The Power of Critical Theory for Adult Learning And Teaching.

435 Pages·2005·10.08 MB·English

by  Stephen Brookfield

THE POWER OF CRITICAL THEORY FOR f T
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ADULT LEARNING AND TEACHING h
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“Stephen Brookfield offers an intellectually powerful, persuasive
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help people working with adult learners to rethink their o
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assumptions. Ibelieve it will be an essential resource for anyone
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who sees lifelong learning as a journey of constructive l
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resistance and serious engagement with the world around us.”
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John Field, University of Stirling, UK. L
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power of Socratic questioning of dogmas and a prophetic a
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witness against the conservative status quo...a must read for all
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seriously engaged teachers.” and Teaching
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Cornel West, Princeton University, USA.
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“I learned more from this book than from dozens of other adult n t
education publications... This book is sure to become a major i
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reference text in the field.”
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Elizabeth Hayes, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA. a
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This major contribution to the literature on adult education provides adult
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educators with an accessible overview of critical theory’s central ideas. Using h
many direct quotes from the theorists’ works, Brookfield shows how critical theory
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illuminates the everyday practices of adult educators and helps them make sense
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of the dilemmas, contradictions and frustrations they experience in their work. o
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Drawing widely on central texts in critical theory, Brookfield argues that a critical r
theory of adult learning must focus on understanding how adults learn to c y
challenge ideology, contest hegemony, unmask power, overcome alienation, learn
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liberation, reclaim reason and practice democracy. These tasks form the focus of
successive chapters, while later chapters review the central contentions of critical i
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theory through the contemporary lenses of race and gender. The final chapter
reviews adult educational practices and looks at what it means to teach critically. g
Essential reading for anyone teaching, working in, studying or researching
adulteducation.
Stephen D.
Stephen D. Brookfieldis Distinguished University Professor at the University of B S
St. Thomas in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota. He has degrees from the r t
Universities of Coventry, Reading and Leicester, UK, and has taught in colleges of o e
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further, technical, adult and higher education in the UK, Canada and the United o
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States. He is the author of numerous acclaimed books on adult education, k
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including Discussion as a Way of Teaching(2005), Becoming a Critically Reflective f
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Teacher(1995), The Skillful Teacher(1990), Developing Critical Thinkers e

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(OpenUniversity Press, 1987) and Understanding and Facilitating Adult Learning d
(Open University Press, 1986). .

Cover design Hybert Design •www.hybertdesign.com
www.openup.co.uk
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The Power of Critical Theory
for Adult Learning and Teaching
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“In masterly and lucid fashion Stephen Brookfield effortlessly con-
nects theory and practice. Simplifying without eroding the com-
plexity of critical theory, Brookfield traverses the grand themes of
ideology, power, alienation, liberation, reason, and democracy, show-
ing how they inform the adult education practice of fostering criti-
cal thinking and critical reflection.”
—Mark Tennant, professor of education and dean,
University Graduate School, University
of Technology–Sydney, Australia
“This extraordinarily useful book illuminates the complex and abstract
concepts of critical theory through frequent examples and practical
applications. By reviewing the contributions and critiques of African
American and feminist writers, The Power of Critical Theory for Adult
Learning and Teaching provides an inclusive and accessible entry into
the critical tradition.”
—Tom Heaney, professor of adult education,
National Louis University, Chicago
“In The Power of Critical Theoryfor Adult Learning and Teaching, Stephen
Brookfield provides a lucid, accessible overview of how critical the-
ory (with its daunting vocabularies and internal debates) illumi-
nates the contexts of adult learning and orients teaching practices.
The book stands an excellent chance of establishing critical theory
as a dominant and legitimate interpretive practice within adult edu-
cation.”
—Michael Welton, professor of adult education,
Mount St. Vincent University, Canada
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The Power of
Critical Theory
for Adult Learning
and Teaching
Stephen D. Brookfield
Open University Press
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Open University Press
McGraw-Hill Education
McGraw-Hill House
ShoppenhangersRoad
Maidenhead, Berkshire
England SL6 2QL
email: [email protected]
world wide web: www.openup.co.uk
and Two Penn Plaza, New York, NY 1012–2289
USA
First published 2005
Copyright © Stephen Brookfield
All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no
part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by
any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher or a licence from the Copyright Licensing Agency Limited. Details of such
licences (for reprographic reproduction) may be obtained from the Copyright Licensing Agency Limited of
90 Tottenham Court Road, London, W1T 4LP.
A catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 0 335 21132 1 (pb) 0 335 21133 X (hb)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
CIP data has been applied for
Published simultaneously in North, South and Central America by Jossey-Bass/John Wiley & Sons. Inc. as The
Power of Critical Theory: Liberating Adult Learning and Teaching
Printed and bound in Poland by
OZGraf S.A.
www.polskabook.pl
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The Author
Stephen D. Brookfield
The father of Molly and Colin, and the husband of Kim, StephenD.
Brookfield is currently Distinguished Professor at the University of
St. Thomas in Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota. He also serves as
consultant to the adult education doctoral program at National
Louis University in Chicago. Prior to moving to Minnesota, he spent
ten years as professor in the Department of Higher and Adult Edu-
cation at Teachers College, Columbia University, where he is still
adjunct professor.
He received his B.A. degree (1970) from Coventry University in
modern studies, his M.A. degree (1974) from the University of Read-
ing in sociology, and his Ph.D. degree (1980) from the University of
Leicester in adult education. He also holds a postgraduate diploma
(1971) from the University of London, Chelsea College, in modern
social and cultural studies and a postgraduate diploma (1977) from
the University of Nottingham in adult education. In 1991 he was
awarded an honorary doctor of letters degree from the University Sys-
tem of New Hampshire for his contributions to understanding adult
learning. In 2003 he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Con-
cordia University for his contributions to adult education practice.
Stephen began his teaching career in 1970 and has held appoint-
ments at colleges of further, technical, adult, and higher education
in the United Kingdom and at universities in Canada (University of
British Columbia) and the United States (Columbia University,
Teachers College, and the University of St. Thomas). In 1989 he was
visiting fellow at the Institute for Technical and Adult Teacher Edu-
cation in what is now the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia.
In 2001 he received the Leadership Award from the Association for
Continuing Higher Education (ACHE) for “extraordinary contribu-
tions to the general field of continuing education on a national and
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xviii THEAUTHOR
international level.” In 2002 he was visiting professor at Harvard
University Graduate School of Education. In 2003–2004 he was the
Helen Le Baron Hilton Chair at Iowa State University. He has run
numerous workshops on teaching, adult learning, and critical think-
ing around the world and delivered many keynote addresses at
regional, national, and international education conferences.
He is a three-time winner of the Cyril O. Houle World Award
for Literature in Adult Education: in 1986 for his book Under-
standing and Facilitating Adult Learning: A Comprehensive Analysis of
Principles and Effective Practices (1986), in 1989 for Developing Criti-
cal Thinkers: Challenging Adults to Explore Alternative Ways of Think-
ing and Acting(1987), and in 1996 for Becoming a Critically Reflective
Teacher (1995). Understanding and Facilitating Adult Learning also
won the 1986 Imogene E. Okes Award for Outstanding Research
in Adult Education. These awards were all presented by the Amer-
ican Association for Adult and Continuing Education. His book
(coauthored with Stephen Preskill) Discussion as a Way of Teaching:
Tools and Techniques for Democratic Classrooms (1999) was an Educa-
tional Studies Association Critics’ Choice for 1999. His other books
are Adult Learners, Adult Education and the Community (1984), Self-
Directed Learning: From Theory to Practice(1985), Learning Democracy:
Eduard Lindeman on Adult Education and Social Change(1987), Train-
ing Educators of Adults: The Theory and Practice of Graduate Adult Edu-
cation (1988), and The Skillful Teacher: On Technique, Trust, and
Responsiveness in the Classroom(1990).
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Preface
A couple of years ago, one of the most dispiriting things that can
happen to a teacher happened to me. I had just finished teaching
a semester-long course on the philosophy of adult education, a sub-
stantial portion of which had focused on critical theory. I had
asked students to engage with key figures in critical theory such as
Marx, Gramsci, Habermas, and Foucault, mostly by reading sec-
ondary texts that summarized these writers’ ideas and placed them
in an adult educational context. As part of the course, students
wrote essays and gave presentations in which they considered how
their experiences as adult learners or adult educators were illumi-
nated by critical theory. As students were leaving the last class of
the semester, I overheard one say to another, “I still don’t see why
we had to read all this critical theory. What’s Gramsci got to do
with adult education?”
Since I had just spent a good part of four months arguing for
critical theory as a useful lens through which adult educators could
view their practice, this comment took the wind right out of my
sails. This student had written the required assignments, partici-
pated in the required team presentations, and successfully passed
the course. Yet, clearly, all this had happened without any real con-
nection being made between that student’s practice and the criti-
cal tradition. This book is my attempt to deal with that student’s
complaint. Its overarching purpose is to try to convince adult edu-
cators that critical theory should be considered seriously as a per-
spective that can help them make some sense of the dilemmas,
contradictions, and frustrations they experience in their work.
In a sense, this book is attempting to put the criticalback into
critical thinkingby emphasizing how thinking critically is an inherently
political process. Critical thinking is a dominant discourse in adult
education, usually characterized by a particular understanding of
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viii PREFACE
what this intellectual process involves. To think critically is mostly
defined as the process of unearthing, and then researching, the
assumptions one is operating under, primarily by taking different per-
spectives on familiar, taken-for-granted beliefs and behaviors. As I
argue in Chapter One, this notion of criticality draws on a number
of intellectual traditions, including analytic philosophy, pragmatism,
constructivism, psychoanalysis, and critical theory. The first of these
traditions—analytic philosophy—is the one that most strongly frames
how critical thinking is currently conceived and taught in contem-
porary higher and adult education. From this perspective, to be crit-
ical is to be skilled at argument analysis, to recognize false inferences
and logical fallacies, to be able to distinguish bias from fact, opinion
from evidence, and so on. These are valuable, even essential, intel-
lectual functions, but they focus on cognitive processes to the neglect
of social and political critique.
In this book I focus on a very different tradition informing crit-
ical thinking, the tradition of critical theory. Critical theory views
thinking critically as being able to identify, and then to challenge
and change, the process by which a grossly iniquitous society uses
dominant ideology to convince people this is a normal state of af-
fairs. As a body of work, critical theory is grounded in three core
assumptions regarding the way the world is organized:
1. That apparently open, Western democracies are actually highly
unequal societies in which economic inequity, racism, and class
discrimination are empirical realities
2. That the way this state of affairs is reproduced and made to
seem normal, natural, and inevitable (thereby heading off
potential challenges to the system) is through the dissemina-
tion of dominant ideology
3. That critical theory attempts to understand this state of affairs
as a necessary prelude to changing it
Dominant ideology comprises the set of broadly accepted
beliefs and practices that frame how people make sense of their
experiences and live their lives. When it works effectively, it ensures
that an unequal, racist, and sexist society is able to reproduce itself
with minimal opposition. Its chief function is to convince people
that the world is organized the way it is for the best of all reasons
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PREFACE ix
and that society works in the best interests of all. Critical theory re-
gards dominant ideology as inherently manipulative and duplici-
tous. From the perspective of critical theory, a critical adult is one
who can discern how the ethic of capitalism, and the logic of
bureaucratic rationality, push people into ways of living that per-
petuate economic, racial, and gender oppression. Additionally, and
crucially, critical theory views a critical adult as one who takes
action to create more democratic, collectivist economic and social
forms. Some in the tradition (for example, Cornel West) link social
change to democratic socialism; others (for example, Erich
Fromm), to socialist humanism. Clearly, then, the way critical the-
ory defines being critical is far more politicized than the way
humanistic psychology—until recently the dominant discourse in
adult education—regards this idea.
My previous books have been concerned mostly with explain-
ing general approaches toward the development of critical think-
ing and have given relatively little attention to exploring the
theoretical traditions informing this practice. In developing my
own understanding of practice, I have drawn on diverse intellec-
tual traditions in the effort to get adult learners and adult educa-
tors to recognize, research, and challenge their assumptions. As
someone who is very interested in practice, and who loves to try
and untangle pedagogic problems and puzzles, I have usually writ-
ten for educators who share this passion. My intuition is that peo-
ple who buy my books are mostly looking for helpful suggestions
on how to create and conduct adult and higher educational activ-
ities. Over the years I have received much confirmation of that
intuition from people who liked the practicality of some of my ear-
lier books.
But now I have the chance to talk some theory. In The Power of
Critical Theory for Adult Learning and TeachingI take the opportunity
to fill in some of the theoretical background to my earlier work by
outlining one of the chief theoretical traditions informing the ideas
of critical thinking and critical reflection. I am far from agreeing with
everything that critical theory or every critical theorist says; indeed,
critical theory’s emphasis on critiquing its own presuppositions is one
of its features that I find most appealing. To adapt the title of one of
Cornel West’s essays, “The Indispensability Yet Insufficiency of Marx-
ist Theory,” critical theory is indispensable though insufficient for a