232 Without insight into the psychological structure and activities of the
individual, the educative process will […] be haphazard and arbitrary.
If it chances to coincide with the childs activity it will get a leverage; if it does not, it will result in friction, or disintegration, or arrest of the
child nature. Lastly, both the Frierian 1996 and Deweyian 1990 approaches may also
benefit from the inclusion of more explicit teaching about key substantive political issues. In the context of neoliberalism, my empirical findings would suggest these
should include comprehensive lessons on welfare policies and services, alternative political-economic systems and practices, and human nature that expose students
to the facts and empirical evidence relevant to these topics, and equip them with the ability to identify the errors or half-truths contained in widespread neoliberal
discourses. Such lessons tend to be absent from existing and more instrumentalist US and UK forms of civics and politics education Biesta Lawy, 2006.
8.2 Actual Typological Characteristics, Dispositions, and Potential Lessons
In this section, I will discuss how some of the shared dispositions expressed by my youth participants may both hinder or contribute to critical and progressive
pedagogy, and will draw out the implications for a socio-cognitive approach to
critical and progressive pedagogy.
In analyzing my data I attempted to discern if there were any significant influences on my participants’ political cognitive frameworks that could be
potentially standardized or somehow transferred over to activist strategies aimed at contesting neoliberal discourses and practices. However, this proved to be a
rather futile search, as all of the political influences on my participants, even those on
Mainstream
young people who expressed very limited political-economic knowledge, have come from a wide array of unique experiences to the extent that
the only generalization that can be made from them, is that their political knowledge has been shaped by various influences. For example, even though,
CriticalPolitical
young people like Lupe, Jazmin, Arlene, Anthony, and Ben cite their parents or close relatives as being the initial catalysts that sparked the
development of their political outlooks, or like Aimee, and Lisa who cite close friends as theirs, there is little that can be learned from these catalysts, other than
233 they can come from anywhere and can take root at anytime as described in section
5.5. So, rather than focus on the identification of influences I have chosen to mainly foreground how young people actively reify their political-economic
understandings, as well as the socio-cognitive impediments i.e., dispositional barriers to that reification.
Whilst recognizing the need for larger sample sizes, more refined methods, and the addition of other and more precise classifications to my original typology
see section 9.2, I will for the time being assume that a significantly high proportion of LA and London young people ages 16-19, are likely to possess
characteristics that can place them within one of the three typological classifications discussed in previous chapters and summarized below.
234
Table 8.1: Typology: Defining Characteristics and Corresponding Dispositions
CriticalPolitical ArtsyIndie
Mainstream
• They spend a significant amount of their time
reading advanced literature on various
topics, and engaging in leftist political and civic
activities, as well artistic endeavours.
• They express the need for education to stress
critical thinking skills.
• They consciously avoid shopping centres and
brand clothing whenever possible, and display a
DIY do it yourself ethic towards clothes, and
actively engage with critical media music,
magazines, documentaries, Internet
sites.
• They express a sophisticated
understanding of political- economic topics, such as
welfare, causes of poverty, labour
exploitation, capitalism, government, and
alternative government and economic systems, a
high level of empathy for the suffering of others,
and principle concern with social justice issues.
• They expressed a high level of internal political
efficacy, and low level of external political efficacy.
• Their political orientations fall along an
Anarchist to Social- DemocraticProgressive
spectrum.
• They spend a significant amount of their time in
artistic endeavours and engaging with
independent or alternative media-culture.
• They express a pronounced affinity for an
education centered on art and music.
• They express and display a general
indifference towards consumer culture, and
purchase goods for their use value.
• They express a limited engagement and
appreciation for critical media, and are primarily
interested in media- culture for its affective
and aesthetic properties.
• They express highly dissonant views on
welfare, supporting welfare programmes, but
believing they should be temporary.
• They view the contemporary electoral
process as the main medium for political
change, support capitalism but feel that it should be
regulated, but are otherwise disinterested in
politics.
• They express a moderate level of internal political
efficacy, and moderate level of external political
efficacy.
• Their political orientations fall between a
• They spend a significant amount of their time
hanging out with friends, playing sports, partying,
and hanging out in shopping centres.
• They generally express a more instrumentalist view
of education.
• They express and display a liking of
corporate products, and actively engage with
corporate media-culture, mostly uncritically.
• They express more materialistic concerns and
future aspirations, which are highly reflective of
their specific media- culture preferences.
• They express a mostly negative view of welfare
recipients, viewing them as cheats, but maintaining
some support for welfare programmes.
• They have little to no knowledge on their own,
or of alternative political- economic systems, but
seem to believe that voting is important.
• They support capitalism, and view it as a system
that makes people independent and self-
reliant.
• They express a low level of internal political
efficacy, and low to moderate level of external
political efficacy.
• Their political orientations fall between a
235 Left-liberal to Centre-
liberal spectrum. Centre-liberal to Right-
liberal spectrum.
• They consistently express critical, political,
empathetic, and fatalistic dispositions.
• They consistently express aesthetic,
affective, and apolitical dispositions.
• They consistently express self-interested,
apathetic, consumerist, and uncritical dispositions
List of Dispositions Definitions
Aesthetic Disposition
Automatic inclinations to be primarily attracted to media-cultural texts for their aesthetic andor sound
dynamics.
Affective Disposition
Automatic inclination to be attracted to media- cultural texts, primarily for the emotions that they
stir.
Apolitical Disposition
Automatic disinterest in, and aversion to, politics. Consumerist
Disposition Automatic impulsive and compulsive tendency to
buy consumer goods.
Critical Disposition Automatic tendency to question and critique taken
for granted assumptions.
Empathetic Disposition
A strong-valence inclination to be concerned with the suffering of others.
Fatalistic Disposition Automatic tendency to assume that human nature is
predominantly selfish, and therefore be dismissive of more decentralized and genuinely democratic
forms of political-economic organisation.
Self-Interested Disposition
An automatic tendency to only be concerned with one’s own interests, often with an unconscious
disregard for the interests of others, e.g., when consuming corporate products that probably come
from some exploitative source.
Political Disposition Automatic tendency or inclination to want to
connect or infuse otherwise neutral topics with political concerns or overtures.
Uncritical Disposition
Automatic tendency to not question prevailing norms and values.
Additionally, if it is accepted, as the mainstream of cognitive and social psychology argues, that cognitive dispositions, while largely manifesting beyond
our conscious awareness, nonetheless play a key role in the way we perceive and filter out social information, and how we act in accordance with those perceptions
236 and filters, than their role in social reproduction should not be underestimated.
Thus far, I have only identified ten dispositions, as listed above, but even this small sample offers noteworthy theoretical insights. For instance, some of these
dispositions are conducive to the aims of critical and progressive pedagogy, e.g., critical, political, and empathetic dispositions. Some of these are neutral but can be
oriented towards a critical and progressive pedagogy, e.g., affective and aesthetic dispositions via politically charged art centred classroom activities, and some of
these are potential barriers that critical and progressive pedagogues need to take into account and directly address, e.g., fatalistic, apolitical, self-interested,
apathetic, and uncritical dispositions. To be certain, it is arguable that
CriticalPolitical
young people are automatically inclined to be political and critical, and therefore, it probably did not
take much initial exposure to political influences to ignite their politicization. Indeed, the development of their initial political awareness and attitudes,
according to their responses, began at relatively young ages around 11-14. However, young people that are more in line with
ArtsyIndie
or
Mainstream
characteristics, and who likely lack this political and critical predisposition, will need more significant and substantive exposure to political knowledge in order for
them to generate more developed political-economic understandings. The obviousness of this hopefully not too controversial generalization or assumption,
however, may overshadow the important discovery of the
ArtsyIndie
and
Mainstream
young people’s unique dispositions that may render exposure to political knowledge and practices inefficacious. Hence, I argue that critical and
progressive pedagogic strategies and practices must emphasize both conscientization and the cultivation of affective, attitudinal, and behavioural
dispositions that are conducive to progressive social change and a democratic ethos. Moreover, these strategies must also target any pre-existing dispositions,
which may hinder this cultivation; the overall goal being to cultivate within young people critical, democratic, co-operative, tolerant, and empathetic dispositions that
are enacted both reflectively and automatically. In the next section, I discuss some of the content of such a curriculum, illustrating how this might be done, as
inspired by an activity described to me by two of my
CriticalPolitical
participants.
237
8.3 Towards a Pedagogy of Dispositional Democracy
