The “Human Problem” in educational research: Notes from the psychoanalytic archive

Abstract

In this paper, I theorize fantasies of idealization at work in narratives of educational research. I take as an example one of the very first psychoanalytically oriented studies in the field: Marion Milner's, The Human Problem in Schools, published in 1938. Evidence is drawn from Milner's published book as well as from the historical context and archived disagreements that surround the study's unfolding. My aim is to trace how constructions of knowledge in research are shaped by unconscious fantasies that are the mind's earliest resources for trying to make sense of the unknown world. The paper identifies in archived correspondence a tendency to idealize one's own knowledge in the face of controversy. To conclude, I establish a relationship between Milner's turn to an overtly psychoanalytic orientation and her capacity to move from a defensive position of mastery to a creative position of interpretation. Nearly a century after its publication, I suggest that Milner's study is prescient today for the way it raises questions about the status of fantasy and emotional conflict in narratives of teaching and learning that echo within narratives of educational research as well.

Keywords:

• educational research
• educational theory
• narrative methods
• curriculum studies

Acknowledgments

I would like to acknowledge the enormous support of archivist Rebecca Webster at the Newsam Library and Archives of the Institute of Education, University of London. I don't know how, but somehow you are able to find a needle in the (archival) haystack! I would also like to thank the anonymous editorial team and reviewers from Curriculum Inquiry who offered such helpful comments. I am deeply grateful, as well, to two mighty clinicians and writers in the field of psychoanalysis, Dr. Jan Abram and Emma Letley for their thoughtful readings and comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. In the Journal of Educational Psychology, for instance, one reviewer notes Milner's capacity to strike a balance an “easy style” of writing while maintaining the book's “special interest to educational psychologists” (Kirkpatrick 1940, p. 480). In the Bulletin of the International Bureau of Education in Geneva, the book is recognized as one “of absorbing interest and of immense importance and value to psychologists, and to parents and teachers of girls” (1939, as cited in Letley 2014, p. 23). Its “experimental pioneering” is described, alongside Milner, as “first-class” (cited in Letley 2014, p. 23). Another review published in Industry Illustrated in 1939 notes of Milner's investigation, “a refreshing air of candour and sincerity” and repeats that same term – “refreshing” – to describe its “wisdom.” This same reviewer appreciates the reserve of Milner's claims; “she modestly disclaims an attempt to do more than ‘scratch the surface of the field,’” even as he urges a wide readership. “Any one of us concerned with the training or control of young people will be better for her observations.” The very same year, a review published in Mother and Child joins in with another positive assessment. “The statement on the jacket that ‘it embodies the results of one of the most interesting experiments undertaken in this country’ is no exaggeration.” All citations to the latter two reviews can be found in the Milner Collection (File: DC-GDS-9-7-3, Vol. 4) at the Institute of Education, University of London.

2. Through the writings of Susan Isaacs, and from their meeting at the Institute of London during the tenure of her study, Milner encountered the theories of Melanie Klein (Letley, 2014). It is also widely cited by historians of psychoanalysis (and recalled by Milner herself) that she began “a Freudian analysis” after hearing D.W. Winnicott give a lecture, in 1938, the same year of her book's publication (Milner, 1969, p. xlvi). Another one of Milner's (2012) recollections suggests that her analysis got underway much earlier, “when interviewing the girls during the course of my study,” thus placing its beginning closer to 1937 (2012, p. 8; see also Raab, 2000). And yet, while psychoanalysis was increasingly on Milner's mind during the course of her research, its impact on her work is more often traced through her two literary texts, A Life of One's Own (1934) and An Experiment in Leisure (1937), which she penned under the alter-author name, Joanna Field. Far less attention is given to her school study. This is despite the fact that that The Human Problem in Schools is the very first publication for which Milner claimed authorship in her given name. The split between educational research and Milner's literary experiments suggests a larger conflict, insofar as education tends to meet psychoanalysis with a chillier reception than that of literary studies. Perhaps this is why too, Milner waited for over a decade to address in more overt ways the relation between education and psychoanalysis, when, in 1950, she published On Not Being Able to Paint.

3. By the “unconscious,” I am referring to the archive of the human mind and its holdings of infantile anxieties, desires and fantasies that structure in surprising ways the conscious perceptions and interpretations we make of the world, including those we make in the creation of curriculum, pedagogy and educational research.

4. My analysis focuses on the shifts in the content, language and structure across the first, second and fourth interim reports. The third report is missing from the archival collection.

5. Girls’ Public Day School Trust (2 May 1934). [Agenda for Meeting of the Education Committee]. Milner Collection (DC-GDS-9-7-3, Vol. 1). Institute of Education, University of London.

6. Lewis, M.E. (3 October 1934). [Memorandum from Education Committee to Council]. Milner Collection (DC-GDS-9-7-3, Vol. 1). Institute of Education, University of London.

7. Lewis, M.E. (3 October 1934). [Memorandum from Education Committee to Council]. Milner Collection (DC-GDS-9-7-3, Vol. 1). Institute of Education, University of London.

8. Lewis, M.E. (16 October 1934). [Memorandum to the Secretary of the Girls’ Public Day School Trust]. Milner Collection (DC-GDS-9-7-3, Vol. 1). Institute of Education, University of London.

9. Two more unspoken matters might have dampened Head Mistress Lewis's enthusiasm. First, Milner did not finish school. While not unusual for a woman educated early in the 20^th century, it matters, for the comment on social class, that Milner attended only the first term of 6^th form because there “was no further money in the family” to pay the fees (Letley, 2014, p. 15). Second, Milner's “children” should actually be written in the singular, for she had a sole child, John, born in 1932. A related detail has to do with Milner's ambivalent experience of motherhood. Again, while not unusual, it was, for Milner's time (and perhaps still today), unusual to admit such feelings even to oneself. Even though her published autobiography tells of a comfortable domestic life with husband Dennis and son, Letley's (2014) reading of Milner's personal notebooks finds that both her marriage and care of John were troubled by ongoing “career difficulties for Dennis” and his ailing health (p. 22). Thus if Milner's “social status” and “children” were meant to sway the Committee's decision in favour of her job candidacy, then it is also the case that, despite Lewis's glowing account, Milner would accept the job offer under less than “ideal” conditions in home economics.

10. MacLean, A. (16 July 1934). [Letter to Mrs. R. Ellison, consultant psychologist]. Milner Collection (File DC-GDS-9-7-3, Vol. 1). Institute of Education, University of London.

11. MacLean, A. (9 October 1934). [Letter from the Secretary of the Girls’ Public Day School Trust to Lady Savory regarding the issue of payment]. Milner Collection (File DC-GDS-9-7-3, Vol. 1). Institute of Education, University of London.

12. MacLean, A. (29 April 1938). [Letter from the Secretary of the Girls’ Day School Trust that confirms Milner's completion of research components]. Milner Collection (File DC-GDS-9-7-3, Vol. 4). Institute of Education, University of London.

13. Girls’ Day School Trust [A Radical History]. Retrieved from http://www.gdst.net/2163/about-us/a-radical-history/

14. Milner, M. (20 August 1936). [Second Interim Report of research findings at Streatham Hill High School and Oxford High School]. Milner Collection (File DC-GDS-9-7-3, Vol. 2). Institute of Education, University of London.

15. Milner, M. (29 August 1935). [Letter to Professor Hughes]. Milner Collection (File: DC-GDS-9-7-3m Vol. 2). Institute of Education, University of London.

16. Milner, M. (29 August 1935). [Letter to Professor Hughes]. Milner Collection (File: DC-GDS-9-7-3 Vol. 2). Institute of Education, University of London.

17. All citations in this paragraph refer to: Milner, M. (29 August 1935). [First Interim Report]. Milner Collection (File: DC-GDS-9-7-3, Vol. 2). Institute of Education, University of London.

18. All citations in this paragraph refer to: Milner, M. (27 November 1935). [Letter to Professor Hughes]. Milner Collection (File: DC-GDS-9-7-3, Vol. 2). Institute of Education, University of London.

19. MacLean, A. (2 December 1935). [Education Committee Agenda]. Milner Collection (File: DC-GDS-9-7-3, Vol. 2). Institute of Education, University of London.

20. MacLean, A. (2 December 1935). [Education Committee Agenda]. Milner Collection (File: DC-GDS-9-7-3, Vol. 2). Institute of Education, University of London.

21. Milner, M. (29 December 1935). [Letter to Professor Hughes]. Milner Collection (File: DC-GDS-9-7-3, Vol. 2). Institute of Education, University of London.

22. Milner, M. (4 April 1936). [Letter to Lady Savory]. Milner Collection (File: DC-GDS-9-7-3, Vol. 2). Institute of Education, University of London.

23. Milner, M. (20 August 1936). [Second Interim Report]. Milner Collection (File: DC-GDS-9-7-3, Vol. 2). Institute of Education, University of London.

24. Milner, M. (20 August 1936). [Second Interim Report]. Milner Collection (File: DC-GDS-9-7-3, Vol. 2). Institute of Education, University of London.

25. All citations in the preceding two paragraphs refer to: Milner, M. (20 August 1936). [Second Interim Report]. Milner Collection (File: DC-GDS-9-7-3, Vol. 2). Institute of Education, University of London.

26. MacLean, A. (1 October 1936). [Memorandum to Head Mistresses]. Milner Collection (File: DC-GDS-9-7-3, Vol. 2). Institute of Education, University of London.

27. All citations in the last two paragraphs refer to: (October, 1936) [Head Mistresses’ Observations on Mrs. Milner's Second Report]. Milner Collection (File: DC-GDS-9-7-3, Vol. 2). Institute of Education, University of London.

28. Milner, M. (17 June 1938). [Fourth Interim Report]. Milner Collection (File: DC-GDS-9-7-3, Vol. 3). Institute of Education, University of London.

29. All citations from this paragraph refer to: Milner, M. (17 June 1938). [Fourth Interim Report]. Milner Collection (File: DC-GDS-9-7-3, Vol. 3). Institute of Education, University of London.

30. Milner, M. (17 June 1938). [Fourth Interim Report]. Milner Collection (File: DC-GDS-9-7-3, Vol. 3). Institute of Education, University of London.

31. That art probes unconscious dynamics is by no means new. Indeed, Milner would later write, in 1950, that this very idea “was part of the ABC of psycho-analysis” (p. 41), but even so, what is remarkable about Milner, in the context of the Trust schools, is her view of art not as a commodity but as an emotional experience, or “human problem” simultaneously stirred up and yet denied expression by the “pressure of adult emotion” and “rigid social codes” of the Trust schools (see also Kofman, 1988).

32. Implied here is a fantasy of omnipotence made from the wish to know without having to learn. Arguably, this same fantasy was at work in the early days of Milner's research aim to measure a “quick kind of smartness,” without having to listen to the conflictive processes of interpretation, insight, and creativity.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lisa Farley

Lisa Farley is an associate professor at the Faculty of Education, York University. Her research examines the emotional dimensions of representations of childhood, education and history. Her work appears in a range of journals, including American Imago, Psychoanalysis and History, History and Memory, and Pedagogy, Culture, and Society.