Announcing: New Research Paper

We are excited to announce that we have added a new research paper to our collection:

Professions in the Age of Information Technologies and Artificial Intelligences:

The Case of Medicine, Law and Education in China by Xin Xiang

This paper, by Xin Xiang, examines “the possible futures of the professions in China: Will the Chinese professions be able to leapfrog over the professionalism stage and become global leaders in the age of information technologies and artificial intelligences, or will they be crippled by the under-development of professionalism throughout the 20th century?"

To read the paper, visit our publications page or click here.

April Wrap Up: What We're Reading

Here at the Good Project, we have been zooming, emailing, and Google Doc sharing our way through the first month of this “new normal.” Between research and writing, we try to take time to share-out articles and reports with one another related to our own work and the work of partners and colleagues in the field. 

Here are five reads you might enjoy as well: (link in title)

1.  New Report: Character in the Professions: How Virtue Informs Practice

The Jubilee Centre for Character and Virtues recently released a new article on character and the professions. The paper examines tensions between following prescribed guidelines (i. e. professional codes of conduct) vs. one’s own autonomous judgments. In making on-the-spot decisions, do professionals fall back on virtue-based or rule-based reasoning? 

2. The Financial Fallout of COVID-19: Business as Usual?

We are all making tough choices about how we can do our part in response to the novel coronavirus. In this blog post, The Good Project’s own Danny Mucinskas reacts to an ethical dilemma many landlords and tenants are facing during these times of uncertainty.

3. Craft a Career That Reflects Your Character

Have you heard the chatter about “job crafting”? Our neighbors from across the river at HBS have been noodling over ways to take the reins of your career in an effort to encourage your best self. 

4.  How Can We Stop Prejudice in a Pandemic?

We’ve all heard the devastating stories of racially motivated attacks during the start of the coronavirus outbreak. The Greater Good Science Center takes their coverage a step further and asks why this happens and what leaders can do to stop prejudice and panic. 

5.  Called to Action

When we self-isolate and practice physical distance, our world can feel like it’s shrinking. How do you remind yourself of whom or what you feel most responsible? Let’s not forget the rings of responsibility that extend beyond our nuclear families. Danielle Allen’s team at Harvard offers strategies and approaches to encourage a civic mindset in students despite the pandemic lock-down. 

What are you reading these days?  Please let us know!  And, on behalf of The Good Project, please stay home, stay safe, and stay well. 

Take care,

Kirsten McHugh

On Securing Support for Research: Should One Hit the Pause Button?

By Howard Gardner

Those of us who conduct research in psychology, education, and related fields are dependent on external support to cover our expenses. For half a century, my colleagues and I at Harvard Project Zero have been fortunate to receive funding from various sources. In most cases, the funding process has been smooth and unproblematic; but in at least three cases, we have decided not to accept further funding.

Here I describe our overall history with fund raising; share three discombobulating experiences; and suggest some general guidelines.

First, the good news. From 1970-1980, almost all of our funding came from the federal government—The National Institutes of Health, The National Science Foundation, and a now defunct educational funder, The National Institute of Education. Then Ronald Reagan became president and made known his conviction that “social science is socialism.” Confronted with that dismissive attitude, we showed little hesitation in shifting our requests to large national foundations—The Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, The MacArthur Foundation, Carnegie Corporation, and The Spencer Foundation (which focuses on educational research)—just to name a few. These foundations followed widely accepted peer review methods with respect to requests for funding; they did not attempt to micro-manage or redirect the research; and we never worried that any of the funding would be considered suspect. Whatever the value and attitudes of the original philanthropist (e.g. Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller), the foundations by that time conduced business in a professional manner.

The bad news about funding from private foundations is that most program officers (the individual who control the purse strings) get bored with funding the same old institutions and causes—no matter how worthy. (And of course, we thought all of our causes were supremely worthy!) Accordingly, these philanthropoids (as the dispensers of funds are sometimes called) want to move on to support new and more exciting (and perhaps more needy) projects; it proved difficult to obtain continuation funding indefinitely.

Starting 25 years ago, we were saved by three factors:

1) Funding from a long-time anonymous funder, whose “cover” was eventually blown by The New York Times—the Atlantic Philanthropies, bankrolled completely by Charles Feeney. (Despite the fact that we received several million dollars from AP, none of us ever met Mr. Feeney.)

2) Smaller foundations, family foundations, and wealthy individuals. As these funders were less likely to follow standard peer review processes, a lot of this funding depended on good personal relations with the funders or with their designated program officers.

3) Our own honoraria and gifts that we were able to direct toward our research.

Also, somewhat to our surprise, and to our delight, we began once again to receive funding from some large national foundations. The previous project officers had resigned or retired and, in the absence of flawless institutional memory, our requests for funding were treated as “new” opportunities.

I am very pleased to say that, in my memory, no funder ever pressed us to come up with certain results, rather than others. Also, before accepting money from the anonymous foundation, we confirmed its trustworthiness with knowledgeable leaders at Harvard.

Yet, on three occasions alluded to above, we made the difficult decision not to receive any further funding from a source:

1) A funder insisted that we be prepared to travel long distances, without little or no prior warning. And these demands proved exhausting.

2) A funder was carrying out work of which we did not approve and yet wanted to have our imprimatur on that work.

3) A funder was convicted of a crime. I let the funder know that under no circumstances would or could I accept any further funding.

I consider myself very fortunate not to have encountered more difficulties of this sort. At the same time, I have to add that at various times, I’ve made a decision not to pursue a funding opportunity; and I have advised colleagues and friends to refrain as well. It’s much easier not to become involved with a dubious source of funding than it is to establish ties that one subsequently has to break. The dubious source of funding can be from a corporation (e.g. a gun manufacturer, a cigarette company) whose products make me uncomfortable; or, for instance, from a source that has no apparent interest in the research per se but just wants to have a connection to the university.

In the current funding climate, where government funding is insufficient and the once dominant foundations are being dwarfed by individuals who are as wealthy or wealthier than Henry Ford or John D. Rockefeller, the temptations are great to ignore these warning signs and simply accept funds. This is especially so if one’s own salary or the salaries of close associates are at stake. That’s why I hope that more disinterested (neutral, objective) parties—for example, the government or foundations or individuals who are genuinely interested in the research but disinterested in the specific results—will re-emerge. And I hope that these entities will follow peer-review procedures in considering proposals and will give the researchers latitude in how they proceed. In return, the researchers must strive to carry out work of high quality; inform the sponsors of significant changes in procedures; and, of course, make the findings available promptly and publicly, while also crediting the sources for their support.

To phrase it in the spirit of this blog: Research is most likely to work well if all parties act in a professional manner.

Doing Good Research on Good Research in Academics

A guest post by Wout Scholten MSc., Junior researcher at Tilburg University and Rathenau Institute

The Good Project has partnered in The Netherlands with the Good Work Hub (Goed Werk Hub), an extension of the Professional Honor Foundation, which seeks to promote Good Work ideas and reflective practices in Dutch professional life. In the first of two blogs, Wout Scholten describes the motivations behind and challenges associated with a currently ongoing research project investigating how professionals achieve Good Work in academia, a topic that is explored through targeted focus groups with workers in higher education. This post discusses the project from the researcher’s perspective. A second forthcoming blog will present key findings uncovered from the project.

For a long time in The Netherlands, the fields of research and higher education seemed to be perfectly functioning systems. In the last few years, this has changed due to a growing resentment for imposed rules, limitations on professional autonomy, and growing worries about the quality of academic work. Hence, we have embarked on a new research project on Good Work in The Netherlands asking two questions: How do academic professionals think about good work in their own discipline, and what are the main obstacles that academics encounter to achieving good work?

As researchers, we have also encountered our own reflective questions: what does it mean for us to do good work when carrying out this research, and what are the main challenges we face to living up to our own standards of good work? Thus far, we have encountered three challenges that, in our view, are specific to the fields of research and higher education: 1) a constantly changing social reality that affects participants; 2) the congested schedules of academic professionals; and 3) the critical attitude of the participants.

Constant flux

The field of research and higher education is in flux in The Netherlands. Expressions of discontent and protest against national policies, the current academic culture, and efficiency-oriented university management have increased tremendously in the last few years. This discontent has evolved into a fundamental and widespread cry from an increasingly large group of students and academics. Concepts like ‘the commodification of science’ and ‘publish or perish’ attitudes have recently been recognized nationally as important matters of debate. In February 2015, a group of student activists even occupied a building at the University of Amsterdam in protests that have lasted for over a month.

Policy makers have taken note of the unrest. Reactions from leadership include a revision of the Standard Evaluation Protocol that governs assessment of the research conducted at Dutch universities (productivity is no longer a separate evaluation criterion). The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA) was also signed by the Association of Universities in the Netherlands, which lays out recommendations for improvement of “the ways in which the output of scientific research is evaluated.”

These calls for change and resultant actions have reached their climax in the middle of our research, and during conversations with participants, we notice them taking time to reflect on recent events. We hope to make sense of the fundamental flux in Dutch higher education helping others think about what it means to do good work.

The overactive academic

Via our focus groups, we also want to get a picture of the daily experiences of academic professionals. Unfortunately, we have noticed that it is very challenging to gather a group of senior academics from the same discipline on the same day around the same table. Despite recognition of the importance of our study, the congested agendas of the senior academic professionals prove to be a large hurdle to overcome. Most academics have so many competing responsibilities that they cannot substantially contribute to something they recognize as significant.

A typical decline to our invitation is a response such as, “I think this is an extraordinarily good initiative because the academic notion of good work is increasingly measured by management by successes in the struggle for funding, which eventually leads to a decline in good work because of high pressure. However, because of timing, I won’t be able to attend a focus group.”

A real challenge is therefore how we can involve academics in our research in a substantial way in light of time constrictions. This also means that there is a possible bias in the participants that eventually attend a focus meeting: participants are either so concerned about the quality of their work that they made an effort to contribute to our research, or they simply have enough time to participate. We believe that these two potential biases will cancel each other out.

Constant peer review

Academic professionals are used to judging the work of others, and, as one would expect in an academic environment, our focus group participants have been critical towards our study and our methods.

The criticism we encounter from participants is met with mixed emotions. On the one hand, feedback from participants amounts to a continuous peer review of our research, which has improved our methods. It has been inspiring to see the permanence of academic willfulness and the continual striving for good work. For example, during one session with a group of philosophers, the first 30 minutes of the focus session were spent on an analysis of our methods. This resulted in a rich discussion about what counts as good work in the discipline of philosophy and how one should approach the topic. On the other hand, the moderator of the focus group discussions has generally had a difficult time staying on track, even though our protocol is already loosely formulated. We felt we encountered another serious challenge to studying senior academic professionals: how do we overcome participants’ critical attitudes toward procedures and methods and facilitate an in-depth discussion on good work in academia?

Working toward good conclusions

Our research is still in progress. We continue to try to show participants that reflecting on good work is important, especially in the changing landscape of higher education, and that we as researchers also reflect on good work. We want participants to feel that the focus groups are valuable and that they can tell their story, and we hope that our data will give us a better understanding of the three challenges we have mentioned.

Please look forward to a forthcoming contribution to the Good Blog in which we share the outcomes of our research and elaborate on the notion of good work and the main obstacles to its achievement.

Re-Inventing the Wheel in the Study of Human Character

by Howard Gardner and colleagues

James Heckman, Nobel Prize winning economist, has just published a 435 page collection called The Myth of Achievement Tests.  On the surface it is a well-documented critique of the GED (General Educational Development) examination. But as one leafs through the volume, it turns out to be a 400+  page hymn-of-praise to character education. Heckman and his three co-editors see the development of character as at least as important as IQ/SAT measures, if not more so.   

As a psychologist who has worked for decades in the area of human development and education, I was stunned by a striking omission in the book.  Nowhere in the book does one find a substantive discussion of the areas of moral development, character development, moral and character education—areas initially investigated by Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg, and studied in more recent times by many outstanding scholars , such as  James Arthur, Marvin Berkowitz, Anne Colby, William Damon, Carol Gilligan,  Helen Haste,  Thomas Lickona,  Elliot Turiel, Richard Weissbourd, just to name a few known to me personally. (Angela Duckworth, a younger researcher, is mentioned; I note that she has been a collaborator of Heckman’s)

I wrote to several of my colleagues in psychology, and one economist, to see if they had an explanation for what struck me as an inexplicable lacuna. Here, slightly edited, anonymous, and in italics, are their responses:

The world view of economists

Economists live on a quite different planet in another universe called The Rational Way (rather than the Milky Way) but just occasionally, as they get older, or become grandparents, they ‘discover’ humanity, virtue, etc. But as their planet doesn’t have suitable libraries, they usually ‘remember’ their childhood experiences with teachers, nuns, parents, pop TV, etc. and the kinds of films that John Wayne starred in. Maybe a small dash of dilute Aristotle, filtered through pre-adolescent Christian or Jewish religious classes, or maybe Scouts….

Disciplinary silos

Economists aren’t the only ones to stick to their own disciplines — or even sub disciplines (e.g. Social psychologists).

The self-satisfaction of celebrity scholars

People who have been highly celebrated often think they can solve a problem without paying attention to what others have tried to do about it. Zillions of successful businessmen and celebrities do this in education all the time. I mentioned an outstanding program of character development to a well known social entrepreneur when he was starting a similar program, and he showed absolutely no interest in the earlier work.

Remember the dreadful William Shockley, a Nobel prize winner in electronic engineering, who set himself up as an ‘expert’ in race and IQ? And who, when he was challenged on this (and other social) issues, fished his Nobel Prize out of his pocket and said, ‘ When you have one of these, you can criticize me.’

Problems with the field itself 

Moral and character education in particular is a field divided into an infinity of approaches, many of which actually are antagonistic to one another, so people often don’t even want to know what others are doing because they assume it’s probably worthless.
Different methods

I went to a conference where economists had simply replicated work done in psychology forty  years ago. When one of the conference hosts pointed that out, the economists showed no interest. In fairness to them, they no doubt would reject the methods I used, and the feeling is mutual, which is kind of the point.

A different focus

Heckman is primarily focused on performance character, not moral character. And I’m very concerned in general not only by the fact that much recent work on character is ignored but by the degree to which moral character in particular is evaporating in conversation about teaching and raising kids. Grit and other performance characteristics are, of course, the rage right now, and too often I have conversations with educators where “character” has been equated with just performance character. Even empathy is often discussed only instrumentally, as a way of increasing one’s own achievement and well-being. 

It would be interesting to know how students and teachers interpret the KIPP motto to ‘be nice.’ My guess is that Bernie Madoff was very nice, that is how he charmed people. I doubt that anyone would say President Lyndon Johnson was ‘nice,’ but he accomplished a great deal against the odds.

I was just a discussant on moral “performance” and civic character strengths. One reason I think that rather arbitrary classification is useful is that it reminds people that the instrumental ones aren’t the only ones that are important and that positive outcomes in advancing the individual aren’t the only reasons character strengths are important.

To hell with them

My reaction in these cases is the same advice Virgil gave Dante as they were walking in one of the bottom circles of Hell, where the damned were doing some gruesome things to each other that attracted Dante’s attention: “Non ti curar di lor,” Virgil tells him, “ma guarda e passa.” In other words, Do not bother with them, just look and keep walking . . .

And from an economist of my acquaintance:

I too find it unsettling that the new wave of researchers on “character” seems blissfully and maybe willfully ignorant of their predecessors in these interests. There is a certain amount of brand creation going on here. And a certain amount of “scientism” as well. In Heckman’s’s case, that may be less the concern than that he shares the familiar economist’s vice that if an economist didn’t say it, it was never really said. Fortunately there are exceptions to that rule!

Closing comment: 

I think that this range of responses covers the likely possibilities for this striking omission. I might add that the phrases ‘moral’ and ‘character education’ have sometimes had a moralistic or religious connotation and  that had scared off parts of the scholarly community. Of course, if readers can think of other possible explanations, I hope that they will respond to this blog.

As a scholar, I have lingering questions: 

1) How can a book by a major scholar, with a major press, go to press without anyone noticing, and in some fashion addressing, this glaring hole? What’s the responsibility of reviewers and editors to correct omissions?

2) In this era of powerful search engines, what can we as scholars do to minimize our ignorance of significant work on a topic of interest in related fields?  What should we do?  What mechanisms ought to be created to blow up the silos manifest throughout the Heckman volume…. And no doubt in many other volumes coming from scholars in many other fields?