“It seemed to me there was one element that was capable of describing the history of thought — this was what one could call the problems or, more exactly, problematizations” (Foucault, 1988)

As a pedagogical practice, problematization is a methodology used to disrupt taken-for-granted truths (Bacchi, 2012), therefore allowing students to gain critical distance with unquestioned phenomena. As we will see, problematizing is not about finding the correct view or answer on a given issue, but rather a method to examine and challenge its ‘taken-for-granted-ness’. As such, Paulo Freire saw it as a “strategy for developing a critical consciousness” (Montero & Sonn, 2009: 80). Fundamentally, problematization is the exercise of one’s freedom: his/her ability to think differently from what has been previously defined and institutionalized.

What does it mean to think critically?

Critical thinking has been defined through many (many) adjectives: clear, rational, reasonable, self-regulatory, self-directed, sceptical, committed, informed, etc. Following McPeck (1981), I will consider thinking critically as the skill and propensity to engage in an activity with reflective scepticism. It is a purposeful process that aims at examining phenomena and concepts with a critical distance that puts them into perspective in order to act. Consequently, it is not only about observing, questioning or criticizing; it is about finding an informed and clairvoyant way to engage with a concrete situation. Critical thinking is oriented toward decision-making in contexts where a problem arises and requires a solution:

Moreover, critical thinking relies on a reflexive process of analysis. As Glaser (1941) puts it, it is « a persistent effort to examine any belief or supposed form of knowledge in the light of the evidence that supports or refutes it and the further conclusions to which it tends”.

Teaching critical thinking cannot be based on the imposition of one view or one answer to students. Leading students to think critically impose an on-going emergence of local knowledge involving them, their teacher, but also available information and skills, as well as the concrete context. It acknowledges that they are not “blank slates” (Paul, 1982) and already have belief systems, mode of reasoning and potentially possess critical thinking skills or qualities. Although teachers remain present, they have to function as triggers and facilitators for students to become reflexive, to tackle new issues and find new ways to think and view phenomena. Through this, they develop their own thinking and their own understanding of the world. It also enables students to better understand themselves and their belief system, and allow them to potentially restructure their approach.

The problematization methodology

• A foucaldian tool

According to Foucault (1985: 9), problematization is an “endeavour to know how and to what extent it might be possible to think differently, instead of what is already known”. It dismantles reified phenomena by showing their genealogy, their emergence through time and space: their “connections, encounters, supports, blockages, plays of forces, strategies on so on” (Foucault, 1991: 76).

Building on this method, he proposes to study important shifts in the history of given phenomena in order to identify “problematizing moments”, crisis during which evidences became problems. These moments provide opportunities to explore the emergence of what then comes to be unquestioned. Through problematization, it is possible “to demonstrate how things which appear most evident are in fact fragile and that they rest upon particular circumstances, and are often attributable to historical conjunctures which have nothing necessary or definitive about them” (Foucault in Mort & Peters, 2005: 19).

The aim of problematization is to reveal the genealogy of these evidences through their emergence and abandoned alternatives, their detractors and advocates, throughout history. It “involves studying problematized ‘objects’ (‘problematizations’) and the (historical) process of their production. It involves ‘standing back’ from ‘objects’ and ‘subjects’, presumed to be objective and unchanging, in order to consider their ‘conditions of emergence’ and hence their mutability” (Bacchi, 2012: 4). By the end, problematization is “an effort to render problematic and dubious certain evidences, practices, rules, institutions and habits that had been stabilized for decades and decades” (Foucault, 1984: 1507). It establishes a critical distance between students and a phenomenon, through which it comes to be denaturalized.

• Using problematization as a method

The basis of the methodology of problematization is to challenge the pretention that any given state would be the only one possible. Problematization calls for a detailed observation and understanding of history, debates and critiques of a given institutionalized phenomena. It is a method that allows challenging underlying assumptions in order to reveal the foundations of the taken-for-granted nature of our environment. It aims at unpacking “it sufficiently so that some of one’s ordinary held assumptions can be scrutinized and reconsidered” (Alvesson & Sandberg, 2011: 252). Consequently, a central goal for problematization is to “try to disrupt the reproduction and continuation of an institutionalized line of reasoning. It means taking something that is commonly seen as good or natural, and turning it into something problematic” (ibid: 32). Problematization allows for identifying new and original trails and views to understand given situations.

According to Bacchi (2012: 4), “through this detachment there emerges the possibility of gaining a sense of the ‘implicit system in which we find ourselves’, of ‘the system of limits and exclusions we practice without realizing it’, and thus ‘to make the cultural unconscious apparent’ (Simon, 1971: p. 73 in O’Farrell, 2005: p. 69)”. Yet, problematization is not only about challenging other’s assumptions, but also about unveiling our own; it challenges one’s familiar (and comfortable) position and viewpoints. Consequently, problematization is not a paradigmatic stance since it does not prefer a certain view rather than another; it is a method to question our own opinion, assumptions, and belief systems by calling them into light and by tracing their origins.