Critical Perspectives on Transformation

Abstract

We now meet an important perspective in considering transformation and transformative learning: learning to be critical so as to challenge oppressive forces. We turn to Stephen Brookfield’s work on criticality and its central place in perspective transformation. For Brookfield, being critical is a sacred idea, rather than a word to be thrown about with abandon. It is about challenging power and ideology and how these conspire to constrain us. We engage with perspectives from the Frankfurt School of Critical Sociology and dialogue with Theodor Adorno, who thought that reason itself can represent a kind of false consciousness or seductive omniscience, a defence against not knowing, rooted in the pre-intellectual. We meet another critical theorist Axel Honneth whose ideas on self/other recognition are considered fundamental to good enough experiences in education and beyond. Drawing on Honneth, we introduce a case study of a learner, an Asylum seeker, called Mathew, taken from Linden’s research among non-traditional learners in universities.