Educational Psychology—Limitations and Possibilities

518 The Praeger Handbook of Education and Psychology
Following Madison, dethroning positivistic epistemological approaches in favor of hermeneutic
(interpretive) ones does not mean that we reject all standards for evaluating what is “true.” In
answer to these questions, phenomenological hermeneutists such as Madison assert that it is not
to science but to rhetoric or the theory of persuasive argumentation that interpretation should
look for its theoretical and methodological grounding. What is pedagogically significant about
this epistemological approach is that it allows teachers and students to respect the epistemologies
of a diversity of cultures, genders, races, and religions that comprise a typical classroom
by dialogically examining and understanding the nature of “truth” in terms of multilogical (i.e.,
non-Western, female, etc.) perspectives. In short, phenomenological hermeneutics welcomes a
broad range of knowledges and interpretative systems for understanding the world, including
those that may have completely different conceptions of time, space, history, and social values.
While integrating phenomenological and hermeneutic epistemologies into pedagogical practice
are essential in making the shift from the positivistic paradigm to that of complexity in education,
critically complex pedagogues also understand how important it is that teachers and students
understand how schools have been used as mechanisms for reproducing the ideology of dominant
power structures, a process that by necessity oppresses subjugated/“indigenous” cultures and their
knowledges. Moreover, critically complex pedagogy is not only concerned with these issues, but
also with how education can become a transformative force in improving the human condition.
Giroux’s Pedagogy and the Power of Hope and Kincheloe and Semali’s What Is Indigenous
Knowledge? (1999) specifically address these issues, but before discussing these it is important
first to define a few terms.
There is no definitive set of characteristics (essences) that characterize who is and isn’t “indigenous.”
Contrary to essentialist assertions, there is no “natural” category of indigenous persons. It
is important to understand this concept, as indigeneity manifests itself within diverse and often
hybridized ranges; and there is, of course, great differences among individuals who theoretically
belong to this same group. Indigenous, as defined by the World Council of Indigenous Peoples
in Kincheloe and Semali, describes such individuals who occupied lands prior to populations
who now share or claim such territories and possess distinct language and culture. By extension,
indigenous knowledge refers to knowledges produced in a specific social context and employed
by lay people in their everyday lives. In returning to the question of who “qualifies” as indigenous,
it should be clear that there is a great deal of cultural/historical/racial/ethic/linguistic diversity
among how indigenous peoples identify themselves or are identified by others. Suffice to say that
given the above definitions, in terms of this country one can make an argument that indigenous
peoples comprise the majority of those attending urban public schools.
Critical complex theorists interested in pedagogy such as Kincheloe, Semali, and Giroux address
schools as institutions that oppress subjugated/indigenous cultures and knowledges through
ideologies that are tacitly expressed through curriculum and instructional practices. For Kincheloe
and Semali, oppressive forces that shape us have formed the identities of both the powerful
and the exploited. By seeking out the ideological forces that construct student perceptions of
school and the impact such perceptions have on their school experiences, they offer a means of
analyzing the process by which this happens to understand why students succeed or fail in school.
The authors assert the superiority of indigenous knowledges over dominant positivistic epistemological
paradigm—one that asserts the “certainty of knowledge”: Following complexity theory,
Kincheloe and Semali demonstrate that many indigenous epistemologies are not uncomfortable
with a lack of certainty about the social world and world of nature, because they have no need
to solve all mysteries about the world they operate with and in. Indeed, indigenous knowledges
as they are presented by these authors provide clear examples of the epistemology of complexity
when applied to classroom teaching/learning, epistemologies that value phenomenological
lived experience and hermeneutic, interpretative ways of knowing over the traditional positivistic