Akademik Veri Yönetim Sistemi
16th European Sociological Association Conference, Porto, Portekiz, 27 Ağustos - 30 Ekim 2024, ss.242
Teaching Theory: Lessons from a Ranciere-ian
Approach
Jacques Ranciere is a contemporary French philosopher who is mostly
known for his studies in the field of political and social theory. This study,
however, takes its premises from the intersection of the two fields: theory and
pedagogy. Even though the research question is related to the field of social
theory, the question itself originated from the classroom experiences. As a
professor of political and social theory, I have been attending to students’
experiences in theory seminars and classes. Varying from too abstract to
impenetrable, very sophisticated to puzzle-like, students expressed their
encounter with the content of theory always with a difficulty. While such
observations carry an indisputable element of truth, the problem seems to lie
more with the classroom experience than the teaching material itself. In other words,
the question is not the theory per se, but how to teach it.
Taking this formulation as the basic research question, this study has
two main inquiries: is a Rancierian approach to teaching theory (one that takes
the equality of the minds as its fundamental premise) possible and if so what
would it entail? To that aim this study attempts to uncover the difference in
the learning experience of senior students from the Department of Political Science
and Public Administration in METU when a different teaching and evaluation
method is used in the classroom. The sample is composed of 47 senior students
who were enrolled with the ADM 4150 Modernity and the Idea of Freedom, an
advanced level theory class, over the past five years.