The Processes of Re-Education: An Assessment of Kurt Lewin's Views

Abstract

Kurt Lewin's work as a pioneering student of basic and applied psychology is placed in its theoretical, historical, and biographical contexts. The ten principles of re-education that Lewin, along with Grabbe, articulated in 1945 are then systematically reviewed and criticized in the light of major developments in training (and in planned change more generally) through the twenty-five years of experience and experimentation following their original publication. The piece thus provides at one and the same time an assessment and illumination of Lewin's theories and of recent and current trends in training theory, methodology, and practice in America. NEW BRITAINThe summer workshop in community relations at New Britain in 1946 was a flowing together of a number of potent hopes and commitments, fears, and unanswered questions concerning the contemporary human condition. These states of mind were, of course, embodied in the people who gathered and exchanged views here. Some of us were longer on hope and commitment than we were on fear and questions for which we were seeking understanding, if not answers. Others of us were more moved by threats of antihuman forces in our society, our culture, and ourselves. And still others of us saw the workshop focally as an opportunity to inquire into unanswered questions about processes of changing human conduct and relationships.Yet each of us combined hope, commitment, fear, and curiosity about the unknown, in some manner and degree, in our motivational patterns. Because we are focusing attention today on one central participant in the New

Organization Development: What's Actually Happening?

“…This was reformulated by one of Lewin's PhD students Albert Pepitone (1950, p. 57) as 'the primary significance of social perception lies in the fact that more overt forms of social behavior are thought to be "steered" by the perception of the social environment.' This indicates that changes in knowledge or changes in beliefs and value orientations will not result in new behavioral patterns unless changed perceptions of the self and the situation are achieved (Benne, 1976). More recently, the idea that an organization is taken to be a social construction has become more commonplace and explicit (Marshak and Grant, 2008).…”

“…The notion of 'reeducation' and the advocacy of OD almost as a management ideology that needs to be adopted to achieve increased performance and engaged employees hints at a form of 'total institutionalization' that is considered to be beneficial for everyone (Benne, 1976;Chin and Benne, 1976;Pasmore and Fagans, 1992;French and Bell, 1999). It is a state of affairs that has often been described in terms of 'organizational health' (see, for example, Katz and Kahn, 1978).…”

Implementing Information Systems: Some Practical Advice and a Richer Model

“…As the process of change unfolds it is likely that different assumptions and orientations are required from individuals at different times (Benne, 1976). The perspectives or frames of reference of organizational members to the change process need to alter.…”

Kurt Lewin on Reeducation

“…These observations grew out of his reflections on work he was engaged in with Alcoholics Anonymous and other training programs. This paper has received relatively little attention, apart from Benne's (1976) exposition that reflected on it in the light of the T-group and laboratory learning and from Coghlan's (1994) and Bruce and Wyman's (1998) respective applications to organization development. The two major treatises on Lewin's work, Cartwright (1959) and Deutsch (1968), exclude any discussion of this paper.…”