Curriculum and the cultivation of critical thinking: A critical realist conception

Abstract

In this article, we offer a critical realist conception of curriculum that aims to cultivate critical thinking (CT) and liberate students from egocentric rationality. We first examine egocentric rationality as a problem emerging from the technicist paradigm of cultivating CT in higher education, exemplified by issues arising from the pedagogical activity of debate. We then examine existing approaches to cultivating CT, focusing on the extent to which their goals and conceptions of CT could liberate students from egocentric rationality. Drawing on Roy Bhaskar’s stratified conception of being and principle of immanent critique, we offer a critical realist conception of curriculum, explaining its definition of CT as the capacity for self-critique. We shall illustrate, in the context of an undergraduate debate course, how such capacity can be developed in order to liberate students from egocentric rationality. Curriculum is thus a critical praxis, a created space where student’s CT develops in a way that is intrinsically entwined with their being and becoming. This article extends the philosophical basis for integrating CT with curriculum and offers pedagogical implications.

Keywords:

• Critical thinking
• curriculum
• critical realism
• self-critique
• egocentricity
• debate

Acknowledgements

We thank the reviewers and editors for their critical feedback, which has opened up the space for this article to maximise its potential.

Disclosure statement

The authors confirm that there are no relevant financial or non-financial competing interests to report.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by “Research on the Innovation of Foreign Language Education in China” (grant number: 22JJD740011), a major project of Key Research Institutes of Humanities and Social Sciences under the Ministry of Education. It was also supported by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, as part of the project entitled “Language teaching and the development of thinking skills: Principles and applications” (Project No. 2022JJ019).

Notes on contributors

Shi Pu

Shi Pu is Lecturer at Beijing Foreign Studies University. Her research explores possibilities for human development in the context of foreign language education, with a particular focus on critical thinking and academic literacy. Her recent book is entitled Critical Thinking in Academic Writing: A Cultural Approach (2022, Routledge).

Hao Xu

Hao Xu is Professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University. His research interests include language education, educational psychology, and social psychology. He is currently associate editor of International Journal of Applied Linguistics.