Educational Psychology—Limitations and Possibilities

Dialogism 525
of arguments offered by and to participants who are committed to the values of rationality
and impartiality.” Furthermore, current research policies are acquiring new orientations to bring
research closer to the real needs of society. Ultimately, social projects and popular proposals are
oriented toward including citizen’s voices and extending citizen participation. These are some
more examples of the dialogic turn in society.
Dialogue in Social Theory
The changes taking place in our daily lives, systems and institutions are expressions of the
dialogic tendency of society. This is at the same time influencing how researchers and academics
analyze society, conduct research, and how they produce theories that help to explain society and
human relations. Habermas, for instance, affirms this link when he contends that the communicative
perspective is not a mere theoretical or intellectual invention, but that it arises from real
social phenomenon. Diverse authors have reflected on the nature of communication and dialogue
in our society, as well as in our developmental processes as organisms, persons, souls, subjects,
or people in the world. This look at intersubjective communication is at the basis of diverse
disciplines. At the same time, authors committed to the overcoming of social inequalities analyze
the strong connection between dialogic processes and social change, and write about it in order
to support the transformative proposals that are emerging from social movements and agents.
Critical intellectuals who analyze the current changes in society argue that this dialogic tendency
has inspired democratic revolutions throughout history. For instance, Habermas compares
the dialogic spirit of information society with the bourgeois–socialist liberation movements and
the American civil rights movement. Castells compares it with the revolutionary spirit of the
sixties. He states that “the emphasis on interactivity, on networking, and the relentless pursuit
of new technological breakthroughs ...was clearly in discontinuity with the somewhat cautious
tradition of the corporate world. The information technology revolution half-consciously diffused
through the material culture of our society the libertarian spirit that flourished in the 1960s movements.”
In his early work (Pedagogy of the Oppressed), Freire discusses the existence of both
dialogic and antidialogic actions in our society. Later, in the late nineties, he states that “one of
the most important tasks for progressive intellectuals is to demystify postmodern discourses with
respect to the inexorability of this situation [reproduction of power].” He considered postmodern
discourses led to immobilization. Rather than just denouncing power structures he proposed
announcing transformative actions—led by agents in dialogue—that contribute to social change.
Authors like Habermas and Freire have been accused of being utopian idealists. However, they
respond by reiterating that their dialogic project is not a theoretical invention but a reflection of
the dialogic practices that people have already developed in their everyday lives. Although they
never worked together, neither met, they coincide in their proposals of dialogic action to further
democratic relations. Both propose a theory that explains how dialogic actions take place and
what sorts of action promote understanding, cultural creation, and liberation, and opposing that,
what actions negate the possibility for dialogue and promote distortion communication and the
reproduction of power.
Moreover, this dialogic turn is shown in the fact that intellectuals are including dialogue with
social actors when they conduct research and produce scientific knowledge about society. There
is no methodological relevant gap between the interpretations of researchers and that of the
social actors. They are not just informants, but they interpret their own realities from their own
worldviews. It is in this sense that theory and scientific research are being reoriented and becoming
more. As a consequence of the dialogic turn, researchers and intellectuals also see the need to
work from an interdisciplinary approach, to provide answers that consider social phenomena as