CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
2.6 Theoretical framework guiding this study
Rasmussen (1996) explained that critical theory has the propensity to create transformation in the social order because it gives purpose needed in a historical group which ultimately changes the world. The author argued that critical theory has its foundation from the ideology which construes that opinion can change on its own through self-meditation in a historic period. “Critical theory strives to reduce the suffering of the people and promotes happiness” (McCarthy, 1994, p. 17). Human beings possess the nature of bliss which should imply that an environment with such a feeling must be created for peaceful coexistence (Fuchs, 2016). Additionally, Marcuse (1989) held that there is a positive relationship between humankind’s contentment and its standard of living which actualizes through transmutation. He added that for a society to achieve a noetic state, the economic and political dynamics must be assessed, in a historical context, as this will crusade the revolution agenda of that culture. These claims were supported by Kellner (2019) who asserted that a vision of utopian society was relevant in this contemporary period where the people envisage an emancipating and happy society.
Weber (1977) contended that critical theory should not be located only in Marxism and its distinctions but should be conjectured as a theory that is reached as the truth through rational opinions and has emancipation as its message and objective. The
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community of students, who participated in this research, came from a predominantly poor background possessing the historical lineage with the Apartheid past of South Africa.
The value of critical theory is its ability to upset and contest the existing state of affairs (Asghar, 2013; Erginel, 2006; Weston, 2015). The scholars concurred that the status quo where events bring about oppression, bondage, power relations and unpleasant situations, the paradigm of critical theory inclines to challenge that condition. Tonelli (1971, p. 1) alluded to the fact that the “Age of Enlightenment”, epitomized by the historians of philosophy, was the period when the sagacity of human beings changed from the era of obeying restraining traditional rules and institutions to the path of unlimited improvements. Critical theory, while relying on the enlightenment practice, regards social science to be instrumental in the liberation from “unnecessary restrictive traditions, ideologies, assumptions, power relations, identity formations, and so forth, that inhibit or distort opportunities for autonomy, clarification of genuine needs and wants and therefore greater and lasting satisfaction” (Alvesson & Willmott, 1992, p.
435). Bertram and Christiansen (2013) asserted that the emphasis of the critical paradigm is the transformation of society. These authors stressed that people who have been disadvantaged or are less privileged are expected to benefit from the change. Thus, I viewed critical theory as a theoretical framework necessary in the context of South Africa, a country that is still undergoing the process of transformation after gaining freedom from the Apartheid regime. Critical theoretical constructs also paved the way to challenge participants of this study to become more conscious and civic minded.
Asghar (2013) maintained that the critical viewpoint as a research paradigm can provide intuition not only by scrutinizing and investigating situations but also bring about a plan of transformation. The author further explained that researchers usually prefer the positivist and constructive paradigms as lenses to acquire credible information in a visible form without exploring the critical theory, which is comparatively newer, and possibly more potent than the positivist and constructivist paradigms.
2.6.2 Critical pedagogy
Fortney (2011, p. 1) defined critical pedagogy as an “educational theory in which teaching and learning tools are used to make learners aware of the autocracy of social
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conditions”. Giroux (2011) disagreed with the conventional supposition which describes pedagogy as an array of approaches and dexterity for instructing stated contents in the curriculum. He argued that critical pedagogy stretches beyond using prescribed teaching methods which does not take cognizance of the backgrounds, but critical pedagogy relates to the precise situation, students, groups and wherewithal at the disposal of the people concerned. Kincheloe and McLaren (2002) maintained that Henry Giroux and other scholars disagreed with the Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, who theorized that schools were capitalist means of replicating socio-economic and cultural bureaucrats. The authors added that Henry Giroux and other intellectuals argued, rather, that schools should be settings of expectation and democratic sites of resistance where educators and learners are free to learn using a variety of teaching methods. According to Burbules and Berk (1999), critical pedagogy is conceptualized to assist educational organizations to make students query issues such as inequality of power, self-defeatist attitude about their future ambition, due to some personalized ideas, to change these false beliefs in their lives. I argue that through the boldness to challenge self-defeating circumstances, students are empowered to become agents of change and transformation.
Gruenewald (2003) asserted that Freire, Giroux, and McLaren are the proponents of critical pedagogy who agreed that both teachers and students must be academics of change because teaching and learning constantly have political undertones.
Fernandez-Docallas (2016, p. 27) affirmed that:
A critical pedagogical practice does not transfer knowledge but creates possibilities for its production, analysis, and use. Without succumbing to a rigid dogmatism, teachers must provide the conditions for students to bear witness to history, their own actions and the mechanisms that drive the larger social order so that they can imagine the inseparable connection between the human condition and the ethical basis of our existence.
Using Antonio Gramsci’s ideology that pointed to critical thinking and modern pedagogy, Balampekou and Floriotis (2012) conceded that contemporary methods of instruction should regard the learners as teachers, as educational partners in the curriculum development and contributors in the societal development outside the walls of the school. The authors alluded to the fact that the social order would be positively
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impacted which culminates in the objectives of critical science education. Gramsci (1970) argued that for the social structure to be maintained by the potentates, the brainwashing of the school learners was pertinent which can be achieved through the form of education being provided at schools. He contended that the pact between the leaders of the society and the governed does not depend only on compulsion but also on unscrupulous influence and accord to maintain their supremacy. According to Antonio Gramsci’s work from his prison notebook, as translated from Italian to English language by Hoare and Nowell-Smith (2005), imagination should be the crux of education. Hoare and Nowell-Smith (2005), argued that the place of learning does not mean a place of innovators but rather a centre where self-generation and self-directed education of learners take place, without prearranged course, and under the watch of affable educators who channel the process from early childhood to university.
Consequently, my study provided a platform for the PST participants to exercise creative, self-generating and self-directing will that raised their consciousness about health and nutritional matters affecting the student community. It also paved the way for the enhancement of teacher identity as professional practicing teachers.
Freire (1970) disputed the concept of the “narrative character” of teaching in which teachers give all the information and students only accept, learn by rote and recite.
The scholar terms this notion “banking concept of education” which is deficient in
“creativity, transformation and knowledge” (p. 72) thereby making people less human.
The running of the education system for commercial purposes has made government schools and institutions of higher learning victims of this scheme which weakens the analytical scholarship diminishing fledgling students as advocates for an egalitarian and fair future (Giroux, 2008). Similarly, Nikolakaki (2012) bemoaned the type of education being promoted by the neoliberals between 1932 and 2012, which deprives students of crucial inquiry skills required for connecting to the real world, private or political and cutting off their cognitive and intellectual abilities. Giroux (2011) agreed that the objective analysis of information is a civic duty and enables an individual or in conjunction with other persons to get involved in realism, break away from their past and the past created for them by the community.
Furthermore, critical pedagogy is an instructional method that seeks to embellish the conscientization of students for them to interrogate and confront repressive circumstances and the opinions that oppress them (Morris, 2015). The author
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contended that the theory explores the connection between instruction and acquiring knowledge which can be “a continuous process of unlearning, learning and relearning, reflection, evaluation and the impact that these actions have on students, in particular students who have been historically disenfranchised by traditional schooling” (Morris, 2015, p.160). Thus self-respect and liberty of students will be deprived if the pedagogy used by teachers is designed to make them compliant and submissive (Covaleskie, 2003).
Some scholars have criticized the use of the concept of critical pedagogy in the classroom. Thomson-Bunn (2014, p.1) argued that much of the dialogue on critical pedagogy centres on the “abstract ideas such as social justice, student empowerment, co-construction of knowledge, and critical thinking” that were not understood by the students in the classroom. More so, Clemitshaw (2013) contended that CP places a huge demand on both teachers and students to contest the powers that exist in an oppressive system to achieve emancipation. Teachers have to resist neo-liberal influences that aim to commodify education, turning them from public good to private good, while at the same time students struggle to discover their authentic voices.
Despite these shortcomings, Fobes and Kaufman (2008, p. 26-27) summed up the strengths of critical pedagogy as follow:
• Encourages the eradication of the teacher-student contradiction whereby the teacher teaches, and the students are taught; the teacher knows everything, and the students know nothing; the teacher talks, and the students listen; and the teacher is the subject and the students are mere objects.
• Promotes a problem-posing dialogue (instead of a banking/lecturing style) that emanates from the lived experiences (generative themes) of the learners.
• Fosters epistemological curiosity in both teachers and learners.
• Strives for praxis: reflection and action of the social world in order to transform it.
Given the foregoing, it is hoped that the application of critical pedagogy, in this study, will stimulate reflection, epistemological inquisitiveness, and enthusiasm in the participants for transformation and social action in the field of science education.
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2.6.3 The link between the theoretical construct and this study
According to Mahmoudi, Khoshnood, and Babaei (2014, p. 86), “the purpose of critical pedagogy is to enrich students’ overall life. In such an approach, students are given the chance to challenge others’ accepted hypotheses and to explore the relationship between their society and the content of their educational environment”. The adoption of critical pedagogy in this study is pertinent because it provides an opportunity for the PSSTs to have a voice regarding the way they are being taught at the university. The encouragement of IK and relative independence was given to the PSSTs to carry out research that enabled the participants to experience biology about their educational environment and how it can assist in preventing malnutrition, managing health challenges and in reducing hunger among students who reside in the university residences. Many students in the South African universities are products of the communities to which the university provides the conventional community engagement programs, that is, communities that are usually selected on account of their low socio-economic status. Thus, the student community serves as a group that is comparable to local communities that the universities serve to fulfil one of their core objectives.
In addition, the introduction of critical pedagogy in the curriculum for the training of pre-service teachers is pertinent to the transformation of the society (Barnum & Illari, 2016; Cappy, 2016; Ferrigno, Hemphill, & Lee, 2005; Keesing-Styles, 2003).
Therefore, by using critical pedagogy from the work of Henry Giroux and other pedagogues to view this study, I intended to conscientize the PSSTs to becoming agents of change in the society rather than being complacent professional teachers in their future practice. Critical pedagogy, in my study, enabled the PSSTs to experience a pedagogy that developed consciousness and civic responsiveness to the issues of health and nutrition and simultaneously carved a different teacher identity.