Abstract
The articles presented in this special issue are a small sample of those presented at the 1st International Conference on Critical Pedagogies and Philosophies of Education, held at Liverpool Hope University in June of 2014. This first conference was organised by the Paulo Freire Centre at Liverpool Hope, which had a particular focus on fostering research into Critical Pedagogy and Philosophy of Education, and gathered scholars from all over the world. Since then, although the Paulo Freire Centre has closed, the conference continues to take place every year, and the fourth annual meeting will be held at the University of Winchester, July 2017.
The origins of Philosophy of Education, and Critical Pedagogy, can be traced back to the time of Plato and Socrates. These two philosophers recognised the importance of dialogue for human interaction and for education. Indeed, it is well-known that dialogue is something that is indispensable to Critical Pedagogies. In the Republic, Socrates challenged his student Plato to think critically about educational, social and philosophical issues and advocated overtly, through the figure of the philosopher-king, that philosophers are a ‘special kind’ for their capacity to critically analyse issues. This aspect, namely to think critically about educational, social and philosophical issues, is a cornerstone of Critical Pedagogy, offering a constant source of discussion for those working in the field.
After Plato’s Republic, it is perhaps Rousseau’s Emile that is chronologically the next most influential text on education. In this work, Rousseau deals with the relationship between the individual and society, and how the individual might retain its original innate goodness while being part of a corrupting community, views he had also expressed in the Social Contract. As was the case with Socrates and Plato, the issue of autonomy and the transformation of society emerge, and these are of pivotal importance for Critical Pedagogy. Other examples of this plea to change, and thereby improve society, can be found throughout history.
However, it was in the 1960s and 70s that Critical Pedagogy truly emerged as a theory and a distinct field of study, and this emergence is directly related to the works of Paulo Freire. During these decades, there was considerable expectation on behalf of educators and policy makers that education would solve all the problems of society. Unfortunately, this hope and expectation was not realised, leading to great unease and frustration among those working in education. Freire, following a Marxist analysis of educational systems, identified the reasons for the failure to transform society; that is, banking education is what was on offer, and he sought to provide a viable educational alternative based on dialogue and critical thinking to transform society. Other thinkers, either under the influence of Freire or through reaching similar conclusions independently, have continued this tradition, which we now call Critical Pedagogy. This tradition remains strong and influential, with Michael Apple and Henry Giroux as, perhaps, the most recent and important proponents of this school of thought.
That said, there seems to be a lack of attention being paid by governments and society as a whole to the work of these thinkers. This is partly because Critical Pedagogy does not suit the current trend of Globalisation, which leads some critical pedagogists, such as Peter McLaren, to take a more extreme and revolutionary position. However, it could be argued that Critical Pedagogy is itself to blame for its current position, verging on irrelevance, in the Global world. For instance, the late Ilan Gur-Ze’ev (2003: 13) insightfully noted: I believe I do not run the risk of exaggeration by asserting that in fact all current versions of Critical Pedagogy have lost their intimate connections to the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School; not much is left of its original relation with the Frankfurt School that was an enrichment so fruitful for the very possibility of Critical Pedagogy; for Paulo Freire and early Henry Giroux, Peter McLaren, Michael Apple, Ira Shor, and other founders of the unexpected present popularity (and irrelevance) of the different versions of Critical Pedagogy. This historical and philosophical gap is not a regretful condition per se; if only a fruitful transformation and a rich, elevating, alternative had lifted … [Critical Pedagogy] [my emphasis, my insertion].
This special issue aims to help further develop Critical Pedagogy, drawing attention to research by new scholars working in the field as well as to the more established theorist, Gert Biesta. The first article ‘Happiness in education: A pedagogical-political commitment’, by myself and Ana Lucia Souza de Freitas, argues that education should be understood as a political act and puts forward a critical view of the simplistic notion of ‘happiness education’. It presents the topic of ‘happiness’ in the works of Paulo Freire and Georges Snyders, who defended the fact that we must strive for a fuller, richer understanding of ‘happiness’ in education They spoke of bringing back the pleasure to teach and to study, and transforming educational settings in places that strengthen and encourage ‘happiness’ in our lives, especially of those who suffer outside the school or university.
The second article, ‘Educating for British values: Kant’s philosophical roadmap for cosmopolitan character education’ by Carl Hildebrand approaches the UK government’s decision to implement some guidance on the matter of British identity, requiring that schools actively promote fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and respect of those with different faiths and beliefs. Certainly, these values are not British in the parochial sense: they are forward-looking, conciliatory, cosmopolitan values. They are meant to structure and guide commitments to more particular features of what British identity might include. However, because they are rational and somewhat abstract, it is not easy to see how they might be cultivated in children (who are not fully rational), nor how they might fit together with the non-rational aspects of the human person. Thus, drawing on Kant’s account of education, which faces similar challenges, Hildebrand argues that Kantian ethics might provide a helpful philosophical roadmap for the successful cultivation of cosmopolitan, British values.
In the following article ‘Educational work as a “Labor of love”’, Boaz Tsabar examines the pedagogical nature of the encounter between educators and their students. He discusses the potential for alienation inherent in the educator–student encounter, which he deems as the ‘the first fifteen seconds of anxiety’, and goes on to examine the possibility of constituting an alternative relationship based on a pedagogy of mutual and non-alienated recognition rooted in a dialogical relationship. Tsabar refers to Martin Buber’s notion of the ‘dialogical relationship’ and to Erich Fromm’s ‘love relationship’ as a foundation for this new pedagogical relationship.
The paper by Itay Snir and Yuval Eylon, ‘Pedagogy of non-domination: Neo-republican political theory and critical education’, suggests that the dialogue between neo-republicanism and critical pedagogy can be mutually productive. They argue that a republican educational theory must take into consideration not only the freedom students will have in the future, but also their freedom in the present: it should think of school as a small-scale republic, which prepares its inhabitants to be future citizens of the state while at the same time treating them as free citizens in their own right. The article also draws attention to four aspects that emerge from neo-republicanism’s conversation with critical pedagogy: the connection between democracy and justice, the multiplicity of forms of domination, critical education within schools, and work with students from relatively privileged backgrounds. 1
The final article, ‘Don’t be fooled by ignorant schoolmasters: On the role of the teacher in emancipatory education’, is by Gert Biesta, a highly prominent scholar in the field and we are very pleased that it is part of this special issue. In this article, Biesta continues to develop his work on the role of the teacher and nature of teaching. It addresses the question ‘how might we understand the role of the teacher in education that seeks to promote emancipation?’, answering it in conversation with German and North-American versions of critical pedagogy using the work of Paulo Freire and of Jacques Rancière. In each case, Biesta not only finds a strong argument for emancipatory education, but also provides a distinctive view about the role of the teacher.