FREIREN DIALOGIC PEDAGOGY FOR FOSTERING CRITICAL THINKING AT TERTIARY LEVEL

Abstract

Education is the process of transformation. Social, economic, and political transformation becomes only possible when learners are encouraged to debate and dialogue through which their critical consciousnesses are developed and they are enabled to challenge the status quo. Pakistani educational system is the perpetuation of a colonial system that could not equip the masses with critical thinking, and a culture of debate, dialogue, and discourse could not flourish. Furthermore, Pakistani educational landscape has been dominated by rote learning, distortion of historical events, parroting of facts and most importantly monologic, narrative and authoritarian pedagogical practices have suffocated reasoning, critical thinking and dialogue. In order to mend the educational system of Pakistan by dismantling its passiveness and foster critical thinking Dialogic Pedagogy proposed by Paulo Freire (1972) is very relevant. Dialogic pedagogy stimulates cognitive processes through explanation, reasoning and asking questions as teachers and students critically interrogate, express and listen each other point of views and thus critical minds are developed. The current study investigates relationship between Freiren dialogic pedagogy and critical thinking at tertiary level. Proportionate stratified random sampling technique has been used to collect data from a sample of 400 graduate scholars from nineteen departments and institutes of Social Sciences and faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Peshawar through questionnaire. The results of the study show that there is a significant positive correlation between dialogic pedagogy and critical thinking. The study recommends that dialogic pedagogy may be employed to arouse critical thinking of students