Session Information
13 SES 09 B, Attention and Virtue
Paper Session
Contribution
The particular issue at stake is the concept of attention within late nineteenth century psychological literature on how teachers may secure and form voluntary attention in pupils. Focusing on the educational practices designed to correct, normalise and remedy inattentive behaviours offers a chance to explore the phenomenon of attention. Particularly, the theoretical knowledge of attention that grew out of the late nineteenth century psychological literature seems to have been achieved through the study of children whose attentional behaviour seemed irregular in light of their school performances.
Focus in the analysis is neither on the theoretical definitions of attention, nor on diagnostic criteria for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), but rather on the educational practices established to remedy inattentive and impulsive behaviours in children around the turn of the nineteenth century. Such historical research has been conducted by others, who thereby historicise current diagnostic practices and criteria of ADHD (Brancaccio, 2000; Rafalovich, 2001). This paper draws on such approaches, specifically by exploring how a theoretical concept, in this case attention, is embedded within specific cultural practices of education. However, the primary aim of this paper is neither to historicise the ADHD diagnosis, nor to explore the concepts of unruliness or inattention, but rather to explore the concept of attention, which has constituted a theoretical and methodological problem within psychological research for centuries. The question in this paper is what, if anything, we may learn about the concept of attention by investigating late nineteenth century educational practices that were designed with the purpose of forming, correcting, managing, and directing children, who, within a school context, were considered (pathologically) inattentive.
Based on educational dilemmas concerning the change from spontaneous to voluntary attention, a series of problems emerged. Why do some children have difficulties sustaining attention over longer periods of time? Which educational methods and practices do most efficiently develop the capacity for attention? A substantial part of the knowledge we have today about the phenomenon of attention has been acquired through the study of children with attention deficit. For example questions concerning how attention is connected to other cognitive functions, such as tasks completion, persistence, goal-directed behaviour, task execution, self-regulation, and working-memory, all of which are treasured particularly within a school context. The analysis demonstrates how the pedagogical recommendations embedded in the late nineteenth century psychological literature on attention aim to develop disinterested citizens and observers of attention.
With the change from individual methods of tutoring to classroom teaching, problems of distractibility, disorder and unruliness became commonplace (Brancaccio, 2000). Teachers began to struggle with keeping the children’s attention, since they would have to uphold order in a classroom with sometimes up to 70-100 pupils per teacher (Maynes, 1895). Interestingly, this is also the time during which psychology began to establish itself as a scientific discipline (Hatfield, 1998; Rose, 1985). One of the dominant subjects within the psychology of the late nineteenth century, which is also the focus of this article, was the question of attention. Joshua G. Fitch’ The Art of Securing Attention (1880), James L. Hughes’ How to Secure and Retain Attention (1893) and Catharine Aiken’s Methods of Mind-Training: Concentrated Attention and Memory (1896) are but a few examples, all addressing teachers with pedagogical recommendations. The psychological literature on attention reflects a pedagogical conflict concerning the right approach to teaching children. It is in light of this pedagogical-psychological conflict that the terms voluntary and involuntary attention received a heightened interest.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Aiken, C. (1895). Methods of Mind-Training: Concentrated Attention and Memory. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers. Located at: http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/006510597 Brancaccio, M. T. (2000). Educational Hyperactivity: The Historical Emergence of a Concept. Intercultural education, 11(2), 165-177. doi: 10.1080/713665243 Canguilhem, G. (1998/1943). The Normal and the Pathological, New York: Zone Books. First published as a collection of essays in 1943, later re-published with an additional chapter in 1966. Foucault, M. (2006). The History of Madness. London: Routledge. First published in 1961 as Folie et Deraison. Re-published with changes and new title in 1972. Hatfield, G. (1998). Attention in Early Scientific Psychology. In R. D. Wright (ed.) Visual Attention, New York, Oxford University Press, 3-25. Hjörne, E & Säljö, R. (2004). ‘There Is Something About Julia’: Symptoms, Categories, and the Process of Invoking Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder in the Swedish School: A Case Study. Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 3(1), 1-24, doi: 10.1207/s15327701jlie0301_1 Hughes, J. L. (1893). How to Secure and Retain Attention. New York: E. L. Kellogg & Co. Located at: https://archive.org/details/howtosecureretai1893hugh Maynes, M. J. (1985). Schooling in Western Europe: A Social History. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press. Rafalovich, A. (2001). The Conceptual History of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder: Idiocy, Imbecility, Encephalitis and the Child Deviant, 1877-1929. Deviant Behavior, 22, 93-115. doi: 10.1080/016396201750065009 Rose, N. (1985). The Psychological Complex. Psychology, Politics and Society in England, 1869-1939. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. Turetzky, P. (1989). Immanent Critique. Philosophy Today 33(2), 144-158.
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