Chapter 4
The Practice of Prosocial Education
Marvin W. Berkowitz, Wolfgang Althof, and Melinda C. Bier
The term prosocial education is new and still developing as an overarching rubric for a group of approaches, many of which are presented in this book (e.g., character education, social-emotional learning, positive youth development, early childhood education, service learning, civic education). While such fields tend to overlap, often quite appreciably, there are also distinct differences between them, as you will discover in these chapters.
Many sources of data exist to shed light on the question of the current nature of practice across the span of prosocial education. These can be clustered into two groups: best practices and common practices. Best practices are those implementation strategies that have some evidence of effectiveness, most commonly through empirical studies of programs. Common practice refers to that which is being implemented in the typical classroom or school and has not necessarily been validated scientifically. More is known about best practices than common practices.
This chapter presents the current state of knowledge about prosocial education implementation practices. In doing so, we first attempt to map out the field of prosocial education in a brief discussion. Then we describe the sources of information from which we will draw. Next, we discuss the state of practice, both in the best implementations and more commonly. Finally, we draw some summarizing conclusions about the practice of prosocial education.
What Does Prosocial Education Encompass?
Before we describe the scope of prosocial education, we consider why the term was adopted. In essence, this volume and the initiative behind it are responses to a long-standing problem, at least for the past half century in the United States. Berkowitz (1997) described the issue with the metaphors of “the tower of Babel,” “The blind men and the elephant,” and “Humpty Dumpty.” Scholars and practitioners in the field, in summary, are looking at a single phenomenon, namely the positive development of students, but seeing only part of it and thinking they have seen it all (the blind men and the elephant), and they are therefore using different language to name it (the tower of Babel). Prosocial education attempts to examine closely all the “shattered pieces” (the myriad of programs, policies, and practices) and put them back together again (unlike poor Humpty Dumpty) in a logical, scientifically defensible theory that assists educators and policy makers in better understanding the most effective methods for helping students learn and grow into productive, caring citizens.
Schools not only impact the development of their students across the spectrum of being a productive, educated, ethical, socially and emotionally competent, and civic-minded person (or the opposite); they cannot avoid doing so. Educators will always have an impact on this developmental trajectory, for better or for worse. However, educators often do not realize this influence or do not wish to accept it. To paraphrase Aristotle two millennia ago, adults involved with children either help or thwart children’s growth and development, whether we like it, intend it, or not. Given this ancient precept, there are two important steps for the field of education and all who labor within it. First, simply accept this reality as part of one’s job description, as a moral obligation of the role of being both a teacher (Higgins-D’Alessandro, 2002; Jackson, Boostrom, & Hansen, 1993; Sockett, 1993; Tom, 1984) and a surrogate parent (Berkowitz & Grych, 2000) to students. It cannot be avoided; there is no “off switch” to prosocial education. Second, educators must understand the nature and scope of influence in this regard and the optimal methods for providing that influence. In other words, all educators—anyone who works with or around children and adolescents—must understand the range of a prosocial student’s knowledge, skills, and dispositions of relevance and the developmental impact of these elements, at least in a school context.
A word of caution is warranted here. This field, at least in most contemporary societies, may be fraught with controversy when prosocial education’s individual components are examined. This domain deals not only with psychological well-being and competency (a controversial topic in its own right) but with goodness (i.e., morality, ethics, virtue) and citizenship. These concepts tend to raise debates, perhaps due to intrinsic characteristics. Hence, they tend to be polarizing. In fact, they function almost as projective tests, upon which people project their trepidations.
Two examples regarding character education highlight our point. At one meeting of character educators, two perspectives were aired. One was that character education is a right-wing, fundamentalist Christian movement, and the other was that it was a leftist, atheistic movement. The former perspective came from liberal educators fearing that character education was trying to sneak conservative religious and political values into schools to brainwash students, and the latter was from conservative Christians who feared that character education was a public, secular attempt to teach non-Christian values. Most intriguing, these perspectives were shared at a meeting of educators working on the same project in the same state. The other example occurred during a 2009 meeting of character education grantees, when representatives of the U.S. Department of Education voiced concern that the term character education was too controversial and that school climate would be the focus of its future grants.
For us, prosocial education is the intentional attempt in schools to foster the development of students’ psychological characteristics that motivate and enable them to act in ethical, democratic, and socially effective and productive ways. This effort includes the cognitive skills and knowledge necessary for such functioning, as well as the motives and social and emotional competencies to do so. Whether an educational initiative tackles the broad array of such characteristics or merely some select subset (e.g., self-control, ethical reasoning ability, community service orientation), we consider it to be prosocial education.
Methods
Perhaps the most challenging aspect of our project to describe the practices of prosocial education was to figure out how to go about amassing evidence. To date, no single comprehensive analytical study of current practices in all the disciplines within prosocial education exists (i.e., no one has studied what all civic educators, all service-learning implementers, or all character educators do in their classrooms, schools, and school districts). Nor could such a statement be made because prosocial education educators do lots of different things. For instance, in the What Works in Character Education review (Berkowitz & Bier, 2005a), we reported that the most effective character education programs each included ten or eleven discrete implementation strategies—and each of them used a different set of such strategies. Hence, we have to piece together a picture of prosocial education practices from a variety of sources.
The clearest picture of the practice of prosocial education comes from studies of best practice. Several program reviews of prosocial education components have been conducted by Berkowitz and Bier (2005a), the What Works Clearinghouse, and CASEL’s Smart and Sound study, while rigorous meta-analyses have been conducted in service learning, social-emotional learning, and civic education (cited above in chapter 3). However, few of these studies actually describe the molecular practices and instead focus either on a specific approach (e.g., service learning) or on composite programs (e.g., the Child Development Project). What Works in Character Education (WWCE) (Berkowitz & Bier, 2005a) had a prosocial education focus, since multiple relevant components were included: character education, social-emotional learning, substance abuse prevention, service learning, and violence prevention programs and studies. Although far less than ideal, WWCE attempted to isolate common practices across thirty-three programs identified as effective. An obvious shortcoming is the absence of numerous components described in other chapters herein—after-school programs, early childhood education, contemplative education, and others.
To attempt to identify the most common practices of prosocial education among educators is a more daunting task. For quite some time we have worked closely with the Character Education Partnership (CEP). As a result we are aware of an unpublished national survey of educators that CEP performed a few years ago. This survey included some information assessing the common prosocial practices taking place in schools, but the sample was not random and the response rate was less than 7 percent. Other than that study, the main source of knowledge in this domain is experiential and anecdotal. For example, the first author has mentored nearly four hundred school administrators over the past decade, and the first task they undertake is to write a description of what they already are doing in their schools regarding character education. Resulting efforts have included a wide range of prosocial education components. Additionally, having led many workshops for educators, the authors have frequently asked participants to describe what is implemented currently in their schools. The authors also have been part of the grant-review process for three years for the Sprint Ahead for Education grants and have seen what schools propose to implement. A relatively informative picture arises when these sources are all considered together.
What Can Schools Do?
Much literature has been written about best practices. In most domains of prosocial education, at least one prominent list can be found for recommended classroom or school implementation strategies or practices. These lists are typically grounded, at least indirectly and often directly, in research on the effects of implementation. In character education, for example, such lists are available in the What Works in Character Education study (Berkowitz & Bier, 2005a), the Smart and Good High Schools project (Lickona & Davidson, 2005), and the Character Education Partnership’s Eleven Principles Sourcebook (Beland, 2003). In the social-emotional learning field, multiple lists of core strategies are available, ranging from one approach to thirty-nine different strategies (Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning [CASEL], 2005; Durlak, Weissberg, Dymnicki, Taylor, & Schellinger, 2011; Elias, 2003; Elias et al., 1997; Payton et al., 2008; Weissberg, 2000; Zins, Bloodworth, Weissberg, & Walberg, 2004).
Integrating or summarizing across these domains, studies, and conclusions is challenging because they differ not only in the number of implementation strategies they identify but also in two other, very important ways. First, some practices are explicitly grounded in empirical research. For example, Berkowitz and Bier (2005a) identify implementation strategies that are most common across thirty-three research-supported character education programs. The others tended to extrapolate more indirectly from research reviews or meta-analyses (e.g., CASEL, 2005). Lickona and Davidson (2005) reach their conclusion from a mix of research, case studies, and expert testimony. Second, some reports focused on specific school or classroom teaching strategies (e.g., Berkowitz & Bier, 2005a), while others tended to focus on broader strategies for planning or sustaining initiatives (e.g., Zins et al., 2004), and one even described the virtues of an institution that promote positive development (Peterson, 2006). Such institutional virtues were as follows: a shared and celebrated purpose or mission, a safe environment, fair and equitable rules and policies, the humanity of mutual caring, and a practice of treating everyone with dignity. Because this chapter is concerned more with the molecular, specific educational strategies used by educators, we focus on conclusions most relevant to that goal. In turn, a set of metastrategies and a set of pedagogical strategies are identified. First, we consider five metastrategies for effective prosocial education.
1. Using a varied set of implementation strategies bundled into an integrated implementation. As noted above, What Works in Character Education (Berkowitz & Bier, 2005a) reported that effective character education programs were multifaceted and therefore could have been called prosocial education programs. They averaged 7.5 discrete strategies per program, with the most effective programs averaging 10.5 strategies. Kim (2001) found that educators report using a comprehensive range of activities. The Character Education Partnership and the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning both recommend comprehensive multifaceted initiatives (Beland, 2003; Elias, 2003). Below, in examining more specific pedagogical strategies, we identify fourteen evidence-based categories of practice (Berkowitz, in press). In building an effective prosocial education program, one could draw from this list to ensure both the utilization of research-based practices and the diversity of strategies that typifies effective programs.
2. Ensuring adequate effective professional development to support the initiative. Berkowitz and Bier (2005a) reported professional development as one of the common denominators of effective programs. This metastrategy is also one of the ten guidelines for effective social-emotional learning (SEL) practice (CASEL, 2005) and a central focus of the Comer process for change in education (Comer, 1999). In chapter 9, this volume, Cohen names it as a key aspect of their School Improvement Roadmap, delineating a sequence of professional development strategies and connecting them to specific aspects of school improvement.
3. Basing practices on theory and research. This strategy is the first guideline listed for effective SEL practice (CASEL, 2005) and for democratic civic and moral education (Power, Higgins, & Kohlberg, 1989; Oser, Althof, & D’Allessandro, 2008). Theory- and research-based practices also were emphasized across various subfields of prosocial education (e.g., Berkowitz, 2002; Billig, 2000; Seligman, Ernst, Gillham, Reivich, & Linkins, 2009; Solomon, Watson, & Battistich, 2001).
4. Creating a collaborative, ethical, and professional adult culture in the school. This strategy is a primary focus for many identified models and programs: the Smart and Good High Schools model (Lickona & Davidson, 2005); Character Education Partnership’s Eleven Principles of Effective Character Education (Beland, 2003); the Comer process (Comer, 1999); and the Just Community model (Higgins-D’Alessandro, 2010; Power et al., 1989). One of the most common forms of such adult culture restructuring is DuFour and Eaker’s (1998) professional learning community (PLC) model. While PLC is an exemplary framework for using data to reflect on and improve instruction, it is also an excellent framework for (1) reforming a school’s adult culture by creating the norm and structure for collaborative strategic planning, and (2) focusing on improving student behavioral outcomes. Unfortunately, the latter is not an explicit focus of PLC training, and resources and schools therefore often only apply the PLC structure to academic data and not to prosocial education data. Lickona and Davidson (2005) in their Smart and Good High Schools model, however, expand PLCs to PELCs (professional ethical learning communities), which is a step toward reaping the full benefits of a prototypical prosocial education model.
5. Evaluating the initiative and using data to drive practice and program improvement. Evaluation is the Character Education Partnership’s eleventh principle (Beland, 2003; Lickona, Schaps, & Lewis, 2003) and CASEL’s tenth guideline (CASEL, 2005). Using data from evaluation results to drive program improvement is central to multiple programs and models: the CHARACTERplus Way (Marshall, Caldwell, & Foster, 2011); Community of Caring (Higgins-D’Alessandro, Guo, Sakwarawich, & Guffey, 2011); the Multi-Dimensional Education Assessment model (Corrigan, Grove, & Vincent, 2011); and the School Climate Improvement Process (Cohen, chapter 9 in this volume).
Research-Based Implementation Strategies for Prosocial Education Success
After discovering five metastrategies at the macro level, we moved next to a closer investigation at the molecular level: the specific practices occurring in schools. From reviews of pertinent research, we identified a set of implementation strategies that are recommended for prosocial education success.
1. Strategically focus on caring for students and others and building relationships among all stakeholders. This theme is common in prosocial education efforts (e.g., Beland, 2003; Berkowitz & Bier, 2005a; CASEL, 2005; Cohen, 2006; Comer, 1999; Elias, 2003; Watson, 2007). Part of this process is creating a caring community and prosocial school and classroom climate (Cohen, 2006). Strategies for building relationships include (1) beginning-of-the-year unity-building activities (Denton & Kriete, 2000; Developmental Studies Center, 1998; Urban, 2008; Scarsdale Alternative School, chapter 8, case study C in this volume); (2) cooperative learning (Johnson, Johnson, & Holubec, 1994); (3) looping classrooms (when a teacher remains with the same group of students for two or more years) at the elementary level, teams and/or advisories at the middle school level, and homerooms/advisories at the high school level.
2. Building a climate of trust and trustworthiness is central to school success. While this practice could be understood as a component of the first strategy, it has received enough individual scientific attention that it merits separate treatment (Bryk & Schneider, 2002; Cohen, 2006; Tschannen-Moran, 2004). Tschannen-Moran (2004) found that such a climate is best supported by the following facets of trust: benevolence, honesty, openness, reliability, and competence. Leaders, in particular, but others as well, need to:
3. Teaching social-emotional skills and nurturing their gradual and systematic development. This is the core tenet of social-emotional learning (CASEL, 2005; Elias, 2003; Zins et al., 2004). The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning offers extensive research and implementation guidance for social-emotional learning, which probably has the strongest focus on teaching interpersonal and intrapersonal competencies of any of the components of prosocial education. Interestingly, teaching SEL skills is what educators say they most typically do when asked about character education practices (Kim, 2001). In a review of character education, SEL, service learning, and prevention programs, we found that this is commonly part of what effective programs do (Berkowitz & Bier, 2005a). In the EQUIP program (Brugman & Gibbs, 2010; DiBiase, 2010), both juvenile offenders and middle school students are “equipped” with core SEL competencies in which they are deficient, for example, by scaffolding empathy in supportive peer groups and teaching them to recognize cognitive distortions in their and others’ social attributions.
4. Providing opportunities to serve others. Structured opportunities to serve others are the central element in service learning (Billig, 2000; Billig, Jesse, & Grimley, 2008; chapter 10 in this volume). Though community service and volunteering are different than service learning (with the latter necessarily connected to curricula, academic goals, and instructional methods), prosocial education recognizes that these three activities are avenues for allowing students to practice prosocial behavior, act on prosocial motives, and discover the intrinsic benefits of serving others. In fact, serving others seems to be a supported element across most prosocial education components (Berkowitz & Bier, 2005a) and is both recommended and reported by educators as a common practice (Kim, 2001). It is crucial to civic education and is the fifth of the Character Education Partnership’s Eleven Principles of Effective Character Education (Lickona et al., 2003). Some schools either require service or create optional courses or other mechanisms for promoting it. Former superintendent Sheldon Berman led the Hudson (MA) Public Schools to national prominence by systemically promoting social responsibility in students, in large part by institutionalizing service to others (Berman, 2011). Berman went so far as to have a new high school architecturally designed to support this pedagogy (see chapter 19 in this handbook).
5. Involve parents and other community members, ideally as partners. While research has shown that parental involvement in their children’s education has a positive impact on academic achievement (Fan & Chen, 2001), it is also an important ingredient in effective prosocial education. Involving parents is the Character Education Partnership’s tenth principle (Lickona et al., 2003); one of the frequent recommendations in social-emotional learning (CASEL, 2005; Elias, 2003); and a component in effective character education programs (Berkowitz & Bier, 2005a, 2005b). Parental involvement should go beyond merely keeping parents apprised of school information and be extended to serving parental needs and, ideally, including parents as partners in designing, delivering, and evaluating prosocial education. Schools are also advised to think beyond the ubiquitous Parent Teacher Organization (PTO) officers and to incorporate as many parents as possible, and then to think beyond parents to other community stakeholders who do not have children in the school (e.g., law enforcement, local government, clergy, local business owners, school board members).
6. Emphasize peer-interactive teaching strategies. This category of implementation methods is not explicitly identified in many prosocial education lists of best practices, but it was a core finding of the What Works in Character Education study of character education, moral education, SEL, service learning, and prevention programs (Berkowitz & Bier, 2005a). Furthermore, when examining which individual pedagogical practices have the strongest research base, Berkowitz and Bier identified two: cooperative learning (Johnson et al., 1994) and peer moral dilemma discussion (Berkowitz, 1985). Service learning is typically a collaborative activity as well (e.g., Berger, 2003). The list of peer interactive strategies goes well beyond these practices to include class meetings, cross-age structures like elementary classroom buddying, multiaged middle and high school advisories, peer tutoring, professional learning communities, and vertical faculty teams.
7. A pedagogy of empowerment that promotes collaboration and democratic decision making. One of the ironies of education in a democratic society is attempting to educate future democratic citizens within an inordinately authoritarian and hierarchical organization, which essentially disempowers those at the lower level of the educational system—students and teachers. We have long advocated for the democratizing of classrooms and schools (Berkowitz, Althof, & Jones, 2008; Berkowitz & Puka, 2009). Educators recommended this approach (Kim, 2001), and it is central to the Smart and Good High Schools blueprint (Lickona & Davidson, 2005). Berkowitz and Grych (2000), in their extrapolation from parenting effects on child development, also include this recommended practice for teachers. Furthermore, civic education considers empowerment a critical experiential aspect of its processes. The Center for Civic Education states as its “principal goals . . . to help students develop (1) an increased understanding of the institutions of constitutional democracy and the fundamental principles and values upon which they are founded, (2) the skills necessary to participate as competent and responsible citizens, and (3) the willingness to use democratic procedures for making decisions and managing conflict” (Center for Civic Education, 2012, para. 2). The latter two are directly built upon democratic experience. The Just Community schools approach to moral education also is focused predominantly on democratizing schools (Levine & Higgins-D’Alessandro, 2010; Power & Higgins-D’Alessandro, 2008; Power et al., 1989; Rodstein, chapter 8, case study C in this volume). The Caring School Community program highlights the democratization of classrooms (Dalton & Watson, 1997), largely through the implementation of class meetings (Developmental Studies Center, 1998) in which teachers are taught to facilitate students collaborating on planning events, making decisions, and solving problems.
8. Providing opportunities for learning about and grappling with ethical issues. In the “head, heart, and hand” of character, the “head” has two main parts—knowledge of the good and the capacity to reason critically about social and moral issues. Both are important outcome goals of prosocial education, but they require different methods to achieve success. The explicit integration of prosocial education content and methods in the academic curriculum is recommended in many places (e.g., Beland, 2003; Kim, 2001). However, Berkowitz and Bier (2005a) found that while thirty-three effective programs claimed to be integrating character education into the curriculum, most were more likely to be engaging in “wedging”: inserting character education lessons between academic lessons. To increase knowledge (the first goal of the Center for Civic Education mentioned above), one can rely on more traditional didactic methods (e.g., reading about or teaching about). But to promote critical thinking, teachers must increase the degree to which students are given structured opportunities to “grapple” (Sizer & Sizer, 1999) with social and moral problems. In a simple sense, to promote knowledge one can provide answers to questions, but to promote critical thinking, one must provide problems to solve and the opportunity to do so (ideally collaboratively). Again, educators recommended this strategy (Kim, 2001), and it is part of the Smart and Good High Schools model (Lickona & Davidson, 2005). It is also the primary focus of the moral dilemma discussion method (Berkowitz, 1985) and of Just Community schools (see Rodstein, chapter 8, case study C in this volume) and an important element of Sizer’s model for prosocial education in high schools (Sizer & Sizer, 1999).
9. Collaboratively identifying a shared mission, supporting goal setting, and advocating for shared values and goals. The Character Education Partnership emphasizes an integrated, collaborative, mission-driven approach to school reform for prosocial education (Lickona et al., 2003) and is a core practice of the Smart and Good High Schools model (Lickona & Davidson, 2005). Elbot and Fulton (2008) advocated this strategy as part of a schoolwide focus, and they offer guidance on how to craft not only a mission but a touchstone that can be widely used to invoke the school’s core mission. CHARACTERplus, CASEL, and the National School Climate Center offer guidance on a stepwise process for building consensus, involving stakeholders, and crafting a shared understanding of the purpose of schooling. When such understandings truly drive policy and practice, they can most effectively support prosocial education.
10. Adult modeling of prosocial characteristics. Adult role-modeling was identified as a practice of effective programs (Berkowitz & Bier, 2005a) and has been recommended as a parenting practice that should be applied to schools (Berkowitz & Grych, 2000). This practice is the core message of Sizer’s high school model (Sizer & Sizer, 1999) and Parker Palmer’s (1998) teacher renewal process (see also Scarsdale Alternative School in chapter 8, case study C, regarding the expectation for teachers to be role-model citizens). Easier said than done, a core piece of this strategy focuses on the adult culture of a school. Largely overlooked in most prosocial education programs, adult modeling should be part of educational training curricula through preservice education and educational leadership certification. Though a leader’s job is to strategically nurture such an adult culture (Berkowitz, 2011), the skills to do so are often underdeveloped. Lickona and Davidson’s (2005) notion of a PELC (professional ethical learning community) is a good basis for designing such a culture. Creating a shared understanding (see above) of the core values of the school mission is also supportive of this effort. When Francis Howell Middle School (St. Charles, Missouri; see chapter 6, case study A, in this volume) began its journey to becoming a National School of Character, Principal Amy Johnston challenged her staff and herself to look in the mirror, because “it starts with us.” This was both highly off-putting and highly rewarding and, ultimately, impactful for the staff.
11. Integrating prosocial education throughout the school. Schools usually start by doing prosocial education in an encapsulated aspect of the school. They may adopt an SEL curriculum and just rely on those lessons. They may add a community service strand. They may agree on some core values and teach lessons about them. Ideally, however, prosocial education should be integrated across the entire spectrum of school life. It should be core to the mission, be integrated into the academic curriculum, drive the behavior management policy and practice, be part of after-school and other extracurricular elements, undergird student government, drive professional development and professional learning communities, and be part of efforts to improve school climate.
12. Developmental discipline. Perhaps the most important and intractable component of educating for prosocial development is how discipline is managed in a school. Educators constantly struggle with behavior management, preservice education largely glosses over it, and educator instincts seem to rely heavily on behaviorist strategies (punishment, rewards, etc.). Yet research (Deci, Koestner, & Ryan, 2001) has demonstrated that extrinsic rewards undermine the development of intrinsic motivation. Developmental discipline (Watson, 2007) is an approach to managing behavior that shifts the focus from management of immediate behavior to the promotion of long-term prosocial development. It does so by focusing on the development of trusting relationships (Watson & Ecken, 2003) in autonomy-supportive ways (Reeve & Halusic, 2009). Strategies include making consequences relevant, student-led academic integrity systems, student-negotiated behavior contracts, and the use of induction (e.g., teachers are trained to explain their evaluations of student behavior by focusing on consequences to others).
13. High expectations for academics and behavior. Educators may misperceive that prosocial education is “soft,” that it lowers the standards for both behavior and academic achievement by being an overly permissive and unstructured approach to education. Opponents call for a return to a more traditional and demanding form of education (Wynne & Ryan, 1993). However, research on both schooling (Wentzel, 2002) and parenting (Berkowitz & Grych, 1998) has indicated that setting high expectations promotes prosocial development. Effective prosocial education schools set high expectations for both academic achievement and student behavior; they also model and scaffold such behaviors and outcomes to support student success and prosocial development. Strategies include creating a rubric of key outcome variables, ideally created collaboratively with students and perhaps other stakeholders; teaching goal-setting strategies; and adult modeling of adhering to high standards of learning, work, and interpersonal behavior (see above).
14. Professional Development. Professional development in education is widely studied (Avalos, 2011) but poorly implemented (Reeves, 2010). In prosocial education, professional development is almost ubiquitous. What Works in Character Education (Berkowitz & Bier, 2005a) reported that all thirty-three effective programs had at least optional professional development, and the Safe and Sound review of social-emotional learning programs (CASEL, 2005) found the same for all but one of seventy-nine programs reviewed. This is not a statement about quality of professional development, merely its frequency. Practical experience has taught us that high-quality, targeted, and sustained professional development is of paramount importance to the effectiveness of prosocial education. Suggested strategies include the following:
What Is Being Done in the Name of Prosocial Education?
A 2001 national survey commissioned by the Character Education Partnership (Kim, 2001) was sent to ten thousand educators, and 687 responded (less than 7 percent). Approximately one-third of respondents were CEP members, and slightly over half said they were already familiar with character education. About 25 percent were teachers, with the next two largest groups being counselors (15 percent) and school administrators (13 percent). The respondents were actually quite diverse in their job roles, as the second largest group was “other” (21 percent), comprised of eleven different job titles. There was also a fairly even split of urban, rural, and suburban sites and level of school.
The key findings of relevance for this discussion are from two items. One asked what types of character education initiatives were being implemented in their schools. The results were as follows: (1) teaching social skills, 68 percent; (2) publicizing virtues or values, 67 percent; (3) value recognition and reward programs, 53 percent; (4) a comprehensive range of activities, 43 percent; (5) service learning, 40 percent; and (6) other, 11 percent (this category included curricular integration of values, weekly club activities, honor system, punishment system, including life skills on report cards, summer orientation for new students, state competitions for character, reading lists, after-school programs, and essay or art contests). A particularly interesting aspect of this list is that some of the more frequent strategies are typically associated more with social-emotional learning (teaching skills) and service learning than with character education, even though this was an explicitly character education sample. In other words, educators seem not to be as concerned with or aware of the conceptual distinctions and “turf” in this field as experts or researchers may be. More respondents (518) could report the implementation of character education strategies than reported that they were familiar with character education (361). These findings offer support for the focus of this volume to promote an overarching rubric—prosocial education—to encompass the array of concepts and strategies in the overlapping subdisciplines.
The second survey item relevant to this discussion asked respondents what they felt were the “key influences on character development.” We think this item’s answer reflects respondents’ sense of what works. Findings included (1) opportunities to develop caring positive relationships with peers and staff, 74 percent; (2) opportunities to be of service to others in school and the community, 60 percent; (3) opportunities to discuss ethical issues embedded in the curriculum, 42 percent; (4) opportunities to have a real say in school decisions, plans, and problems, 33 percent; (5) discipline with appropriate consequences, 29 percent; (6) opportunities to study core virtues or values in special courses or class periods, 27 percent; (7) awards programs that publicly recognize students of character, 17 percent; and (8) posters, announcements, and motivational speakers, 9 percent.
The most intriguing finding from the responses to these two items is the consistent discrepancy between which practices educators thought were most effective and which practices they were most likely to implement in their schools and classrooms. Educators say they were directly teaching skills, publicizing values, and rewarding and recognizing values. The second two of these three were in fact the two least impactful strategies (certainly by the estimation of the respondents, but also from research in the field), and the first did not even appear on the list of impactful strategies. They reported that the most impactful strategies are to promote the development of caring relationships, provide opportunities to serve others, discuss ethical issues in the curriculum, and provide opportunities to empower student voices in school governance, planning, and problem solving. The only one of these that appears on the list of actual implementation is service learning, and that is ranked fifth. One conclusion we might draw is that educators know what works (which will be discussed in more detail in the next section). However, instead of implementing what works, they implemented other strategies that are deemed less impactful. In our work with educators, we often have found this to be the case. One generalization we use is that educators tend to be well intentioned but end up implementing high-saliency, low-impact strategies that they see as possible, given the pressures of other priorities or due to a lack of exposure to more effective alternatives. These strategies tend to cluster around exhortation, public recognition, didactic instruction, and extrinsic rewards. This conclusion is close to what the survey results suggest. As argued above, one remedy for this may be to implement more targeted, high-quality professional development.
A major purpose of this chapter is to examine what is implemented currently in the name of prosocial education. Some data exist to begin this examination, which can be compared with educators’ and experts’ recommendations for implementation strategies and practices. This comparison resulted in the following conclusions.
Five of the top six educator-identified effective strategies are on the list of expert suggestions (promoting caring relationships, opportunities for service, discussing ethical issues, democratic decision making or empowerment, studying values in the curriculum). The only educator suggestion that does not show up on the expert lists is developmental discipline. Between these two lists, sixteen strategies are recommended (some have been combined above in the list of implementation strategies, and others were relegated to the preceding list of macroprinciples). Three of these appear on the short list of what educators report that they most frequently implement (opportunities for service, multicomponent initiatives, teaching social-emotional skills). The only strategy that both educators and experts recommended and that educators reported implementing is providing opportunities for serving others. In other words, there is a huge gap between what is prescribed and what educators report implementing.
Given that the term is new and encompasses a set of overlapping but at least partially discrete disciplines, conclusions about what is being implemented in prosocial education must be both general and largely impressionistic. We drew upon our extensive collective experience in mentoring districts, schools, school leaders, and teachers to provide the following sections to describe our conclusions about actual implementation.
Unnamed implementation. Most educators do not know that they are implementing prosocial education and do not name it explicitly. When most educators are asked, “How many of you are already doing character education, prosocial education, social-emotional learning, service learning, etc.?” most of them either say they are not implementing any of these strategies or are unsure. They may not be familiar with the names or may not realize that what they do is an aspect of one or more of these approaches. An additional problem specific to service learning is that most educators cannot differentiate between community service and service learning. They typically are doing service projects (e.g., a canned food drive) that are not connected to the academic curriculum and call them service learning.
Grassroots implementation. Whether educators are aware that they are engaging in one or more of these approaches, they typically are implementing a homegrown or grassroots initiative. That is, they are more likely to be implementing strategies or an overall initiative that was designed on-site rather than adopted from elsewhere. They may have adopted specific strategies (e.g., how to run their advisory program, a classroom discipline technique, a service project) from elsewhere, but the overall approach may be cobbled together. Schools and districts are more likely than individual teachers to adopt packaged programs (see Berkowitz & Bier, 2005b, and CASEL, 2005, for lists of research-supported programs), but still they are more likely to implement homegrown initiatives.
Focus on exhortation, public recognition, and reward. Certainly the most common implementation strategies under the rubric of character education are teaching about and verbal advocacy for core values or virtues, public recognition of those who manifest the values or virtues, and extrinsic rewards for such behavior. These elements are less likely to be in research-based programs, but educators frequently implement these strategies anyway. Little research evidence exists to suggest that such strategies are effective, and there is much to show that they are either ineffective or actually detrimental to prosocial development (Kohn, 1993; Larrivee, 2002; Warneken & Tomasello, 2008).
A current challenge is the rapid state- and local-level adoption of Positive Behavioral Intervention and Support (PBIS), sometimes at the schoolwide level (SWPBIS). PBIS (Bambara, Dunlap, & Schwartz, 2004) is a largely behavioral approach originally designed for severely cognitively impaired individuals for whom more cognitive- and language-based interventions are not indicated. A central aspect of PBIS is extrinsic behavior modification (rewards, etc.). Eventually this approach was applied more widely to various special needs populations and then to entire schools. Educators seem not to understand the conceptual and empirical conflict with recommended best practices of prosocial education (see above) and prosocial parenting (Berkowitz & Grych, 1998).
Short-lived packaged programs. An interesting lesson can be learned from the debate within character education about the source of the school’s or classroom’s value mission. This debate centers on whether the core values or goals should be adopted from a vetted list of universal (or at least widely accepted) values, such as the CharacterCounts! Six Pillars of Character, or should be created through a community-based consensus process (Beland, 2003). The argument for the latter is that when people create something themselves, they are more likely to remain invested in it and sustain a commitment to it. When Kohlberg did a major implementation study (Colby, Kohlberg, Fenton, Speicher-Dubin, & Lieberman, 1977), he discovered that as soon as the funding ended, implementation also stopped. Educators of funded implementation projects often have reported the same phenomenon, sometimes occurring abruptly and sometimes gradually. Ending programs can create a real problem for the field, as homegrown initiatives may endure longer than imported ones but are less likely to be based on research and theory and therefore are less likely to result in effective practices. Fortunately, recent research in social-emotional learning suggests that teacher-delivered lessons are more effective than expert-delivered lessons (Payton et al., 2008).
Professional development. Effective practice requires quality professional development (PD). Such professional development, however, is typically expensive or not available locally. Even when it is attainable, quality PD is difficult to sustain, especially over the long run when inevitable staff turnover challenges the maintenance of staff expertise. A primary reason why so many schools in the St. Louis region are doing deep and effective character education is that two organizations (CHARACTERplus and the Center for Character and Citizenship at the University of Missouri–St. Louis) have made frequent and high-quality professional development available to educators in the region, often at low or no cost to the schools. Berkowitz and Bier (2005a) reported that all thirty-three identified research-based programs included at least optional (and sometimes mandatory) professional development. Similar to CHARACTERplus, Great Expectations (2012) has created a statewide network of workshops and regional coaches to support its program in Oklahoma, funded in large part by the state. Such models of stable professional development support need to be replicated.
Incoherence. Unless a prosocial education initiative is adopted from a theoretically or empirically driven model, the effort tends to be more of an amalgam of disconnected, and even incompatible, elements. There are a number of ways this is manifested. One principal described his epiphany about his ongoing and frustrating effort to build an effective program at his middle schools: “I suddenly realized that we already have more than enough stuff already going on. In fact, we have programs coming out of the windows! I realized that what we needed to do was focus on the school climate, and not on adding more programs.” He realized that he needed coherence, not increased quantity, something to bring all of the elements together.
Many schools not only do not have such coherence, but they also do not realize that it is an issue. One principal excitedly reported on his new initiative: “We had a cheating scandal and realized how rampant academic dishonesty is, so we realized we needed to do something. We have adopted service learning and all our staff are being trained and we are integrating it throughout our curriculum.” We congratulated him on adopting a powerful prosocial education method, but we asked him what service learning had to do with academic integrity. He appeared stunned, as he had never considered what we refer to as the “alignment problem,” that is, the failure to align outcomes with methods.
The alignment challenge points to the rationale for developing a logic model. Few educators consider this need. Ideally, for a prosocial education initiative to be coherent in this sense (i.e., to have conceptual integrity), its designers should be able to articulate a logical progression between implementation strategies and outcomes. This logical relationship should be generated in reverse, starting with the end, the targeted outcomes. The outcomes need to be relevant, measurable, and clearly defined. Then theory or research can identify the methods that are most likely to affect those specific outcomes. In our experience, prosocial educators rarely engage in this kind of planning and justification. Reflection seldom occurs, or at best post hoc justifications (that tend to be incomplete and inaccurate) are offered. Recently, one principal proudly extolled the apparently seamless integration of PBIS with the Developmental Studies Center’s Caring School Community program, not realizing that they are respectively derived from two very different and largely contradictory psychological frameworks, namely behaviorism and constructivism. The two models disagree strongly, for example, on the appropriateness of extrinsic rewards for promoting the development of prosocial characteristics, as well as on the nature and sources of child development (Dalton & Watson, 1997; Reese & Overton, 1970).
Head, heart, and hand. Dating at least to eighteenth-century European philosophy, the goals of education and child development have been characterized as having cognitive (head), affective or motivational (heart), and behavioral (hand) parts. The Character Education Partnership uses this framework as central to its definition of character (Character Education Partnership, 2012). The Civic Mission of Schools (Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement [CIRCLE], 2003) uses a similar framework to promote civic development: knowledge, dispositions, and skills. Berkowitz and Bier (2005b) discovered that it is the hand (behavioral outcomes) that is more frequently measured as outcomes of prosocial education. Of all the 1,155 variables measured in the sixty-nine research studies reviewed, 53 percent were behaviors, 24 percent were motives or emotions, and 23 percent were cognitive in nature. Interestingly, a large difference was found in the degree to which the programs were successful at significantly impacting these three clusters of variables. Behaviors significantly improved 49 percent of the time, emotions and motives improved 45 percent of the time, but cognitions improved 62 percent of the time. This finding is not surprising because teachers tend to focus on teaching to the head. In civic education, for example, heavy emphasis is placed on teaching about civics, with a lesser emphasis on developing civic skills. Often the “heart” of civics is left to an unspoken notion that learning about and doing will generate motivation. For example, educators hope that students who engage in civic action will generally develop a desire to continue the strategy. A long-standing axiom, “To know the good is to do the good” (paraphrasing Socrates), was dispelled long ago in the prevention science field (e.g., Schinke, Botvin, & Orlandi, 1991). Seider (2008) demonstrated that for privileged adolescents, learning about social justice does little to increase a sense of obligation to those less fortunate.
Prosocial educators often do not recognize that different pedagogies and implementation strategies are plentiful for promoting the cognitive, affective or motivational, and behavioral aspects of prosocial development. Whereas a didactic pedagogy may suffice for fostering knowledge about prosocial goals, it is not effective at promoting motivation or skills. Social-emotional learning is particularly expert at methods for fostering the acquisition and development of behavioral skills. Most of the subdisciplines of prosocial education, we believe, are not as clear or as effective regarding the “heart” of prosocial development. When classrooms and schools are effective at helping students attach their “hearts” to prosocial values, they tend to share some common characteristics. First, the school clearly articulates a value mission. Second, the adults in the school clearly model those prosocial characteristics. Third, the school intentionally nurtures the development of caring relationships among all its members and stakeholders. These strategies are likely to lead students to emotionally attach to the school as a sociological entity, a caring community (Berkowitz & Bier, 2005b). Solomon et al. (2000) have shown these strategies to act as the gatekeeper between implementation strategies and developmental outcomes, concluding that implementation works to the degree that students come to perceive their schools as caring communities and emotionally bond to them. When emotional bonds form, students internalize the values articulated by the school’s values mission, modeled by the school as an institution, and the adults in the school as role models. Schools that follow this logic will want to assess students’ sense of connectedness to the school.
Closing Recommendations
For the practice of prosocial education to be effective, we recommend that the following elements of implementation be emphasized:
As the field of prosocial education coalesces, hopefully more will become known about effective practices both within and across subdomains. Such knowledge will be critical in creating effective prosocial education schools and classrooms.
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