Session Information
13 SES 11 A, Parallel Paper Session
Parallel Paper Session
Contribution
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the possibilities of a hermeneutic approach in research focused on exploring the critical potential in education. In a broad sense the discussion can be applied to education generally, but the main focus here will be on research about the teaching of civics. The discussion embraces primarily theoretical and conceptual issues.
The theoretical point of departure is an assumption about the social imaginary as caught in a tension between fascination and critique. Teaching can thus legitimize existing social conditions, but it is also within the limits of the possible that it contributes to a critical distancing to depictions of these same conditions. Although set against a Swedish background, the discussion taking place here therefore touches upon political as well as ethical issues which transcend distinctions between national, European and global dimensions of education: Can education contribute to social change, and can educational institutions be described as just?
In order to avoid depoliticisation of the concept of critique it can be linked to the concept of ideology. Critique is then given a direction at how conditions of power and dominance are depicted in a politically oriented teaching content. In a Swedish context this can be seen to motivate research on the subject and the teaching of civics. Civics can thus be conceptualized as caught in a field of tension between legitimation and critique of ideology.
Research on civics in Sweden has to a large extent been conducted within realist and pragmatist frameworks. These frameworks have among other things shaped the conceptualization of the critical potential of civics. In this paper it is argued that the use of an approach based on a hermeneutic concept of critique – meaning reinterpretation of the teaching content made possible by distancing – avoids some of the pitfalls inherent in other approaches. In short, it can be argued that hermeneutics allows the content of teaching neither to be neglected nor given the status of undisputed truth.
It can also be argued that a hermeneutically oriented concept of ideology avoids the critique that has been directed at other conceptions of ideology. Conceived as part of the symbolic systems that motivate human action – more precisely as a culturally and traditionally conveyed symbolism mobilized in order to legitimize claims to power and dominance – ideology is hard to replace as a concept in research as well as in the conceptualization of teaching content.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
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