introduced, or that it should be optional. Extended prose passages for reading are now prominent from the very beginning in the most popular text books, such as The Cambridge Latin Course, used by 85%Footnote v of schools which teach Latin in the UK.
Audience and ExpectationsFootnote vi
Latin before the Change was only available to those who were suitably intellectually gifted (such as grammar school students) and the majority of the nation's students, who attended secondary modern schools, had no opportunity to study it. This élitism was not generally considered a problem. After the Change, this is no longer the case: Latin is increasingly offered in non-grammar school contexts to students of a wider ability range (Lister, 2005; Sharwood Smith, Reference Sharwood Smith1977). Currently around 600 comprehensive schools offer Latin (Garner Reference Garner2014).
Steven Hunt (in charge of the Classics PGCE at Cambridge) has argued that Latin is now considered to have a ‘high cultural surrender value’ (2015, pers. comm., 2 March), by which I understand him to mean the benefit that a student gains from a subject even if the student's studies are terminated before completion. Latin before the Change was taught with the expectation that students would progress to the higher levels. Yet even though nearly all grammar school students began the study of Latin, ‘the majority of pupils… never got beyond the lower levels’ (Sharwood Smith, Reference Sharwood Smith1977, p. 3). The 1938 Spens Report by the Board of Education, in the section pertaining to Latin, recommended change: ‘In no other subject has the end been placed at so great a distance, and the realisation of its value emerged so late. We regard it as essential that Latin should be so taught that something definite is gained long before the university stage’ (Board of Education, 1938, p. 176). It can thus be inferred that the many students who never got beyond the lower levels in Latin gained little of value from their studies: Latin before the change had a low cultural surrender value - benefit accrued only to those who had the highest ability and continued to an advanced stage.
Market ForcesFootnote vii
Before the Change, Latin had a guaranteed supply of students: it was a required subject in most grammar schools, and was viewed as a gateway subject for prestigious universities and professions. After the Change, however, Latin became vulnerable to the power of the market and students would increasingly opt out of it. A new control system, the market, was thus introduced and teachers would have to prove themselves by competing ‘in the curriculum marketplace with a number of attractive alternative options.’ (Forrest, Reference Forrest1996, p. 145).
In summary, Latin Teaching experienced a Change which irreversibly transformed the values, methodologies, and relationships within the system and which brought a new manner of understanding the subject itself and its broader purpose in society. This was, therefore, a second-order change.
The Process of Change
The Social Attitudinal Shift
Social attitudes changed during the early/mid-20th CenturyFootnote viii in two important regards: with regard to academia and Latin in particular, and with regard to selection / comprehensivisation in UK schools. These social changes triggered two major crises within Latin Teaching:
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1) In the 1950s concerns were expressed about the role of academics in public life and about the social imbalance of students accepted into the élite ancient universities (Harris, 1994). The role of compulsory Latin as a matriculation requirement came under debate in both Oxford and Cambridge and both universities would drop this requirement in 1960. The rise of other, modern subjects became of increasing importance until ultimately the ‘myth… of the effortless superiority of the classically educated man… was destroyed… by the advances in Science and in scientific education’ (Sharwood Smith, Reference Sharwood Smith1977, p. 1). This was a crisis for Latin Teaching because it meant a loss of prestige and also a loss of incentive for students to study Latin, leading progressively to a drop in student numbers (Forrest, Reference Forrest1996).
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2) Comprehensive education began in England towards the end of the 1940s with a small number of schools and grew slowly throughout the 1950s. Simon (Reference Simon and McCulloch2005) suggests that this growth occurred as resistance to the selection of children as a means to preserve the hierarchical social order. By the mid-1960s comprehensivisation was widespread and many Latin-teaching grammar schools were converting to comprehensive status (Forrest, Reference Forrest1996). This was a crisis as many Latin teachers were used to working only with the intellectual élite and could not or did not want to change their teaching style or content.
Resistance
It may seem counter-intuitive to consider resistance to the Change before considering the Change itself. Some of the resistance is, however, partly resistance to the social attitudinal change detailed above, and since the resistance in some ways predates the Change, it is best considered now. Indeed, given that Latin Teaching had changed so little over the preceding decades, and that Hughes (Reference Hughes2006, p. 40) lists ‘historical inertia’ as one of the main forces against change, it is not surprising that the system presented a significant amount of resistance from the start.
An example of this inertia is that the Spens Report (Board of Education, 1938) called for a reconsideration of the purely linguistic nature of Latin teaching, but was broadly ignored by Latin teachers in practice (Hunt, Reference Hunt2015). Beyond inertia, however, there was active resistance towards any new groups or organisations within Latin Teaching which may have been more progressive, whether supporting Latin-for-all in a comprehensive context, the introduction of Classical Civilisation with no linguistic content, or the simple removal of translation into Latin and prose composition. M. Mortimer of Shrewsbury school, for example, continued to argue in 1967 that the educational value of Classics lay purely in the exercise of translation (Roberts and Mortimer 1967, cited in Lister, Reference Lister2007).
T. W. Melluish was a traditionalist teacher who had amassed a considerable amount of personal influence in that he was a leading member in several of the key organisations within Latin Teaching and thus ‘acted as a gatekeeper, guarding the road to radical reform’ (Forrest, Reference Forrest1996, p. 17). In particular, Melluish acted through the Classical Association (of which he was President) to pass a resolution against comprehensivisation and to publicise this in the main newspapers. This does not appear to have had any clear positive outcome and, although the resolution had received unanimous support, some were concerned that Melluish's actions were unhelpful and that appearing overly reactionary would be ultimately damaging to the Classics. Melluish, despite retiring from teaching in 1967, nevertheless continued to criticise comprehensivisation publicly and to extol the virtues of prose composition in Latin (Forrest, Reference Forrest1996). This resistance can be categorised as negative resistance (Lines, 2005, cited in Erwin and Garman, Reference Erwin and Garman2010) because it was attempting to halt the change process rather than contribute to it. The resisters seem to have perceived the crises as a threat to their status and mode of work, rather than a threat to the continued existence of Latin as a subject.
By 1970 there remained little public dissent, but as the years passed, further resistance developed, including criticism of the new Cambridge Latin Course, which was emerging from the ongoing Change, and by 1974 there was a resurgence of traditional attitudes among Classics teachers. In 1976, however, a third crisis arrived. In October 1976 Prime Minister Callaghan delivered a speech designed to capture the public mood on education and which would call for greater priority to be given to technical, vocational and practical education. Subsequent financial constraints imposed in schools in the late 1970s affected Latin particularly badly. By the early 1980s a significant fall in the birth rate meant that schools were struggling to deliver the curriculum and Latin was seen as a subject which could be cut, resulting in job losses. Latin teachers could no longer defend the dry grammar-translation method and prose composition on a point of principle as they were running out of students with whom to use this traditional methodology (Forrest, Reference Forrest1996).
The Change
Before the arrival of the crises noted above, there had been a certain amount of low-level agitation for change within Latin Teaching for a considerable period of time. As a system without a clear formal hierarchy, Latin Teaching also had no clear formal control system, so if a Latin teacher chose to develop and follow a different methodology, no-one could stop them, and periodically this happened, for example W. H. D. Rouse's use of the oral direct method, but such innovations never successfully spread and developed (Sharwood Smith, Reference Sharwood Smith1977, p. 32ff.).
Calls to improve the cultural surrender value of Latin grew throughout the 1950s and the reforms to Latin teaching which had been variously proposed for an extended period of time were beginning to seem increasingly relevant. JACT was then founded in 1963, an event which Forrest (Reference Forrest1996) attributes to one man - John Sharwood Smith, a pragmatist who could see the need for reform, but who was frustrated by the vested interests and entrenched attitudes among leading members of the organisations which already existed. Sharwood Smith's ‘energy, persistence and skill’ (Forrest, Reference Forrest1996, p. 16) allowed him to build up support and membership for the new organisation from the more progressive members of the other organisations. By 1964, in spite of the resistance mentioned earlier, JACT was not only firmly established but had also developed a very particular sense of purpose: they took the view that comprehensivisation was neither good nor bad, but a challenge; the role, then, of JACT was to help Classics teachers in all kinds of schools to work together to meet the challenge of changing circumstances (Forrest, Reference Forrest1996).
At this time the Nuffield Foundation had already invested significant sums of money into curriculum development in science, mathematics and modern languages, and the idea for a curriculum development project arose within JACT in 1964. By April 1965, after a series of negotiations with JACT, the Nuffield Foundation agree to provide a grant of £34,500Footnote ix to finance, initially for three years, what would become known as the Cambridge School Classics Project (CSCP) (Forrest, Reference Forrest1996). The CSCP developed and trialled new materials in schools. A particular interest was expressed in the needs of a wider ability range of learners, and an emphasis was placed on reading from the beginning in order to improve reading fluency. There was a preference for grammar to be learnt inductively and prose composition in Latin would not feature. By August 1967 trials of a Latin course were ongoing in 74 schools, some of which were comprehensive, some grammar and some independent. Public response was reasonably positive and by 1970 the CSCP was attracting more attention at an annual summer school for Classics teachers than any other topic (Forrest, Reference Forrest1996). Forrest summarises the situation at the end of the 1960s thus:
The impetus for curriculum change was no longer confined to a small band of activists. […] There had emerged a substantial groundswell of support from Classics teachers for the initiatives taken first by JACT and then by the [CSCP] with JACT's support. The prospect of comprehensive reorganisation had acted as a catalytic force, concentrating the minds of Classics teachers. (Forrest, Reference Forrest1996, p. 92f.)
The trial materials developed by the CSCP were published as The Cambridge Latin Course (CLC) from 1970 onwards. The Project also ran regular in-service courses to support those who were using the new CLC method. Since the new course offered a fundamentally new way of thinking about Latin teaching, its success challenged teachers to consider this new conceptualisation of Latin teaching. As this cultural shift - which did not begin with the CLC, but rather the CLC had its roots in these ideas which already existed, and the CLC's success helped to disseminate them - in turn took deeper hold, more teachers were attracted to the CLC, establishing a virtuous circle of growth and leading to the CSCP being ‘widely recognised as having been one of the more successful of the British curriculum developments of the 1960s and 1970s.’ (Forrest, Reference Forrest1996, p. ix). As has been seen, further resistance did later emerge, but the agents-for-change were moving alongside broader social change while the resisters were moving against it; the resisters ultimately could not prevail.
Analysis
As a preliminary matter, the nature of Latin Teaching as an organisation must be addressed. The group as a whole does not fit the understanding of organisation as commonly presented in management theory (see, for example, Mintzberg, Reference Mintzberg1979): no formal hierarchy is in place, nor are there clear mechanisms of accountability or control. The group is particularly unlike a school or similar bureaucratic organization. Indeed, it is not entirely clear, since the goals of individual members or sub-groups of the group do not necessarily converge, that the whole group can be termed an informal organisation either; the bonds within the group are such that individuals may be bonded (loosely) to certain other individuals or groups, but not necessarily to the whole. Rather the group shares a commonality - Latin - which is sufficient to identify them as a group, but not necessarily to bind them as an organisation. I have chosen therefore to conceptualise Latin Teaching as a social field, a subordinate set of the field of education. Furthermore, since a clear state existed before the Change, and a clearly different state arose afterwards in response to external stimuli but in the absence of any formal internal hierarchy or leadership, it also seems appropriate to consider Latin Teaching to be a self-transforming system (Fuchs, Reference Fuchs2003; Prigogine, Reference Prigogine1997). Fuchs (Reference Fuchs2003) and Prigogine (Reference Prigogine1997) in fact refer to self-organizing systems. I have adapted the term in deference to the fact that I have rejected the term organisation. Fuchs, however, does refer to the concept of ‘self-transformation’ (Fuchs, Reference Fuchs2003, p. 397).
Fuchs (Reference Fuchs2003) argues that a Bourdieusian analytical framework is compatible with complexity theory and both are used in this analysis. For simplicity, however, the analysis shall be separated into several threads. The first focuses primarily on the Bourdieusian theory of social reproduction and on the interaction between the habitus and the phenomenon of misrecognition, the second shall particularly focus on the concept of entropy within chaos and complexity theory. A third piece of analysis will consider communication, ideas, and social capital within the system.
Analysis Part 1: Social Reproduction, habitus and Misrecognition
Pierre Bourdieu's Reproduction asserts that education is a means for the reproduction of social structures (Bourdieu, Reference Bourdieu and Passeron1990). The education system is particularly a mechanism for the legitimisation of the tastes and culture of the privileged classes (Bourdieu, Reference Bourdieu2010). These two ideas taken together help to explain why Latin and the Classics – the culture of the privileged (Bourdieu, Reference Bourdieu and Passeron1990; Bourdieu, Reference Bourdieu1988; Sharwood Smith, Reference Sharwood Smith1977) – had retained their position of prestige for so long:
Latin was used … as an instrument of selection for an intellectual élite; while at the same time the institutionalised pre-eminence of Classics played some part in keeping the upper classes on top” (Sharwood Smith, Reference Sharwood Smith1977, p. 2).
Latin helped secure and legitimise the position of the privileged, and the privileged in turn valued Latin and thus Latin was given a privileged role in the education system. Bourdieu's term for this is symbolic violence:
Symbolic violence… is the imposition of [culture] upon groups or classes in such a way that they are experienced as legitimate. This legitimacy obscures the power relations which permit that imposition to be successful. Insofar as it is accepted as legitimate, culture adds its own force to those power relations, contributing to their systematic reproduction. This is achieved through a process of misrecognition (Jenkins, Reference Jenkins1992).
[misrecognition is] the process whereby power relations are perceived not for what they objectively are but in a form which renders them legitimate in the eyes of the beholder (Bourdieu and Passeron, Reference Bourdieu and Passeron1990, p. xiii)
If education merely reproduces the existing social order, it can be inferred that the education system can only change substantially when the social order changes. Thus, rather than education being a mechanism for changing the social order, the social order must change first, then that change will filter into the education system. This helps to explain why the various moves to reform Latin teaching prior to the crises arising from social change did not make a deep impact.
It has been suggested that complex systems, such as Latin Teaching, will necessarily enter phases of instability and crisis (Laszlo, 1987, cited in Fuchs, Reference Fuchs2003). This fits with the punctuated equilibrium theory of educational change (Parsons and Fidler, Reference Parsons and Fidler2005) in which a punctuation – a break in longer periods of stability – is necessary to effect transformational change. Parsons and Fidler (Reference Parsons and Fidler2005) suggest that a punctuation can be triggered externally by resource pressures. Bourdieu allows us to add that external social change can also trigger a punctuation in an educational context.
It shall now be argued that the resisters to change suffered from misrecognition. The principal arguments in the defence of traditional Latin studies were principally that translation makes one a better thinker and communicator, that grammar study helps understanding, or that Latin serves as training in precision and accuracy (Mortimer, 1967, cited in Lister Reference Lister2007; Sharwood Smith, Reference Sharwood Smith1977; Melluish Reference Melluish and Melluish1962). Sharwood Smith attacks these defences on the grounds that since a high proportion of students actually failed, then in fact Latin was not good training in these areas. A further weakness in these arguments is that they could be equally applied to any other language also: they are arguments in favour of language study, not necessarily Latin. These arguments were therefore perhaps put forward because the power relations governed by the cultural capital of Latin were misrecognised – these arguments were considered more acceptable within the dominant habitus of Latin Teaching than the idea that Latin has prestige as a cultural arbitrary based on the taste of the privileged classes, or, as Sharwood Smith puts it, ‘the idealization of Classics was often based on snobbery’ (Reference Sharwood Smith1977, p. 2).
Actors within the pre-Change field of Latin Teaching, especially given the level of historical inertia, could perhaps have been assumed to broadly share the same habitus: they were broadly from a similar social class and from similar educational backgrounds, with similar educational outcomes. They were mostly neither poor nor independently wealthy and they worked in similar jobs. Gartman (Reference Gartman2002), however, indicates that strong external struggles in the social field may provide agents in related or subordinate fields with new habitus. While one must be wary of oversimplification, it seems reasonable to argue that the anticipation and then impact upon Latin Teaching of multiple crises from the social field led to the development of new or modified habitus for increasing numbers of individuals within the system. A habitus difference may therefore have developed between the resisters and the actors-for-change; it will be useful to consider the nature of this difference. Fuchs (Reference Fuchs2003) clarifies that the habitus does not dictate practice, but rather the habitus allows for very diverse practices within certain parameters. We can thus use the parameters of practice to help define the habitus of each group.
The following table shows the parameters of three different aspects of the dispositions of the groups in question:
Ultimately, the reason that the agents-for-change overcame resistance is that the introduction of the market into the system of Latin Teaching and the consequent threat of job losses drew increasing numbers of people into the agent-for-change side as regards their disposition to work. It is of course not automatic that they should then take on new dispositions in the other regards also, and Sharwood Smith (Reference Sharwood Smith1977) complains of teachers who only tolerate teaching Classical Civilisation as it keeps them in work so that they can get on with their real job of teaching Latin to a select few. Nevertheless, once people begin to operate with the Change instead of against it, there is the opportunity for them to begin to see value in the new mode of working and thus for a positive feedback loop to form, strengthening the change process.
Bourdieu suggests that the habitus, while not easily susceptible to change, can, however, be controlled as a result of the ‘awakening of consciousness and socioanalysis’ (Bourdieu, Reference Bourdieu and Passeron1990, cited in Jenkins Reference Jenkins1992, p. 83). Sharwood Smith seems to have tentatively engaged with sociological theory: he appears to have an understanding of symbolic violence even if he did not use that term, and his book even contains ‘A sociological digression’ (Sharwood Smith, Reference Sharwood Smith1977, p. 12ff.). He likewise seems to have misrecognised less than others the nature of Latin in that he acknowledges that it ‘confers social prestige’ (ibid, p. 76). Too much speculation would be inappropriate, yet it does not seem unreasonable to suggest, given the evidence available, that Sharwood Smith had some sort of sociological awakening which consequently led him, if not to control of the habitus, then at least to a slight habitus shift and also to suffer less misrecognition than some of his peers.
It is suggested therefore that the entire change process could have been much more efficient if a greater number of agents had the sociological consciousness awakening of Sharwood Smith; leadership interest in sociological theory is therefore indicated as positive for change in this field.
Analysis Part 2: Complexity
The new sciences of complexity and chaos theory have been increasingly applied recently within the social sciences and education in particular (see, for example, Beabout, Reference Beabout2012; Davies, Reference Davies2004; Carr-Chellman, Reference Carr-Chellman2000). These sciences suggest that complex systems develop in ways which are non-linear and difficult or impossible to predict. Outcomes, however, are not purely random, but are constrained – as practice is constrained by habitus – within certain parameters (Fuchs, Reference Fuchs2003). A tension, however, exists between complexity theory, and the fact that both Lister (Reference Lister2007) and Forrest (Reference Forrest1996) ascribe the Change in large part to the work of Sharwood Smith. Either Sharwood Smith was a man who was able personally to control events, or the system was complex and not directly controllable; it seems difficult for both of these to be true. This analysis, nevertheless, attempts to resolve this tension.
Beabout (Reference Beabout2012) and Senior and Swailes (Reference Senior and Swailes2010) emphasise that the concepts of complexity theory are applied metaphorically rather than mathematically in the context of organisational change. This assignment, then, shall consider a particular metaphorical application of the concept of entropy, as presented by Carr-Chellman:
In social systems… entropy can be used to convert energies that serve to perturb the system so that it overcomes… the rigid structures which currently keep it from self-organization. Entropy is the energy exchange that is key to substantive change in any social organization. (Carr-Chellman, Reference Carr-Chellman2000, p. 32)
Two further explanations of entropy are cited by Carr-Chellman (Reference Carr-Chellman2000, p. 32): entropy is the ‘inescapable loss of energy in the universe’ (Prigogine & Stengers 1984); and ‘We may think of entropy as measuring the degree of randomness or disorder in a system’ (Coveney and Highfield 1995). Entropy is thus the key to change, randomness or disorder and the loss of energy. Let us consider how these different concepts may be applied within the system of Latin Teaching:
As has been detailed above, the system had been in a condition of near homeostasis for an extended period; entropy was needed to introduce change. But while entropy is required for substantive change, it also is a loss of energy. This may explain why ‘occupational health specialists have blamed rapid organizational change for increases in stress-related illnesses’ (King and Anderson, Reference King and Anderson2002, p. 2) – entropy, as a metaphor for energy loss, can be manifested as illness and time off work. While entropy is necessary, its negative effects must be controlled or managed lest these effects be random, disordered and widespread – overwork, discontentment and stress throughout the system are not conducive to positive change. Since energy must remain constant while entropy always increases (Prigogine, Reference Prigogine1997), there should be some sort of energy equilibrium in play: energy which is dissipated through entropy can either be widespread or focused; there can also be more or less entropy: ultimately, though, as more energy is dissipated through entropy this must either be replaced from outside the system (for example, investment of money), or the entropy must be channelled outside the system (for example, as disruption in the home life of individuals) or the system will cease. Given then, that entropy must happen, it could be argued that Sharwood Smith in his non-formal leadership position acted as a focal point for entropy. Sharwood Smith, described by Forrest (Reference Forrest1996, p. 23) as ‘tireless’, thus attracted much of the energy wastage through entropy onto himself, protecting many others within the system from a more erratic and widespread entropy effect. This is a reconceptualisation of the role of the leader within a complex or chaotic system. The leader can no longer act as one who is controlling or in charge since the outcomes of actions are unpredictable. The leader can nevertheless take on the burden of entropy, attracting the energy-sapping work of meetings and administration onto themselves in order to allow the rest of the system to self-transform more efficiently. Even within a self-transforming system, entropy costs must occur somewhere. I identify these costs as being principally workload and money. The turbulence within the system was such that change had to happen with or without Sharwood Smith; his personal effort, however, and financial support from the Nuffield Foundation, covered most of the entropy costs and allowed the rest of the system to self-transform relatively efficiently. Without these mechanisms, entropy would have occurred in a much more haphazard and unpredictable way and the change process would have been less efficient and less successful. Indeed, the system might have collapsed.
The issue of predictability is of importance to leadership, and chaos theory suggests that predictability is not possible except within broad parameters. When JACT was set up, there is no evidence that a partnership with the Nuffield foundation to set up a project for curriculum reform was envisaged at that time, but rather that this opportunity arose, fitting within the parameters of the objectives of the agents-for-change, and they were in a position to take it. I suggest that Sharwood Smyth and other agents-for-change (in contrast with resisters who wished to maintain specific practices) were in fact not striving for a single pre-decided outcome, but rather for any acceptable outcome within broad parameters. I suggest that this may have been a key reason for the eventual success of the change.
Analysis Part 3: Ideas, Communication and Social Capital
Two things can be observed in our case study of Latin Teaching as things which can usefully be done prior to change: building social capital and nurturing ideas. Sharwood Smith networked well and used his accumulated social capital to transcend the blocks to innovation by creating JACT as a new organisation. Likewise, when the opportunity for change came, it was important and useful that some ideas for reform had already been developed and, although not yet effecting deep structural change, were ripe to be taken and used or built upon; that there was already some familiarity with the ideas helped them to be accepted. King and Anderson (Reference King and Anderson2002, p. 128) highlight the importance of well-networked ‘idea Champions’, though they also suggest that senior staff will be more effective in this role, which does not concur with this study: Melluish was long-established as President of the Classical Association while Sharwood Smith was relatively new. What was of importance was not Sharwood Smith's seniority or lack thereof, but rather his ability to utilise social capital.
It is also clear that, while new ideas may not be innovations in themselves, innovations cannot happen without new ideas (King and Anderson, Reference King and Anderson2002). Bush (1995) notes that, ‘ambiguity is a prevalent feature of complex organizations… and is likely to be particularly acute during periods of rapid change’ (p. 111). Bush points to Cohen and March's garbage can model as a key ambiguity model: Cohen and March (Reference Cohen and March1986) conceptualise solutions as existing separately from problems – solutions, problems, participants and choice opportunities are seen as being in a swirl of independent movement. In the near-homeostatic state of pre-Change Latin Teaching, however, that movement had nearly entirely slowed down. Communication which should have been facilitated by a number of bodies and organisations was in fact blocked by micropolitics and communicative power was concentrated in the hands of relatively few individuals. The setting up of JACT introduced a shift into the dynamics of social capital within the system; JACT, although it had no more formal authority than other bodies (and arguably had even less informal authority), nevertheless allowed for fresh communication to take place.
The lack of formal hierarchical structures in Latin Teaching, and thus the lack of formal hierarchical barriers, may have helped with trying new ideas (King and Anderson Reference King and Anderson2002). Informal barriers, however, stemming from informal hierarchies of personal influence, may have been preventing the spread of innovation prior to the time of punctuation, but the newly-formed JACT and the CSCP gave legitimacy to the trials of new materials carried out under their auspices, thus defeating informal barriers sufficiently to introduce some movement into the system. With communication in the system thus unblocked, solutions were facilitated in finding suitable problems and ideas were more able to emerge.
Conclusion and Recommendations
Beabout (Reference Beabout2012) distinguishes between structural / environmental turbulence and the social process of perturbance, and argues that as a form of disruption leading to positive change, the latter is preferable. The setting up of JACT introduced a gentle, but effective, perturbance into the system which contributed significantly to the Change; multiple crises, however, had already arrived. Sharwood Smith indicates that ‘an educational crisis to create a sense of acute dissatisfaction or insecurity among teachers’ (Reference Sharwood Smith1977, p. 34) was necessary to bring about change. I suggest, however, that, theoretically, substantive change could have occurred without the crises. The reason that multiple crises impacted upon Latin Teaching was that warning signals such as calls for new methodology or improved cultural surrender value were ignored. If these signals had not been ignored, and if the system had been more open to change, the crises may not have occurred or may have been less critical (Senior and Swailes, Reference Senior and Swailes2010). Nevertheless, the primary habitus within Latin Teaching had been formed within that same system, strengthening habitus inertia and disinclining agents to consider change. To recommend that they should not have ignored warning signals is to suggest that agents should have had a different habitus, but this seems of limited use as it is tantamount to suggesting that the change process would be easier if one simply had different people to work with. Yet mechanisms do exist for changing or modifying the habitus.
Arising from my analysis are two recommendations for Latin Teaching, and three general recommendations for making the change process more efficient in similar systems.
Latin Teaching
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1) Sociological understanding is possibly important for consciousness awakening; an interest in sociological theory is recommended for leadership throughout the system so as to improve awareness about the processes of the system/field and lessen misrecognition.
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2) The near-homeostatic condition into which the system had once fallen is to be avoided. Openness to trying new ideas, along with improved movement and communication within the system, should be encouraged.
Making the Change Process More Efficient
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1) The time for substantive educational change in a context similar to Latin teaching is contingent on factors external to the system, particularly the dominant social culture, and cannot be easily controlled. While awaiting a punctuation, activities such as building social capital and nurturing ideas may be useful.
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2) The role of formal or informal leadership can be usefully reconceptualised as focal points for entropy, allowing enough entropy into the system for substantive change to take place, while protecting the rest of the system from the negative effects of widespread or random energy loss. New energy (such as money) can also be welcomed into the system; it is useful if funders realise that the function of this energy is to replace that energy lost to entropy, it is not a control mechanism – they cannot expect specific, predictable outcomes from their investment.
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3) It is useful for leaders, rather than attempting to work towards a predetermined outcome, to accept systemic complexity and to work towards any acceptable outcome within broad parameters, allowing unpredictable solutions to arise.
Endnote
Following the May 2015 UK elections, it seems that proposed KS4 examination changes, which up until now were only ideas (such as the re-introduction of English to Latin translation), are now likely to be realised. A recent CSCP report suggests that these changes will lead to the closure or decline of over half the Latin departments in non-selective state schools in the UK (CSCP, 2015).
My analysis, however, suggests that if new policies are an attempt to reverse the Change, this is unlikely to be successful. If, however, new policies – whether welcome or unwelcome – can be viewed by leadership elements within Latin Teaching as perturbances to which they respond collaboratively, this can help to maintain a level of creative emergence, which may ultimately be healthy for the system.
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