From the dispassionate Critical Thinker to the passion of being a thinking subject: Lessons learned from Higher Education in Greece

Abstract

This paper examines the implications of developing and implementing Critical Thinking-based curricula in Higher Education. Its aim is to critically explore the unexamined consequences of adopting the Critical Thinking model as a given, particularly within the context of late modernity’s highly instrumentalized and polarized social formations. Drawing on relational and constructionist approaches that both expand and revise prevailing conceptions of Critical Thinking (CT) in Education, the paper focuses on a case study of CT-based teaching delivered by the author to social science students (Fall 2021). Based on the author’s extensive field notes, the learning materials used, project documentation, and feedback from an external evaluator of the initiative, the analysis highlights the alienating dynamics of a skills-centered and objectivist approach to teaching CT. The paper concludes by outlining how a dialogical approach to CT fosters resonant and meaningful learning experiences.