Return to search

Technological Thinking in American Teacher Education, 1970-1979: a Hermeneutical Study of Alienated Consciousness

The research presented here is of a sort almost never seen in today's social science work. Attempted here is a hermeneutical examination of teacher education literature of the 1970's, with the goal of revealing what otherwise would and generally does go unseen by most who practice and study teacher education, the tacitly held and taken-for-granted pre-judgements or prejudices which make such teacher education the reality it is. That is to say, the aim of this research is to "go behind what is said" in this literature in order to reveal the questions to which the literature's contents are the answer. This is necessary because such prejudices, such questions, determine in the first place the sorts of answers which can be given, by excluding other questions and points of origin, and thereby structure the form and content of teacher education as it is lived.
The more specific purpose of this "going behind what is said," apart from merely revealing such prejudices, is, however, to examine them after they are revealed in order to reach a judgement as to whether or not some portion or, perhaps, all of these prejudices reflect a belief in and devotion to the alienated consciousness of technological thinking. This revelation and this judgement are presented in a chapter of nine sections: Professionalism; Management, Control, and Systems; Humans as Substances; Rationalism, Empiricism, Knowledge, and Morality; Learning, Teaching, and Academics; Education as School; Selling Materialism; Meritocracy and the Perfectability of Humans; Freedom, Participation, Community, and Power.
These investigations leave little doubt, it seems, that teacher education and teacher educators in the United States during the 1970's, and by inference today also, are engrossed in and committed to technological thinking as the founding source of such work, and that such belief and commitment threaten not only teacher education as a viable human event but also the entire education "enterprise" as an authentic activity of human living.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:unt.edu/info:ark/67531/metadc332087
Date05 1900
CreatorsZimmerman, Kenneth R. (Kenneth Ray)
ContributorsCooper, Jed Arthur, Malone, David Hale, 1930-2000, Rollins, Forrest L., Bentz, Valerie Malhotra, 1942-
PublisherUniversity of North Texas
Source SetsUniversity of North Texas
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeThesis or Dissertation
Formativ, 570 leaves, Text
RightsPublic, Zimmerman, Kenneth R. (Kenneth Ray), Copyright, Copyright is held by the author, unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved.

Page generated in 0.0027 seconds