Abstract
This paper elucidates the importance of emancipatory education to social work education and training, identifies the objectives and underlying epistemologies of a course on Human Behaviour and the Social Environment, and emphasises the importance of negotiating relationships for the creation of a participatory and emancipatory approach to education. It reflects the application of Habermas’s (1996) theory of communicative action and discourse ethics to complex issues including HIV/AIDS and the relationship between race, class and gender and the relationship of these to issues of power, privilege, status and access to resources in the South African context. The incorporation of creative, experiential and empowerment-based teaching/learning strategies are central to the development of critical consciousness in students, and for facilitating effective and meaningful citizen participation among students. The paper also highlights the potentially damaging, albeit unintended, consequences of such teaching strategies
Highlights
The above quotation is open to contention, raising the age-old dilemma about where we locate our sites of intervention
The difficulty becomes even more challenging when one considers the range of fields of practice, the sheer complexity of human behaviour, the increasing call for understanding of diversity in all its facets, and responding to the needs of people in a rapidly globalising world
Part One describes the use of Habermas’s (1996) theory of communicative action, including discourse ethics and argumentation to facilitate reflexive learning. It focuses on the work done during the first term of the first semester with students taking a course in Human Behaviour and the Social Environment at the first-year undergraduate level at the University of Natal, Durban
Summary
The above quotation is open to contention, raising the age-old dilemma about where we locate our sites of intervention. If social work education and training have to become and remain responsive to the needs of service users in our increasingly complex world, the modus operandi of educators and the learning/teaching environment of the classroom have to be transformed. Part One describes the use of Habermas’s (1996) theory of communicative action, including discourse ethics and argumentation to facilitate reflexive learning It focuses on the work done during the first term of the first semester with students taking a course in Human Behaviour and the Social Environment at the first-year undergraduate level at the University of Natal, Durban. This is preceded by a discussion on social work and emancipatory citizenship education. This paper describes the application of the principles and strategies of emancipatory education
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