Selective critical thinking: A textbook analysis of education for critical thinking in Norwegian social studies

Abstract

Current Norwegian curricular guidelines oblige schools to educate citizens with a critical perspective on society. From a discourse theoretical perspective, this obligation implies that various school subjects, and in particular social studies, offer discourses on social issues that allow for different points of view and critical evaluation. Educational systems have a strong tendency towards legitimising the existing social and political order. It is therefore important to examine whether critical perspectives are articulated at all, and exactly what students are encouraged to criticise. Globalisation processes are assumed to affect the extent and form of critical assessment. In this article, the textbooks used in Norwegian lower secondary schools in social studies are examined. It is found that critical perspectives are articulated, but systematically directed at issues that do not challenge core political and legal institutions, such as economic policy, non-voters, non-democratic regimes far away, and racists. Political and legal institutions, the United Nations, and Norwegian multiculturalism are above any type of critical assessment. It can be concluded that critical assessments are encouraged, albeit being guided in some directions and not others.