Historical perspectives on the formation of critical thinking skills

Abstract

Developing a critical mind: this aim of the French republican school system can draw on a venerable historical tradition, exemplified by the names of Condorcet and Ferdinand Buisson. However, in the eyes of the historian, this stated aim is more a dream than a reality, and the teachers of the Third Republic were, on the whole, dogmatic in their teaching. Paradoxically, the development of critical thinking was not really emphasised until the 1960s and 70s, when the model of democratic individualism tended to replace that of the training of republican citizens. So how does today's insistence in France on making schools the place where the ‘values of the Republic’ are passed on fit in with the individualist ideal of training people to be critical thinkers? This is a question that the school administration, which promotes the virtues of critical thinking while fearing that it goes so far as to question the ‘values of the Republic’, does not seem to see as problematic.