Theme 4: Lived Experience > Objective Evidence (Part 18)

Excerpt from, “From social justice warrior to Gospel-centered servant of God: An educator’s reflection on critical theory and Christianity” (Linkletter, 2021).

Critical theory relies on the understanding that truth claims come from lived experience and are socially constructed.

Lived experience refers to a person’s understanding of reality based on self-reflection of their life’s experiences, or their social group’s experiences. And socially constructed knowledge reflects the values and interests of whoever produces it (Kang, 2013; Andersen & Collins, 2016; Bell et al., 2017; Rothman, 2019; Kendi, 2019; Sensoy & DiAngelo, 2017).

Lived experience and socially constructed knowledge are subjective types of truth since they can evolve over time and rely on a specific time, place, and culture to be accepted as truth. For example, experiential data can be gathered through descriptions of other’ experiences (biography), interviews, journals, works of art, poetry, and literary texts (Magrini, 2012, p. 5). Knowledge, therefore, is not the “result of a rational, objective, and value-neutral process…removed from any political agenda”. Objectivity is even challenged by critical theorists as being desirable or possible to obtain (Sensoy & DiAngelo, 2017). To further explain the importance and superiority of subjective knowledge, or lived experience, Sensoy and DiAngelo explain the difference between discoverable laws of the natural world and knowledge. According to them, even science is socially constructed.

They use the example of a tree. A tree is a physical fact that can be observed, yet they believe that our perception of the tree has more value than its physical nature. For example, whether it is a large tree or a small tree, whether it is a limited resource or a sacred symbol of life; who owns the tree or who has the right to cut it down and profit from it? According to Sensoy and DiAngleo, all these knowledge claims are a by-product of the specific time, place, and cultural context we are in, thus the tree cannot objectively be a tree (Sensoy & DiAngelo, 2017, pp. 15-16). Knowledge is also not abstract and must be reconstructed; it is not just “content and information”, it must be evolving and responsive to what you are learning about groups of other races, classes and genders (Andersen & Collins, 2020, p. 3).

Bell et al. (2017) explain that knowledge is the third of four principles that make up the Four Foundational Principles of Indigenous Traditional Practices (p. 4). The other three principles are: kindness, honesty, and strength, and knowledge is the principle they refer to as ‘sharing’. The sharing principle requires knowledge to be shared with others and explains that it “emerge[s] from our beliefs, values, in relationship, and through our experience” (Bell et al., 2017, pp. 7-8). Bell (2017) continues to describe knowledge in the following quote:

This is not knowledge, as might be seen today by the academy. This knowledge that is about belief, place, belonging, value, and relationship. This knowledge and understanding is about the human need to be seen, heard, to come to know, understand, and contribute. Knowledge and understating is about seeking, protecting, nurturing, and sustaining life. It is about discovering our purpose, our place in community, in society, and in creation. (p. 8)

Gottesman (2016) supports the notion that critical theory values subjective truth when he writes about critical education and its goal to expose how relations of power and inequality are woven into education: “this more robust understanding involves fundamental transformations of the underlying epistemological and ideological assumptions that are made about what counts as official or legitimate knowledge and who holds it” (p, xii). From this diverse representation of critical theorists, it is evident that lived experience takes precedence over objective evidence because they share their belief that knowledge is self- constructed, evolving, and dependent on the culture, time, location.

It is my opinion that subjective claims are insufficient sources of truth and objective truth ought to be pursued. I will share my reflection on subjective and objective truth in more depth in chapter four of this research paper.

Rebecca

References

Andersen, Margaret L., & Collins, Patricia Hill. (2020). Race, class, & gender: Intersections and inequalities (Tenth Edition). Cengage Learning Inc.

(Bell), Banakonda Kennedy-Kish., Sinclair, Raven., Carniol, Ben., & Baines, Donna. (2017). Case critical: Social services and social justice in Canada (Seventh Edition). Toronto: Between the Lines.

Gottesman, Issac. (2016). The critical turn in education: From Marxist critique to poststructuralist feminism to critical theories of race (critical social thought). Routledge.

Rothman, Noah. (2019). Unjust: Social justice and the unmaking of America. Washington: Regnery Gateway.

Sensoy, Ö. & DiAngelo, R. J. (2017). Is everyone really equal?: An introduction to key concept in social justice education. New York: Teachers College Press.

Magrini, James. (2012). Phenomenology for educators: Max van Manen and “human science” research. Philosophy Scholarship. Paper 32. http://dc.cod.edu/philosophypub/32?utm_source=dc.cod.edu%2Fphilosophypub%2F32& utm_medium=PDF&utm_campaign=PDFCoverPages