Educational Critique,Critical Thinking and the Critical Philosophical Traditions

Responding to Jan Masschelein's discussion of critical distance and the trivialisation of critique in his ‘How to Conceive of Critical Educational Theory Today?’, I draw attention to the antinomic character of immanence and transcendence—that is, to the way that it entails both non‐circumventible necessity and omnipresent risks. I argue that the discourse of critical thinking in education is exemplary of the tensions generated by such consolidated meanings. Through this prism, I aim to offer a nuanced account of ways in which the trivialisation of critique nurtures narcissistic and conformist tendencies that do not leave unaffected any critical philosophical line of thought. To illustrate my critique of contemporary critical education of all persuasions, I deal with an ethics of reading and writing. I suggest that, rather than encouraging cynicism and an abdication of responsibility, this antinomic character of critique should discourage any complacent and one‐sided reliance on one's own tradition.     

Executive functions in kindergarten children at risk for developmental coordination disorder

Executive functioning (EF) is a key cognitive process for development. Little is known about EF in Kindergarten children at risk for developmental coordination disorder (DCD), despite this age being one of the most critical and intensive period of motor and cognitive development. In our investigation we compared EF in kindergarten children at risk for DCD with Typically Developing (TD) children. Participants were 36 Italian children, 18 at risk for DCD (9 boys and 9 girls) who had a mean age of 4.6 years and 18 TD (9 boys and 9 girls) who had a mean age of 4.6. Executive functions were measured by tasks targeting cold executive functioning (working memory, fluency, inhibitory control) and two assessments of hot executive functioning (Snack Delay and Gift Wrap). Significant differences were found between children at risk for DCD and TD children on cold EF tasks of visuo-spatial working memory abilities, fluency and inhibitory control, but not on hot EF tasks. The findings suggest that it is advisable to implement preschool cognitively challenging physical activities programmes.     

Michel Foucault’s limit-experience limited

Educational philosophy has not discussed Foucault’s publications on the Iranian Revolution and the related controversy. Foucauldian concepts are applied to education, though his only writings which ‘sidetracked’ him from exploring power within the state, namely, his journalistic accounts of his visits to Iran, remain unexplored in our field. Against moralist accusations of Foucault’s views on Iran as ‘singularly uncritical’, and beyond standard postcolonial charges of Foucault with exoticism and orientalism, I examine how the writings in question reveal ambivalences and limits of Foucauldian philosophy and complicate the glorification of limit-experience in educational theory.     

Didactic Restrictions on the Teacher’s Practice: The Case of Limits of Functions in Spanish High Schools

The Anthropological Theory of Didactics describes mathematical activity in terms of mathematical organisations or praxeologies and considers the teacher as the director of the didactic process the students carry out, a process that is structured along six dimensions or didactic moments. This paper begins with an outline of this epistemological and didactic model, which appears as a useful tool for the analysis of mathematical and teaching practices. It is used to identify the main characteristics of the mathematical organisation around the limits of functions as it is proposed to be taught at high school level. The observation of an empirical didactic process will finally show how the internal dynamics of the didactic process is affected by certain mathematical and didactic constraints that significantly determine the teacher’s practice and ultimately the mathematical organisation actually taught.     

Dialogue between theories interpreted as research praxeologies: the case of APOS and the ATD

The notion of “praxeology” from the anthropological theory of the didactic (ATD) can be used as a framework to approach what has recently been called the networking of theories in mathematics education. Theories are interpreted as research praxeologies, and different modalities of “dialogues” between research praxeologies are proposed, based on alternatively considering the main features and proposals of one theory from the perspective of the other. To illustrate this networking methodology, we initiate a dialogue between APOS (action-process-object-schema) and the ATD itself. It starts from the theoretical component of both research praxeologies followed by the technological and technical ones. Both dialogue modalities and the resulting insights are illustrated, and the elements of APOS and the ATD that the dialogue can promote and develop are underlined. The results found indicate that a complete dialogue taking into account all components of research praxeologies appears as an unavoidable step in the networking of research praxeologies.     

The Role of the Authority of the Text on Critical Thinking

The paper puts forward the argument that critical thinking (and its teaching) should be approached by taking into critical account operations of authority that blunt the reflective disposition toward written texts. The empirical grounds of this argument have been examined by means of a specific study. The study explored in a higher-education setting the extent to which students’ critical thinking was influenced by the authority of textuality. Eighty-two undergraduates were randomly divided into Group A and Group B. Two passages, extracted from internationally well-known cultural-textual sources, were compiled into two sets of materials. Set A consisted of an anonymized passage drawn from a text of fascist ideology, and Set B consisted of an anonymized passage drawn from a text of democratic theory. During the research session, students in Group A received first Set A and then Set B, and Group B received first Set B followed by Set A. Both sets of materials instructed students to read each passage, comment upon it, and explain in writing their thinking. The results indicated that students’ critical thinking was influenced by the authority of textuality per se, that is, by the fact that the distributed excerpts enjoyed the aura of the printed, public, and published text. Also the very fact that the excerpts were anonymized made the students’ relation to textual authority more direct and unmediated, as it excluded the impact of the authority of the author on their critical approach. The findings support the basic argument of the paper as described above and also demonstrate the need to cultivate in schools what the authors describe as the “aporetic” dimension of critical thinking.