Integrating the Personal with the Public: assessing values and dispositions for learning and citizenship

The concepts of values and dispositions are a contested, but important area in education, at a time when there is increasing international concern for social sustainability through the development of a range of competences on the part of individuals and communities which enable successful functioning in real world situations. Such competences require the appropriate use of affective, motivational, spiritual and practical as well as cognitive resources. However values are often understood as ‘add ons’ to the core task of schooling, which is about the achievement of public standards of performance in particular domains, and ‘dispositions’ are frequently limited to an individual’s tendency to behave in a particular way over time. This chapter will provide theoretical and empirical evidence to argue that dispositions, values and attitudes are best explained by a more complex, elaborated pedagogy which locates values, attitudes and dispositions as part of an embedded and embodied journey over time, from personal identity, desire and motivation to the achievement of ‘competence’ in a particular public domain. Dispositions, values and attitudes for citizenship and learning to learn are widely accepted as educational outcomes and this chapter will argue that contemporary learning communities need to be identity enhancers, which invite and encourage the formation of values, attitudes and dispositions for learning and engagement in a manner which is integrated with the acquisition of traditional, formal learning outcomes. The challenge of assessing dispositions is rooted in their relationship both to the learning self, the deeply personal and to the achievement of publicly recognised and validated outcomes. This entails validation of story and roots as well as contemporary cultural meanings. For this purpose assessment can be understood as the mentored selective attention between self and text. Key words: dispositions; values; attitudes; competence; assessment; virtue; self; personal development; community of practice; citizenship; learning to learn.