DOCSLIB.ORG

Critical Paradigm Theory: a Deconstruction of the Dominant Discourse Shaping Public Education in America

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Critical Paradigm Theory: a Deconstruction of the Dominant Discourse Shaping Public Education in America City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 9-2018 Critical Paradigm Theory: A Deconstruction of the Dominant Discourse Shaping Public Education in America Kevin Froner The Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/2782 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] Critical Paradigm Theory: A Deconstruction of the Dominant Discourse Shaping Public Education in America by Kevin Froner A dissertation submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Urban Education in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, The City University of New York 2018 ii ©2018 Kevin Froner All Rights Reserved iii This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Urban Education in satisfaction of the dissertation requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Professor Nicholas Michelli________ _____________________ _______________________________ Date Chair of Examining Committee Professor Wendy Luttrell________ _____________________ _______________________________ Date Executive Officer Professor Anthony Picciano_____________________________ Professor Deborah Shanley_________________________ _______________________________________________ Supervisory Committee THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iv Abstract Critical Paradigm Theory: A Deconstruction of the Dominant Discourse Shaping Public Education in America by Kevin Froner The purpose of this study was to deconstruct the dominant discourses shaping public education in America. To understand the ontological and genealogical roots of public education, the researcher developed a framework referred to as Critical Paradigm Theory (CPT) to examine the current education paradigm. Longitudinal data was collected from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) with an analysis of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS), and the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Additional analysis was performed applying critical paradigm theory to a range of key historical and genealogical artifacts, with a discursive examination of the A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Educational Reform report. A deconstruction of the more prominent discourses shaping public education shows that the current narrative is vulnerable to interrogation, exposing the myths which have coalesced and now influence education policy and theory. v Dedication To the man who spent his life trying to repair the world. Thank you for showing me the way. תיקון עולם tikkun olam vi Acknowledgements To the lion and lamb, without you I would not have begun this journey, and to Nicholas Michelli, without you I would not have finished it. You are the archetypical cornerman Nick; thank you for never throwing in the towel. Your mark on the Graduate Center’s Urban Education program is indelible and your legacy will not be forgotten. Anthony Picciano, it is with you where I began my studies at the Graduate Center and with you where I took my final course. It is only fitting that I now complete this journey with you by my side. As the Urban Education Executive Officer you always put your students first, and even now you continue to offer extraordinary support and guidance. I would not have made it this far without you. To my third committee member Deborah Shanley, I have grown to know you through others. For the work you did at Brooklyn College and the extraordinary legacy you left behind, I am forever grateful to have you on the committee. To my family and friends. My little angels, Charlotte and Adeline. If you pick this up one day in an attempt to better understand your father, know that this dissertation was an endeavor to understand the world, and as such, an attempt to understand myself. Never stop questioning nor seeking to understand. We are currently overstocked with those who accept the world without questioning it. When you feel the urge to not only question but to fight, know that it comes from a little piece of Froner in your gut. Your great uncle and grandfather, and many of your ancestors, simply could not stay quiet. Jean, my soulmate, where would I be without you? You have been by my side every step of the way, and I imagine we will continue our dance for many lifetimes. vii It was over a decade ago where I walked off the abrading floors of the American Stock Exchange, with great hope to not only give back to the world, but to change it. It was in the hallways of Manhattan Hunter Science, a NYC public school on a mission to create the highest quality education for the city’s diverse population, where I found my seat at the table. Nearly a decade and a half later and with the greatest humility I now serve as principal. It is in this role where I sit in gratitude to the nearly one thousand students I taught along the way and the hundreds more I oversaw as principal. To my teachers, without you there would have been little reason to write this dissertation. You have one of the most important jobs in the world. Thank you for raising our nation’s children. To all public educators, this dissertation is for you. For us. We can never stop fighting, to not only protect our children from all attempts to undermine or dismantle public education, but to defend the profession in the face of a paradigm which privileges the examination over the imagination, and accountability over creativity. Never lose hope. viii Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction …………………………………………………….………… 1 The Purpose of this Project…………………………………………………...……...….. 3 Research Questions……………………………………………………………………… 7 An Emancipatory Theory………………………………………………….……….......... 10 Limitations, Implications, and Terminology…………………………………..……….... 12 Chapter 2: Review of Literature……………………………………………………… 14 Critical Discourse Analysis and its Contribution to Critical Paradigm Theory………… 15 Discourse, traditions, and data ………………………………………………….....……. 15 The multidisciplinary nature of CDA………………………………………..………….. 17 Critical Discourse Analysis: Tools, Meaning Construction, and Context …………….... 20 Critical Theory and Pedagogy, a Response………………..……….…………………..... 22 Neoliberalism and its Influence on the Public Education Paradigm…….……….…....... 24 The Education Paradigm in the Progressive Era……………………………………....... 28 The Discourse of Crisis in Education…………………..……….…………………......... 34 The Role of Education within the 21st Century Economy…….……….……………...... 39 School Reform and the Paradigm of Change………………………………..………...... 42 Public Education Standards and Accountability ………………………….………......... 45 Chapter 3: Methodology……………………………………………….……………… 50 Introduction ………………………………………….……….…………………............ 50 Restatement of Research Questions ……………………………..……….…….............. 51 Critical Paradigm Theory as Methodology ………………….……….………................ 51 Conceptual Framework……………………………….……….…………………........... 52 The Hermeneutics of a Paradigm……………………………..……….…………........... 54 Kafka’s Apparatus ………………………………..……….…….…….…….................. 55 Critical paradigm theory and time: The present .……….…….…….……...................... 56 Critical paradigm theory and time: The past-present.………....................................... .. 57 Critical paradigm theory and time: The present-future..………...................................... 58 Critical paradigm theory and time: The present-past future………................................. 58 In the Penal Colony Cont’d. ……………………………..………................................... 59 Paradigm as Narrative……………………………..……….…….……........................... 60 Irrationality of the Paradigm……………………………..……….................................... 61 A Dialectic of Self and Other……………………………..……….……......................... 63 Research Design……………………………..……….…….…….…….……................... 65 ix Chapter 4 Chapter 4: Race, Class, and Control: A Prelude to the A Nation at Risk Report…………………………………………………………………………………….. 68 The race and class collision of 1968 ……………………………………...……...…......... 75 Labor’s reaction ………………………………………….………..................................... 75 Media within the Paradigm………………………………………….………..................... 78 The Winners and Losers of Ocean Hill-Brownsville……………………..………............. 80 Chapter 5: Chapter 5: A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for Education Reform… 82 Revisiting the Background to the A Nation at Risk report………………...……...…........ 84 ANAR and Industry ………………………………………….………............................. 87 Chapter 6: Teacher Evaluation in the Current Paradigm…………………………… 93 The Genealogical Roots of Teacher Evaluation……………………………...…….......... 95 Teacher Evaluation Systems and Emerging Constructs for Public Schooling…............... 98 The Case of Louisiana and the Expansion of Value-Added Measurements………........... 102 The Case of Florida: Opposition to the Paradigm……………..………............................ 105 edTPA and Teacher Education ……….............................................................................. 107 Conclusions……………………………..……….............................................................. 111 Chapter 7: Data as Discourse & the Findings ……………………….……………… 113 Student Assessment in a Global
Load more

Recommended publications
  • A Guide to Deconstruction
    A GUIDE TO DECONSTRUCTION January 2003 Prepared by: Bradley Guy, Associate Director University of Florida Center for Construction and Environment M. E. Rinker, Sr., School of Building Construction College of Design, Construction and Planning 101 FAC PO Box 115703 Gainesville, FL 32611-5703 [email protected] And Eleanor M. Gibeau, Environmental Specialist Resource Management Group, Inc. 1143 Central Avenue Sarasota, FL 34236 [email protected] This “Guide for Deconstruction” was made possible by a grant to Charlotte County Florida from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection Innovative Recycling Grant Program. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction.........................................................................................................7 Deconstruction Overview...................................................................................9 Safety First ...................................................................................................................9 Survey ..........................................................................................................................9 Environmental Health and Compliance ........................................................................9 Asbestos Abatement ..................................................................................................10 Contracts and Specifications......................................................................................10 Historic Preservation ..................................................................................................10
    [Show full text]
  • The Architecture of Deconstruction: Derrida's Haunt
    The Architecture o f Deconstruction: Derrida’s Haunt Mark Wigley The MIT Press Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England Fifth printing, 1997 First M IT Press paperback edition, 1995 © 1993 M IT Press Ml rights reserved. No part o f this book may be reproduced in any form by any elec­ tronic or mechanical means (including photocopying, recording, or information stor­ age and retrieval) without permission in writing from the publisher. This book was printed and bound in the United States o f America. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Wigley, Mark. The architecture of deconstruction : Derrida’s haunt / Mark Wigley. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-262-23170-0 (H B ), 0-262-73114-2 (PB) 1. Deconstruction (Architecture) 2. Derrida, Jacques—Philosophy. I. T itle . NA682.D43W54 1993 720'. 1—dc20 93-10352 CIP For Beatriz and Andrea Any house is a fa r too com plicated, clumsy, fussy, mechanical counter­ feit of the human body . The whole interior is a kind of stomach that attempts to digest objects . The whole life o f the average house, it seems, is a sort of indigestion. A body in ill repair, suffering indispo­ sition—constant tinkering and doctoring to keep it alive. It is a marvel, we its infesters, do not go insane in it and with it. Perhaps it is a form of insanity we have to put in it. Lucky we are able to get something else out of it, thought we do seldom get out of it alive ourselves. —Frank Lloyd Wright ‘The Cardboard House,” 1931.
    [Show full text]
  • Post-Continental Philosophy: Its Definition, Contours, and Fundamental Sources
    Post-continental Philosophy: Its Definition, Contours, and Fundamental Sources NELSON MALDONADO-TORRES It is no accident that the global geographical framework in use today is essentially a cartographic celebration of European power. After centuries of imperialism, the presumptions of a worldview of a once-dominant metropole has become part of the intellectual furniture of the world…. Metageography matters, and the attempt to engage it critically has only begun. Martin W. Lewis and Kären W. Wigen, The Myth of Continents.1 or several decades now the contours of legitimate philosophy have been drawn by advocates of F so-called analytic and continental philosophies. Analytic philosophy is often referred to as a style of thinking centered on the question of whether something is true, rather than, as continental philosophy, on the multiple factors that constitute meaning.2 Analytic philosophy is also said to be closer to the sciences, while continental philosophy has more affinity with the humanities.3 One of the reasons for this lies in that while analytic philosophy tends to dismiss history from its reflections, continental philosophy typically emphasizes the relevance of time, tradition, lived experience, and/or social context. Fortunately, this situation is slowly but gradually changing today. A variety of intellectuals are defying the rigid boundaries of these fields. Some of the most notable are Afro- American, Afro-Caribbean, and Latina/o scholars using the arsenal of these bodies of thought to analyze and interpret problems related to colonialism, racism, and sexism in the contemporary world.4 These challenges demand a critical analysis of the possibilities and limits of change within the main coordinates of these different styles or forms of philosophizing.
    [Show full text]
  • 5 Derrida's Critique of Husserl and the Philosophy
    5 DERRIDA’S CRITIQUE OF HUSSERL AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF PRESENCE David B. Allison* Now would be the time to reject the myths of inductivity and of the Wesenschau, which are transmitted, as points of honor, from generation to generation. ...Am I primitively the power to contemplate, a pure look which fixes the things in their temporal and local place and the essences in an invisible heaven; am I this ray of knowing that would have to 1 arise from nowhere? SÍNTESE – O autor reexamina a crítica de Derrida ABSTRACT – The author reexamines Derrida’s à fenomenologia de Husserl de forma a mostrar critique of Husserl’s phenomenology, so as to como a sua coerência estrutural emerge não show how its structural coherency arises not so tanto de uma redução a uma doutrina particular, much from the reduction to a particular doctrine, mas antes das exigências de uma concepção but rather from the demands of a unitary concep- unitária, especificamente impostas pelas deter- tion, specifically from the demands imposed by minações epistemológicas e metafísicas da the epistemological and metaphysical determina- presença. tions of presence. PALAVRAS-CHAVE – Desconstrução. Derrida. KEY WORDS – Deconstruction. Derrida. Husserl. Fenomenologia. Husserl. Presença. Significado. Meaning. Phenomenology. Presence. * Doutor. Professor, State University of New York, Stony Brook, EUA. 1 Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Le Visible et l’invisible (Paris: Editions Gallimard, 1964), Eng. tr., Alphonso Lingis, The Visible and the Invisible (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1968). pp. 113-116. VERITAS Porto Alegre v. 50 n. 1 Março 2005 p. 89-99 It is practically a truism to say that most of Husserl’s commentators have in- sisted on the rigorously systematic character of his writings.
    [Show full text]
  • British Journal of Chinese Studies, Vol. 10, July 2020 ISSN 2048-0601 © British Association for Chinese Studies
    British Journal of Chinese Studies, Vol. 10, July 2020 ISSN 2048-0601 © British Association for Chinese Studies China’s Rise and “Responsibility” in the 21st Century Astrid H. M. Nordin Graham M. Smith Abstract In recent decades “responsibility” has become a prominent idea in international political discourse. Against this backdrop, international policy and scholarly communities contemplating China’s rise regularly address themselves to “whether, when, and how” China will become a “responsible” great power. This article reviews, unpacks and questions understandings of responsibility in the debates about China. One strand of these debates argues that China can become responsible by adopting and promoting the existing “status quo”; the other argues that China acts responsibly when it challenges the unfair hegemony of the status quo. This article argues that both debates operate with remarkably similar understandings of responsibility. Whether China adopts existing rules and norms or establishes rules and norms of its own responsibility is understood to be rule and norm compliance. The article explores the possibility of an alternative understanding of responsibility suggested by Jacques Derrida. It is argued that a Derridian approach does not dispense with rules and norms but is conscious of the irresolvable dilemma when faced with the demands of multiple others. Such an understanding is helpful insofar as it reminds those who would call for responsibility that such responsibility, and politics itself, is more than simply following rules and maintenance of norms. Keywords: responsibility, Derrida, China as a great power, Xi Jinping, Chinese thought, rules and norms. Introduction In recent decades “responsibility” has become an important trope in international political discourse.
    [Show full text]
  • Postmodern, Poststructural, and Critical Theories from the Research and the Social World As Inde- As They Are Taken up by Feminist Researchers
    04-Hesse-Biber-3-45053.qxd 6/23/2006 12:13 PM Page 71 4 POSTMODERN,POSTSTRUCTURAL, AND CRITICAL THEORIES SUSANNE GANNON BRONWYN DAVIES WHAT ARE THE PRINCIPLES OF no reality, only representations. These characteri- zations are variously imputed to postmodernism POSTMODERN,POSTSTRUCTURAL, or poststructuralism, which are conflated with AND CRITICAL THEORIES? each other and sometimes understood as an indis- criminate assemblage of French feminism, decon- In this chapter, we explore postmodern, post- struction, Lacanian psychoanalysis, Foucaultian structural, and critical theories and discuss how analysis, Rorty’s conversationalism and cultural they affect feminist research. These labels are studies. (p. 4) sometimes taken to refer to the same thing and are sometimes taken up in oppositional ways. Postmodernism is a term often used by critics Further, what each of these names refers to is who believe postmodernism is undermining the not an orderly, agreed on, and internally consis- most fundamental assumptions necessary for tent set of ideas. What they mean depends on the social science and feminist research. Against vantage point from which the speaking or writ- this monster they try “to shore up the primary ing is being done. Among those who wear each premises, to establish in advance that any theory of these labels there are many interesting and of politics requires a subject, needs from the productive divisions, which are ignored when start to presume its subject, the referentiality they are lumped together under one collective of language, the integrity of the institutional noun. Butler (1992) points out, description it provides” (Butler, 1992, p. 3). Through exploring these commonalities and A number of positions are ascribed to postmod- oppositionalities, we will make visible some of ernism, as if it were the kind of thing that could be the ideas and practices that emerge in the writing the bearer of a set of positions: discourse is all and research to which these names are given.
    [Show full text]
  • Three DECONSTRUCTION and HERMENEUTICS. on THE
    Three DECONSTRUCTION AND HERMENEUTICS. ON THE CONTROVERSY BETWEEN JACQUES DERRIDA AND HANS-GEORG GADAMER Piotr Dehnel In his Songs of Experience, Martin Jay1 cites Jacques Derrida’s critical assessment of the fact that experience has always been referred to in terms of metaphysics of presence, which he finds both in Edmund Husserl’s experience of meaning and in Emmanuel Levinas’s utterances about experiencing the other or a difference. Jay reflects also on the 1981 debate between Derrida and Hans- Georg Gadamer and stresses Derrida’s objections to the hermeneutical reliance on the dialogic experience. In this paper I would like to have a closer look at the aforementioned debate and shed some light on the question whether Gadamer’s hermeneutics can be grasped in the categories of the metaphysics of presence. Gadamer, the founding father of philosophical hermeneutics, and Derrida, the founding father of deconstruction, met in April 1981 in the Goethe Institute in Paris during the Text and Interpretation Symposium organized by Philippe Forget.2 Inaugurating the symposium with an eponymous paper, Gadamer discussed various elements of his own intellectual biography, which commenced with a critique of idealism and methodologism of the prior epistemological theory and was decisively influenced by his encounter with Martin Heidegger’s philosophical thought. Heidegger, namely, broke with Wilhelm Dilthey’s concept of understanding as a method of humanities and made it into an existential, i.e. into a basic determinant of the human Dasein. For Heideggger, understanding is simply a certain mode of being, and not a mode of knowledge. Such formulation enabled Gadamer to include the experience of art and the experience of history into the sphere of hermeneutics, both types of experience culminating in the concept of historically effected consciousness (wirkunggeschichtliches Bewußtsein).
    [Show full text]
  • Derridean Deconstruction and Feminism
    DERRIDEAN DECONSTRUCTION AND FEMINISM: Exploring Aporias in Feminist Theory and Practice Pam Papadelos Thesis Submitted for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Discipline of Gender, Work and Social Inquiry Adelaide University December 2006 Contents ABSTRACT..............................................................................................................III DECLARATION .....................................................................................................IV ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ......................................................................................V INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................... 1 THESIS STRUCTURE AND OVERVIEW......................................................................... 5 CHAPTER 1: LAYING THE FOUNDATIONS – FEMINISM AND DECONSTRUCTION ............................................................................................... 8 INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................... 8 FEMINIST CRITIQUES OF PHILOSOPHY..................................................................... 10 Is Philosophy Inherently Masculine? ................................................................ 11 The Discipline of Philosophy Does Not Acknowledge Feminist Theories......... 13 The Concept of a Feminist Philosopher is Contradictory Given the Basic Premises of Philosophy.....................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • 135 Towards Critical Aspects of Confucianism Ľubomír Dunaj
    Ethics & Bioethics (in Central Europe), 2016, 6 (3–4), 135–145 DOI:10.1515/ebce-2016-0016 Towards critical aspects of Confucianism1 Ľubomír Dunaj Abstract This paper consists of two parts. The first deals with the issue of whether it is possible to coherently employ the term ‘critical Confucian’ in general, i.e. whether it is a paradox or oxymoron. It will be argued that Confucianism should not be identified with any particular ideology and, therefore, can be critical. This critical potential, in turn, can be developed by bringing it into dialogue with Critical Theory. As such, the second part indicates, in an introductory way, some possible overlaps between Confucianism and Critical Theory by comparing Heiner Roetz’s and Axel Honneth’s respective interpretations of these traditions. Keywords: Chinese philosophy, Confucianism, Critical theory, Global ethics Introduction There are several reasons why Western social and political philosophers should begin to inquire into non-Western ethical, social and political thought. One of them is connected to the increase of global interactions in recent decades, which demand global solutions for a wide range of social and environmental problems. As a rising superpower, China arguably occupies the most important position among non-Western countries. Consequently, it is necessary to understand the most influential philosophical traditions of such an important ‘global player’, as well those of the so called Far East Asian civilizations – in order to arrive at a better grasp of the dynamics of the globalized world. Another important reason why Western scholars should be interested in China is the fact that Chinese culture is one of the axial civilizations and its spiritual and philosophical heritage therefore belongs to the oldest in world history, alongside Greek (with its Near East’s “progenitors”) and Indian civilizations.2 Indeed, traditional Chinese philosophy offers many indigenous notions and ideas, which are still alive in Chinese social and political discourse and enjoy growing attention.
    [Show full text]
  • 48. Hermeneutics and Critical Theory
    48. Hermeneutics and Critical Theory Nicholas Smith One of the achievements of Hans-Georg Gadamer's Truth and Method was to make plausible the idea that hermeneutics constitutes a distinct body of thought, an intellectual tradition whose history of successes, stalemates and defeats, heroes and villains, could be recounted in a single coherent narrative (Gadamer 1993). But the popularity of this idea, both in the sense of the number of people who came to accept it and the number who came to identify with the hermeneutic tradition itself, was due as much to a number of books published in the decades following the appearance of Truth and Method which either re-staged the central episodes of this history by way of the reproduction of canonical texts, or defended the newly reconstructed tradition against rival contemporary ones (Bleicher 1981; Hoy 1978; Mueller-Vollmer 1986; Ormiston and Schrift 1990; Thompson 1981; Warnke 1987). Indeed, the popularising anthologies of the hermeneutic tradition typically left off where the more systematic defenses of hermeneutics typically began: namely, with the sketches for a critical theory of society then being outlined by Jürgen Habermas and Karl-Otto Apel. These pieces were read either as the opening up of a new, politically progressive chapter in the history of hermeneutics – as the dawning of a ‘critical hermeneutics’, no less – or as representing a fundamental challenge to hermeneutics by exposing fatal flaws in its capacity to orient genuinely critical 1 reflection. Either way, Habermas’s and Apel’s responses to Truth and Method, and Gadamer’s subsequent rejoinders to them, made it seem obvious to many intellectuals in the 1960s and 1970s that the self-understandings of philosophical hermeneutics and the critical theory of society were intimately bound up with each other.1 That connection is not so obvious today.
    [Show full text]
  • Critical Theory Today: Revisiting the Classics
    Critical Theory Today: Revisiting the Classics By Douglas Kellner (http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/kellner.html) The critical theory of society of the Frankfurt School continues to excite interest and controversy. The critical theorists have deeply influenced contemporary social theory, philosophy, communications theory and research, cultural theory, and other disciplines for six decades. The dream of a interdisciplinary social theory continues to animate the sociological imagination. In recent decades there have been many different attempts to articulate the connections between the economic, political, social, and cultural dimensions of contemporary society in the spirit of critical theory. Furthermore, the ideas, methods, and texts of the critical theorists have influenced the ways that many of us continue to view the interplay of theory, culture, and society. The metaphors of the critical theorists have provided global visions of contemporary societies, ranging from "the totally administered society," "one-dimensional society," to "legitimation crisis." Terms like "culture industries" describe the intersection of economics and culture that have informed many critical studies of mass culture and communication. Studies of the consumer society have been influenced by critical theory's analyses of needs, consumption, advertising, and consumer capitalism. The critical theorists critiques of positivism have engendered forms of qualitative social theory and their defenses of dialectical social theory have enlivened Hegelian and Marxian analyses of the contemporary moment. Critical theory has always produced its own theories and articulated and defended its positions in polemics with contemporary theory. During the present moment, the critical theorists have been among the most active critics of postmodern theory and the polemics between critical and postmodern theory have inspired much critical discussion and new syntheses drawing on both traditions.
    [Show full text]
  • MA Thesis Yu-Hsuan
    The University of Chicago The New Left vs. Liberal Debate in China: How Ideology Shapes the Perception of Reality By Yu-Hsuan Sun July 2021 A paper submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Masters of Arts Degree in the Masters of Arts Program in the Social Sciences (MAPSS) Faculty Advisor: Marco Garrido Preceptor: Wen Xie Abstract: The tragic June 4th Crackdown on the Tiananmen Student Movement dealt a devastating blow to the hope of China’s democratization. In the 1980s, the majority of young Chinese students expressed overwhelming support for the democracy movement and the New Enlightenment thought trend which preceded the 1989 protests. The homogeneity of the 80s intellectual sphere, however, is a stark contrast to the intense debate between the “New Left” and “Liberal” camps in China which began in the late 1990s. My paper seeks to answer the question: “Why did China’s intellectual homogeneity dissolve so quickly in the 90s?” And more importantly, “What is at stake in those debates between intellectual camps?” To answer these questions, I argue that ideological differences among Chinese intellectuals fundamentally change their perception of China’s post-1989 reality. After the Tiananmen Movement, Deng Xiaoping intensified China’s economic reforms as an answer to both the internal and external crises to his political power after June 4th. While this new wave of reforms brought about unprecedented economic growth and commerce in China, it also created looming social problems such as inequality and corruption. However, these social issues generated polarizing responses from Chinese intellectuals who offered contradicting explanations to these social and economic issues.
    [Show full text]