[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-seo-599803-105":3,"doc-detail-599803-en":80,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":98},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"ok",{"site_id":7,"language":8,"slug":9,"title":10,"keywords":11,"description":12,"schema_data":13,"social_meta":73,"head_meta":75,"extra_data":77,"updated_unix":79},105,"en","critical-inquiry-truth-telling-and-the-good-problematization-and-reconstruction-for-a-socially-just-education","Critical Inquiry, Truth-telling, and the Good - Problematization and Reconstruction for a Socially Just Education","","This article extends critical methodologies in education by arguing that critical work must combine explicit commitments to truth and social justice with sustained attention to how theoretical accounts of the good connect to everyday material practices. Using Colin Koopman’s genealogical pragmatism, the discussion frames critical work as both problematization and reconstruction of the difficult conditions shaping contemporary education. The article introduces a special issue by clarifying what counts as rigorous critical inquiry.",{"@graph":14,"@context":72},[15,34,55],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/","Research & Report",3,{"item":32,"name":10,"@type":21,"position":33},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/critical-inquiry-truth-telling-and-the-good-problematization-and-reconstruction-for-a-socially-just-education/599803/",4,{"url":32,"name":10,"@type":35,"image":36,"author":41,"headline":10,"publisher":44,"fileFormat":47,"inLanguage":8,"description":12,"dateModified":48,"datePublished":49,"encodingFormat":47,"isAccessibleForFree":50,"interactionStatistic":51},"DigitalDocument",{"url":37,"@type":38,"width":39,"height":40},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/critical-inquiry-truth-telling-and-the-good-problematization-and-reconstruction-for-a-socially-just-education/599803.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":42,"@type":43},"PakDamar76","Person",{"url":19,"name":45,"@type":46},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-29","2026-10-15",true,{"@type":52,"interactionType":53,"userInteractionCount":30},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":54},"ViewAction",{"@type":56,"mainEntity":57},"FAQPage",[58,64,68],{"name":59,"@type":60,"acceptedAnswer":61},"What does the article argue critical work must do?","Question",{"text":62,"@type":63},"Critical work must explicitly orient toward truth and social justice while engaging how ideas of the good connect to concrete material practices.","Answer",{"name":65,"@type":60,"acceptedAnswer":66},"How are parrhesia and phronesis used in the introduction?",{"text":67,"@type":63},"They are presented as complementary frameworks: parrhesia emphasizes risk-taking truth-telling through ethical care, while phronesis provides practical deliberation about what is good or bad in relation to praxis.",{"name":69,"@type":60,"acceptedAnswer":70},"Why does the article emphasize problematization and reconstruction?",{"text":71,"@type":63},"It claims critical inquiry should diagnose problems within real lived circumstances and enact understandings of truth and the good through actions tied to a socially just end.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":32,"og:type":74,"og:title":10,"og:site_name":45,"og:description":12},"article",{"robots":76,"canonical":32},"index,follow",{"doc_id":78,"site_id":7},599803,1793146961,{"code":4,"msg":81,"data":82},"success",{"doc_id":78,"user_id":83,"nickname":42,"user_avatar":84,"doc_module":4,"category_id":85,"category_name":29,"doc_title":10,"doc_description":12,"doc_content":86,"file_id":87,"file_url":88,"file_type":89,"file_size":90,"view_count":30,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":22,"is_downloadable":22,"audit_status":22,"page_count":91,"language":92,"language_code":8,"site_id":7,"html_lang":8,"table_of_contents":93,"faqs":94,"seo_title":95,"seo_description":12,"update_tm":96,"read_time":97},962090893057,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_155a257f0dc6eb9ab79c44ca47cae57d",8,"| | Critical Inquiry, Truth-telling, and the Good: Problematization and Reconstruction for a Socially Just Education |\n| --- | --- |\n|  |  |\n\nAustin Pickup, Aurora University Aaron M. Kuntz, University of Alabama  \nAbstract  \nThis article extends the discussion of critical methodologies in education, arguing that critical work must exhibit both an explicit orientation toward truth and social justice and an engagement with how theoretical considerations of the good connect to material practices. More specifically, we center Colin Koopman’s notion of genealogical pragmatism to suggest that critical work must focus on both problematization and reconstruction of the often dire circumstances that characterize our contemporary moment in education. We use this philosophical discussion as an introduction to the articles comprising this special issue on critical inquiry.  \nKeywords: truth, parrhesia, critical, phronesis, genealogy, pragmatism  \nIntroduction  \nThe continued interrogation and illustration of critical methodologies within educational contexts constitutes the focus of the second part of this special double issue of Critical Questions in Education. In the introduction to the first issue, we argued that the term critical has become fashionably overused within much academic scholarship, thus losing its overt and explicit connection to truth, social justice, and questions of the good. Our suggestion was that, in order to truly engage in critical methodological work, one cannot occupy the position of disinterested technical expert, but must intervene in the normative framings of the social and political with explicit orientations toward truth-telling and the good. Connecting this argument to our own areas of academic interest, we situated criticality within the frameworks ofFoucauldian parrhesia, or truth-telling, and Aristotelian phronesis, or practical wisdom.1  \nWe view these distinct frameworks as complementary and foundational to critical work as they possess important overlapping features. First, both contain explicit orientations toward truth and modes of ethical deliberation. Foucault’sparrhesiastes takes risks to speak the truth in the continual work of care of the self and care for others. At the same time, Aristotle’sphronimos possesses the intellectual virtue to deliberate about truth relative to praxis, or “what is good and bad for a human being.”2 Second, each exhibits a crucial convergence of theory and practice  \n1. Aaron Kuntz and Austin Pickup,“Critical Inquiry for the Social Good: Methodological Work as a Means for Truth-telling in Education,” Critical Questions in Education 7, no. 1 (2016): 171-177.  \n2. See Michel Foucault, Fearless Speech, ed. Joseph Pearson (Los Angeles: Semiotext€, 2001) and Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Roger Crisp (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000): 107.  \n76 Pickup & Kuntz—Critical Inquiry, Truth-telling, and the Good  \nwithin the context of everyday living. Both parrhesiastes and phronimos must diagnose problems that exist within the practical realities of life along theoretical angles of ethical discourse. Importantly, however, the truth-teller and practically wise person do not simply stop at the conceptual level of analysis but enact understandings of truth and the good in one’s own life; in short, the truths explicated critically relate to praxis, the practical world of action in view of some good end, and are materially ensconced in the lived practices ofthe everyday.  \nIt is this second feature of criticality that we will use as a means of introduction to part II of this special issue. The meaningful connection between theory and practice is a perennial problem within philosophical and methodological work.3 Contributing to this problem is the simplistic understanding taken from many “post” schools of philosophy that truth and meaning are situated determinedly within historical, social, cultural, etc. formations and thus relatively constructed. As such, in the","cbCaioAthk2E5jkQ","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaioAthk2E5jkQ","pdf",373126,7,"English","# Abstract\n# Introduction\n## Critical methodologies and the problem of overused “critical”\n## Truth-telling and practical wisdom as complementary frameworks\n## Linking theory, practice, and social justice action\n## Responding to relativism and engaging concrete schooling","[{\"question\":\"What does the article argue critical work must do?\",\"answer\":\"Critical work must explicitly orient toward truth and social justice while engaging how ideas of the good connect to concrete material practices.\"},{\"question\":\"How are parrhesia and phronesis used in the introduction?\",\"answer\":\"They are presented as complementary frameworks: parrhesia emphasizes risk-taking truth-telling through ethical care, while phronesis provides practical deliberation about what is good or bad in relation to praxis.\"},{\"question\":\"Why does the article emphasize problematization and reconstruction?\",\"answer\":\"It claims critical inquiry should diagnose problems within real lived circumstances and enact understandings of truth and the good through actions tied to a socially just end.\"}]","Critical Inquiry, Truth-telling, and the Good - Problematization and Reconstruction for a Socially Just Education | PDF",1792089473,18,{"code":4,"msg":81,"data":99},[100,104,108,112,117,122,126,129,134,137,141],{"id":22,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":101,"show_sort_weight":102,"slug":103},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":26,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":105,"show_sort_weight":106,"slug":107},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":33,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":109,"show_sort_weight":110,"slug":111},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":113,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":114,"show_sort_weight":115,"slug":116},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":118,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":119,"show_sort_weight":120,"slug":121},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":91,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":123,"show_sort_weight":124,"slug":125},"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":85,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":29,"show_sort_weight":127,"slug":128},30,"research-report",{"id":130,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":131,"show_sort_weight":132,"slug":133},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":132,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":135,"show_sort_weight":132,"slug":136},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":138,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":139,"show_sort_weight":138,"slug":140},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":142,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":25,"category_name":143,"show_sort_weight":113,"slug":144},19,"General","general"]