Embracing Human Variability: Educational Psychology Within a Dynamic Globalized Neoliberal Context

• In Event: A 360 View of Learning: Educational Psychologists Grapple With the Contemporary Higher Education Landscape

Abstract

Alexander (2017) suggests that educational psychology historically has been positioned as the “intermediary inventive mind” of the teaching and learning world (p. 2). In today’s global context of unprecedented migration and intensified nation-state responses informed by neoliberal ideology, there is a heightened need for the creativity of educational psychologists to advance the teaching and learning process of all learners. The globalized neoliberal context of education is increasingly marginalizing underrepresented groups, exposing the limiting biases of teachers and curriculum (Gillborn & Youdell, 2000). Recognizing the increasingly globalized context, Alexander (2017) suggests that educational psychologists must consider new ways to address teaching and learning while embracing human variability.

As an educational psychologist, I have engaged in facilitating teaching and learning across 40 countries. Presently I work alongside faculty in teacher education as well as faculty focused on community psychology, sociology, and human development and family services. My global experience and interdisciplinary departmental setting inevitably engages a cultural perspective framed by behavioral sciences interactions. Such a setting challenges me to grapple with seminal theories in new ways and thus engage undergraduate learners in interacting with their learning process as an ecologically informed process situated in both personal and global contexts.

Updating Bronfenbrenner’s (1977) ecological development model, Neal and Neal (2013) posited that in today’s globalized world, the focus of one’s development shifts from a neatly nested systems context to dynamic networks across contexts. Such an understanding of a learner’s development provokes educational psychologists to take new approaches that expose learners to their personal networked development across multiple contexts, leveraging technology within their learning process. Further, this approach problematizes the role of technology in the learning process within the neoliberal context that seeks to comodify education (Giroux, 2015). In this presentation I will engage in an exploration of how personal learning using this ecological networked lens can be addressed within the classroom.

Educational psychologists have historically engaged with Vygotsky’s sociocultural understanding of learning. In his Mind in Society (1978) work, Vygotsky views learning as interpsychological, facilitated by interactions with the social, cultural, and historical contexts in which the learner and learning is found. Advancing Vygotsky’s theory while addressing the enhanced marginalization and exposed biases of today’s neoliberal context, Murphy and Walton (2013) shifted this contextual view slightly. They propose that transactions of the social cultural context exposes biases situating learning as both a personal and communal process (Murphy & Walton, 2013). In this presentation I will engage in exploring educational psychology’s response to the social contextual view within today’s globalized world.

In sum, taking into account the changing landscape of the teaching and learning world, Alexander (2017) suggests that educational psychology will need to invest more attention on individual variations of learning. This focus on human variability requires heightened awareness and responses to the globalized neoliberal context in which our individual undergraduate learners interact. Therefore, challenging our students to grapple with their personal and globalized learning process positions educational psychology to advance teaching and learning with an “inventive mind” for future generations (Alexander, 2017).

Author

• Martha J. Strickland, The Pennsylvania State University - Harrisburg