Challenging the oppressive social context by redesigning learning space. The case of a business ethics class in Russia

Abstract

The traditional management educational methods like in class group activities derive from Western democratic principles and work well in tolerant and pluralistic climate. However, in dogmatic and oppressive social environment, they just reinforce the dominant culture and create obstacles to fostering the students’ critical reflexive thinking. Learning space becomes constrained by different overwhelming contextual factors: from group pressure to an authoritarian political background. On the case of the Russian business ethics classroom, this paper examines the influence of an oppressive context on the learning space and offers an approach to weakening this influence by intensifying students’ critical reflexivity using writing assignments and supportive teacher’s feedback based on a narrative therapy approach.