Typology of Critical Dialogue and Power Relations in Democratic Dialogic Education 1

In Chapter 10 of this volume, we criticized views that democracy and education can and should be power-free, based on the transparency of consciousness. In this chapter we discuss diverse types of relationship between the participants in critical dialogue where power and authority are understood to have significant, important, and necessary functions. Thus, rather than assuming transparency of consciousness and consensus as prerequisites, conditions, or desirable outcomes of education, we examine the ways in which educational relationships are realized when based on the notions of opaqueness of consciousnesses and where dissensus is not only unavoidable, necessary, and legitimate, but also a desirable aspect of learning and development.