Egalitarian Dialogue and Instrumental Dimension
The Instrumental Dimension of learning, as a principle of dialogic learning, should not be confused with instrumentality or the technocratic colonization of learning. In dialogic learning, as in Habermas (1984), the instrumental and communicative rationality are not opposed to each other, but instrumental learning becomes more intense and profound when situated in an adequate dialogical framework. The ability to select and process information is the cognitive tool that best enables one to function confidently in today’s society. Dialogue and reflection encourage the development of that ability. Relationships with other people put not only diverse information but also its selection and processing at our disposal(Flecha, 2000, p. 16). In addition, when dialogue is egalitarian, it encourages intense reflection, since people need to understand other positions and express their own (Flecha, 2000, p. 16). In this sense, in egalitarian dialogue, procedures and ends are dialogically agreed. Those work for purposes of understanding, and do not let interactants hide themselves behind means that obscure exclusionary interests.
In education without dialogue, every single item becomes a target for power claims, even methods and instruments for learning, and therefore, the bureaucratization of those elements is inevitable. For this reason, the instrumental dimension of dialogic learning is never purely instrumental. It is also ethical, respectful, characterized by a sense of solidarity that contributes to break up the existing educational structure.
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