In Defense of a Liberal Education: Criticizing the Critical

Abstract

Before I started my doctoral program in education at the University of New Brunswick, I had read extensively on the critical, postmodern orientation of humanities and social science departments in North American universities. I knew that polls had consistently shown that between 85 and 97 percent of faculty members in such departments had a left-wing orientation, and that this would likely manifest itself in their support for critical and postmodern perspectives on education. I was also aware of controversial incidents on campuses around North America surrounding “politically correct” speech codes and thought control measures instituted at the behest of faculty and students of this ideological persuasion. DOI 10.1007/s12129-013-9365-4