Education for Emancipation: What It Means to Be Educated (Part 1)

Joseph Tyler (Doctoral Researcher)

Student in uniform writes on a whiteboard, guided by a teacher in a classroom. Bright light from windows, engaged learning atmosphere.

Introduction: What It Means to Be Educated, Education and Freedom

“You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32) is a familiar phrase, often repeated as a statement of certainty. In an educational context, however, it is more usefully approached as a provocation rather than a claim. It invites educators to reflect on the relationship between education, understanding, and freedom, and to question whether contemporary systems of schooling and training genuinely support learners to become more independent, capable, and empowered.

Historically, education has been closely associated with freedom, social mobility, and independence. Access to education has been viewed as a means through which individuals might improve their life chances, participate more fully in civic life, and exercise greater control over their futures (Dewey, 1916; Sen, 1999). Compulsory schooling, adult education, and widening participation initiatives have all been justified, at least in part, by the belief that education enables individuals to move beyond the constraints of circumstance. Yet despite this long-standing association, educational success is frequently measured in narrow terms: qualifications gained, grades achieved, or content covered. Such measures risk obscuring a more fundamental question: what does it actually mean to be educated?

In modern systems of schooling and training, learners can perform well while remaining dependent, compliant, or unable to apply their learning beyond familiar contexts. This raises an important challenge for educators. If learners can succeed without developing judgement, understanding, or agency, then education may be reproducing constraint rather than enabling emancipation. As Biesta (2010) argues, an exclusive focus on measurable outcomes can lead to a “learnification” of education, where the deeper purposes of education, such as independence, responsibility, and subjectivity, are marginalised.

This article argues that education emancipates learners not through slogans, motivation, or the accumulation of information, but through understanding. To be educated is not merely to possess knowledge, but to be able to interpret, question, and apply it in ways that support informed action. Drawing on philosophical, sociological, and educational perspectives, the article explores how education can function as a practice of emancipation when it prioritises clarity, coherence, and understanding over performance and compliance. In doing so, it reframes freedom in education not as the absence of structure, but as the presence of insight.

Education Is Not Neutral

A persistent assumption within educational discourse is that teaching is, or should be, value-free. Curriculum frameworks, assessment systems, and pedagogical approaches are often presented as technical or objective choices, driven by standards, evidence, or efficiency. However, decades of educational research and philosophy challenge this view. Education is inherently normative: it reflects decisions about what knowledge matters, how learning should be demonstrated, and which forms of behaviour are rewarded (Apple, 2004; Biesta, 2010). To claim neutrality in education is therefore not to remove values, but to leave them unexamined.

Curriculum design, assessment choices, and pedagogy inevitably advantage certain learners over others. Curricula privilege particular forms of knowledge, often abstract, academic, and text-based, while marginalising others, such as practical knowledge, oral competence, or contextual understanding (Young, 2008). Similarly, assessment systems frequently prioritise written performance under timed conditions, rewarding learners who are already familiar with dominant academic practices. Pedagogical approaches that assume shared cultural capital or secure prior knowledge can further widen gaps, as learners who lack these foundations are less able to access the intended learning (Bourdieu, 1986; Willingham, 2009).

Educational outcomes, then, are rarely neutral reflections of learner ability. More often, they are the predictable consequences of design decisions. When assessments consistently favour certain modes of expression or when curricula assume knowledge that has not been explicitly taught, patterns of success and failure emerge that mirror structural inequalities rather than individual potential. As Wiliam (2011) argues, if learning outcomes are predictable, they are usually predictable because the system has been designed in ways that produce them. In this sense, underachievement is less a mystery than a design problem.

Framing education as non-neutral does not require educators to adopt a particular political ideology. Instead, it positions emancipation as an ethical responsibility. Educators are accountable not only for what they teach, but for the consequences of how teaching and assessment are designed. To ignore the distributive effects of educational practice is to tacitly accept them. Emancipatory education, therefore, is not about indoctrination or abandoning standards, but about recognising that design choices have moral weight. By making these choices explicit and intentional, educators can work towards systems that support understanding, agency, and genuine educational opportunity for all learners.

From Knowledge to Understanding

Educational discourse frequently treats knowledge as a commodity to be acquired: facts to be memorised, definitions to be recalled, and procedures to be replicated. Within such a framing, success is often equated with the accurate reproduction of information. However, possessing information is not the same as being educated. While information can be stored and retrieved, education implies a deeper transformation, one in which learners develop the capacity to interpret, apply, and evaluate what they know across contexts (Bransford, Brown and Cocking, 2000).

Factual recall alone rarely enables independence or transfer. Learners may perform well in familiar assessment conditions yet struggle to apply their knowledge when problems are restructured, contexts change, or support is removed. Research on transfer consistently demonstrates that knowledge learned in isolation or without conceptual understanding is unlikely to be used flexibly (Perkins, Salomon and Globerson, 1989). This explains why learners can pass examinations yet remain dependent on templates, worked examples, or explicit instructions when faced with novel situations. Without understanding underlying principles, knowledge remains inert.

Cognitive perspectives on learning help to clarify this distinction. Prior knowledge plays a critical role in comprehension, shaping how new information is interpreted and integrated (Ausubel, 1968; Willingham, 2009). When learners possess well-organised and accurate prior knowledge, they are better able to make sense of new material. Conversely, gaps in knowledge, or the presence of misconceptions, can actively interfere with learning. Misconceptions are particularly resistant because they often feel intuitive to the learner, requiring explicit challenge rather than simple correction (Chi, 2005). Teaching that ignores prior knowledge risks reinforcing misunderstanding rather than building understanding.

Understanding, therefore, involves more than accumulation; it involves organisation, connection, and meaning-making. Bransford et al. (2000) argue that experts differ from novices not in the quantity of information they hold, but in how that knowledge is structured and accessed. Experts recognise deep features of problems, while novices focus on surface characteristics. Education that prioritises understanding seeks to move learners along this continuum by making underlying concepts explicit and encouraging learners to interrogate their own thinking.

From an emancipatory perspective, this distinction is crucial. Learners who merely recall information remain dependent on external authority to tell them what to think and do. Learners who understand can question, adapt, and act with judgement. Education, therefore, should aim to develop learners who can interpret knowledge critically, apply it flexibly, and question its limits and assumptions. In doing so, education supports not just academic success, but the intellectual independence that underpins meaningful participation in professional, civic, and personal life.

The Illusion of Learning

One of the most persistent challenges in education is that learning can appear to be taking place when it is not. High levels of performance, strong grades, fluent answers, or polished coursework, are often taken as evidence of understanding. Yet research consistently shows that performance under specific conditions can mask shallow learning that fails to endure or transfer (Bjork and Bjork, 2011). This illusion is particularly powerful in systems where assessment outcomes are treated as proxies for learning itself.

A common manifestation of this illusion is grades without capability. Learners may achieve high marks by mastering exam techniques, memorising model answers, or reproducing familiar structures, without developing the conceptual understanding needed to apply knowledge independently. Such success can be fragile. When tasks are recontextualised, when scaffolds are removed, or when learners are required to make judgements rather than follow procedures, performance often deteriorates rapidly. This phenomenon highlights a critical distinction between learning for assessment and learning for understanding (Soderstrom and Bjork, 2015).

Related to this is compliance without comprehension. Learners may appear engaged, complete tasks diligently, and follow instructions accurately, yet remain unclear about the purpose or meaning of what they are doing. In highly structured educational environments, it is possible to succeed by learning how to “do school” rather than by developing insight (Pope, 2001). Such compliance is frequently rewarded, reinforcing behaviours that prioritise rule-following over thinking. While this may produce orderly classrooms and predictable outcomes, it does little to support intellectual independence.

The illusion of learning becomes most visible when conditions change. Tasks that deviate slightly from those encountered in teaching or assessment often expose the limits of surface learning. Learners who rely on memorised procedures struggle to adapt, whereas those with deeper understanding are better able to recognise underlying principles and respond flexibly. This aligns with research on surface and deep approaches to learning, which shows that surface learning is associated with short-term retention and context-bound performance, while deep learning supports transfer and long-term understanding (Marton and Säljö, 1976).

These issues raise important questions about assessment validity. Valid assessment should provide meaningful information about what learners understand and can do, not merely how well they perform under constrained conditions. When assessments reward recall, mimicry, or narrow procedural competence, they risk overstating learning and reinforcing inequitable outcomes. As Black and Wiliam (1998) argue, assessment practices shape how and what learners learn; poorly aligned assessments can encourage superficial strategies that undermine the educational purpose they are meant to serve.

Recognising the illusion of learning requires educators to look beyond performance indicators and examine the quality of understanding that underpins them. Emancipatory education depends on assessments and pedagogies that distinguish between appearance and substance, ensuring that success reflects genuine capability rather than temporary or fragile performance.

5. Education as Capacity-Building

Emancipation in education is often misunderstood as freedom from constraint: fewer rules, reduced structure, or the removal of authoritative guidance. While such interpretations may appear learner-centred, they risk conflating autonomy with absence of direction. A more robust understanding reframes emancipation as capacity-building, the development of learners’ ability to act independently, make informed judgements, and navigate complexity. In this sense, emancipation is not the removal of structure, but the gradual transfer of responsibility made possible through understanding (Biesta, 2013).

Understanding plays a central role in expanding learner agency. When learners grasp underlying concepts, principles, and purposes, they become less dependent on external prompts, exemplars, or step-by-step instructions. This reduces reliance on authority and increases the capacity for self-regulation and decision-making. Research on self-regulated learning suggests that learners who understand goals, criteria, and processes are better able to plan, monitor, and evaluate their own learning (Zimmerman, 2002). Dependency, by contrast, is often a symptom of education that prioritises compliance or imitation over comprehension.

Clarity, structure, and high expectations are therefore not barriers to autonomy, but conditions for it. Clear explanations, well-sequenced curricula, and explicit success criteria help learners understand what is being asked of them and why. Such clarity reduces cognitive overload and uncertainty, enabling learners to focus on sense-making rather than guesswork (Kirschner, Sweller and Clark, 2006). High expectations signal that learners are capable of engaging with challenging material, while appropriate scaffolding ensures that challenge remains productive rather than overwhelming. Over time, as understanding deepens, scaffolds can be withdrawn, supporting increasing independence.

Positioning education as capacity-building also requires a shift in how success is defined. Rather than preparing learners merely to participate in pre-defined tasks or systems, education should prepare them for judgement. This involves weighing evidence, considering alternatives, and making decisions in situations where answers are not fixed or fully specified. Dewey (1938) argued that education should cultivate intelligent action rather than routine response, enabling individuals to respond thoughtfully to changing circumstances. From this perspective, the ultimate aim of education is not conformity or procedural competence, but the development of learners who can exercise judgement responsibly within and beyond institutional contexts.

Education that builds capacity in this way aligns closely with an emancipatory purpose. By developing understanding, providing structure, and maintaining high expectations, educators create the conditions under which learners can move from dependence to independence. Emancipation, then, is not a starting point granted through reduced constraint, but an outcome earned through carefully designed educational experiences.

6. Freire and the Purpose of Education

Paulo Freire’s work offers one of the most influential accounts of education as a practice oriented either towards domestication or liberation. For Freire (1970), education is never neutral: it either reinforces existing power relations by encouraging adaptation and compliance, or it supports learners to develop the awareness and agency required to transform their conditions. Domestication occurs when education trains individuals to fit into predetermined roles without questioning the structures that shape those roles. Liberation, by contrast, involves developing the capacity to understand reality critically and to act upon it.

Central to Freire’s critique is the concept of the “banking model” of education, in which knowledge is treated as a deposit made by the teacher into passive learners. In this model, students are positioned as empty vessels, and learning is reduced to the accumulation and recall of information. Freire argued that such an approach limits understanding and suppresses agency, as learners are rewarded for memorisation rather than meaning-making. While the banking model can produce efficient transmission of content, it does so at the cost of critical engagement, reinforcing dependence on authority rather than fostering independence (Freire, 1970).

As an alternative, Freire proposed dialogic education, in which teachers and learners engage in dialogue oriented towards understanding the world and one’s place within it. Dialogue, in this sense, is not casual conversation but a structured process of inquiry, reflection, and mutual questioning. Through dialogue, learners are encouraged to connect knowledge to their lived experiences, examine assumptions, and develop a sense of themselves as active participants in learning. This process supports the development of agency by positioning learners as co-constructors of meaning rather than recipients of information (Freire, 1998).

Importantly, Freire did not advocate for the removal of structure or expertise. Emancipatory education, in his view, requires intentional design, clear purposes, and disciplined inquiry. Dialogue without direction risks becoming superficial or unproductive. Structure provides the conditions under which meaningful dialogue can occur, ensuring that learning remains focused on developing understanding rather than drifting into relativism or opinion-sharing. As such, Freire’s work aligns with contemporary perspectives that view structure and guidance as essential to supporting learner autonomy, rather than antithetical to it.

Freire’s contribution lies in reframing the purpose of education itself. Education, he argued, should not merely prepare learners to adapt to the world as it is, but to understand it well enough to act within it responsibly. When education prioritises understanding, dialogue, and agency within a structured framework, it moves beyond domestication towards emancipation.

Looking Ahead: Part Two

This first part has explored education as a practice of emancipation, examining how understanding, rather than performance, compliance, or motivation alone, enables learners to develop agency, judgement, and independence. It has argued that education is not neutral, that design choices matter, and that emancipatory practice is enacted through everyday decisions about curriculum, assessment, and feedback pasted.

In Part Two, the focus will shift from foundations to application. It will explore how these principles can be enacted within real educational settings, examining practical tensions, structural constraints, and the implications for curriculum design, assessment systems, and professional practice. In doing so, Part Two will consider what it takes to move from an emancipatory ideal to emancipatory practice.

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