What is Critical Theory? | Definition, History, and Examples from Pedagogy of the Oppressed

number four on our list is critical theory which can mean two different things on the one hand the term critical theory is often used in a narrow sense to refer to several generations of social theorists in a marxist tradition called the frankfurt school which began in the 1930s with the german author max horkheimer but the term is also used in a much broader sense to refer to forms of social philosophy that use aspects of marxist theory in order to critique and challenge power structures and in that second broader sense of the term there are many different critical theories from critical historiography and critical cartography to critical race theory which is probably the most famous and all of these explore the ways in which ideology becomes embedded in social and political institutions and comes to influence and dictate our behavior and beliefs in society and by studying and or deconstructing the historical development and origins of those ideologies critical theorists attempt to use academic scholarship to affect what they see as positive social change so critical theory is both an analytical method adapted from marxist historical materialism and depending on how you look at it also a form of political action now one of the main tenets of critical theory as articulated by horkheimer writing in the 1930s is that social science unlike natural science is never politically neutral um in the same way that we bring aspects of our identities and ideological assumptions to a text when we read it social scientists bring their own unacknowledged biases to their interpretations of culture which you know isn't great but the real problem was that social science often claimed to be objective which gave those unarticulated biases a sense of scientific truth and horkheimer argued that those false claims of objectivity supported the interests of the ruling elite of colonial powers of both totalitarian communist and capitalist states and the national education systems in which academics worked so in horkheimer's framework traditional theory in academia served to reinforce the status quo by uncritically reproducing ideological narratives that supported forms of exploitation and he proposed critical theory as an alternative um the goal of which was identifying and overcoming the forms of oppression inherent to the societies in which we live and i'll give you in an example of what that looks like one of the most famous i think is paulo freire's pedagogy of the oppressed which applies critical theory to the study of education and writing in the 1960s ferry critiqued the traditional educational model in which the teacher is an unquestionable authority figure who transmits knowledge to the student and the student's role is to passively receive and memorize everything that the teacher says in the classroom friary argued that that traditional model of education supports the development of anti-democratic authoritarian politics because at a very early age students learn that they should be passive that they should avoid asking questions and that they should always accept and do what they're told and those ideals which he links to the governing philosophy of totalitarian states become part of the ideology that's imprinted on people through the education system and as an alternative to that more traditional understanding of education fairy proposes a completely different educational model called the problem posing model in which students learn through collaborative discussions moderated by teachers and are encouraged to constantly question the sources of information that they are given in the classroom and the idea is that by internalizing the value of collaborative learning and questioning authority education as critical pedagogy can help build stronger democratic institutions and push back against authoritarian anti-democratic politics as a form of counter ideology and that's the structure that a lot of critical theory follows problematizing traditional social institutions exploring how they can potentially contribute to oppression or exploitation and then proposing alternatives that build on progressive understandings of democracy you just watched an excerpt from our two-part series on the top 10 theories in the social sciences if you're still watching um thank you very much and you should check the series out and of course like and subscribe at the moment i'm actually on parental leave and you can find some information about that on the channel as well but we'll be uploading some new content periodically over the next few months and then we'll be back with a bunch of new material at the beginning of july until then i'm wishing each and every one of you the best of luck and of course never stop learning i'd like to thank my beautiful and amazing patreon supporters these wonderful people you see on the screen right now and if you out there would also like to be a paragon of social scientific education you can come on over 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Channel: Armchair Academics

Views: 46,721

Keywords: Critical Theory, critical theory sociology, critical theory literature, critical theory, pedagogy of the oppressed paulo freire, paulo freire praxis, sociology, sociology lecture, sociology podcast, anthropology, anthropology lecture, anthropology podcast, critical race theory, critical pedagogy, critical pedagogy in education, marxism, marxism explained, frankfurt school critical theory, frankfurt school, horkheimer and adorno, horkheimer and adorno dialectic of enlightenment

Id: vrH6YItAYtk

Length: 5min 3sec (303 seconds)

Published: Sun Apr 17 2022