Home Critical Thinking as an Integrative Process: Debating Wolves in Yellowstone
Article
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Critical Thinking as an Integrative Process: Debating Wolves in Yellowstone

  • Lynn Sargent De Jonghe EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: June 4, 2024

Abstract

The topic of critical thinking has engaged philosophers, psychologists and educators for well over one hundred years. Amid polarized political attacks on the teaching of controversial issues, however, education in critical thinking appears to be nearing a new low, not only in the United States, but also in other countries being torn by partisan politics. This article reviews the ebb and flow of critical thinking efforts, suggests explanations for their discouraging results, and proposes a way forward that treats critical thinking as an integrative process advanced by Mary Parker Follet, and more recently espoused by Bruno Latour and Donna Haraway. In the exploratory spirit of John Dewey and Alfred North Whitehead, I am introducing this essay, not with analysis or theory, but with a narrative of educational events in all their richness of context. These events describe how middle school students addressed the question of whether wolves should be removed from the endangered species list in the Northern Rocky Mountains of the United States. In the course of this discussion, I wish to demonstrate that thinking critically requires moving beyond winning, losing, or compromising to resolution of conflict, and furthermore, understanding that even stable resolutions must be revisited as events change.


Corresponding author: Lynn Sargent De Jonghe, PhD, The Cobb Institute, Claremont, CA 91711, USA; and 1545 Webster Avenue, Claremont, CA 91711, USA, E-mail:

References

American Psychiatric Association. 2013. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: DSM-5, 189ff. Arlington, VA: American Psychiatric Association.10.1176/appi.books.9780890425596Search in Google Scholar

Argyris, C., and D. Schon. 1978. Organizational Learning: A Theory of Action Perspective. Reading, Mass: Addison Wesley.Search in Google Scholar

Baron, J. 2020. “Why Science Succeeds, and Sometimes Doesn’t.” In Critical Thinking in Psychology, edited by R. J. Sternberg, and D. F. Halpern. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/9781108684354.004Search in Google Scholar

Barrett, D., and R. Heale 2020. “What are Delphi studies?” Evidence-Based Nursing 23: 68−69. https://doi.org/10.1136/ebnurs-2020-103303.Search in Google Scholar

Barzun, M. W. 2021. The Power of Giving Away Power. New York: Penguin Random House.Search in Google Scholar

Bennis, W. 1995. Thoughts on “The Essentials of Leadership,” in Mary Parker Follet, Prophet of Management: A Celebration of Writings from the 1920’s, edited by P. Graham, 177–181. Washington, DC: Beard Books.Search in Google Scholar

Bennis, W., J. Parikh, and R. Lessen. 1997. Beyond Leadership: Balancing Economics, Ethics, and Ecology, 2nd ed. New York: Wiley.Search in Google Scholar

Black, M. 2018. Critical Thinking: An Introduction to Logic and Scientific Method. Muriwai Books. (Original published 1952).Search in Google Scholar

California Critical Thinking Skills Test. n.d. https://insightassessment.com/iaproduct/california-critical-thinking-skills-test/.Search in Google Scholar

Callon, M. 1984. “Some Elements of a Sociology of Translation: Domestication of the Scallops and the Fishermen of St Brieuc Bay.” The Sociological Review 32 (1): 196–233. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-954X.1984.tb00113.x.Search in Google Scholar

De Jonghe, L. S. 2022. Starting with Whitehead; Raising Children to Thrive in Treacherous Times. New York: Rowman and Littlefield.10.5771/9780761873372Search in Google Scholar

Dewey, J. 1938. Logic: The Theory of Inquiry. New York: Henry Holt and Company.Search in Google Scholar

Dewey, J. 1997. Experience and Nature. New York: Dover. (Original published 1958).Search in Google Scholar

Dewey, J. 1998. How We Think. NY: Dover Publications. (Original published 1909).10.1037/10903-000Search in Google Scholar

Drucker, P. 2021. Quoted by Mathew Barzun, “A New Way to Think about Power at Work,” Time Magazine. https://time.com/6073304/power-in-the-workplace/ (accessed June 15, 2021).Search in Google Scholar

Ennis, R. H. 1981. Critical Thinking. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Search in Google Scholar

Ennis, R. H. 1995. Critical Thinking. New York: Pearson.Search in Google Scholar

Ennis, R. H. 2011. The Nature of Critical Thinking: An Outline of Critical Thinking Dispositions and Abilities: a several-times-revised version of a presentation at the Sixth International Conference on Thinking at MIT. Cambridge, MA. July, 1994. Last revised May, 2011. http://faculty.education.illinois.edu/rhennis/documents/TheNatureofCriticalThinking_51711_000.pdf.Search in Google Scholar

Facione, P. 1990. Critical Thinking: A Statement of Expert Consensus for Purposes of Educational Assessment and Instruction, Research Findings and Recommendations. Newark, Del: American Philosophical Association. ERIC Document ED 315423TM014423.Search in Google Scholar

Fisher, A. 2011. Critical Thinking: An Introduction, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Follett, M. P. 2013. “Constructive Conflict.” In Dynamic Administration; The Collected Papers of Mary Parker Follett, edited by H. C. Metcalf, and L. Uwick, 30–49. Mansfield Center, CT: Martino Publishing.Search in Google Scholar

Follet, M. P. 2013. Dynamic Administration; The Collected Papers of Mary Parker Follett, edited by H. C. Metcalf, and L. Uwick. Mansfield Center, CT: Martino Publishing.Search in Google Scholar

Follett, M. P. 2021. Creative Experience. Left of Brain Books. (Original work published 1924).Search in Google Scholar

Frederick, S. 2005a. Cognitive Reflection Test (CRT) [Database record]. APA PsycTests. https://doi.org/10.1037/t66183-000.Search in Google Scholar

Frederick, S. 2005b. “Cognitive Reflection and Decision Making.” The Journal of Economic Perspectives 19 (4): 25–42. https://doi.org/10.1257/089533005775196732.Search in Google Scholar

Freire, P. 2000. The Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Translated by M. B. Ramos. 30th Anniversary Ed. New York: Continuum. (Original published 1968).Search in Google Scholar

Glaser, E. 1941. An Experiment in the Development of Critical Thinking. New York: Advanced School of Education at Teachers’ College, Columbia University.Search in Google Scholar

Habermas, J. 1973. Theory and Practice. Translated by J. Viertel. Boston: Beacon Press.Search in Google Scholar

Halpern, D. 2014. Thought and Knowledge: An Introduction to Critical Thinking, 5th ed. New York: Psychology Press.Search in Google Scholar

Halpern, D. n.d. HCTA Halpern Critical Thinking Assessment [Database record]. APA PsycTests. https://doi.org/10.1037/t10940-000.Search in Google Scholar

Haraway, D. 2016. Staying with the Trouble; Making Kin in the Chthulucene. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.10.2307/j.ctv11cw25qSearch in Google Scholar

Hatcher, D. L. 2011. “Which Test? Whose Scores? Comparing Standardized Critical Thinking Tests.” New Directions for Institutional Research 149: 29–39. https://doi.org/10.1002/ir.378.Search in Google Scholar

Hitchcock, D. 2017. On Reasoning and Argument: Essays in Informal Logic and on Critical Thinking. Dordrecht: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53562-3_30.Search in Google Scholar

Hocking, William Ernest. 1941. “Letter from William Ernest Hocking to Whitehead.” LET1008, Whitehead Research Library. https://wrl.whiteheadresearch.org/items/show/2246 (accessed October 22, 2021).Search in Google Scholar

James, W. 1985. Varieties of Religious Experience. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. (original published 1902).Search in Google Scholar

Kahane, H. 1991. Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric: The Use of Reason in Everyday Life. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.Search in Google Scholar

Kahneman, D. 2011. Thinking, Fast and Slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.Search in Google Scholar

Latour, B. 1993. We Have Never Been Modern. Translated by C. Porter. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Latour, B. 2005. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.10.1093/oso/9780199256044.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Martin, J. R. 1992. “Critical Thinking for a Humane World.” In The Generalizability of Critical Thinking, edited by S. P. Norris, 163–180. New York: Teachers College Press.Search in Google Scholar

Mikulian, P. 2022. “The Ethics of Refusal: The Insistence of Possibles as a Speculative Pragmatic Challenge to Systemic Racism in Education.” Educational Theory 72 (4): 529–548. https://doi.org/10.1111/edth.12545.Search in Google Scholar

Monbiot, G. 2014. How Wolves Change Rivers. Film. https://youtu.be/ysa5OBhXz-Q.Search in Google Scholar

National Health Service, UK. n.d. Selective Mutism. https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/selective-mutism/Downloaded (accessed March 17, 2024).Search in Google Scholar

National Park Service, Yellowstone National Park. 2022. Wolf Restoration. https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/nature/wolf-restoration.htm (downloaded November 10, 2022).Search in Google Scholar

Neisser, U. 1976. Cognition and Reality; Principles and Implications of Cognitive Psychology. San Francisco: Freeman.Search in Google Scholar

Noddings, N. 2006. Critical Lessons: What our Schools Should Teach. New York: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511804625Search in Google Scholar

Nygren, T., J. Haglund, C. R. Samuelson, A. af Geijerstam, and J. Prytz. 2018. “Critical Thinking in National Tests across Four Subjects in Swedish Compulsory School.” Education Inquiry 10 (2): 56–75. https://doi.org/10.1080/20004508.2018.1475200.Search in Google Scholar

Oliverio, S. 2022. “Reconstructing Pragmatism in the New Climate Regime: Education after the Intrusion of Gaia.” Educational Theory 72 (4): 433–454. https://doi.org/10.1111/edth.12540.Search in Google Scholar

Paul, R. 1981. “Teaching Critical Thinking in the ‘Strong’ Sense: A Focus on Self-Deception, World Views, and a Dialectical Mode of Analysis.” Informal Logic 4 (2): 2–7. https://doi.org/10.22329/il.v4i2.2766.Search in Google Scholar

Paul, R., 2015. Richard Paul Memorial Page. Foundation for Critical Thinking. https://www.criticalthinking.org/pages/richard-paul-memorial/1231.Search in Google Scholar

Paul, R. W., and L. Elder. 2006. The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking: Concepts and Tools, 4th ed. Dillon Beach, CA: Foundation for Critical Thinking.Search in Google Scholar

Paul, R., A. Fisher, and G. Nosich. 1993. Workshop on Critical Thinking Strategies. California: Foundation for Critical Thinking, Sonoma State University.Search in Google Scholar

Pignarre, P. 2023. Latour-Stegners: An Entangled Flight. Translated by S. Muecke. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.Search in Google Scholar

Pratkanis, A. R. 2020. “Why Would Anyone Do or Believe Such a Thing.” In Critical Thinking in Psychology, edited by R. J. Sternberg, and D. F. Halpern. 2nd ed. 328–353. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/9781108684354.015Search in Google Scholar

ProCon.org. 2020. Do Standardized Tests Improve Education in America? https://standardizedtests.procon.org/.Search in Google Scholar

Rewilding Europe. n.d. Nijmegen, The Netherlands. https://rewildingeurope.com/.Search in Google Scholar

Richardson, R. D. 2006. William James; In the Maelstrom of American Modernism. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.Search in Google Scholar

Savransky, M. 2022. “The Will to Believe in the World: Pragmatism and the Arts of Living on a Precarious Earth.” Educational Theory 72 (4): 509–528.10.1111/edth.12544Search in Google Scholar

Scheffler, I. 1960. The Language of Education. Springfield, IL: Charles C Thomas.Search in Google Scholar

Schildermans, H. 2022a. “On Pragmatism’s Potential for Making Futures in Troubled Times.” Educational Theory 72 (4): 403–410. https://doi.org/10.1111/edth.12538.Search in Google Scholar

Schildermans, H. 2022b. “On Problematic Situations and Problematizations: Study Practices and the Pragmatics of a World To-Be-Made.” Educational Theory 72 (4): 455–472. https://doi.org/10.1111/edth.12541.Search in Google Scholar

Siegel, H. 1988. Educating Reason: Rationality, Critical Thinking, and Education. New York: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar

Smith, D. W., ed. 2016. In Celebrating 20 Years of Wolves in Yellowstone, Vol. 24. U.S. National Park Service: Yellowstone Science. https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/upload/YELLOWSTONE-SCIENCE-24-1-WOLVES.pdf.Search in Google Scholar

Stegners, I. 2011. Thinking with Whitehead; A Free and Wild Creation of Concepts. Translated by M. Chase. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Sternberg, R. J. 1987. “Teaching Critical Thinking: Eight Easy Ways to Fail before You Begin.” Phi Delta Kappan 68 (6).Search in Google Scholar

Sternberg, R. J., and D. F. Halpern. 2020. Critical Thinking in Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/9781108684354Search in Google Scholar

Stone, L. 2022. “Pragmatism’s Generations: A Forewarding of Philosophies for Democracy from One American Perspective.” Educational Theory 72 (4): 411–432. https://doi.org/10.1111/edth.12539.Search in Google Scholar

Stout, M., and J. Love. 2015. Integrative Process; Follettian Thinking from Ontology to Administration. Anoka, MN: Process Century Press.Search in Google Scholar

Thayer-Bacon, B. 1992. “Is Modern Critical Thinking Theory Sexist?” Inquiry: Critical Thinking Across the Disciplines 10 (1): 3–7. https://doi.org/10.5840/inquiryctnews199210123.Search in Google Scholar

Thayer-Bacon, B. 2000. Transforming Critical Thinking; Thinking Constructively. New York: Teachers College Press.Search in Google Scholar

Thoilliez, B. 2022. “Making Education Possible Again: Pragmatist Experiments for a Troubled and Down-to-Earth Pedagogy.” Educational Theory 72 (4): 491–508. https://doi.org/10.1111/edth.12543.Search in Google Scholar

Tonn, J. C. 2003. Mary P. Follet: Creating Democracy, Transforming Management. New Haven: Yale University.10.12987/yale/9780300096217.001.0001Search in Google Scholar

Toulmin, S. 1969. The Uses of Argument. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar

Tronto, J. 1993. Moral Boundaries: A Political Argument for the Ethics of Care. London: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar

Vlieghe, J. 2022. “In the Lap of Collective Impotentiality: Reimagining a Pragmatic Account of Thinking Through and Agambenian Lens.” Educational Theory 72 (4): 473–490. https://doi.org/10.1111/edth.12542.Search in Google Scholar

Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal (WGCTA). n.d. https://www.pearson.com/content/dam/one-dot-com/one-dot-com/global/Files/efficacy-and-research/reports/Watson-Glaser_One_Page_Summary.pdf.Search in Google Scholar

West, C. 1995. Race Matters. New York: Vintage.Search in Google Scholar

Whitehead, A. N. 1925. Science and the Modern World. New York: Free Press.Search in Google Scholar

Whitehead, A. N. 1957. The Aims of Education and Other Essays. New York: The Free Press. (Originally published 1929).Search in Google Scholar

Whitehead, A. N. 1966. Modes of Thought. New York: The Free Press. (Original published 1938).Search in Google Scholar

Whitehead, A. N. 1978. In Process and Reality: Corrected Edition, edited by D. Ray Griffin, and D. W. Sherburne. New York: The Free Press.Search in Google Scholar

Winter, M. 2014. “Judge Restores Wolf Protections.” USA Today 9: 46. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/09/23/judge-restores-wolf-protections-wyoming/16120133/.Search in Google Scholar

Wiseman, R. 2016. Queen Bees and Wannabees: Helping Our Daughters Survive Cliques, Gossip, Boyfriends and the New Realities of Girl World, 3rd ed. New York: Harmony.Search in Google Scholar

Received: 2023-11-02
Accepted: 2024-05-14
Published Online: 2024-06-04
Published in Print: 2024-07-26

© 2024 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Downloaded on 2.10.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/humaff-2023-0120/html
Scroll to top button