Abstract
In the educational psychology literature, self-regulated learning is associated with empowerment, agency, and democratic participation. Therefore, researchers are dedicated to developing and improving self-regulated learning pedagogy in order to make it widespread. However, drawing from the educational philosophy of Paulo Freire, teaching students to regulate their learning can be tied to a curriculum of obedience, subordination, and oppression. Using Freire’s discussion of concepts such as adaptation, prescription, and dependence, I suggest that self-regulated learning: (1) targets individual psychological changes that render individuals adaptable to existing social orders; (2) is guided by a logic to prescribe a certain kind of self; and (3) produces a relationship of dependence as learners depend on teachers for learning the necessary scripts to regulate their learning. This analysis points to ethical complexities related to teaching students to academically self-regulate.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Anyon, J. (1981). Social class and school knowledge. Curriculum Inquiry, 11, 3–42.
Apple, M. W. (1980). The other side of the hidden curriculum: Correspondence theories and the labor process. Interchange, 11, 5–22.
Apple, M. W. (2000). Official knowledge: Democratic education in a conservative age (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
Apple, M. W. (2006). Understanding and interrupting neoliberalism and neoconservatism in education. Pedagogies: An International Journal, 1, 21–26.
Ayers, R., & Ayers, B. (2011). Living in the gutter: Conflict and contradiction in the neoliberal classroom: A call to action. Berkeley Review of Education, 2, 95–108.
Bandura, A. (2001). Social cognitive theory: An agentic perspective. Annual Review of Psychology, 52, 1–26.
Bernstein, B. (1971). Class, codes and control. London, UK: Routledge.
Biesta, G. (2009). Good education in an age of measurement: on the need to reconnect with the question of purpose in education. Educational Assessment, Evaluation and Accountability, 21, 33–46.
Biesta, G. (2010). A new logic of emancipation: The methodology of Jacques Rancière. Educational Theory, 60, 39–59.
Boekaerts, M., & Cascallar, E. (2006). How far have we moved toward the integration of theory and practice in self-regulation? Educational Psychology Review, 18, 199–210.
Boekaerts, M., & Corno, L. (2005). Self-regulation in the classroom: A perspective on assessment and intervention. Applied Psychology: An International Review, 54, 199–231.
Calarco, J. M. (2011). “I need help!” Social class and children’s help-seeking in elementary school. American Sociological Review, 76, 862–882.
Darder, A. (2009). Teaching as an act of love: Reflections on Paulo Freire and his contributions to our lives and our work. In: A. Darder, M. P. Baltodano, & R. D. Torres (Eds.), The critical pedagogy reader (2nd ed, pp. 567–578). New York, NY: Routledge.
Dewey, J. (1938). Education and experience. New York, NY: Collier.
Dilts, A. (2011). From “Entrepreneur of the Self”to “Care of the Self”: Neo-liberal governmentality and Foucault’s ethics. Foucault Studies, 12, 130–146.
Duncan-Andrade, J. (2010). To study is a revolutionary duty. In G. Goodman (Ed.), Educational psychology reader: The art and science of how people learn (pp. 165–178). New York: Peter Lang.
Eckert, P. (1989). Jocks and burnouts: Social categories and identity in the high school. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Falk, C. (1999). Sentencing learners to life: Retrofitting the academy for the information age. Theory, Technology and Culture, 22, 19–27.
Fendler, L. (2001). Educating flexible souls: The construction of subjectivity through developmentality and interaction. In K. Hultqvist & G. Dahlberg (Eds.), Governing the child in the new millennium (pp. 119–142). New York, NY: RoutledgeFalmer.
Freire, P. (1987). Education for critical consciousness. New York: Continuum.
Freire, P. (2000). Pedagogy of the oppressed. New York: Continuum.
Giroux, H. A. (2009). Critical theory and educational practice. In A. Darder, M. P. Baltodano, & R. D. Torres (Eds.), The critical pedagogy reader (2nd ed., pp. 27–51). New York, NY: Routledge.
Gorlewski, J. (2011). Power, resistance, and literacy: Writing for social justice. Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publication.
Greene, M. (1988). The dialectic of freedom. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
Hadwin, A., & Oshige, M. (2011). Self-regulation, coregulation, and socially shared regulation: Exploring perspectives of social in self-regulated learning theory. Teachers College Record, 113, 240–264.
Hole, J., & Crozier, W. (2007). Dispositional and situational learning goals and children’s self-regulation. Journal of Educational Psychology, 77, 773–786.
Jackson, T., Mackenzie, J., & Hobfoll, S. E. (2000). Communal aspects of self-regulation. In M. Boekaerts, P. R. Pintrich, & M. Zeidner (Eds.), Handbook of self-regulation (pp. 275–302). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Jardine, D. (2010). Jean Piaget and the origins of intelligence: A return to “life itself.” In G. Goodman (Ed.), Educational psychology reader: The art and science of how people learn (pp. 130–148). New York, NY: Peter Lang.
Järvelä, S. (2011). How does help seeking help?—New prospects in a variety of contexts. Learning and Instruction, 21, 297–299.
Journell, W. (2011). Teaching the 2008 presidential election at three demographically diverse schools: An exercise in neoliberal governmentality. Educational Studies, 47, 133–159.
Kusserow, A. (2004). American individualisms: Child rearing and social class in three neighborhoods. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
Lakes, R. D., & Carter, P. A. (2011). Neoliberalism and education: An introduction. Educational Studies, 47, 107–110.
Lapan, R. T., Kardash, C. A. M., & Turner, S. (2002). Empowering students to become self-regulated learners. Professional School Counseling, 5, 257–265.
Lareau, A. (2003). Unequal childhoods: Class, race, and family life. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Martin, J. (2004). The educational inadequacy of conceptions of self in educational psychology. Interchange, 35, 185–208.
Martin, J. (2007). The selves of educational psychology: Conceptions, contexts, and critical considerations. Educational Psychologist, 42, 79–89.
Martin, J., & McLellan, A. M. (2008). The educational psychology of self-regulation: A conceptual and critical analysis. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 27, 433–448. doi:10.1007/s11217-009-9173-z.
Martin, J., & Sugarman, J. (2001). Is the self a kind of understanding? Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 31, 103–114.
Martinez-Pons, M. (2002). Parental influences on children’s academic self-regulatory development. Theory into Practice, 41(2), 126–131.
McCaslin, M., & Burross, H. L. (2011). Research on individual differences within a sociocultural perspective: Co-regulation and adaptive learning. Teachers College Record, 113, 325–349.
McLaren, P. (2007). Life in schools. An introduction to critical pedagogy in the foundations of education (5th ed.). Reading, MA: Addison Wesley Longman.
McLaren, P. (2009). Critical pedagogy: A look at the major concepts. In A. Darder, M. P. Baltodano, & R. D. Torres (Eds.), The critical pedagogy reader (2nd ed., pp. 61–83). New York, NY: Routledge.
Miller, S., Heafner, T., & Massey, D. (2009). High-school teachers’ attempts to promote Self-regulated learning: “I may Learn from you, yet how do I do it. Urban Review: Issues and Ideas in Public Education, 4, 121–140.
Newman, R. S. (2002). How self-regulated learners cope with academic difficulty: The role of adaptive help seeking. Theory into Practice, 41, 132–138.
Piaget, J. (1952). The origins of intelligence in children. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Co.
Post, Y., Boyer, W., & Brett, L. (2006). A historical examination of self-regulation: Helping children now and in the future. Early Childhood Education Journal, 34, 5–14.
Puustinen, M., Lyyra, A. L., Metsäpelto, R. L., & Pulkkinen, L. (2008). Children’s help seeking: The role of parenting. Learning and Instruction, 18, 160–171.
Roeser, R. W., & Peck, S. C. (2009). An education in awareness: Self, motivation, and self-regulated learning in contemplative perspective. Educational Psychologist, 44, 119–136.
Rose, N. (1998). Inventing our selves: Psychology, power, and personhood. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Rose, N. (1999). Governing the soul: The shaping of the private self. London: Free Associations Books.
Schunk, D. H., & Zimmerman, B. J. (1997). Social origins of self-regulatory competence. Educational Psychologist, 32, 195–208.
Schutz, A. (2000). Teaching freedom? Postmodern perspectives. Review of Educational Research, 70, 215–251.
Schutz, A. (2008). Social class and social action: The middle-class bias of democratic theory in education. The Teachers College Record, 110, 405–442.
Streib, J. (2011). Class reproduction by four year olds. Qualitative Sociology, 34, 1–16.
Trend, D. (1994). Nationalities, pedagogies, and media. In H. A. Giroux & P. McLaren (Eds.), Between borders: Pedagogy and the politics of cultural studies (pp. 225–241). New York, NY: Routledge.
Vidal, F. (1994). Piaget before Piaget. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
von Glasersfeld, E. (1996). Radical constructivism: A way of knowing and learning. New York, NY: Routledge.
Walkerdine, V. (2003). Reclassifying upward mobility: Femininity and the neo-liberal subject. Gender and Education, 15, 237–248.
Weininger, E. B., & Lareau, A. (2009). Paradoxical pathways: An ethnographic extension of Kohn’s findings on class and childrearing. Journal of Marriage and Family, 71, 680–695.
Willis, P. E. (1977). Learning to labor: How working class kids get working class jobs. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
Wolters, C. A. (2010). Self-regulated learning and the 21 st century competencies. http://www.hewlett.org/library/grantee-publication/self-regulated-learning-and-21st-century-competencies. The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
Young, I. M. (1990). Justice and the politics of difference. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Zimmerman, B. J. (2000). Attaining self-regulation: A social cognitive perspective. In M. E. Boekaerts, P. R. Pintrich, & M. E. Zeidner (Eds.), Handbook of self-regulation (pp. 13–39). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.
Zimmerman, B. J. (2002). Becoming a self-regulated learner: An overview. Theory into Practice, 41(2), 64–70.
Zimmerman, B. J., & Schunk, D. H. (2011). Self-regulated learning and performance: An introduction and an overview. In B. J. Zimmerman & D. H. Schunk (Eds.), Handbook of self-regulation of learning and performance (pp. 1–14). New York, NY: Routledge.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Vassallo, S. Critical Pedagogy and Neoliberalism: Concerns with Teaching Self-Regulated Learning. Stud Philos Educ 32, 563–580 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-012-9337-0
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-012-9337-0