The Subservient, Co-equal, Affective, and Social Integration Styles and Their Implications for [Computer Science]

In this episode I unpack Bresler’s (1995) publication titled “The subservient, co-equal, affective, and social integration styles and their implications for the arts,” which “examines the different manifestations of arts integration in the operational, day-to-day curriculum in ordinary schools, focusing on the how, the what, and the toward what” (p. 33).

  • Welcome back to another episode of the

    CSK8 podcast my name is jared o'leary

    each episode of this podcast is either

    an interview with a guest or multiple

    guests or a solo episode where i unpack

    some scholarship in relation to computer

    science education in this week's episode

    i'm unpacking a paper titled the

    subservient co-equal effective and

    social integration styles and the

    implications for the arts and this paper

    was written by lera bressler and there

    is no abstract for this particular paper

    however a quote from page 33 kind of

    perfectly summarizes this paper in a

    single sentence so it says quote this

    article examines the different

    manifestations of arts integration in

    the operational day-to-day curriculum in

    ordinary schools focusing on the how the

    what and the toward what end quote from

    page 33 now even though this particular

    paper is related to the arts and

    integration of the arts i'm going to

    specifically talk about computer science

    integration so i promise it's relevant

    to computer science educators now you

    can find a direct link to this article

    in the show notes at jared o'leary.com

    which you can quickly visit by going to

    the app that you're listening to this on

    and clicking on the link in the

    description and right below that you'll

    also see a link to boot up professional

    development so the link says that this

    podcast is powered by boot up that's the

    non-profit that i work for where i

    collaborate on research grants and

    advise our professional development team

    and create content like this podcast and

    a free curriculum so if you haven't

    checked it out make sure you check it

    out at bootuppd.org and there are links

    to that on my website and in the show

    notes there's also links on my website

    to a bunch of other nerdy stuff like

    drumming and gaming so check that out

    too all right so in the very first

    paragraph i'm going to read you a quote

    it's going to be a few sentences but i'm

    going to change arts and the arts to

    computer science let's see if this

    resonates with you quote computer

    science educators typically seek to

    establish through integration a more

    solid role for computer science within

    the academic curriculum they envision

    computer science specialists who

    collaborate with classroom teachers and

    in the process strengthen the links

    between the marginalized specialists in

    the institutions principles vision of

    integration typically involves classroom

    teachers teaching computer science as

    part of the academic curriculum they

    tend to value integration as a way both

    to use school time efficiently and to

    save money in resources classroom

    teachers often express ambivalence

    toward the issue of integration they see

    the demand that they include computer

    science as one more mandated curriculum

    topic imposed upon them with little or

    no support end quote from page 31 and i

    don't know about for you but that really

    resonated with me with our discussions

    in computer science education now in

    these show notes i'll include a link to

    my dissertation which has some

    discussions on the different types of

    integration that you can include in a

    class or program or school but this

    particular article kind of talks about a

    few different categories of them very

    briefly so this is from page 31 so i'm

    not going to read all of them but here

    are some different approaches that i

    think are worth discussing so one is

    interdisciplinary so the author

    describes this as quote maintaining

    traditional subject boundaries while

    aligning content and concepts from one

    discipline with those of another end

    quote this is a little bit different

    than thematic approaches which involves

    quote subordinating subject matter to a

    theme allowing the boundaries between

    disciplines to blur end quote which is

    different from holistic approaches which

    is all about quote addressing the needs

    of the whole child including cognitive

    physical moral effective and spiritual

    dimensions end quote which is different

    from multidisciplinary which is quote

    looking at a situation as it was

    portrayed in different disciplines end

    quote which is different than another

    definition of interdisciplinary which is

    quote considering a problem in terms of

    different disciplines and then

    synthesizing these perspectives and

    coming up with a more general account

    end quote which is different than

    metadisciplinary which is quote

    comparing the practices within a

    particular discipline end quote which is

    different from transdisciplinary which

    is quote examining a concept as it

    appears in political and in physical

    discourse end quote okay so why all

    these different terms and then there's

    even interdiscipline which i mentioned

    in an episode two weeks ago which is

    basically like when you fuse two

    disciplinary domains together to create

    a new one like bioengineering is

    the fusing together a merger of biology

    and engineering to create bioengineering

    or ethics in engineering and you could

    do ethical engineering or ethical

    bioengineering combination of like three

    things so those are like an

    interdiscipline okay so why is it

    important to know the difference between

    thematic approaches holistic approaches

    multidisciplinary interdisciplinary

    meta-disciplinary transdisciplinary or

    interdiscipline because whenever

    somebody talks about integration we need

    to know okay well what do you envision

    for that type of integration are you

    planning on integrating through a

    multidisciplinary approach or

    transdisciplinary approach each one of

    these all serve different purposes and

    different rationales and can position

    the

    disciplines in a relationship with each

    other that might be beneficial to both

    or might only be beneficial to one so

    when we talk about integration it's

    extremely important that we really

    clarify well what exactly do you mean by

    this what does that look like so let's

    dive into this a little bit more so on

    the following page the author provides

    some more context around integration and

    kind of talks about how there's been

    debate among the arts community about

    well what does integration look like and

    it is a continuum there are many ways to

    integrate and there are a lot of debates

    around it maybe i'll read some elliot

    eisner publications down the road i

    think it'd be beneficial for the field

    of cs education to

    see how other disciplines talk about

    integration to kind of learn from the

    mistakes and learn from the lessons

    learned in other areas an interesting

    quote however from page 32 basically

    states that although a lot of people

    talk about arts integration very few

    people actually practice integration of

    the arts and i'd say the same thing for

    computer science education when people

    especially administrators tend to talk

    about integration they're trying to find

    a way to slip it into the curriculum

    with minimal effort so that way it

    doesn't take away from the core or

    essential classes subjects etc that's

    obviously generally speaking but what

    can happen is people will do a so-called

    integration by like once a semester or

    once a quarter they will do a coding

    lesson that's not really integration

    that's just quickly trying to check off

    the boxes to say that you covered some

    standards and i think that's problematic

    there are some really cool ways that you

    can integrate but unless you're willing

    to spend a lot of time and money

    providing professional development for

    all of your teachers like through boot

    up professional development i would

    argue it's not going to go well it could

    do a disservice not only to the students

    but also to the teachers if you don't

    have a ton of support to be able to help

    teachers learn how to teach a new

    content area embedded within another

    content area which is difficult to do so

    you have to provide the time the energy

    the effort the money otherwise they're

    going to

    just kind of skim through the surface of

    concepts and practices on cs education

    and i don't think students are actually

    going to learn much cs education that's

    my own bias but it's just what i've

    observed with a lot of districts when

    they say they are doing something if

    they're an integration approach it

    usually means that they're not really

    diving into cs

    as deeply as they would have if they

    just had somebody doing this full time

    as their only position which like my old

    k8 school that i worked in in avondale

    it was a coding position so all i taught

    were coding classes so every kid was

    required to go to this class because my

    entire job just consisted of teaching

    coding i needed to know a lot about

    different languages platforms etc but if

    i were teaching i don't know science

    class and was just kind of integrating

    it like once a month or once a quarter i

    wouldn't need to know much about

    computer science and i wouldn't really

    be able to help kids dive deeper into it

    because they weren't able to engage in

    it as frequently as they were in a class

    dedicated 100 to learning coding if

    however you were to combine that

    approach with

    collaborating with other subject areas i

    think you could do some pretty cool

    integration stuff but as we're going to

    see there are some different approaches

    for integration that you'll need to

    consider an interesting note about arts

    integration is that there is a tendency

    to say that we're integrating the arts

    to have a child-centered approach by

    allowing them to express themselves etc

    but i'd argue that a lot of the

    rationales for integrating cs is not in

    fact student-centered it's just test

    centered so integration again being

    pushed down as

    oh this is the quickest way that we can

    do this without taking away time from

    other things is not thinking about the

    benefits to students but it's just

    thinking about how can we check off the

    boxes for these required standards

    without taking away time and i do think

    that's problematic i get it it's

    difficult but in the long run i honestly

    think it's kind of doing a bit of a

    disservice and kind of doing some smoke

    and mirrors by being able to say oh yeah

    we're doing computer science when really

    it's just okay maybe you're using some

    terms like computational thinking and

    like you're talking about oh this is

    decomposition check i used a vocabulary

    word we talked about it for a minute and

    now we continue working on ela or

    science or math or whatever the way that

    comes across to me is like saying oh

    yeah we have a dual language immersion

    program we support bilingualism in our

    schools because when we are getting

    ready to take a test we ask students to

    call out their in pizzu which is

    japanese for a pencil and then we say at

    lunch time hey don't forget to drink a

    lot of mizu which means water yeah

    you're connecting in some vocabulary

    words but you're not going to become

    bilingual if you have a vocabulary word

    every now and then same thing with

    computer science you're not going to

    become proficient in computer science if

    you don't put in the time and if you

    want to hear more about that listen to

    the episode where i unpack k unders

    erickson's discussions on skill

    acquisition and expertise which is like

    the scholar who was basically cited for

    malcolm gladwell's book outliers that

    talks about the 10 000 hour rule that's

    not an actual rule so check that out if

    you want to hear more

    discussion on that particular topic so

    if you decide to do integration there

    are some approaches that you can use

    that are awesome that work great for

    any subject area involved with it but

    then there are approaches that are

    problematic so this particular paper

    talks about a three-year ethnographic

    study that the author did in k-8 schools

    where they did semi-structured

    interviews with teachers principals

    artists and residents they reviewed

    curricular materials etc and they

    specifically looking at the integration

    approaches used for the arts in their

    classrooms what i want to do is read for

    you the different approaches but i'm

    going to translate it into computer

    science education so i'm going to swap

    out the words the arts with computer

    science so here's a quote from page 33

    quote in the first the subservient style

    computer science serves the basic

    academic curriculum in its contents

    pedagogies and structures the second the

    co-equal style brings computer science

    as an equal partner integrating the

    curriculum with computer science

    specific contents skills expressions and

    modes of thinking the third the

    effective integration style emphasizes

    feelings invoked by and attitudes

    towards computer science as well as

    student-centered learning and initiative

    and incorporates ideals of creativity

    and self-expression that teachers and

    principals acknowledge are not served by

    the academic curriculum the fourth style

    emphasizes the social function of the

    school and its role as a community end

    quote okay so the remaining sections of

    this paper unpacks each of those so the

    first one that it talks about is the

    subservient approach this approach is

    the most prevalent in the particular

    study it's where the arts served to

    spice up the other subject areas now

    here's a quote from page 33 and 34. and

    again i'm going to modify it so it's

    computer science the subservient nature

    of computer science to the curricular

    content is not surprising since these

    activities were typically conducted by

    classroom teachers with little

    experience in computer science one would

    assume that the teachers would try to

    get advice from specialists but there

    was little consultation and input from

    computer science specialists the primary

    motivation for integration in this

    approach centered around economy of time

    end quote now another motivation for

    this particular approach was quote the

    building of student self-esteem

    providing different modes of

    representations so that different

    students can succeed was a common theme

    in interviews with teachers end quote

    now if we look at this as a way to get

    kids to express themselves okay then

    maybe programming like scratch

    approaches could work with that but

    another way that you could look at this

    the subservient approach is

    computational thinking so rather than

    actually learning computer science

    concepts practices skills programming

    languages etc you learn a

    like four or five different terms

    associated with whatever your definition

    of computational thinking is like

    decomposition abstraction

    pattern recognition etc you can teach

    those relatively quickly to teachers

    they incorporate that vocabulary insert

    it into a lesson or two and that

    approach could be described as a

    subservient approach which is

    drastically different than the next

    approach the co-equal cognitive

    integration style here's a quote from

    page 34 quote the second integrative

    style is the one advocated by the

    scholarly literature it is also the

    least common in my study because it

    requires discipline specific knowledge

    or skills it was rarely practiced and

    when it was it was either conducted by a

    teacher with an extensive computer

    science background or in consultation in

    cooperation with computer science

    specialists end quote obviously i

    changed the wording so it was computer

    science not the arts this approach the

    co-equal style engaged in like projects

    or units that occurred over a relatively

    long period of time taking several

    lessons this contrasts with the

    subservient approach which kind of just

    throws in vocabulary or small activities

    to kind of

    enhance the subject area through the

    arts or computer science so when i think

    of integration i think of the co-equal

    style this might be a teacher whose

    entire job is dedicated to computer

    science and programming collaborating

    with another teacher and they come up

    with together like a combined unit or

    project that students will work on in

    both classes that could be a co-equal

    approach it does however require at

    least one person to understand computer

    science or programming but in my opinion

    it allows you to dive deeper because you

    have somebody there with some expertise

    in the subject area without that

    expertise and the time and the money

    dedicated to developing that expertise

    teachers would be limited to again

    skimming on the surface of concepts and

    practices usually just by using

    vocabulary alright so there are two more

    integration styles that i mentioned in

    this particular article the next one is

    called the effective style so this one

    was interesting i'm not sure what the

    exact parallel would be for computer

    science education but for the arts it

    was basically using the art aesthetics

    to kind of set a mood or relax or

    concentrate in class so for example

    putting on music during a test to help

    calm students down in terms of their

    anxiety around the test or something

    like that so here's a quote from page

    making a product nor on acquiring

    specific knowledge or skills it was on

    exposing students to art so that they

    could immerse themselves in their

    feelings and their responses to it these

    activities provided a change of pace a

    change of mode a change of mood end

    quote however in the effective style

    there was also another subcategory in it

    that was more active so rather than just

    receiving information or passively

    engaging in the arts or in computer

    science you would create something so in

    this particular study the teachers would

    use the arts to

    encourage kids to create things to

    express themselves a common rationale

    for this in the interviews was that

    quote some teachers complained about the

    overly structured nature of the

    curriculum which does not allow students

    to express themselves and have ownership

    over their projects allowing students to

    be creative provided a balance as did

    the non-critical non-authoritative role

    teachers assumed in order to facilitate

    student expressivity and spontaneity

    they regarded the arts as tools for

    self-expression and the manifestation of

    individuality and uniqueness end quote

    from page 34 and 35 so that reminds me a

    lot of the conversations that i hear

    around creative computing and kind of

    aligns with my own approach with

    computer science while i think many kids

    have the opportunity to use cs for

    careers and projects outside of school

    most likely won't go into computer

    science as a field of study or for a

    career so because the kids that i worked

    with were required to attend i wanted

    them to still be able to do something

    with that information even if they had

    no plans on

    using it for a career so we focus on

    self-expression and creativity in the

    classes that i worked with however where

    that differs is it was specifically in a

    computer science class in a k-8 coding

    class it was not in like a social

    studies class where you used computer

    science to express yourself in social

    studies content so that's where it's a

    little bit different than just like the

    creative computing discussions now

    interestingly this approach is most

    common in k through 2 grades so the

    primary grades and here's a quote from

    page 35 quote teachers who adopted this

    orientation were mostly classroom or

    special education teachers who although

    they had little or no formal computer

    science background had an active

    interest in computer science as

    reflected in their stated beliefs and

    activities in their private lives as it

    did not require any specific knowledge

    the orientation fit nicely within

    classroom teachers lack of computer

    science expertise end quote so going

    back to unplugged i could see how that

    kind of might relate to that i could

    also see some platforms like code.org or

    scratch junior where you don't

    necessarily need to have a lot of cs and

    programming content knowledge in order

    to engage in it or to teach it in the

    primary grade levels just more of but

    obviously that depends on how you teach

    it now in the last paragraph of this

    particular section the author mentions

    that the purpose typically for the

    effective style was to complement other

    subject areas by incorporating things

    that were absent from it so for example

    in x subject area maybe there's not a

    lot of creativity so let's let kids

    express themselves in the subject area

    through creating a scratch project or

    hey there's not a lot of movement going

    on we're just kind of sitting getting so

    let's incorporate and unplug to get it

    so that kids are up and moving that

    differs from the

    subservient style which was imitative of

    the general curriculum which is also

    different than the

    co-equal style which was attempting to

    expand the curriculum but there's one

    more style that actually has less to do

    with education and more to do with

    integrating through social functions of

    schooling so this one is called the

    social integration style and it too

    complemented the academic curriculum but

    from a different angle than some of the

    other approaches so principals who use

    this quote place high value on the

    establishment and maintenance of the

    school as a community and its relations

    with the larger outside community

    students as families social functions

    like pta meetings holiday honor programs

    and ethnic evenings reviewed as prime

    opportunities for creating such a

    community and computer science had a

    role in making those social events a

    success in quote from page 35. okay so

    again changed it so cs rather than the

    arts but i'm not entirely sure what this

    kind of integration would look like for

    computer science like the examples that

    were given were hey in the pta meeting

    we would have a choir perform

    integrating into some kind of a social

    activity but what would be the

    equivalent of that for computer science

    if you got an idea let me know there's a

    contact me button on my website all

    right so the last section of here is on

    the discussion and so the author is

    quick to point out that although they

    presented this into like four different

    styles of integration they overlap so

    some teachers might engage in one two

    three or all four of these in various

    times of the year and for various

    reasons but it's a good thing to

    consider whenever engaging any form of

    integration or if you're like a

    professional development provider and

    the administrators say hey we want to

    integrate well then you can talk about

    well why is it that you want to

    integrate how do you want to integrate

    maybe you could use some of these

    categories or different categories of

    different integration styles to talk

    about it or you could talk about well is

    this going to be transdisciplinary

    meta-disciplinary interdisciplinary

    multidisciplinary etc and depending on

    which one that you choose how does this

    relate to your own

    vision for cs education which i talk

    about in an episode on the vision

    framework by cs for all which i highly

    recommend taking a look at and i'll

    include a link to that in the show now

    so you can listen to that episode and

    then read the actual paper depending on

    what vision you have an integration

    style may or may not actually align with

    that vision and how you choose to

    implement so here's a quote from page 35

    and 36 and again changing it to cs

    rather than the arts quote these

    integration styles reflect some

    fundamental differences and assumptions

    about the relationship of computer

    science and computer science instruction

    to the larger curriculum and educational

    goals emphasizing different roles of

    computer science in the school each

    model implies different values

    concerning what is worthwhile and

    important for children to know in

    computer science as well as in academic

    subjects and how computer science could

    fit within the academic curriculum and

    the school these values and goals shape

    the organization of learning resources

    and pedagogies end quote now the

    subservient relationship it's clear that

    the author and myself are not a huge fan

    of that one that was the most prevalent

    uh approach or style and the one that

    was most touted as hey this is what you

    should do the co-equal that one was the

    least done in classes and the author

    notes that quote this style was at least

    in practice and that is not surprising

    as the style is the most difficult to

    implement quote a little bit further

    down this style quote attempts to

    integrate computer science into the

    curriculum in ways that draw and build

    on the characteristics of computer

    science requiring classroom teachers to

    provide direction and guidance that

    often transcends their vision and

    current abilities whereas the

    subservient effective and social

    integration styles do not require any

    major changes in teacher thinking and

    attitudes the co-equal cognitive style

    entails a fundamentally different way of

    conceptualizing a discipline in terms of

    content goals and sometimes pedagogies

    these new conceptualizations often call

    for a change of existing structures in

    that they involve collaboration among

    groups of people who do not

    traditionally work together in quotes

    from page 36 and i would add to that for

    computer science that it also requires

    learning more about a content area that

    they likely do not have any background

    in all right so here's the last couple

    sentences of this particular paper it's

    from page 36

    just as distinct disciplines has

    developed over the ages because they

    allow scholars to lucidate specific

    kinds of phenomena school subjects are

    often taught as much for convenience of

    presentation and evaluation as for their

    intrinsic logic this convenience

    establishes traditions within schools as

    well as within teacher education

    programs in colleges of education

    changing these traditions has

    implications for conceptual knowledge

    and pedagogical techniques implying

    changes in attitude and beliefs about

    the nature of the discipline and of

    cooperation in addition to intellectual

    feasibility and soundness integration

    typically involves issues of human

    relations communication among different

    groups of teachers and the coordination

    of resources schedules and structures to

    use an analogy from the arts it involves

    a shift from a solo performance to a

    chamber work end quote that is really

    important for pd providers in particular

    to think about so if you're working with

    a district and let's say you wanted to

    have district-wide implementation it is

    likely that admin are going to try and

    find the fastest cheapest way to begin

    addressing the computer science

    standards with the least amount of time

    and energy on teachers especially

    nowadays because they have so much on

    their plate and with all the stresses

    and whatnot with covid and communities

    rallying against equity centered

    approaches to education etc like there's

    so much going on and to then say hey you

    have to learn a whole another subject

    area on top of all the stuff that you're

    already worrying about i get it why

    administrators want to just go with the

    fastest way to integrate however in the

    long run i would argue this is a

    complete disservice to these students

    who are supposed to be learning this

    content area for example just simply

    using terms around computational

    thinking and then saying well now we've

    integrated computer science we don't

    need to do anything other than that i

    think is problematic there's so many

    cool things you can explore in the field

    and that you can explore in the

    intersections of computer science and

    other areas like check out the podcast

    from two weeks ago on the intersections

    of music and cs that stuff gets me

    excited it's so cool but instead of

    exploring stuff like that if we just go

    with the subservient approach and we say

    hey here's a cs term we're applying it

    in a music class boom we're done that's

    just not a very exciting way to learn

    and i don't think it's going to honestly

    motivate kids to want to explore cs but

    those are my opinions and you're allowed

    to disagree speaking of my opinions at

    the end of these unpacking scholarship

    episodes i like to talk about some

    lingering questions and thoughts i do

    have a couple so one of them is if we

    were to interview a variety of teachers

    in different cs integration contexts

    what integration styles would we find so

    if we didn't start with these four

    different categories and we were to go

    in and code them not like programming

    but like qualitatively code them to

    figure out different approaches that

    were used what would we see but another

    question that i have is of the

    integration styles that were mentioned

    which ones do you think are more common

    in cs compared to the arts and then how

    do those different integration styles

    lend themselves toward different visions

    for cs again going back to the visions

    framework from cs4 so for example would

    a focus on digital literacy integrate in

    subservient ways and would a focus on

    creativity and self-expression integrate

    through effective or co-equal styles i

    don't know but it seems like an

    interesting research question in my

    opinion and then i guess the last thing

    just to kind of drive home a point that

    i made earlier i think that advocates

    and leaders in the space need to not

    just focus on getting cs into all of

    schools but also focus on

    how it's going into schools so if it's

    going into a classroom through

    integration cool but is it through a

    subservient style or a co-equal style an

    effective style social integration style

    or something else yeah it's great that

    we're increasing enrollment numbers

    we're getting it so that more kids have

    access to computer science yadda yadda

    but how are we doing that in the long

    run are we shooting ourselves in the

    foot because of the approaches that

    we're using to get it into the

    classrooms quickly and i don't know

    we'll find out like 10 20 years from now

    but i'm not seeing enough discussion on

    this it wasn't really until

    the other weekend when carla strickland

    gave a closing keynote for a csta

    conference where karla unpacked like the

    different approaches to integration and

    how they all have different modes or

    means and lend themselves towards

    different goals that was probably the

    first time that i've really heard people

    within the space actually talk about how

    there are different ways to integrate

    and i loved it but i think we need to

    have more of those discussions so if

    there was a call to action i guess that

    i would say for this particular episode

    it would be to one think about how you

    are integrating cs in your schools or

    through your professional development or

    your curriculum etc and then engage in

    colleagues to really kind of unpack what

    are the long-term benefits or

    constraints with this approach and how

    does it compare to other approaches in

    the space if you got an idea again you

    can certainly be a guest on the show

    contact me button on my website at

    jaredelery.com but i hope you walk away

    from this particular episode with more

    questions or things to consider or

    ponder than answers and i hope you

    consider sharing this particular episode

    with a friend but stay tuned next week

    for another episode and until then i

    hope you're all staying safe and are

    having a wonderful week

Article

Bresler, L. (1995). The subservient, co-equal, affective, and social integration styles and their implications for the arts. Arts Education Policy Review, 96(5), 31–37.


The Author’s One Sentence Summary

“This article examines the different manifestations of arts integration in the operational, day-to-day curriculum in ordinary schools, focusing on the how, the what, and the toward what” (p. 33).


Some Of My Lingering Questions/Thoughts

  • If we were to interview a variety of teachers in different CS integration contexts, what integration styles would we find?

    • Of the integration styles mentioned, which ones do you think are more common in CS compared to the Arts?

  • How do the different types of visions for CS lean toward different integration styles?

  • I want to encourage PD providers and CS leads to challenge administrators who integrate simply for the sake of saving time


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