Alternative lifeworlds on the Internet: Habermas and democratic distance education

ABSTRACT

Current distance education practices can be susceptible to the types of content-heavy, top-down instruction often seen in physical classrooms. These practices are similar to the activities of corporations, which use recommendation systems and game theory to mold the public sphere and fragment it. We propose that free knowledge creation through open, multichannel communication needs to be used in distance education to permit both individual and collective agency for students to process knowledge and develop higher order reflectivity. Such frameworks would help students of distance education and instructors to use critical thinking to discuss concepts as equal stakeholders and develop varied ideological outcomes that could contribute to creating social change. This conceptual paper places current distance education practices within Habermasian theory, discusses ways in which the Internet and its educative potential has come to be viewed thus far, and suggests platforms that could open distance learning to new possibilities.

Keywords:

• critical theory
• computer-supported learning
• democratic education
• constructivism
• cybernetics

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was declared by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shantanu Tilak

Shantanu Tilak is a PhD student in educational psychology at the Ohio State University. His work revolves around integrating critical theory and cybernetics into the understanding of the use of technology in education and using the tenets of educational psychology to test these theoretical insights.

Michael Glassman

Michael Glassman is a professor of educational psychology at the Ohio State University. His work has centered around implementing a Deweyian (and by extension, a Vygotskian) model of online and blended learning and looking at the participatory potential of the Internet through the lens of theorists such as Ivan Illich.