Troubling the
concept: students’
experiences of
critical thinking in
higher education
Emily Danvers
Centre for Higher Education and Equity
Research (CHEER)
University of Sussex, UK
http://www.sussex.ac.uk/education/cheer
The research in progress
• 2nd year of ESRC funded PhD
• Interviews with 15 students at the beginning (Oct) and end (May) of
their 1st year at university.
• 2 cohorts - an academic and a professional social science course at a
University in the South of England. Participant(ish) observation of both
cohorts in a compulsory module.
• Following around the concept, interrogating what it makes possible/not
possible using Ahmed’s work on sociability and affect (2010) and
Berlant’s (2005) work on (un)happy futures.
Critical thinking as…
‘Part
of the furniture’ in Higher Education.
Conceptualised in a number of ways:
• A mechanised skill for employability akin
to problem solving
• A cognitive product of ordered, logical
thinking
• An individual process of self-reflection
• The force behind social transformation
…As a tacit social practice (Anderson,
1997 as a normative practice (Bailin et. al,
1999).
Emerging themes 1/2
Negotiating an affective tightrope
• Critical thinking associated with freedom, peace & empowerment but
also as a burden, overcomplicating things and killing joy.
• Affective load over decision making and over speaking/not speaking
self-regulated by happiness/unhappiness discourses (Ahmed, 2010;
Ngai, 2005; Berlant, 2011) e.g. ‘you have to not let it consume you’.
• Tension between sociability and social responsibility. Criticality posed in
opposition to ‘oh let's go with the flow, it'll be fine’.
Emerging themes – 2/2
Ontological repositioning or instrumentalism?
• Critical thinking as transformational ‘a film over the brain’ but also as
something disembodied ‘when I have my critical hat on’.
• Critical thinking as a mark of social/moral distinction ‘[Critical thinking
allows me to] make myself look better because I know how to speak’
and ‘that’s where some people might stop’. A process of noise
becoming voice (Biesta, 2010).
• Critical thinking as a purification ritual of self-improvement – is this the
neo-liberal self-project at work? Is this instrumentalism a consequence
of the marketisation of higher education?
• Critical thinking constantly presented as inactive and insular - ‘sitting
down and thinking critically’ – where does this leave spaces for social
resistance? (Giroux, 2011)
Initial Conclusions
Critical thinking…
• Is not a straightforward ‘doing’ – it is a continually negotiated
performance – between words, spaces and bodies
• Is anything but ‘rational’ – brimming with affect, with students walking an
affective tightrope between sociability and critique
• Is not dead! These first-year students are incredibly hopeful about it’s
transformational potential but what does it mean to desire critical
thinking?
• Seems to be enacted through structures of difference though less
obviously than I’d originally thought e.g. ‘people’s background might
affect their ability to think critically’ but this requires further analysis
• Has, in places, taken on a highly instrumentalised form. Potentially this
could be connected to shifting neo-liberal trends in higher education
system that demand a certain kind of performativity
References
• Ahmed, S. (2010). The Promise of Happiness. Durham [N.C]: Duke
University Press.
• Atkinson, D. (1997). A Critical Approach to Critical Thinking in TESOL.
TESOL Quarterly, 31(1), 71-94.
• Bailin, S., Case, R., Coombs, J. & Daniels, L. (1999). Conceptualising
Critical Thinking. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 31(3): 285-302.
• Berlant, L. (2011). Cruel Optimism. Durham [N.C]: Duke University
Press.
• Giroux, H. (2011). Occupy Colleges Now: Students as the New Public
Intellectuals. Truthout November 21, 2011
• Ngai, S. (2005). Ugly Feelings. Cambridge[M.A]: Harvard University
Press.