Some Alternative Conceptions

Brookfield10 (1987) emphasizes how CT does and should go beyond the "logical analysis" taught in academia, and into domains of relationships, work and politics for adults. He understands CT as "calling into question the assumptions underlying our customary, habitual ways of thinking and acting and then being ready to think and act differently on the basis of this critical questioning" (p.1). As such, his conception seems to encompass elements of self-reflection and action in the personal, career and

10

Even though Brookfield's 1987 book focuses on adult learners, I would argue that this work is relevant to college students as well. Since university students are almost-adults, or at least we are preparing them to be adults, then the kind of CT adults need is the kind we need to foster in college students. See also Halx (2010)

political domains. Identifying and challenging one's own assumptions is central, as is the ability to "imagine and explore alternatives" (p. 8), leading to "reflective scepticism" (p. 9). Brookfield understands CT as a process rather than an outcome, and emphasizes its contextuality. Despite criticisms of CT as rational and non-emotive, Brookfield emphasizes the centrality of emotion in CT, recognizing how questioning one's own assumptions can induce anxiety, and that successful transformative effects of CT can produce excitement.

2.2.4.2 Barnett's Critical Being

Barnett (1997) finds skills-based definitions of CT narrow and finds that they tend towards instrumental conceptions of CT. Instead of asking what CT is, Barnett asks "what is it for?" (p. 65). His model of CT, the culmination of which is "Critical Being", involves criticality across the three domains of knowledge, self, and the world. Within each domain, one can be critical at various levels of engagement, starting from instrumental criticality, up to transformative critique11. I consider his model "inclusive" because it includes the traditional CT movement understanding of CT as skills (as the lowest level of criticism about knowledge), and because the model incorporates criticality in the domains of reflection and action (similar to critical pedagogy discussed below). The diagram below (table 2.3) summarizes Barnett's model. He calls for "the attainment of a durable self through a critical disposition integrated across all three domains" (p. 105, emphasis added), as opposed to the three current academic models he mentions which focus on either formal knowledge alone in an academic setting, or action on a performative/instrumental level e.g. vocationalism, or unite action with reflection but downplay knowledge e.g. reflective practice (Barnett, 1997). The important characteristic of the advanced levels of his model is that they involve an escape from pre-given parameters, be they the parameters of disciplinary epistemology or unsaid rules of the professional life, such that critical persons work collectively to challenge the status quo, whether in the domain of knowledge, self or the world. Two notions in both Barnett's and Brookfield's conceptions of CT involve CT's potential for transformative action, which is also central to the field of critical pedagogy, discussed next.

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This is not a developmental model like Perry's, in that Barnett does not claim one moves naturally from one stage to the other

TabTable 2.3 Levels of Criticality across Domains: Reconstructed from Barnett (1997, p. 103)

Levels of criticality Domains

Knowledge Self World

4. Transformatory critique

Knowledge critique Reconstruction of self Critique-in-action

(collective reconstruction of the world) 3. Refashioning of traditions Critical thought (malleable traditions of thought) Development of self within traditions Mutual understanding and development of traditions

2. Reflexivity Critical thinking

(reflection on one's understanding)

Self-reflection

(reflection on one's own projects)

Reflective practice ('metacompetence', 'adaptability', 'flexibility') 1. Critical skills Discipline-specific

critical thinking skills

Self-monitoring to given standards and norms

Problem-solving (means-end instrumentalism) Forms of criticality Critical Reason Critical self-reflection Critical Action

2.2.4.3 Critical Pedagogy

One understanding of criticality is as "critically transitive consciousness" which is:

…characterized by depth in the interpretation of problems; by the substitution of causal principles for magical explanations; by the testing of one’s ‘findings’ and by openness to revision; by the attempt to avoid distortion when perceiving problems and to avoid preconceived notions when analyzing them; by refusing to transfer responsibility; by rejecting passive positions; by soundness of argumentation; by the practice of dialogue rather than polemics; by receptivity to the new for reasons beyond mere novelty and by the good sense not to reject the old just because it is old – by accepting what is valid in both old and new. (Freire, 1973, p. 18)

This is the view from Critical Pedagogy (CP). Although the above quote seems to suggest similarity with CT as traditionally understood, the major differences between CT and CP are that while CT has an individual, abstract, cognitive focus, and is assumed to be neutral/context-free, CP is instead highly context-driven ideological, and concerned with promoting social justice and praxis, combining collective action with reflection (Johnson & Morris, 2010). The two fields are largely separate on the academic front, but there are some individual scholars whose conceptions of CT diverge from the skills-based instrumental understanding of CT (Burbules & Berk, 1999 refer to Paul as a mediating figure) and lean towards an emancipatory understanding building on Marxism and the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, similar to CP (Vandermensbrugghe, 2004 refers to Brookfield and Benesch).

A closer look at the North American movement tends to relate critical thinking more to solving everyday problems and making everyday decisions (e.g. McPeck, 1990) and preparing citizens for a democratic society. According to the Expert Consensus:

Critical thinking is a liberating force in education and a powerful resource in one's personal and civic life... Thus, educating good critical thinkers means working toward this ideal. It combines developing CT skills with nurturing those dispositions which consistently yield useful insights and which are the basis of a rational and democratic society. (Facione, 1990, p. 2)

On the other hand, the CP movement seems more focused on connections to the wider social sphere while emancipating the individual, even (or especially) when society is not democratic. It has its roots in the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory (Johnson & Morris, 2010).

Giroux and Giroux (2006) suggest that the purpose of education is not merely to raise critical consciousness, it is also “about imagining different futures and politics as a form of intervention in public life” (p. 29), and that education should help citizens make connections between the private and public spheres, to be able to reflect upon their own experiences in their struggle for a “better world” (p. 30). Education then goes beyond critical thinking, and encompasses “social engagement” as well (p. 31).

Both CT and CP value dialogue, but the differences in their orientation results in different kinds of dialogue. While critical pedagogy addresses the needs of the oppressed, helping them collectively create alternatives for themselves and get out of the indoctrination that has been imposed upon them, traditional critical thinking aims to open up an individual's mind (this person is not assumed to have been oppressed, but possibly to have become biased by social norms) to critically evaluate options. However, this ignores the kind of indoctrination that even those in democratic societies face by the media and even noted academics. Within the regular classroom, university professors often encourage critical thinking, but only within the boundaries of the discipline and its existing, agreed-upon

epistemology. This automatically reinforces the unavoidable power relationship in the classroom, where students are at the mercy of the teacher. For a deeper criticality to take place, students should be partners in understanding and questioning this epistemology, not mere recipients of the rules they are then forced to apply uncritically (Burwood, 1999; Barnett, 1997).

Although Burbules and Berk (1999) note that the two movements do not seem to talk about or talk to one another, Barnett's model includes both conceptions, and there are also articles by Giroux, Kaplan and Paul directly addressing this in “Rethinking Reason” (edited by Walters, 1994c). For example, Paul (1994) differentiates between “weak sense” critical thinking that breaks a problem down in order to solve it, without looking at the “big picture” and taking account of the “worldview”, and the impact on diverse individuals, which is done in “strong sense” critical thinking.

While CT has been criticized for culture/gender bias, CP has also been considered paternalistic, and criticized of only keeping in mind socio-economic oppression to the exclusion of other forms, despite its relation to feminism and post-colonialism (Burbules & Berk, 1999). Most authors in both fields are male and many are Western, but that can be said of many academic fields.

The works of Ellsworth, Gore, Jones and bell hooks are prominent female voices in the CP movement, and some of their work dissents from the more theoretical accounts of the known male authors by problematizing the complexities of implementing CP in practice (Ellsworth, 1989; Gore, 1993). CT is meant to be unbiased but is criticized sometimes for being biased towards liberalism. Kaplan (1994) mentions the fact that most critical thinking textbooks seem to critique

“Republican/Conservative” notions while advocating more “Liberal/Democratic” notions. Critical pedagogues accuse CT of producing citizens capable of making choices between existing

alternatives (e.g. to vote Democrat or Republican) rather than capable of creating new alternatives and is thus inferior to the critical pedagogy movement with its emancipatory aims (Burbules & Berk, 1999). One of the criticisms of CP is that even though it is supposed to remove indoctrination, it can itself be indoctrinating people to think in the “critical pedagogy” way – something that appals its proponents (Burbules & Berk, 1999). Giroux and Giroux (2006) explicitly state that calling for critical pedagogy does not advocate any one political ideology about education, but that it reflects a vision about the purpose and role of education in preparing students to participate in the social and political sphere; that education’s purpose is not mere preparation for passing tests and entering the job market. The issue if bias in CT will be tackled in more detailed in section 3.2. But first, I introduce the debate on subject- specificity of CT.