THEORY OF INDOCTRINATION

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THEORY OF INDOCTRINATION
Rauno Huttunen University of Jyväskylä
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IN DOCTRINA INDOCTRINARE
Verb indoctrinare is Middle Age Latin and it
meant effective teaching of Christian doctrines.
Kilpatrick defined the term negatively.
That democracy must refuse and reject
indoctrination in this prejudice-building sense
would seem beyond question Democarcy and a
proper respect for childs personality must
reject such enslavement as partisan exploitation
of The individuals right to be educated to do
his own thinking And make his own decisions
William Heard Kilpatrick
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DEFINITION OF INDOCTRINATION

• In the philosophy of education, the concept of
  indoctrination refers to unethical influencing in
  a teaching situation. Indoctrination means
  infiltrating (drilling, inculcating etc.)
  concepts, attitudes, beliefs and theories into a
  students mind by passing her free and critical
  deliberation. When - on a general level - we
  define indoctrination in this way, it is easy to
  say that the indoctrinative teaching is morally
  wrong and that teachers or educational
  institutions should not practise it. The problem
  is how do we acknowledge indoctrinative teaching?
  By what criterion do we consider teaching to be a
  form of indoctrination or to have elements of
  indoctrination?

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CRITERIA OF INDOCTRINATION

• 1.The method of teaching as a criterion of
  indoctrination
• 2. The content of teaching as criterion of
  indoctrination
• 3. The intention of teaching as criterion of
  indoctrination
• 4. The consequence of teaching as a criterion of
  indoctrination

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METHOD AS CRITERION

• In the U.S. context, thanks to John Dewey, the
  tendency is to connect indoctrination to a
  certain teaching method. This illegitimate
  teaching method is said to include the following
  elements a) Teaching is authoritarian, b)
  Teaching content is drilled in students minds,
  c) There are threading elements in teaching and
  free discussion is not allowed. Some writers
  label these as "irrational teaching methods".

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CONTENT AS CRITERION

• According to the trivial content criterion,
  the content of teaching determines whether or not
  teaching is indoctrination. As Anthony Flew put
  it "No doctrines, no indoctrination"

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INTENTION AS CRITERION

• The first person to use the term
  indoctrination in its pejorative sense was
  William Heard Kilpatrick. Kilpatrick emphasized
  the intention of the teacher in his concept of
  indoctrination. He did not deny the possibility
  of unintentional indoctrination, but nevertheless
  considered the teachers intention to be the most
  important criterion of indoctrination. John White
  defines a teachers so called indoctrinative
  intention in the following way "The child should
  believe that p is true, in a such way that
  nothing will shake this belief.

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CONSEQUENCE AS CRITERION

• When we consider indoctrination in the light
  of the consequence criterion, we focus our
  attention to the outcomes of teaching and
  education. According to this criterion, teaching
  is indoctrination if the outcome is an
  "indoctrinated person". John Wilson claims that
  an indoctrinated person lives in self-deception.
  She is a kind of sleepwalker. The ground of the
  beliefs of such a person are believed to be
  untenable, or beyond rational reasoning. An
  indoctrinated person holds her conviction despite
  of the counter evidence.

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• These four criteria - stated in this
  traditional way - include serious problems that
  could potentially render the entire concept of
  indoctrination useless in the context of a
  post-modern teaching situation. I agree with
  Snook, who claims that indoctrination cannot be
  defined by certain irrational teaching methods.
  It is clear that when a teacher teaches in an
  authoritarian style, she tends to produce
  non-discursive and indoctrinative learning,
  although this is a very ineffective way to
  indoctrinate in a modern teaching situation. It
  is mainly used in the military, in some private
  educational institutes, some workplaces and in
  other so-called total institutions. However,
  the lack of this kind of teaching does not
  necessarily remove the danger of indoctrination.

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• Rauno Huttunens communicative theory of
  indoctrination
• The communicative method and intention criterion
• The empowering content and consequence criterion.
• Read more at
• http//www.vusst.hr/ENCYCLOPAEDIA/indoctrination.h
  tm