A+Post-Structuralist+Critique



In this paper I argue for a critical reexamination of current pedagogical theories and practices in light of post-structuralist critiques of an essentialist conception of human being or nature, of teleological notions of History, and of metaphysical, foundationalist conceptions of knowledge. In examining the need for such a reconsideration I specifically take as my field the area of Primary School education.

In addressing the meaning of primary education in New Zealand today, I work from the multiple and variable positions of an educational theorist, a practising classroom teacher and a parent of primary age children. This project is informed by a desire to reach a clearer understanding of the discourses and practices at work at the micro-level of school and classroom organisation from within the conceptual framework provided by Post-structuralism. What is at stake is: what to be understood as teaching and learning in Primary education today?

What are the explicit and implicit theoretical foundations that support current pedagogical practice and inform the life-world of the classroom? There appear to be a range of contemporaneous currents, which, while not co-originals, operate together in our current educational milieu. I have identified what I consider to be three of the most important of these as: ‘Child-centred Pedagogy’, ‘Instrumental Pedagogy’ and ‘Critical-Emancipatory Pedagogy’. (A schematic of these three pedagogies is presented in Table 1). In the following sections I attempt to unravel some of the assumptions underlying each approach and then examine these assumptions in the light of post-structuralist critiques, before going on to elaboration on some of the issues involved.