Abstract

Critical pedagogy speaks of teachers as liberating and transformative intellectuals.Yet their voice is absent from its discourse.The emancipatory action research, described in this article, created a dialogue between teachers and the ideas concerning oppression and liberation found in Neo-Marxist pedagogies. It strongly suggests that teachers can contribute to the further development of these ideas. It indicates that Critical Theory’s perceptions of the totality of oppression were largely accepted by these teachers after their own inner-reflective processes.Yet, the teachers rejected the dyadic perception of oppressors and oppressed, and that of the ‘victimization’ of the subject, as they perceived such an approach to weaken the subject and exempt him/her from the struggle for liberation. They also highlighted the problematic aspects of positive utopia, which many of the critical pedagogies share, and offered a modest, yet intellectually rich perception of the struggle for liberation. As opposed to the static positive utopia that many of Neo-Marxist pedagogies offer, they suggested a dynamic and subjective perception of liberation; one that is neither restricted by the past nor by locality. This research suggests that teachers could well make a valuable contribution to the formation of a new counter-education. And that the development of a new pedagogical language in education could benefit by being done with them rather than for them.