The problem of ideology and educational theory.

摘要

John Dewey proposed that education should be based on an experience oriented methodology modeled after scientific method. This position has been critiqued as being ideological by a contemporary group of educational theorists. Henry Giroux is representative of this group. Giroux's critique again raises the general problem for educational theory of understanding the role of ideology in the process of schooling.;The problem of understanding the role of ideology is approached as a problem in the theory of knowledge. The rise of modern Western epistemology is surveyed to disclose the ways in which it sets the conditions for the possibility of human knowledge. The central concerns of epistemology became the problems of justifying knowledge claims and the role of objectivity. The attempt to establish an objective foundation for knowledge resulted in a fragmentation of knowledge which coincided with--and in a sense made possible--the rise of modern scientific method. The Kantian critique and concomitant fragmentation of knowledge, when applied to the social aspect of human existence, became the foundation for analyses in which the concept of ideology plays a prominent role.;The implications of the problem of ideology for educational theory are explored by examining Dewey's approach to the problem of justifying knowledge and value, the way in which he formulated and attempted to solve the problem of ideology by avoiding it methodologically, and Giroux's critique of that attempt. Giroux and Dewey share a number of assumptions and goals so it is necessary to determine whether Giroux's critique represents a critical extension of Dewey's methodology or a radical challenge to it.;The conclusion is that Giroux fails to adopt a central element of Dewey's methodology--the precise element which Dewey believed allowed his instrumentalism to escape the ideological critique--or to provide an acceptable alternative. Giroux's own analysis has difficulty formulating a consistent and coherent theory of ideology, and it is susceptible to the charge that it is itself ideological.