CRITICAL THEORY AND HABERMAS

1. CRITICAL THEORY AND HABERMAS

2. CRITICAL THEORY Critical theory was that defined by Max Horkheimer of the Frankfurt School of social science in his 1937 essay Traditional and Critical Theory: Critical theory is social theory oriented toward critiquing and changing society as a whole, in contrast to traditional theory oriented only to understanding or explaining it. Horkheimer wanted to distinguish critical theory as a radical, emancipatory form of Marxian theory. This kind of CR is called as the Frankfurt School.

3. CRITICAL THEORY In the late 1960s J�rgen Habermas of the Frankfurt School, redefined critical theory in a way that freed it from a direct tie to Marxism or the prior work of the Frankfurt School. In Habermas's epistemology, critical knowledge was conceptualized as knowledge that enabled human beings to emancipate themselves from forms of domination through self-reflection and took psychoanalysis as the paradigm of critical knowledge. This expanded considerably the scope of what counted as critical theory within the social sciences, which would include such approaches as world systems theory, feminist theory, postcolonial theory, critical race theory, performance studies, transversal poetics, queer theory, social ecology, and the theory of communicative action.

4. Habermas�s communicative theory of action and education

5. Strategic versus communicative action Communicative action means interpersonal communication which is oriented towards mutual understanding and in which other participants are treated as genuine persons, not as objects of manipulation. Actors do not primarily aim at their own success but want to harmonize their action plans with the other participants. Opposite to communicative action is the concept of strategic action, which means calculative exploitation, or manipulation, of others. An actor who acts strategically seeks primarily his or her own ends and manipulates other people either openly or tacitly.

7. Social action ? \ communivative strategic action toiminta ? \ conceived open strategic strateginen action action ? \ unconsciouss intentional deceiving deceiving (systematically (manipulation) disturbed communication)

8. Communivative teaching Pedagogical communication is kind of simulated communicative action and it is more simulated in early stage of education. When a teacher teaches seven years old pupils, the words "to the best of her ability" have different practical consequence than in the case of a teacher teaches twenty years old students. The value orientation is the same, but the practise or application of presuppositions of argumentation is different. When we understand communicative teaching in this way, as an exceptional form of communicative action, the concept of communicative teaching is looser than the concept of communicative action itself. I would like to think that communicative teaching - as an exceptional application of communicative action - still remains within the realm of communicative action.

9. This strategic teaching is a form of indoctrination (strategic teaching is not same as indoctrination), when a teacher tries to transfer teaching content to the students� minds, treating them merely as passive objects, not as active co-subjects of the learning process. Then the teaching is in no sense the simulation of the communicative action but the pure strategic action�

10. The aim is a communicatively competent student who does not need to rely on the teacher, or any other authority for that matter. In the communicati�ve teaching, students are not treated as passive objects but as active learners. In the communicative teaching, a teacher and her students co-operatively participate in the formation of meanings and new perspectives. In the communicative teaching, the teacher does not impose her ideas on the students but rather they make a joint effort to find a meaningful insight regarding the issues at hand.

11. However, even my revised version of the method and intention criterion does not recognize the unintention�ally or structurally caused indoctrination. Let us take example the Hitler Jugend assembly Germany in the 1930's. No matter how communicatively orientated the teacher or the Gruppenlied�er was, elements of indoctrination were strongly present. The Hitler Jugend was a very effective training institution, and we cannot gain a comprehensive picture of its operations if we restrict our examination to the teachers� intentions and methods. In some teaching situations, no matter what a teacher�s intentions and methods were, the outcome was still an uneducated (�indoctrinated�) person. Thus, it is clear that we need aspects of the content and the conseque�nce of teaching.

12. The teaching content should not provide any easy answers but rather should improve students� own power of judgement and capacity for mature deliberation. I consider content that limits students� meaning perspectives and minimizes as opposed to increases students� own power of judgement as indoctrinativ�e. In the case of indoctrination, the teaching content tends to keep students at an immature stage. The non-indoctrinative teaching content gives students both the freedom and faculty to determine their own differentiated identity, worldview and conduct of life.

13. The modern individual is conscious of her capacity to change her own identity, and she possesses the perspective of many possible identities. This relatively open form of identity produce the pluralisation of life worlds and meaning perspectives.� People tend to grow up differently in modern societies. This corresponds with the situation that Emile Durkheim called organic solidarity (Durkhe�im 1984). In the stage of organic solidarity society need autonomous, independent, critical and professional individual personalities. My claim is that if educational institutions tend to systematically produce closed identities (which are necessary in a traditional society during the stage of mechanical solidarity), we can presume that these institutions impose some form of indoctrination. In modern or post-modern society, educational institutions should encourage a reflective attitude toward one�s own identity.