Introduction
21
However, in the critical pedagogy movement, raising the issue of the social
conditions of freedom is
essential
to critical thinking. True critical thinking,
for the critical pedagogists, involves liberation from an oppressive system as a
condition of freedom of thought. As Burbules and Berk put it: “Critical think-
ing’s claim is, at heart, to teach how to think critically, not how to teach politi-
cally; for Critical Pedagogy, this is a false distinction . . . self-emancipation is
contingent upon social emancipation” (1999, 55). In the words of the Critical
Pedagogy Collective (echoing Dewey): “Education is not preparation for life—
education is life itself” (2013).
The axis diagram revisited again
We can now move to a further refinement of our axis diagram (see figure 0.4);
and here we use the term “critical participation” to denote the perspectives
that are orientated toward participating critically in society. Note that “critical
participation” is oriented in figure 0.4 spatially closer to the category of “criti-
cal doing” compared to the category of “critical rationality” (it has a stronger
“outer” than an “inner” focus). It is positioned closer to the X axis. However,
there is a difference in the degree of commitment here. The “participation”
facet of criticality, in turn, has two dimensions: (1) an
awareness
of oppres-
sion (known in the literature both as critical consciousness or
conscientization
(Freire 1972; 1973) and (2) a more practical dimension, the
resistance
to oppres-
sion (demonstrably, to “resist” something one needs to be aware of what one is
resisting). This is known in the critical pedagogy literature as
praxis.
Both these
vectors are represented in figure 0.4.
However, this separation of concerns belies deep similarities. As Burbules and
Berk note: “each invokes the term ‘critical’ as a valued educational goal: urging
teachers to help students become more skeptical toward commonly accepted
truisms. Each says, in its own way, ‘Don’t let yourself be deceived.’ And each
has sought to reach and influence particular groups of educators . . . They share
a passion and sense of urgency about the need for more critically oriented
classrooms. Yet with very few exceptions these literatures do not discuss one
another” (Burbules and Berk 1999, 45). However, there are synergies between
the criticality and critical pedagogy movements as indicated by their focus on
action.
Conclusion
Attention to critical thinking or criticality, as we prefer it, is in greater need
than ever in the contemporary world. There are, though, some challenges in
giving it the important place in higher education that we suggest it warrants.
Large forces are at work that are tending to diminish a sense of its significance.
On the one hand “cognitive capitalism” (Boutang 2011) works—in a digital
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