CEL for Teachers’s Updates

Week 7 - The Iron Cage of Neoliberalism and the Need for an Alternate Criticality

Week 7 The Iron Cage of Neoliberalism and the Need for an Alternate Criticality

Neoliberalism can be understood as a modern form of the “iron cage". The attendant rise of global crises and inequality render many teachers at a loss as to ways to question the Economics that has built and maintained this “iron cage”. This is why there is a need for an “alternate criticality” since both Critical Pedagogy and Critical Thinking, while valuable, have not effectively countered the rise of neoliberalism over the past four decades, nor have them promoted Critical Global Citizenship Education.

            In time to come, what will we look back and see as educators - have we taught in ways that helped free people from the iron cage? (10634669, n,d,)

Lesson Objective -
1. Explain Weber's iron cage and how Critical Economic Literacy can help dismantle it.

2. Define key terms: CT, CP, Iron Cage, Alternate Criticality

3. Reflect: Share your insights on the ways you experience being in the iron cage and how CEL is helping you identify (and possibly dismantling) this iron cage?  (Personal Update 7- 500 words)

4. Comment on 2 Peers' Updates (75 words using terms and ideas learned)

Pre-Session Material (please complete before synchronous sessions)

Take notes and type your wonderings at the end of this pre-session below.

Read Bubules and Berk (1999) and either Rizvi or Siegel.

Critical Thinking versus Critical Pedagogy
Rizvi - Cosmopolitan Learning
Siegel on Thinking Dispositions

Watch This Video to Understand Weber's Theory of the Iron Cage

Media embedded May 28, 2024

Please note that unlike what the video recounts, Weber was not optimistic that the iron cage can be dismantled. In fact, he is of the opinion that the iron cage will keep humankind in bondage till “the last ton of fossilized coal is burnt” (p.123).

References

10634669, G. (n.d.). Man, Old, Elderly image. [Photo]. Pixaby. Retrieved August 1, 2023, from https://pixabay.com/photos/man-old-elderly-portrait-male-4191143/

Burbules, N.C. and Berk, R. (1999). Critical thinking and critical pedagogy: relations, differences, and limits. In Popkewitz , T.S and Fendler, L.F (Eds). Critical theories in education. Routledge.

Rizvi, F. (2009). Towards cosmopolitan learning. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 30 (3).

Siegel, H. (2005). What good are thinking dispositions. Educational Theory 49(2), 207-221. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-5446.1999.00207.

Sociologylearners. (2024b). Iron cage theory by Max Weber [Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMdrioFGvQI

Weber, M. (2013). The Protestant work ethic and the spirit of capitalism. Simon and Schuster.

Comment: What do you understand by "alternate criticality"? How is this linked with Critical Economic literacy?

  • Nina Wakefield
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