Critical

1
Critical

• Theory, Pedagogy, Thinking

2
These are the people in your (curriculum)
neighbourhood

• Critical theorist
• Critical pedagogue
• Critical thinker
• Criticalist (?)
• Feminist(s)
• Multiculturalist(s)
• Postmodernist(s)
• CT/CP/PofC/F/M/P/

3
Curriculum Theorizing Beyond Reproduction Theory
(Kemmis, 1986)

• Technical curriculum theorizing
• Tyler and call for rational and technical
  approach

• Practical curriculum theorizing
• Schwab and reaction to technical curriculum
  theorizing

A view of curriculum theorizing based on the
practical assumes a world in which teachers must
play an active part in educational decision
making, and take responsibility for doing so
refusing to concede responsibility for education
to decision makers outside the classroom or
school. (p. 58-59)
4
Critical Curriculum Theorizing

• reaction to silence on political matters and
  lack of critical teacher involvement in
  practical theorizing
• different form of reasoning from technical and
  practical curriculum theorizing dialectical
  reasoning (p. 68-69)
• different kind of interest from technical and
  practical curriculum theorizing emancipatory
  interest (p. 72)
• Form of theorizing is that of ideology-critique

5
Ideology-Critique

• critiques of social life which show how ideas and
  actions can be constrained because of unexamined
  power relations
• Shows how schooling functions as an ideology
• Aim is not to develop new programs to form a new
  society
• Aim is to transform education
• It looks both outward to illuminate the social
  world and inward to illuminate the formation of
  our ways of seeing and being in the world our
  consciousness (p. 73)

6
Critical Theory is
the theoretical approach of the Frankfurt School
of social philosophers. Relying on the work of
Hegel and Marx, they tried to exhibit
dialectically the contradictions imposed upon
modern human beings by varieties of social
organization that abuse formal rationality in
order to deny power to classes of citizens.
Rejecting the detached insularity of traditional
efforts at objectivity, critical theorists of any
sort generally hope that their explanation of the
causes of oppression will result in practical
efforts to eliminate it. http//www.philosophypag
es.com/dy/c9.htmcrith
7
(some) Critical Theorists are (were)

• Immanuel Kant (1724-1804)
• Karl Marx (1818-1883)
• Theodor Adorno (1903-1969)
• Walter Benjamin (1892-1940)
• Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979)
• Max Horkheimer (1895-1973)
• Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831)

• Michael Apple
• Jennifer Gore
• Patti Lather
• Peter Wexler
• Peter McLaren
• Roger Simon
• Henry Giroux
• Elizabeth Ellsworth
• Jurgen Habermas

Illuminations The Critical Theory website
http//www.uta.edu/huma/illuminations/
8
Now its up to you

• Why I am/am not a CRITICAL THINKER
• a CRITICAL PEDAGOGUE
• neither

Groups to clarify and present (sup)positions
based on Burbules Beck (1999)
9
ERIC Digest No. 30. Patrick, John J.
http//ericae.net/edo/ed272432.htm
Critical thinking, whether conceived broadly or
narrowly, implies curiosity, skepticism,
reflection, and rationality. Critical thinkers
have a propensity to raise and explore questions
about beliefs, claims, evidence, definitions,
conclusions, and actions. Many proponents of
critical thinking stop short of evaluating the
most basic criteria, or values, by which they or
their students make judgments. They would teach
critical thinking only within conventional frames
of reference of a society. A more profound view
encourages appraisal of frameworks or sets of
criteria by which judgments are made. This deeper
level of critical thinking counteracts
egocentric, ethnocentric, or doctrinaire
judgments, which result when thinkers fail to
appraise fundamental assumptions or standards.
10
Critical and Creative Thinking
is intended to better develop students' abilities
to create and to evaluate ideas, processes,
experiences and objects. It requires that
teachers and students learn to articulate,
publicly defend, and change when necessary, their
criteria for evaluation. The goal is to develop
students who value knowledge, learning and the
creative process, who can and will think for
themselves, yet recognize the limits of
individual reflection and the need to contribute
to and build upon mutual understandings of social
situations.

• Understanding the Common Essential Learnings A
  Handbook for Teachers

11
Gender Equity

• Two-page (cut-and-paste) document
• Examine the document and ask critical questions
  about meaning, language use, and theory/practice

• Gender Equity Policy and Guidelines for
  Implementation
• http//www.sasked.gov.sk.ca/docs/phgopo.html

12
Feminism and curriculum Getting our act together
(Madeline Grumet Lynda Stone, 2000)

• the feminist project in curriculum to ask how
  feminisms ambition to first reveal the ways that
  gender constrains human experience and then to
  make other ways of being and living accessible to
  men and women has supported curriculum design
  and development (p. 184)

13
Liberal Feminism

• Central tenets assumes that mens lives are
  what women want (p. 185) EQUITY
• Role theory or modelling (social psychology)
  gives women access to the status quo of male
  practice (without questioning the limitations of
  that practice) ROLE APPROPRIATION

14
Feminisms diverse, with roots based in ideology,
identity, and philosophical or political
background
In order to portray feminist positions without
tripping on our specificities, we suggest the
following terms to represent four strands of
feminist theory

• Liberal
• Cultural
• Poststructuralist
• Marxist
• Radical
• Anarchist
• African-American
• Postmodern
• and more

• EXPERIENTIAL
• CATEGORICAL
• PSYCHOANALYTIC
• DECONSTRUCTIVE