Abstract

The focus of this chapter is on defining indoctrination from the stance of political studies so that it could be useful for education. Its novelty lies in proposing an idea of emancipatory education as an inclusion and emphasis of minority views on political matters, exemplified through an analysis of the concept of indoctrination. Commonly, indoctrination is explored as education that promotes a particular type of belief. This sort of definition either completely denies that the method or intentions of teachers are crucial for making an informed distinction between education that violates and one that preserves students’ autonomy, or provides them with a secondary, complementary role in defining indoctrination. I build on two theories of indoctrination to reach my argument. On the one hand, John Wilson argues that space for indoctrination exists only in cases of teaching either unfalsifiable or false beliefs. On the other hand, his intellectual opponent, Anthony Flew, holds that only doctrinal beliefs are susceptible to indoctrination. Through comparison and conceptual analysis of positions of these two philosophers, including the work by Paul Feyerabend, I aim to show that Flew’s view on indoctrination is more similar to Wilson’s than it initially may appear. Since Wilson’s definition of indoctrination does not seem to leave space for political education, I will criticize his solution for addressing prescriptive beliefs in the context of education and argue that the presentation of minority political views should be included and favoured in the context of education.