'Liberatory' education: some problems and possibilities

Abstract

In this thesis I aim to show how 'progressive' educationists claims to liberate the 'oppressed', while well meaning, are not actually possible. I argue that this apparent altruistic tendency contributes to the continuation of oppressions in western capitalist-democracies. In the context of 'education' then, I am going to review post-structural critiques of the 'liberal ideal' in education and argue for a post-structural approach centered on context-specific resistance toward particularised power within 'educational' and other settings (Jones & Jacka, 1995; Walkerdine, 1990; 1994). I argue that while compulsory education is not liberatory, its 'alternative', progressive or 'liberatory' education is not possible. Like compulsory education it follows a regulatory process with a key difference: it maintains the illusion of freedom and inclusiveness: accordingly, its effect is to normalise recipients and consequently uphold the status quo in possibly its most oppressive forms. While this is a critique of the 'education system' (compulsory, regulatory, state and capitalist defined), it is not an argument against learning and teaching or the hope of genuinely participatory 'conditions of possibility'. It seeks to challenge the existence and usefulness of 'education' as it is widely understood and draws on postmodern philosophies of education in arguing for an alternative future.