Thread by @Thinkb4Learning

"Toward a Transformative Criticality for Democratic Citizenship Education" Critical Thinking vs. #CriticalPedagogy #Indoctrination
critical thinking : pluralist, level-headed, reasonable, political autonomy
Critical pedagogy: solidarity, critique, social justice activism 🧵1/20

"Those favoring critical thinking...aim to produce young people who can make thoughtful, well-substantiated choices about their values and behavior." "they eschew an ideological orientation...in favor of a logical orientation...producing thoughtful...reasonable people." 2/

The author is a Critical Pedagogy advocate themselves, believes, "schools can and should prepare young people to participate skillfully in the struggle to bring about a more just world." & and is open about "critical pedagogy’s (admittedly often real) indoctrination problem." 3/

From here on I will use CT for critical thinker approach & CP for Critical pedagogy approach.
CT: " Pluralists view diversity “as a deliberative asset"...difference “motivates individuals to justify their proposals with appeals to justice”...“contributes to social knowledge”4/

CT: "Pluralism benefits democracy...by preventing it from devolving into monolithic tyranny."
"requires citizens to be tolerant, independent critical thinkers...schooling must aim not to indoctrinate them... 5/

... but instead...“shape them into the kind of people who decide for themselves what shape they will take”
"Young people need opportunities to participate in decision-making...to develop their autonomy, and they need to develop their own values and beliefs in order to decide"6/

The CT approach also centers on the idea of reasonableness, but the CPs have a gripe about what that is. Inspired by postmodern and feminist critiques of reason and rationality, they feel "reason", "privileges a Western, patriarchal worldview" & "privilege logical deduction"7/

"One of..critical pedagogues’ primary critiques of critical thinking is that it makes a false claim to ideological neutrality""according to the critical pedagogical view, deliberation is never neutral but rather arises from and therefore favors a Western, patriarchal worldview"8/

CP is "characterized by a solidarity-based conception of who is involved, a strategy centered around social justice activism, and a disposition to critique." 9/

CP: "Solidarity denotes a rejection or even reversal of hierarchies, undermining existing power dynamics by positioning the oppressed as agents and knowers, while positioning the oppression’s beneficiaries as allies rather than saviors." 10/

CP:"political solidarity" is “the majority...come to embrace the minority’s cause as its own”, and is a "model of social change." This PS is rooted in the teachings of Freire. "Freire...emphasized that a pedagogy of the oppressed must be “forged with, not for the oppressed.”11/

"the critical thinking approach to democratic citizenship education values political autonomy—the idea that young people should decide for themselves what “shape they will take” —the critical pedagogical approach values committed social justice activism."12/

CP:"young people learn to build and take part in social movements..direct action designed to challenge...status quo..Critical pedagogues do not assume that deciding leads...to implementation...students need to be taught to translate...political voice into political influence"13/

"critical pedagogy...entail indoctrinating students to a particular worldview.“Teaching students to think critically must include allowing them to come to...own conclusions,”...“yet critical pedagogy seems to come dangerously close to prejudging what those conclusions must be”14/

"critical pedagogical approaches sometimes stray into the territory of indoctrination." "teachers favoring a critical pedagogical orientation may have few models for teaching about oppression in ways that do not tell students what to think." 15/

"From...critical thinking perspective...critical pedagogues inculcate students with leftist political values...anticapitalism...solidarity, green politics, feminism...LGBTQ rights...antiracism)" CP "views all social relations through a lens of oppression and domination." 16/

"critical thinkers charge, “everything is up for questioning within critical pedagogy except the categories and premises of critical pedagogy itself”" & "critical pedagogy fails to examine its own ironically hegemonic tendencies. “Critical Pedagogy needs to be questioned,”"17/

The authors of one of the books discussed, The Political Classroom, "reiterate how such (arguably critical pedagogical) approaches risk indoctrinating students and can interfere with political autonomy." 18/

Ill go ahead & end this thread here, the author goes on in the paper to describe their synthesis of CP & CT that they call "transformative criticality", which isn't much different than standard CP, they just package it into something that might be more digestible for non CPs.19/

Link to paper if anyone wants to read the whole thing. democracyeducationjournal.org/cgi/viewconten… 20/20 #CriticalPedagogy #Indoctrination