Critical Thinking and Democratic Deliberation: Beyond Logic and Argument Analysis in Citizenship Education

• In Event: Roundtable Session 45
  In Roundtable Session: Democratic Citizenship in Education Paper Discussion

Abstract

It is widely held that the teaching of critical thinking develops the deliberative capacities democracy requires. This position, however, assumes a certain commensurability between the problems presented in such curricula and those that occupy democratic deliberation. In examining one influential critical thinking curriculum, this paper reveals the contingency of the assumption. With problems steeped in logic and argument analysis, and with scant consideration of notions of rightness/wrongness, the curriculum instead fosters an instrumental rationality, contributing to the depoliticization of democracy. Given that democratic deliberation focuses on not only what is correct, but also what is right, I argue that critical thinking curricula need to incite the social imagination, engage in issues of public good, and foster ways of thinking relationally.

Author

• Leonel Tze-Wei Lim, University of Wisconsin - Madison