Critical Theory Research

What is Meant by Critical?

The role of critical theory research, along with the construction of a critical social science, is to facilitate circumstances that are transformative, to have a liberating political impact on the lives of those who deal with the complexity of intersecting oppressions. A commitment is made to the common good, to the common welfare of all. This role requires continual examination of societal institutions, regulations, and the distribution of power and resources. The researcher acknowledges her or his role as a very interested and value-laden observer who is a critical voice of social consciousness.

Critical theorist views of knowledge challenge grand narratives that have dominated Enlightenment and modernist constructions of science. Knowledge(s) is/are viewed as historically constructed and embedded within social (and values) agendas, as always representing biases concerning what counts as information and how particular views should be legitimated, and as changing and varying ideologically (rather than cumulatively) with time, culture, and circumstance. Although critical research values the range of scholarly and diverse cultural and life voices of those who have come before, positivist constructions of scientific knowledge as accumulation and building upon the scientific discoveries of the past are rejected. The notion of building on prior work is understood as masking, and even denying, the cultural, values, and equity contexts in which choices regarding research questions and methods of interpretation are generated. Objectivity is believed to be an illusion that is used to deny societal or individual values. Further, the possibility that the privileging of

dominant forms of knowledge can actually reify particular oppressive conditions is of great concern from within critical perspectives. Rather than knowledge as accumulated, critical work recognizes and values the multiple, the multidirectional, the diversity of conceptualizations and life experiences, and the notion that inquiry can reveal previously unthought possibilities.

Researchers who are familiar with the postposi-tivist use of critical thinking may confuse the traditional scientific approach that would require continued critical examination of research design and attempts to objectively follow the scientific method with critical philosophical perspectives. Attempts in postpositivist inquiry to be critical require carefully following established rules for the conduct of research, often labeled critical realism or critical rationalism. Critical theoretical perspectives do not follow this point of view that assumes the existence of objectivity, but rather they are directly concerned with systems of power and even consider the practice of research to be implicated in the production, inscription, and reproduction of power. Language, knowledge, and power are viewed as interconnected, as constructing and producing each other, and as limiting conscious conceptualizations and understanding. Critical perspectives assume the need for increased social justice, for attention to oppressions and inequities, and that research requires transformative action. The purpose of research cannot be considered the determination of objective, apolitical knowledge because all knowledge is considered subjective, tied to power for someone or some group, and value laden.

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