ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an argument against the criticisms of critical theory advanced by certain poststructuralists, that critical perspectives in education have continuing relevance in education, and offers an approach by which educational researchers and practitioners may engage as active participants in the process of educational change, and ways of responding to the challenges of the present ‘postmodern’ era. The chapter begins by describing the postmodern condition and postmodernisms, then examines broad views of the task of education (functionalist, interpretivist, poststructuralist and critical) to open the question of the continuing relevance of the critical perspective in the light of poststructuralist criticisms of the critical view. Instrumental, practical and critical (or emancipatory) perspectives on change are outlined, as a basis for an argument that a ‘first-person’ (participatory), critical approach is needed for the task of finding solidarity with others in the regulated world of education systems. Here, the discussion draws upon Maclntyre’s distinction between practices and institutions, Habermas’ distinction between system and lifeworld, and Giddens’ views about the institutional reflexivity characteristic of late modernity. The focus then turns to an examination of emancipation as a contemporary aim for a critical theory of education, responding to poststructuralist critics of critical theory, and referring particularly to the forms of reasoning their criticisms employ or imply. It is argued, against the views of these critics of critical theory, that the task of emancipation remains manifestly necessary in a vast range of political struggles in the contemporary world, and concludes that the quietism or conservatism of some poststructuralist perspectives must be rejected in favour of a continuing commitment to emancipatory-critical perspectives. Drawing on a variety of commentators on postmodernity, or ‘late modernity’ (as some prefer to call it), it is argued that resources for resisting the incursions of system-shaped relationships into our lifeworlds
and consciousness are to be found in communicative action, collaborative endeavour and engagement in the politics of social movements.
