Page "Critical psychology" Paragraph 7

His last major publication before his death in 1995 was about learning.

It appeared in 1993 and contained a phenomenological theory of learning from the standpoint of the subject.

One important concept Holzkamp developed was " reinterpretation " of theories developed by conventional psychology.

This meant to look at these concepts from the standpoint of the paradigm of critical psychology, thereby integrating their useful insights into critical psychology while at the same time identifying and criticizing their limiting implications while ( which in the case of S – R psychology were the rhetorical elimination of the subject and intentional action, and in the case of cognitive psychology which did take into account subjective motives and intentional actions, methodological individualism ).

The first part of the book thus contains an extensive look at the history of psychological theories of learning and a minute re-interpretation of those concepts from the perspective of the paradigm of critical psychology, which focuses on intentional action situated in specific socio-historical / cultural contexts.

The conceptions of learning he found most useful in his own detailed analysis of " classroom learning " came from cognitive anthropologists Jean Lave ( situated learning ) and Edwin Hutchins ( distributed cognition ).

The book's second part contained an extensive analysis on the modern state's institutionalized forms of " classroom learning " as the cultural – historical context that shapes much of modern learning and socialization.

In this analysis, he heavily drew upon Michel Foucault's Discipline and Punish.

Holzkamp felt that classroom learning as the historically specific form of learning does not make full use of student's potentials, but rather limits her or his learning potentials by a number of " teaching strategies.

" Part of his motivation for the book was to look for alternative forms of learning that made use of the enormous potential of the human psyche in more fruitful ways.

Consequently, in the last section of the book, Holzkamp discusses forms of " expansive learning " that seem to avoid the limitations of classroom learning, such as apprenticeship and learning in contexts other than classrooms.