Teaching Theory: Lessons from a Ranciere-ian Approach

Teaching Theory: Lessons from a Ranciere-ian
\nApproachJacques Ranciere is a contemporary French philosopher who is mostly
\nknown for his studies in the field of political and social theory. This study,
\nhowever, takes its premises from the intersection of the two fields: theory and
\npedagogy. Even though the research question is related to the field of social
\ntheory, the question itself originated from the classroom experiences. As a
\nprofessor of political and social theory, I have been attending to students’
\nexperiences in theory seminars and classes. Varying from too abstract to
\nimpenetrable, very sophisticated to puzzle-like, students expressed their
\nencounter with the content of theory always with a difficulty. While such
\nobservations carry an indisputable element of truth, the problem seems to lie
\nmore with the classroom experience than the teaching material itself. In other words,
\nthe question is not the theory per se, but how to teach it.
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\nTaking this formulation as the basic research question, this study has
\ntwo main inquiries: is a Rancierian approach to teaching theory (one that takes
\nthe equality of the minds as its fundamental premise) possible and if so what
\nwould it entail? To that aim this study attempts to uncover the difference in
\nthe learning experience of senior students from the Department of Political Science
\nand Public Administration in METU when a different teaching and evaluation
\nmethod is used in the classroom. The sample is composed of 47 senior students
\nwho were enrolled with the ADM 4150 Modernity and the Idea of Freedom, an
\nadvanced level theory class, over the past five years.