ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author attempts to justify the thesis that (a) education as a planned action of a teleological structure (and hence normatively committed) constitutes a potential carrier of ideology; (b) the possible ideological nature of education may be addressed by the development of critical thinking, which is not itself ideology. This means that education is a normatively engaged activity for which there are certain reasons. This entails the need to make choices of normative positions that organise the whole of this activity. The problem of the ideological nature of education arises when the contents and cognitive attitudes proposed within these positions are rigid (binding for the subjects, inflexible, and resistant to criticism). This can happen, for example, when the state, through its policy-makers, is responsible for the shape of education. The goal of education may then become the transmission of a worldview espoused by certain politicians. The development of critical thinking minimises or eliminates the ideological potential of education as it significantly differs from ideology, partly through rigidity of content but mainly because of the cognitive attitude towards it.
