Where next for pedagogy? Critical agency in educational futures

Marcus P Bussey

doi:10.25907/00579

This thesis explores the role of critical agency in educational futures. Rather than approach this question via social theory or philosophy, a futures lens is developed that involves three broad strands. Firstly, a form of futures thinking is presented that is characterized, following Ashis Nandy's works, as shamanic. Secondly, critical agency is explored in the work of ten theorists who represent a range of possible understandings of agency that move along a continuum that includes Marxist critical theory, poststructural deconstruction and normative accounts of critical agency drawing on the Christian, Vedantic and Tantric traditions. Thirdly, Causal Layered Analysis (CLA) is developed through a dialogue with the work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari whose concept of the rhizome provides the conceptual tool to better understand its potential, not just as a method, but also as a process theory working the interface of agency and structure. Shamanic futures thinking is developed to enable an engagement with critical agency that moves it beyond a dialectical agency-structure construction of the problem. Six shamanic futures concepts are introduced to underpin this approach. They supply reference points for negotiating the futures terrain and enabling an understanding of agency that accounts for both subjective and structural process. This twofold objective is important when educational outcomes are sought. Education, as a structural expression of social process, requires a structural hermeneutic yet agency, which lies, by definition, beyond structure-or at least dialectically defined vis-Ã -vis structure-requires a poststructural and postmaterial invitation to any conversation about its role within educational process. All contexts are understood to be open to educational practice though the focus of this work is on educational institutions in general, from kindergarten to university. The six concepts of shamanic futures thinking are useful when considering agency, but to better understand how critical agency is to be understood ten theorists are surveyed and a CLA of each offered. The findings are used to develop an understanding of critical action that follows a continuum that moves from the empirical, to the interpretive, then on to the holistic and spiritual. Such a reading is used to offer a poetics of the critical that identifies a range of processes and expressions that can inform a fully engaged critical pedagogy. Such a poetics of the critical presents a set of critical opportunities for educative and curricula engagement with libratory process. The findings for this research include the identification of six shamanic futures concepts, the outlining of a futures spectrum of possible engagements with context, the development of a critical continuum and the outlining of a critical poetics. CLA is developed in response to these findings into a hinge concept that functions both as a deconstructive and reconstructive method and as a process theory for critical engagement and transformative praxis. Theoretical outcomes include 1. the development of a Causal Layered Pedagogy (CLP) that can facilitate curricula thought that develops critical agency, and 2. speculation on the possibility of a critical renaissance inspired by a new humanism-neohumanism-that reflects the context of the early twenty-first century which has lost confidence in intellect alone to manage the future.

Where next for pedagogy? Critical agency in educational futures

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