Back to Social Learning Theory

This morning, I was reviewing an article by Carla O'Conner as part of my comprehensive exam preparation. The article, "Dispositions Toward (Collective) Struggle and Education Resilience in the Inner City: A Case Analysis of Six African-American High School Students", presents the stories of six students who by all previous research would have been assumed to be failing in their education. But these students were not only succeeding, they were high-achieving and optimistic about their future. O'Conner found two things that were important to this unexpected success - experiencing struggle and having a model (a "sponsor") to illustrate how to best deal with the inequities of the system. And social learning theory is back! I like that we can apply these learning theories to things that are happening outside of the classroom, whether they affect what's going on in the classroom or not. Highly illustrative of learning as an all encompassing entity, not something that is contained to the school day.