Educating for significant events: The application of Harre's social reality matrix across the lower secondary-school curriculum

A model based on the conceptual framework defining 'identity projects' devised by Rom Harre has become a basis for assessing creative arts activity in schools. According to this model, the 'social reality matrix', individual identity is dependent on social context. The workof 'transformation' and 'publication' serves toconfirm the individual as moral agent within a moral and social order, resulting in stronger social identities for the marginalized and in greater self-expression for the socially established. Thus the creative process is key both to personal growth and to social order and progress. Socio-constructivist and experiential theories of learning emphasize that all learning is brought about through the involvement of personal and social activity in aprocess of personal growth. Thus there would seem tobe acase for applying Harre 's insights to curriculum planning beyond the creative arts in order to increase student satisfaction from a range of discourses. We explore the curricular implications of Harre's work for teachers of English (as a first language), modern foreign languages and mathematics, with a particular emphasis on the lower secondary-school curriculum (ages 11 to 16). Although examples are taken largely from England and Wales, we believe that the models can be developed in many local and national contexts.