Re-thinking critical thinking in higher education: Foregrounding difference Emily Danvers University of Sussex Centre for Higher Education & Equity Research (CHEER)

Critical Thinking: Foregrounding difference Research with 1 st year UK social science students (15 interviews, a focus group, 3 month classroom observations). Following around critical thinking, interrogating how it is conceptualised, embodied and felt: Critical thinking not dead (Evans, 2004; Davies, 2003). But the reductive, neo-liberal language of skills & competencies as educational ‘outputs’, obscures its vibrancy and contingency. Who are ‘critical beings?’ (Barnett, 1997) How do they relate to traditional (constructions of university students? (Leathwood and Read, 2009). Are some bodies more ‘at home’ as critical voices in institutions, more than others? (Ahmed, 2012) What does it mean to be speak as, and be recognised, as a successful critical thinker in higher education?

Becoming critical ‘I think you are more likely to offend if you go in like a bull in a china shop and say ‘I think this’ and ‘I think that’. So instead of just throwing your opinions out without any sort of education, you are learning how to say things, when to say them and where to get the information from to support you…and the whole sort of, your body language, the way that you talk, what you wear. Because everyone judges everyone, you can’t help it. Whether you discriminate against them or not, you do judge people. So if I walked in here wearing a headscarf you'd think a different thing than if I was wearing a mini skirt and a crop top. It’s just different. To know in different situations how to dress, how to speak, how to maintain eye contact. Carly, Interview

(Re)producing different disciplinary values ‘I suppose it felt kind of natural, something you should do when studying X’ Rob, Interview Critical thinking a discourse to speak through and (re)produce different disciplinary values. Abstract ideology critique (academic social science) vs moral self-regulation (professional social science). Criticality as a (shared) value around which other, often implicit, disciplinary values circulate. Circularity of affect (Ahmed, 2010). How to perform a discipline’s values ‘naturally’?

Older, wiser, unsure Students’ academic confidence about critical thinking was constructed in relation to their age, social positioning and previous educational experiences: ‘I think I’m bringing up too much the ideas that I’ve been listening to. Especially like politics for example, I have no ideas whatsoever that are mine – they are all my Dad’s’. Camille, Interview ‘My sister…she said you already sound like a professional, coming out with more theories and ideas and questioning things…I don’t want to come across as the sister who is at university who is telling her what to do’. Kate, Interview

Critical (gendered) beings 9 out of 10 students named an educated male figure as critical role model. Yet criticality strongly associated with gendered pedagogy and soft skills development. ‘Oh finally, here’s a proper academic, not that woman on about critical reading again’ Academic Lecturer, Observation ‘Girls have a better ability to critically think that boys. Boys are generally quite logical aren’t they?...I think critical thinking and social situations are quite closely linked to each other as well. I don’t think boys can read social situations as well as girls’ Bryony, Interview

Difference (subtly expressed) I think everyone can find it quite easy. But it's like anything, you have to practice at it. So if you’ve always been encouraged to do critical thinking, maybe through school you’ll obviously find it a lot easier. But for me because I’d never really…I might have done it, but not in an official way if that makes sense. Emma, Interview Neo-liberal ‘post-equality’ discourse – a simple story? It can be difficult to be conscious of the ways in which we are (unequally) positioned. Conceptualising unequal access to the tools to question inequality might seem analogous. Shaping what differences come to matter? ‘Different agential cuts materialise difference phenomena’ (Barad, 2007,178).

Thinking differently. Critical thinking as: 1.Contextual, contingent and embodied. e.g. (re)produced and given value through different disciplinary practices. 2.Entangled with students’ social positioning. Those positioned as Others potentially have more work to do to become recognised as legitimate critical bodies than those traditionally ‘at home’ within higher education. 3.An accumulated practice where ‘difference’ is not easy to capture. e.g. while pedagogies of critical thinking are often feminised, students drew on masculinised images of critical role models. 4.Not dead. But not a transparent intellectual value either.

Possibilities Critical hope – ‘uniting critique’s disruptive power with hopefulness intrinsic energy to transform’(Danvers, 2014; Bozalek et al, 2014 ) Queer pessimism (Ahmed, 2010) - ‘a pessimism about a certain kind of optimism, as a refusal to be optimistic about the right things in the right kind of way’.

References Ahmed, S. (2010). The Promise of Happiness. North Carolina, USA: Duke University Press. Ahmed, S. (2012) On being included: racism and diversity in institutional life. Durham N.C., USA & London: Duke University Press. Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter. North Carolina, USA: Duke University Press. Barnett, R. (1997) Higher Education: A Critical Business. Buckingham: SRHE. Bozalek, V., Leibowitz, B., Carolissen, R. & Boler, M. (2014) Discerning Critical Hope in Educational Practices. London: Routledge. Danvers, E. (2014) Discerning critical hope in educational practices. Higher Education Research & Development, 33 (6), Davies, B. (2003). Death to Critique and Dissent? The Policies and Practices of New Managerialism and of 'Evidence-based Practice', Gender and Education 15 (1), Evans, M. (2004) Killing Thinking: The Death of the University. London: Continuum. Leathwood, C. & Read, B. (2009) Gender And The Changing Face Of Higher Education: A Feminized Future? London: SRHE. Ranciere, J. (2013) The Politics of Aesthetics. London: Bloomsbury.