Opinion: Culture and Ideology in the Training Literature

SUMMARY

Although it has been argued that education involves the promotion of various cultures and ideologies, to what extent is this also true of training (as portrayed in the training literature)? The educational technology literature on training is analysed. The dominant ideology is one which justifies training in terms of technological optimism and national economic competition. This tends to be related to the social location of the authors. Various alternative viewpoints are offered. The question is posed: How should educational technologists take account of these alternative viewpoints? All this suggests that educational technologists cannot escape the epistemological crisis which confronts all the other social disciplines. The new critical social theory (exemplified in this paper) aims to address the crisis by making previously suppressed voices heard.