Educational Implications That Arise From Differing Models of Human Development and Their Repercussions on Social Innovation

Abstract

Social innovation aims for creating social value primarily while it recognizes that not all technology-based progress amounts to social progress. We think that this calls for a paradigm shift in how we understand education. No one doubts that education requires intense cognitive effort, but educational proposals certainly vary depending on how cognition is understood. In this article, we suggest that different ways of understanding human development are related to different ways of understanding cognition. Thus, these different conceptions of human development affect their resulting educational proposal. While not an exhaustive account, we sketch out three models of human development, the so-called autonomous self (AS), processual self (PS), and inter-processual self (IPS). Each has different implications for education depending on their particular understanding of cognition. The AS and PS models understand cognition as a primarily rational mastery exercise, with the difference that PS uses relationships and diverse psychological faculties for the subject's cognitive development, whereas AS relies more on the subject's rational agency. On the other hand, IPS understands cognition as a relational act that, when it arises from interiority, affects all dimensions of the person. In the present article, we explore the educational consequences of these different ways of understanding cognition with the assistance of interdisciplinary dialogue from philosophy, psychology, and neuroscience, and their repercussion on social innovation with the intention of opening up reflection in the field of education and of inspiring its practitioners to rethink the model they assume. We will conclude with reflections informing educational implications for the design of programs and teacher training itself.

How differing conceptions of integrity and self-integration influence relationships: Implications for management, personal and professional development

“…Accordingly, from within an IPS perspective, action in relational aspects requires courage to transcend and transform the mind by embracing the act of leadership as something other than a duty or transactional exchange (e.g., for more access to power and control and better career prospects), and instead embracing it as an act of the gift, which means concretely loving human beings in their singularity and diversity and wanting to offer and receive within this context. This discussion informs how to think about approaching education (Orón, Akrivou & Scalzo, 2019), which, in this context, relates to professional and management development to transcend the limitations that we argue exist in AS and PS approaches. For AS, professional action is about integrity as a mainly psychological and cognitive act, whereby a focus on a theoretical set of principles and rules to guide action may be seen as an antidote to the kinds of agency produced by the twin AS and PS models.…”

The Interprocessual-Self Theory in Support of Human Neuroscience Studies

“…It is based on the unity between knowledge and action (virtue) rooted in personalist anthropology; as such, it elevates the person's deep disposition toward growth through acts of intimacy and humanity, which enable uniqueness (novelty) in personal and interpersonal relations that are constitutive of ethical progress and innovation. IPS transcends modernist human development proposalsdeveloped in the last 50 years in educational, psychological, and adult development research-that mainly acknowledge the 'modern radical' (Orón Semper et al, 2019). Modern philosophy and psychology's focus on the modern radical to the exclusion of the radical of nature and of the person loses sight of human beings and serves as a very limited conceptual background for achieving unified knowledge of neuroscientific data (Akrivou and Orón, 2016).…”

What Kind of School Organizational Decisions Serve to Enhance Sustainable Personal and Social Growth?

“…The diverse perspectives of understanding education have been related by Orón et al [12] to three models of understanding human development [13]: (1) the autonomous self model (AS), which conceives of human growth as driven by cognition, and achieved as a result of individual productive activity aimed at mastering the environment, according to the wishes of the individual; (2) the personal self model (PS), which also understands the action as driven by cognition, whilst also giving value to human relationships in the pursuit of individual growth; (3) the inter-processual self (IPS), a social model of human interpersonal development which considers that personal growth cannot occur without the individual attending to personal relationships, looking for others' growth at the same time as one's own development.…”

“…Rather, such socio-personal development occurs when human action proceeds from one's interiority and is oriented towards the overall growth of specific others as much as one's own growth [13,14]. Moreover, this model does not conceive of leadership in education as successfully applying specific methodologies but rather as knowing how to make sense of education and promote cooperation among colleagues [11,15] and students [12,16].…”