What is this article about?

In Brazilian schools, there were high rates of school failure observed with the establishment of a mass education system in the country. This was in the beginning of the 20^th century. This meant that a large group of students from lower social classes had to follow a school system that was actually designed for middle- and upper-class students. This lead to some criticism, and to a re-interpretation of mental tests. In Brazil, in contrast with the prevailing view, Helena Antipoff, a Russian psychologist, stated that the learning difficulties of primary-school students were not to be explained by biological and hereditary factors. Instead, it was determined by the social environment, and teaching practices. This view came to be known as the ‘Belo Horizonte school of educational psychology’. This was thus a reflection of the nature-nurture debate. The work of Helena Antipoff consisted of three periods: first, the experience in Europe, which ranged from 1909-1929. Her second period was called the critique of the public educational system in Brazil, which ranged from 1929-1945. Her third period was called the proposal of alternatives which ranged from 1945-1974.

What was the First Period: The Experience in Europe?

In 1909, Antipoff moved to Paris to study psychology. She liked the thoughts of French philosophers such as Bergson, who had a phenomenological approach to human consciousness, and that of Pierre Janet, who had a functional approach to human behavior. Bergson had influences psychologists in two ways: he criticized associationism and structuralism, and he refused to equate the human mind to that of animals. According to Bergson, there were no such things as instincts. He was one of the founders of phenomenology. Pierre Janet, similar to Sigmund Freud, interpreted mental diseases as disorders that arise at an unconscious level. Antipoff worked closely with Alfred Binet, who created the Binet-Simon intelligence scale. Antipoff also participated in studies that looked at the mental development of children, which had the aim of validating the Binet-Simon intelligence scale. Thus, she became very well studied in techniques that are used to validate mental tests, the analysis of different items, and the relationship between verbal development and motor skills. In Geneva, ideas about ‘École Active’ were developed. This referred to schools in which the purpose was to develop children’s autonomy, and in which the teaching methods were adjusted to children’s interests. In Europe, the “New School” movement was kind of similar to the “progressive education movement” in North America. The École Active, or “The Active School” was different.

Claparède invited Antipoff to join the Swiss group. This was crucial for Antipoff, because at this institute, she became well-known with the functional approach to the psychology of intelligence, and to the Active School methods. Claparède emphasized that intelligence was an active instrument of adaptation to new situations. This approach became to be called an interactionist or constructivist approach. Thus, the idea is that intelligence derives from the individual’s action on the environment, and the structure of the action. In 1913, Claparède developed his theory of intelligence. And, according to him, learning was a trial-and-error process, following ideas of Thorndike.

Later, in 1916 until 1924, Antipoff stayed in Russia, her home-country. She worked at a shelter for abandoned children. Antipoff’s task was to examine the children, and to plan their re-education. Therefore, she used psychological tests such as the Binet-Simon intelligence scale, and Lazurski’s technique for studying children’s personality, which was called natural experimentation. This involved observing children in their natural environment, with the goal of avoiding effects from a laboratory or tests. After the revolution, the Soviet Union valued scientific studies. They thought that science could help to solve the social and economical problems of the country. This lead to the creation of pedology in the Soviet Union. Vygotski was one of the leaders of this group. According to Vygotski, mental retardation for example was not biologically based, but it was determined by socio-cultural experiences. This approach was different than other theories of cognition, which thought that intellectual abilities were the result of biological maturation. But, Vygotski differed from the Genevan school. For example, Vygotski thought that the environment was always a sociocultural and historical environment. Mental development was the result of the impact of the society and culture on the individual, mediated through language, and the individual’s own action on the environment. Thus, the development of higher mental processes is socially and culturally determined. Thus, schooling was a means to develop these capacities.

During her work with the abandoned children, Antipoff found that these children’s performance on the tests were bad. But, they did not seem to be dumb. This made her accept the ideas of Vygotski. In Petrograd, she met Viktor Iretzky, whom she married. Later, she published two articles in Petrograd, which focussed on her findings with regards to children’s mental capacities. Her conclusion was thus that these tests did not do well, and that they were limited to upper-class children. However, she was criticized by the Soviet authorities, because her results showed that upper-class children did better than working-class children. This made her leave Russia, and she also lost her citizenship. She went back to Europe.

What happened next?

Antipoff lived a year in Berlin, and then went back to Geneva. She worked as Claparède’s assistant at the Rousseau institute. Clarapède’s work became very popular, and was translated into different languages. In Brazil, the Minas Gerais state government wanted to establish a Teachers Training College for training educational specialists and managers in Belo Horizonte, the capital of Brazil. Antipoff accepted a 1-year contract and left Geneva. After several renewals of this contract, she decided to stay in Brazil for good.

During the 1920s, there were educational reforms in Brazilian states. In 1924, progressive educators founded the Brazilian Education Association, and they initiated a campaign which was aimed at expanding the number of opportunities for schooling and rationalizing school administration. Psychologists’ contributions were highly valued. The New School movement supported the use of IQ tests for evaluating the possibilities of children. In 1929, Antipoff began with teaching classes at the Belo Horizonte Teachers Training College. Her students were people who were already working as school principals or supervisors in public schools. She also started a research program which was based on studying mental development, ideals, and interests of local children.

What can be said about culture and cognition in children’s development?

Antipoff studied how the children in Brazil were, and how schools should be adapted to them. Thus, she kept cultural differences in mind. To achieve this, she developed questionnaires which measured children’s’ preferred tasks at home and at school, preferred toys and books, adult models, and plans for the future. What became clear was that Brazilian children’s  ideals and interests were more limited and less diverse than those of their foreign countries. Antipoff interpreted these results by saying that in Brazil, family life was the predominant experience in children’s lives. Also, she noted that Brazilian children had fewer daily hours of class compared to Europeans or North Americans. She stated: “there is a constant interaction between children’s nature and the environment in which they life”. She stated that educative work should be organized according to children’s interests. Her ideas were published in Geneva.

She continued her research, and published a report, in which she described children’s results on the Goodenough test, the Dearborn test, and the Ballard’s A Hundred Questions Intelligence. The purpose of these studies was to first study the mental development of local schoolchildren by age group, then compare their mental development with that of peers in other countries, and lastly to investigate how mental development varies according to social background.

What was Antipoff’s Concept of Civilized Intelligence?

According to Antipoff, intelligence tests should be considered as an evaluation of ‘the level of mental development’ of a given population. She developed a view of intelligence measured by tests as “civilized intelligence”. Thus, it could be that in certain countries children score lower, but this does not mean that these children are not as intelligent. Antipoff also distinguished between concrete and abstract thinking.  This idea is related to the Soviet perspective, and to Vygotski’s ideas.

What is a Social-Psychological Approach to School Learning?

Antipoff’s concept of civilized intelligence was backed up by her studies conducted in Belo Horizonte. Her results showed that local children in Brazil had lower performance compared to peers in Europe or North America. The results also suggested a relationship between socioeconomic status and test scores. She concluded that “the ranking of each school corresponds to the level of economic and social welfare of the neighbourhood where each school is located”. She also found a high relationship between fathers’ jobs and test results: lower jobs were associated with lower test scores. Thus, she concludes that general intelligence tests measure a civilized intelligence, and not a natural one. Thus, IQ tests should be used with caution. Instead, they were well fit to measure the socioeconomic status of groups.

Later, Antipoff conducted another study using an adaptation of the Binet-Simon intelligence scale, namely the ‘Test Prime’. She examined three groups, who were all illiterate. The results showed that illiterate adults showed the same performance as illiterate children. Fourth graders showed the best performance. According to Antipoff, this showed that schools develop ‘civilized intelligence’. Vygotski also developed an idea, which involved that formal instructions guide cognitive transformations. Thus, these findings point to the role of the social environment on children’s mental development. Thus, Antipoff created five factors that should be taken into consideration when interpreting IQ tests: experience, culture, social environment, opportunities to deal with different life situations, and emotions.

How can we deal with school failure from a cultural perspective?

Thus, Antipoff created an environmentalist approach. She was a supporter of grouping students, because the results she found were for the group, and not for individuals. Classification should be based on IQ tests, and then followed by a careful observation of students by their teachers. Researchers first tried to group students based on age. Among class-repeaters, Antipoff distinguished three groups: children presenting educational retardation, children who also presented intellectual or social retardation, and abnormal children, who suffered from physical or psychological deficiencies. Using school achievement and mental age, these groups could be distinguished. Antipoff stated that failure was to be expected regularly, because of things such as mental development, irregular school attendance. However, others thought the schools themselves were responsible. There was a high amount of repeaters in Brazil, 52% children in the first grade were repeaters. According to Antipoff, grouping students would help to reduce the problem of this repeating.

What was the third period?

Researchers in Belo Horizonte stated that there were a lot of abnormal children in public schools. Antipoff changed this to ‘exceptional’ children. She did not want to label children in a negative way. There were special classes developed for educationally retarded children, which involved children who repeated the same grade three or more times, and those who suffered from physical disabilities, perceptual defects, short attention span, or mental and emotional instability. These special classes had a maximum of 15 students each.  In 1934, Antipoff published a study on ‘mental orthopedics’ for special classes. In this work, she suggested that the activities in these special classes should focus on the ‘Active School methods’: the education of these children should raise their natural interests, use concrete subjects, train them in basic skills, and be individualized. She also founded the Belo Horizonte Pestalozzi Society, which was aimed to help exceptional and socially disadvantaged children. The founders of this Pestalozzi society consisted of a heterogenous group. According to Antipoff, mental abnormality did not only reflect ‘limited intelligence’. Instead, children with lower IQ scores could also show personality problems. This makes sense, because the children that were living below the poverty line experience a lot of stressors, such as alcoholism, violence, and other problems. Thus, she really wanted to support these children.

By the end of 1930, she was discouraged by the directions that public schools were taking. She criticized their emphasis on “new scientific methods, and new work materials”. She felt like this was preventing educators from their role as social reformers. She also felt like Brazilian schools did not adapt well to their children. In the early 1940s, after going to France, she moved back to Brazil and decided to stay there. She promoted the establishment of a school for retarded and abandoned children, which was sponsored by the Pestalozzi society. This school was established on a farm. This Farm-School can be considered as Antipoff’s major creation.