Educational Psychology—Limitations and Possibilities

332 The Praeger Handbook of Education and Psychology
Self-directed learning also rests on a modernistic, and problematic, conceptualization of the
self. A self-directed learner is seen as one who makes free and uncoerced choices from amongst
a smorgasbord of enticing possibilities. The choices such a learner makes are held to reflect his or
her desire to realize the strivings, dreams, and aspirations that lie at the core of his or her identity.
So self-directed learning clearly depends on there being a ‘self’ to do the learning. This conception
of the learner as a differentiated and self-contained individual entity has traditionally been at the
core of educational psychology. In recent years, however, a growing body of critically inclined
psychological work has questioned this conception. Educators such as Kincheloe (1999a,b) argue
that we should talk of subjects rather than selves, and that subjects are produced and continually
reproduced by culture and society. Such a conception of the socially produced nature of the self
is central both to critical theory and postmodernism. Once self-directed learning becomes viewed
as a social phenomenon, a process that is enacted within networks rather than located in the
individual cortex, then it ceases to be a series of individualistic, dislocated decisions of interest
only to educational psychologists. Instead it traverses the domains of critical social psychology
and political economy and becomes of concern to political activists.
To critical educational psychologists the predominance of the concept of self-directed learning
illustrates the tendency of humanistic educators to collapse all political questions into a narrowly
reductionist technical rationality. From the perspective of a critical educational psychology, the
early free spirit of self-direction has been turned (through the technology of learning contracts)
into a masked form of repressive surveillance—one more example of the infinite flexibility
of hegemony, of the workings of a coldly efficient form of repressive tolerance. What began
as a cultural challenge, a counter hegemonic effort, has taken a technocratic, accommodative
turn. It is certainly highly plausible to see the technology of self-directed learning—particularly
the widespread acceptance and advocacy of learning contracts—as a highly developed form
of surveillance. By interiorizing what Foucault (1980) calls the “normalizing gaze” (teacher
developed norms concerning what’s acceptable) through their negotiations with faculty, learning
contracts transfer the responsibility for overseeing learning from the teacher to the learner. This is
usually spoken of as an emancipatory process of empowerment in which educators are displaying
an admirable responsiveness to student needs and circumstances. But, using Foucault’s principle
of reversal (seeing something as the exact opposite of what it really is) learning contracts can
be reframed and understood as a sophisticated means by which the content and methodology of
learning can be monitored without the teacher needing to be physically present.
This chapter questions the view that self-directed learning can be studied, and facilitated, as if
it were the product of a monological consciousness. It argues instead that such learning is always
ideologically framed and never the innocent, unfettered expression of individual preference.
Drawing on a critical theory perspective the chapter calls into question the foundational belief
of some educational psychologists that people make free choices regarding their learning that
reflect authentic desires felt deeply at the very core of their identity. Ideology critique—the
core critical thinking process of critical theory—rejects self-directed learning’s ideal of learners
making autonomous choices among multiple possibilities. Instead it alerts us to the way that a
concept like self-direction that is seemingly replete with ideals of liberty and freedom can end
up serving repressive interests. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how self-directed
learning can be reclaimed as an inherently critical process. If in 2002 and 2003 there had been
widespread self-directed learning projects focused on researching the accuracy of the arguments,
justifications, and assumptions regarding the proposed unilateral invasion of Iraq it is unlikely that
that there would have been so little public questioning of the Bush administration’s justifications
for it. In this atmosphere of jingoistic self-justification it seemed as if self-directed learning’s best
role was to act as some kind of force for political detoxification. If adults could be encouraged
to discuss a range of different perspectives on the invasion it would be much harder for the