Resharpening the Radical Edge: Lev Vygotsky and Paulo Freire in Historical-Political Context

• In Event: AERA Poster Session 5
  In Poster Session: The Biographical and Documentary Research Poster Session

Abstract

Cartesian dualism provides the justification for “extractivist research” (Kuntz, 2015) which mines data from the natural world and manufactures it into theory commodities that can be traded for political and economic advantage. Context and person are erased as information floats through space-time, easily mutated as it reattaches to other circumstances and peoples. Cartesian abstraction leads to the mythologizing of heroic academic theorists, what Carlson (2003) refers to as “floating signifiers”. In this paper, we push back against “floating signifiers” in educational research by re-uniting two radical philosophers with their historical-political contexts. Through dual biographical analysis, we explore the ontological dimensions of Vygotsky’s and Freire’s philosophies in order to illustrate the fundamental link between their historical-political contexts and their learning theories.

Authors

• Robert Lewis Lake, Georgia Southern University

• Tricia M. Kress, Molloy College