Nevitt Sanford’s Theory

So when was the last time you looked in your education toolbox and pulled out developmental theory? Strange question? Maybe but it is the focus of this post. Throughout the fall I will address different developmental theorists and how their theory might relate to Christian education.

 

As a Ph.D. student, I am currently studying college student development. The focus of the course is around theories that apply to working with traditional aged college students which are 18-23. Most of theories however are stage theories and will address the entire spectrum of ages in our congregations.

 

Our first theorist is Nevitt Sanford whose began work in prejudice theory and is the father of student development theory. Sanford theory addresses several concepts:

 

• Challenge—is provided by both internal and external stimuli. Too much challenge and a student will not grow but enter stagnation or retreat.
• Disequilibrium-is form of challenge and is when what the student is experiencing is not in harmony with their prior knowledge.
• Support—External environments that provide the student with help in negotiating the challenges being experienced without coddling the student to work through the dissonance.
• Differentiation—the experiences a student comes in with that comes into contact with the campus stimuli which causes a student to come up with new ways to negotiate their environment. They will have to have different ways to interact with their environment that they did not have before. This will need to then be integrated into the student’s understanding.
• Integration—The ability to take new understandings into a normal way of functioning.
• Readiness—The ability of a student to move to a higher or newer level of development. Readiness could be seen as the bridge between differentiation and integration. However, readiness is internal.
• Stimuli—Those interactions and environments that encourage growth within a student. The catalyst that force a response in student understanding.
• Dissonance—The student’s response and emotion to unfamiliar and clashing values.
• Retreat—the student has too much challenge and not enough support and begins to move back toward familiar and safe understanding.
• Stagnation—Is when the student stops growing or retreating.

 

These are the concepts within Sanford’s theory and I think they relate well to what is experienced by older teenagers in the congregational setting. If the church does not provide enough challenge, the student will have a naïve faith expression. If the student is challenged too much without support, the student will withdraw or flee from what is being discussed. (This can happen during a freshman religion course when Sunday school answers are challenged.) If too much support is provided (the work is done for the student) the student will not grow in faith or be able to think for themselves.

 

Not too difficult a theory but with implication for Christian education. So what do you think of Sanford’s theory? Do you see it working in your older teenagers? Do you disagree with some aspect?