ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the role of epistemology in value-laden practice, how one might experience oneself as a living contradiction and how critical pedagogy can be important in educator's everyday lives. The notion of education being a neutral concept is widely challenged whereas education as a value-laden practice is a concept discussed over decades by J. Whitehead. For many, change takes place after serious critical reflection, engagement with literature and educational dialogue with colleagues and students. Much writing in the field of critical pedagogy is based on the ideas of Paulo Freire, the inspirational Brazilian educationalist who never confined his questions about education to methodology or the practical aspects of teaching alone. Brydon-Miller and P. Maguire are also critical of the interpretation of action research by some researchers ‘as a tool for educational “problem- solving” disconnected from theory and critiques of unjust social conditions and relationships’.
