Martin Hughes

PROFILE

Martin Hughes is probably best known, particularly amongst early childhood practitioners, for his work with Margaret Donaldson and Barbara Tizard. Both pieces of work were completed early in his career but he has also been involved in other areas of research.

LINKS

Donaldson

Piaget

Vygotsky

Theories about how children learn to talk

Rogoff

Sylva

His life

Martin Hughes has worked at the University of Exeter as a Professor of Education for some years. He has researched and written on many aspects of children’s learning. In recent years there has been a particular focus on children learning mathematics and the relationship between home and school, and in particular homework. However, in Martin’s earlier career, he worked with Margaret Donaldson focusing on research which challenged Piaget’s work. In the 1980s he worked with Barbara Tizard on the development of language at home and at nursery school.

His writing

Much of his early writing such as the studies referred to in Margaret Donaldson’s book Children’s Minds, was in the form of research papers. Throughout his career the pattern has generally been that he writes in collaboration with others. Two books, both of which have contributed a great deal to theory and practice in early childhood education, stand out. Children and Number (written solely by Hughes in 1986, but with a foreword by Margaret Donaldson) was subtitled difficulties in learning mathematics. It is regarded as important because it highlighted the problems which face children in learning mathematics and pointed to some of the aspects of the teaching of the subject which needed to be reviewed.

Young Children Learning, written in conjunction with Barbara Tizard in 1984, was considered quite controversial at the time of publication because it challenged many ideas, then current, about the development of spoken language. (For further information see pages 82-83 of How Children Learn 2 which sets out in more detail what made this book controversial.) The language used by girls at home and at nursery school was the focus of the study. The subjects of the research were thirty girls - fifteen of whom were described as being working class and fifteen of whom were described as middle class. All of them attended nursery school. Their talk at home (mainly with their mothers) and their talk at school was compared. Tizard and Hughes concluded that the idea that working class language was less rich than that of middle class families was a myth. They also concluded that the staffing ratios and the emphasis on play in the school did not support the girls’ language development as effectively as the conversations in which they were engaged at home.

Children and Number brought to light the fact that the teaching of mathematics often failed to support learning. Hughes suggests that within early education a number of factors need to be addressed. These include:

His theories

Amongst the many varied writing and research projects in which Hughes has been involved it is possible to draw out some common threads. These could be said to form the basis of his theories about children’s learning:

Constructivist views - as Margaret Donaldson’s close association with Martin Hughes would suggest, his theories are constructivist. Hughes’ studies used in Children’s Minds include a well-known challenge to Piaget’s three mountain test (see page 37 of How Children Learn 1). He devised a test which involved a small boy hiding from a policeman. Far more young children were able to solve this problem than had been the case in Piaget‘s original test. Donaldson suggests that this is because Hughes’ test makes human sense to children - they can create a story or motive that makes sense to them in a way that they could not in the situation presented to them by Piaget. Piaget and Hughes agree that children are constructing knowledge - the difference is that Hughes (along with other post-Piagetian thinkers) stresses the importance of human feeling.

The social construction of knowledge - Hughes’ theories place a strong emphasis on the role of home and parents in learning. In this he owes much to the social constructivist theories of Vygotsky (see How Children Learn 1 page 39). He also echoes the views of Barbara Rogoff (see page 57 of this book). One major difference between Rogoff and Hughes lies in the fact that Rogoff focuses on social and creative aspects of development while Hughes researches mainly the role of parents in literacy and numeracy.

Challenging current thinking - although Children and Number and Young Children Learning focus on different aspects of development and learning, what they have in common is that they challenged current thinking about what was happening in schools at the time when they were published. A particularly striking feature of Young Children Learning is the way in which it challenges the idea that middle class homes and nursery schools offer a richer language learning context than the homes of working class children. Hughes’ current work on homework challenges the assumption that it is of itself a good thing.

Respect for children’s thinking and learning - Hughes concludes Children and Number by commenting on children’s “immense capacity…. to grasp difficult ideas if they are presented in ways which interest them and make sense to them” (page 184).

Putting the theory into practice

Hughes’ thinking and research has consistently been both challenging to practitioners and perhaps policy makers but in line with that of other theorists of his time. In the 1970s he was challenging Piagetian theories which were having a strong influence on practice. In the first half of the 1980s he was instrumental in encouraging practitioners to rethink their views on class and language. By the second half of the 1980s his research had shifted to the area of mathematics but the need for learning to make human sense to children was a theme that persisted.

Since that time there has been a major shift in mathematics teaching and learning. Practitioners have worked hard at becoming more aware of the strategies and forms of representation which children develop and use as they try to make sense of the world of number, calculation and shape, space and measures. There is much greater understanding of the need to bridge concrete and abstract aspects of mathematics (Pound 2006) and a recognition that experience alone (while essential) will not enable children to deal with abstract problems. Practitioners have become more aware of the insights to be gained from knowing about children’s experiences at homes. Gifford (2006) describes some of the many aspects of mathematical learning which children gain from their home experiences including learning about money from poker sessions; about speed and distance from making many car journeys or keeping racing pigeons or understanding weights from attending a slimming club with mum! Hughes’ theories have undoubtedly led many practitioners to develop more playful teaching methods with a greater emphasis on the language of mathematics.

His influence

When compared to the work of some of the other thinkers and theorists detailed in this book, Hughes’ work looks quite slim. However, he has had a significant influence in broadening the understanding of practitioners and researchers in the field of early childhood. The criticisms which he and Tizard made of the support given to language development in nursery schools was in tune made by Bruner and others (including Kathy Sylva: see page 54 of this book) working on the Oxford Pre-school Research Project. Moreover, they showed some similarities to the findings of language researchers at the time - most notably Gordon Wells (see page 60 of this book).

It is perhaps in relation to mathematics that most influence can be seen. His work encouraging practitioners to look for and build on children’s mathematical strategies and understanding was ahead of its time. It undoubtedly influenced the way in which the Numeracy Strategy for primary schools was set up in England and its impact can be seen in the writing of a number of early years specialists writing about mathematics twenty years later (see for example Gifford 2005; Worthington and Carruthers 2006; Pound 2006).

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Comment

As can be clearly seen, Hughes’ work has influenced both practitioners and theorists. Perhaps the greatest criticism has been directed at the findings presented in Young Children Learning. Tizard and Hughes were widely criticised for generalising their findings from a small group of girls and making sweeping assertions on the basis of those findings. They claimed for example that children use language at its most effective in situations where they are talking about everyday events. This is in contrast to the findings of Gordon Wells who claimed that boys (as opposed to the girls in Hughes’ study) used language most effectively in imaginative play situations.

There have also been criticisms of the assertion that nursery schools were unnecessarily expensive and placed too much emphasis on play. At the time of publication, the book was reviewed in all the popular press - not the usual kind of review for newspapers such as the Sun or Mirror. In their foreword the authors suggest that their work should not be taken as a criticism of nursery education but inevitably it was widely seen as such. Subsequently however, their suggestions that nurseries and playgroups should build more on children’s previous knowledge and experience has had an impact on practice. Their idea that children need to get out into the world beyond nursery is also an important aspect of many early years settings.

Points for Reflection

References

Children’s Minds Margaret Donaldson, (Fontana 1978)

Teaching mathematics 3-5 Sue Gifford (Open University Press 2005)

Children and Number Martin Hughes (1986 Basil Blackwell)

Supporting mathematical development in the early years Linda Pound (2006 Open University Press)

Young Children Learning Barbara Tizard and Martin Hughes (Fontana 1984)

Children’s Mathematics Maulfry Worthington and Elizabeth Carruthers (2006 Paul Chapman Publishing)

Where to find out more

Transitions and Learning Through the Life Course K. Ecclestone, G. Biesta and M. Hughes (Routledge 2009)

Change and Becoming Through the Life Course K. Ecclestone, G. Biesta and M. Hughes (Routledge 2009)