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A powerful positivist and neoliberal ideology in education masquerades more or less unharmed as the meritocratic myth promised under the cloak of democracy. Yet some students and teachers are beginning to interrogate the success-only orientations of neoliberalism in the face of crumbling school systems where many students fail. These students and teachers are not oblivious to the stark realities that characterize their daily existence, as they live under a dark cloud of mass unemployment and inequality where many struggle to “succeed”. Additionally, trained consciousness reveals the pockmarked version of democracy that admits only a few and is attendant with an authoritarian, disciplinary practice that breeds resistance towards education rather than the envisioned freedom it is purported to usher in. These inconsistent positions as an experience of education, by especially marginal students, is intensifying within a neoliberal discourse and invites the intense consideration of the place of critical democratic pedagogy as a more appropriate approach toward democratic teaching and learning practices. Within this context, I explore the theoretical and practical dimensions of critical pedagogy to provide an expanded view of teaching and learning in post-democratic South African education.

The infinite problems attendant with mass public schooling requires evermore resilient and innovative theories to buttress an account of education that is socially defensible. While educational inequality could previously be attributed to developing nations due to their economic underdevelopment, developed nations too, with growing rapidity have to confront their internal burgeoning crises in education. It is against this backdrop that I focus on the possibility of expanding a notion of critical pedagogy by nesting the concept of cosmic pedagogy therein. As such, I draw on the Montessorian theory of cosmic education;Bazalukan theory of the formation of a planetary and cosmic personality; and Freireian critical pedagogy to discover the resonance and disharmony between these conceptual positions. Of the three theoretical frames, each can in their own right be considered a methodological approach to address particular problems in education and society at large. So it is with these theories and methods in mind that I suggest and reflect upon the ways that education might nudge us along in our attempt to be fully human and to occupy the space of intelligent matter in an ever expanding universe.

It is a serious allegation to suggest that through perpetuating inequality in a society, we violate students’ rights, particularly the inalienable and unassailable right of human dignity. By infringing upon human dignity, we unleash the potential to tolerate poverty and unemployment, we transgress language and religious rights, and we accommodate inequality. In this context, it becomes apparent to ask the question: How could students utilize critical agency to mitigate the effects of capitalist hegemony and ideology, to bring a measure of equality in a South Africa classroom, community and society? This research question serves to highlight the plight of disadvantaged and marginal students in the schooling system as they are the most vulnerable and threatened participants in the schooling experience, whose human rights are brought into question every time they encounter the schooling situation. These students often have to contend with sub par realities in the dimensions of education resourcing and educational achievement which further marginalize them in society. Poverty sets them apart from their more affluent peers in the society as they do not display the level of success envisioned by curriculum planners and administrators. But poverty to the exclusion of capitalist hegemony would be surmountable. Since ruling class hegemony is so pervasive and intrusive in the lives of economically, culturally, and linguistically marginal students, they are measured against the markers of values, beliefs, norms and standards that are alien to their lived realities and experiences. The omnipresence of capitalist or ruling class hegemony makes it almost insurmountable in overcoming poverty and inequality. Through the process of collaborative action research entrenched in a philosophical tradition, the researcher aims to address the central research question. The focus of the project will be to investigate the indicators of critical agency in students and whether students are able to identify the causes and effects of their current realities in order to devise strategies to positively transform certain realities. Further to this, the investigation seeks to reveal whether critical agency is able to expose the character of the students in becoming individuals, critical thinkers who strive for personal freedom and equality, as they are confronted with the stark reality of their lived experiences (specifically the causes, and effects of their lives and the possibility for change).