WebCT

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WebCT

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http//odl.mmu.ac.uk/
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Important concepts that you will be examined on

• Newspaper
• Video
• Note paper
• Pen refills

• Water
• Cereal
• Apples
• Cigarettes

This information will not be available on the web
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DOH!

• At the first session of night school the
  instructor mentions that his wife has recently
  died. Homer Simpson asks if that will be in the
  test and when told that it will not, he crosses
  out the words dead wife. There are HEIs where
  work is only done if it will be graded and if the
  grades will count.
• (Knight, 2000245)

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Locus of expertise

• Teacher
• Knowledge rich
• Student
• Knowledge poor
• Teaching
• Transferring knowledge from teacher to student

Banking System of Education
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This is the really important point to understand

• Post-structural, de-colonialist existentialism is
  shifting paradigmatically a new commodification
  and reification of structurally bounded and
  existentially grounded conceptual spaces that
  evoke a modern day crisis in the use of SSRTs
  and PPLs within Psychology as a whole.
• Please consult your DDT56Rs for more information.

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Jargon
Jargon is a marvelous way to convey a lot of
information to the knowledgeable. It is also a
superb way to intimidate the uninitiated. Why do
you suppose it was developed? Kevin Throop
Jargon
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Societal Psychology

• The politics and power of knowledge

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Pedagogy of Poverty

• Haberman (1991) has identified a typical style
  of teaching that he labels the pedagogy of
  poverty. It consists of a one-way form of
  communication between teachers and students
  wherein the teacher issues information,
  directions, assignments, tests, homework, and
  grades and attempts to gain student compliance
  through close monitoring of student behaviour and
  punishment, if necessary.
• (Oxley, 2000578)

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Most students entering the new world of the
academy are in an equivalent position to those
crossing the borders of a new countrythey have
to deal with the bureaucracy of checkpoints, or
matriculation, they may have limited knowledge of
the local language and customs, and are alone.
Furthermore, the students position is akin to
the colonised where the experience of
alienation arises from being in a place where
those in power have the potential to impose their
particular ways of perceiving and understanding
the worldin other words, a kind of colonising
process. (Mann, 200111)
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Social Constructionism

• 1) A willingness to make explicit the implicit
  assumptions embedded in our most sacred and taken
  for granted concepts
• 2) All knowledge is socially produced and
  therefore can never be value free interests,
  however implicit, are always being served.
• 3) There is an inescapable relationship between
  knowledge and power.
• Cosgrove McHugh, 2000817

it is always possible to take apart an
intellectual system and trace its component parts
to the interests of certain social
groups (Parker, 1999)
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Core themes of our course

• Social stratification
• Symbolic interactionism
• Culture
• Community
• Social institutions and power
• Social capital
• Rules and rituals
• Health inequalities

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Power is

• Relational
• Structural

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Myth 1Mental Illnesses have Medical Markers

• AFTER 150 years of intensive psychological
  research
• There are no reliable biological or physical
  markers for 'mental illness.
• There are no biological or physiological
  differences between people who do and do not have
  a 'mental illness.
• There are no tests or scans that can show a
  person 'has' schizophrenia, depression or mania.
• (Boyle,1996,1999, 2002)

Who benefits from this myth?
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Myth 2Psychological Problems have Psychological
Causes
Main causes of poor mental health are

• socio-political
• (discrimination, oppression, social exclusion)
• socio-economic
• (poverty, un/underemployment, poor housing)

Who benefits from this myth?
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Myth 3Individual psychological treatment is
effective

• Few psychological problems have psychological
  solutions
• Social, political and economic rather than
  uniquely medical or psychological interventions
  are needed

Who benefits from this myth?
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Myths 4Psychologists are the experts

• Psychologists are rarely more effective and
  sometimes less effective than non-psychologists
  in offering psychological support
• (Cowen, 1982)

Who benefits from this myth?
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References

• Boyle, M. (1996). Diagnosis, science and power.
  Asylum, 10, 16-19.
• Boyle, M. (1999). Diagnosis. In Newnes, C.,
  Holmes, G., Dunn, C. (eds), This is Madness A
  critical look at psychiatry and the future of
  mental health services, Ross-on-Wye, PCCS Books.
• Boyle, M. (2002). Schizophrenia A scientific
  delusion? (2nd edition). London Routledge
• Cosgrove, L., McHugh, M.C. (2000). Speaking or
  ourselves feminist methods and community
  psychology. American Journal of Community
  Psychology, 28,6, 815-838.
• Cowen, E.L. (1982). Help is where you find it
  four informal helping groups. American
  Psychologist, 37,4, 385-395.
• Knight, P.T. (2000). The value of a
  programme-wide approach to assessment. Assessment
  and Evaluation in Higher Education, 25,3,
  237-251.
• Mann, S.J. (2001). Alternative perspectives on
  the student experience alienation and
  engagement. Studies in Higher Education, 26,1,
  7-19.
• Parker, I. (1999). Critical psychology critical
  links. Radical psychology, 1,1. on-line
  www.yorku.ca/faculty/academic/danaa