Title: Critical pedagogy and Veblen's pecuniary interests of higher education

Authors: Scott L.B. McConnell; Anthony Eisenbarth; Brian Eisenbarth

Addresses: Department of Economics, Eastern Oregon University, One University Drive, La Grande, OR 97850, USA ' Department of Economics University of Missouri, Kansas City, USA ' Department of Economics University of Missouri, Kansas City, USA

Abstract: This paper seeks to explore these questions: 1) what are the goals of the institution of education? 2) How do the underlying forces in a contemporary capitalist system promote the institution of education and to what ends? 3) How is technical change driven by the underlying dynamics between capitalism and the educational process? Specifically, what does the introduction of online learning mean for the future of critical thought, this paper will discuss the work of social philosophy, specifically pedagogical philosophers identifying with the 'critical pedagogy' school of thought originating in Brazil in the early 1960s. The paper will then argue that to understand the increased employment of new technologies in education, such as online learning, one must consider Veblen's delineation of pecuniary and instrumental motives within the business enterprise, as well as his understanding of the place of the 'higher learning' in a modern pecuniary culture.

Keywords: institutional economics; critical pedagogy; Veblen; Freire; online education; capitalism; educational administration.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPEE.2018.093423

International Journal of Pluralism and Economics Education, 2018 Vol.9 No.3, pp.318 - 327

Received: 12 May 2017
Accepted: 05 Jan 2018
Published online: 25 Jul 2018 *

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