[Note:
This posting is subject to further editing.]
With a good look at Paulo
Freire’s ideas concerning education – that of a critical pedagogue – one can
now take a closer look at what critical theory promotes. One word about Freire – to contextualize his
contribution – the nation he represented was Brazil. While Brazil has become highly advanced, it
is still classified as a developing nation since it still does not provide
adequate healthcare and clean water to all of its population.[1] So, one should keep that factor in mind when
considering his arguments.
This and the next posting will get more closely at the
diversity of ideas or focuses critical theorists hold. One commentator that points to this variety,
as he describes and explains the construct, is William Schubert. [2]
He does emphasize that critical theorists do agree on certain
principles.
He mentions
agreement on the need for praxis as Freire mostly describes it as striving for
the transformation of a society (instead of working toward marginal
changes). In their understanding of
praxis, they see it as an action to attain emancipation and empowerment – their
terms – of the oppressed. In part they
achieve this by questioning the structures of the power arrangements in each
nation. And looming over all of this is
a value system that prizes equality of results – or as they term it, social
justice – as a trump value.
Praxis views
knowledge in a particular way. That is,
it is derived from constructive processes which investigate the social
realities that the oppressed experience.
And the approach students are to take utilizes a multidisciplinary
approach (history, political, economic, and social sciences) applied to reality
as it evolves in given places and times – as opposed to universal conditions.
Regarding
“learning,” knowledge is perceived differently.
Here it is the product of deconstructing existing claims – the product
of oppressor discourses – and reconstructing them in more real contexts as perceived
by the oppressed. Obviously, this view
of knowledge is that it is the product or created by the mind constructing it. As such, it rejects reductionist research
protocols.[3]
In
its purity, this view of knowledge counters the positivist view which is what
natural rights advocates promote. In its
total form, a positivist approach favors the impartation of knowledge through
the efforts of experts with sanctioning credentials. Instead, critical theorists argue that
knowledge should be the product of self-derived knowledge taken from personal
and intimate relationships and their related experiences.
And
on this point, critical theorists do not accept the claims of positivists that
being that positivists objectify their subject matter and strip their biases
from their findings. According to
critical theorists, positivists are equally affected by their personal biases as
demonstrated by the long history of faulty claims proffered by these experts.
This
critique holds that positivists
see the function of scientifically derived social knowledge is not to better
interpersonal relationships, but to be applied to clinical relationships by
social technicians or to advance the interests those who fund such research as
multi-national corporations. And this
can be said of not only the conclusions they derive from their research but
also the questions they pose.
Bottom line
is that the results of this sort of “studies” are a false consciousness. In its stead, would be a liberating
education, an education that helps people achieve emancipation from the inherently
debilitating condition or state of affairs.
Through the years, this line of thinking has gone through changes
including the evolution of two schools of thought: reconstructionism and reconceptualization.
Reconstructionism
has remained truer to its Marxist origins – not to deny it has its differences
with that source – while reconceptualization has open itself to the influence
of a variety of sources including existentialism, psychoanalysis, and a
stronger aversion to pure scientific research.
Next posting will delve into these ideas and how they have affected the
whole critical theorists’ view of civic issues.
[1] Mar Z. Luna, “10 Most Developed Countries in Central
and South America,” Homeschool Spanish Academy (October 13, 2022), accessed
April 29, 2023, https://www.spanish.academy/blog/10-most-developed-countries-in-central-and-south-america/.
[2] William H. Schubert, Curriculum: Perspective, Paradigm, and
Possibility (New York, NY: MacMillan Publishing Company, 1986). Most
of the descriptive comments in this and the next posting relies heavily on
ideas presented by Schubert.
[3] According to this blogger’s understanding, not all
critical theorists totally reject the contributions of positivist studies one
associates with scientific approaches.
All of them do question its value as being the sole source of knowledge. It should be noted that Freire does not
dismiss the social sciences but argues their application in a multidisciplinary
way.
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