Tag Archives: educational research

Critical Education has just published its latest issue at http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/criticaled.

We invite you to review the Table of Contents below and then visit our web site to read articles and items of interest.

Critical Education
Vol 3, No 5 (2012)
Table of Contents
http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/criticaled/issue/view/182244

Articles
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‘Critical Thinking’ And State Mandated Testing: The Collision Of State Rhetoric And Teacher Beliefs
Melissa Freeman, University of Georgia
Sandra Mathison, University of British Columbia
Kristen Wilcox, University at Albany, SUNY

Abstract

Based on case studies of two school districts in New York State, the authors analyze the contradictory and hegemonic discourse of critical thinking proffered in State curriculum standards and as manifest in state mandated student assessments. Using Gramsci’s (1971) notion of hegemony, the analysis illustrates that dominant groups (such as state administrators or federal policy makers) gain and maintain dominance by projecting their own way of seeing the world so that those who are subordinated by it (such as teachers) accept it as ‘common sense’ and ‘natural.’ The ways in which this hegemonic relationship is created and sustained, and it’s consequences, are illustrated in the way teachers make sense of fundamentally contradictory rhetoric and lived practice.

Keywords
Hegemony; Accountability; Critical Thinking

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