CAPITULO IV: CONCLUSIONES
ANEXO 3: STRAIN GAGES
Critical Theory (CT) in research investigates power relationships and premises the idea that knowledge is not value-free but has hidden value-systems and self-interests of dominant groups (Savin-Baden & Major, 2013; Ritchie & Lewis, 2003; Gage, 1989). It argues that such value-systems preclude change and change mechanisms such as social justice and equality, thus ensuring the status quo is not destabilised (Gray, 2009: Ledwith, 2011). CT recognises how the powerless are silenced and subjugated while others are privileged and protected (Morrow & Brown, 1994) and therefore aims to project the voices of the powerless into the public domain to achieve change (Kincheloe & McLaren, 2003; Ledwith, 2011). Kincheloe and McLaren (2003) propose this definition:
[Critical] Research becomes a transformative endeavor (sic), unembarrassed by the label ‘political’ and unafraid to consummate a relationship with emancipatory consciousness. (p.453).
Critical researchers bring their epistemological and subjective “baggage” into the space of inquiry to be transparent and to reduce hierarchy, power and ideological barriers and differentials; thus enabling more direct confrontation of issues (Somekh & Lewin, 2011; Kress, 2011). This is an important consideration in race research because researchers need to acknowledge and state their position as, not only anti- racist but also committed to change which re-balances privilege and power. Race researchers also need to openly discuss the contradictions and ironies they face which can sometimes lead to taking part in racial hierarchies created by the white-majority, whatever their own racial heritage (Hall, 1996). These positions are needed to face and resist the concept of hegemony that recognises how society builds and maintains its power by continually adopting and adapting processes to avert social change and maintain political and economic advantage within certain sections (Gramsci, 1992; Kincheloe & McLaren, 2003). This has implications for BME student teachers who, research has shown, may be aware of their marginalised position but have limited social resources to resist the controlling stereotypes. These curtail their progress and success (Pole, 1999; Wilkins & Lall, 2011; Bhopal, 2015). Hall (1996a) suggests that Gramsci’s ideas provide theoretical lines of connection to anti-racism because Gramsci observed that all social classes are complicit in hegemonic structures through the need to survive and succeed. From this Hall argues that racism as a hegemonic entity operates on many fronts and should be seen therefore as not one racism, but many racisms that change according to contexts and peoples. Hall understands that reducing race to a single dimension, defined and controlled by white power systems,
promotes division and hierarchy among BME groups that impairs their power of organising against injustices.
3.2.1 Some criticisms of Critical Theory
Critical Theory is not an unproblematic research dimension. Hammersley (1995 & 2008) warns that it can become an unstructured fusion of selective, post-structural concepts that are poorly discussed, under-theorised and lacking a firm philosophical structure. It can present as a ‘free-for-all’ but stand for very little theoretically. He believes that CT researchers are in danger of being more concerned with protest and making their voice heard than achieving a deep understanding of the nature of their cause; with critique replaced by will. Gillborn (2013) warns that critique can become hollow and lose its power, by over-use so that its message is lost. It also, he suggests, can be appropriated by those in power, such as neo-Liberal Conservatives, to appear supportive to the dispossessed, but in reality only making surface concessions, while actually strengthening their power. Gillborn exemplifies this with how anti-racism is advocated and used in education. He argues that education policy-makers dismantle the problems of black underachievement in education, by presenting achievement as an individual, meritocratic endeavour, rather than emerging from unequal structures that favour white-majority students for whom it was designed. This gives the message that BME students do not achieve because it is their own fault. As a counter argument Kincheloe & McLaren (2003) suggest that Critical Theory plays a role in addressing multiple and complex forms of power because it involves ‘enlightenment’ and critique to reveal subordination and dominance; and emancipation, leading to self-determination and democracy (p.437). Critical Theory is also understood as a
route from ideology to transformative action, centralising democratic endeavour and human resourcefulness, emanating as it does from the notion of ‘critique’, or a questioning of assumptions and reasoning (Kincheloe & McLaren, 2003). Ledwith (2011) concurs, arguing that CT is not just a theory of ideas and possibilities but is praxis-orientated and transformative. Ledwith (2011) appropriates the role of story as a transformative approach for marginalised people because it engenders reflection, creation and action. Stories, she asserts encompass the dual dimensions of the personal, where self-esteem and knowledge is raised; and the political, where self- awareness raises a consciousness of the world and ourselves “in relation to the structural forces that shape us” (Ledwith, 2011, p.66). The power of story is harnessed in my research with the BME student teachers, who may be deemed to have less voice than many in ITE and who are therefore susceptible to the structural forces surrounding and shaping them. The use of counter-story, as a tool of exposing BME experiences, is a major part of Critical Race Theory and the basis for my study.