Why teaching children to think critically is not the same as teaching them to become activists
Protect and Teach Paper Analysis
Introduction
A recent paper published in the British Educational Research Journal, “The purpose of activism is to educate”: Young people’s climate activism as and for education in the youth strike movement in England, examines the experiences of young people involved in the Youth Strike 4 Climate movement in Bristol. The paper argues that youth climate activism can be understood as both a site of education and a form of critical pedagogy, drawing explicitly upon the work of Paulo Freire. It concludes by presenting the young people’s experiences as a challenge to the existing education system and as a basis for considering a transformed model of education.
There is nothing objectionable about researching youth activism, climate activism, or young people’s experiences of political participation. Nor should children be prevented from developing their own views about political, social or environmental questions.
The question Protect and Teach raises is different:
What happens when a particular theory of political activism is not merely studied within education, but is used to redefine activism itself as education?
And, more fundamentally:
Is an education system that seeks to develop independent critical thinkers the same thing as an education system that seeks to develop critical consciousness and social transformation through activism?
We do not believe it is.
This is not an argument against climate education, political education, children’s participation in democracy or critical thinking. It is an argument for keeping an essential boundary between teaching children how to think and using education to cultivate a particular conception of how society should be understood and changed.
What does the paper actually claim?
It is important to begin with the paper’s own claims rather than a characterisation of them. The study examines local participants in the Youth Strike 4 Climate movement in Bristol. Data from the study was collected in 2020 and again in 2023 from the same three participants. The research uses a narrative approach and a grounded-theory analysis informed by concepts from critical pedagogy.
The paper does not simply ask what young climate activists experienced.
It argues that their activism was itself educational.
It proposes that youth climate activism exists “as and for education”, conceptualises activism as a site of education in its own right, and uses the participants’ experiences to support a call for a transformed education system.
There is an obvious and uncontroversial sense in which people learn from activities outside formal education. People learn through volunteering, sport, family life, employment, religious participation, political engagement, campaigning and countless other experiences.
However:
Learning from an activity does not automatically make the activity education.
And even if an activity is educational in a broad sense, that does not establish that schools should reproduce it, facilitate it, or adopt the philosophy underpinning it.
That is the first evidential step that needs examining.
The paper is explicit about its Freirean framework
The paper does not hide its theoretical starting point. It explicitly draws upon Freirean critical pedagogy and uses concepts including critical consciousness, problem-posing education and praxis to interpret the participants’ experiences.
The paper explains Freire’s criticism of the traditional “banking” model of education, in which pupils are positioned as passive recipients of knowledge. It presents the alternative as a process of dialogue, critical consciousness and ultimately liberation, with praxis understood through the relationship between reflection and action.
This is important because Freirean critical pedagogy is not simply another name for critical thinking. The two should not be casually conflated.
Critical thinking can be understood as the ability to:
- examine evidence;
- identify assumptions;
- distinguish fact from assertion;
- assess the reliability of sources;
- compare explanations;
- recognise weaknesses in an argument;
- consider competing perspectives;
- revise one’s position when evidence warrants it; and
- reach a reasoned conclusion.
None of those requires a child to adopt a particular theory of power, oppression or social transformation.
Freirean critical pedagogy introduces something different.
As the paper itself explains, Freire’s framework is concerned with oppression, liberation, critical consciousness and praxis. The paper further quotes Henry Giroux’s characterisation of critical pedagogy as a political and moral practice concerned with developing critical citizens and deepening participation in democracy.
That is not a criticism of Freire’s right to advance such a philosophy. It is a recognition of what the philosophy actually is.
A political and moral philosophy of education should not be presented as though it were simply a neutral method for teaching children to think critically.
Critical thinking does not require an oppression framework
This distinction is central to the Protect and Teach position.
A child can be taught:
What evidence supports this claim?
without being taught:
Which structures of power produced this situation?
A child can ask:
Is this source reliable?
without being told that the existing social structure necessarily represents an oppressive relationship.
A child can ask:
What are the competing explanations?
without beginning from an assumption that one group is exercising power over another.
A child can examine a political proposal, reject it, support it or remain undecided. That is intellectual independence.
The problem arises when the educational process begins by supplying a particular interpretive framework and then treats the development of consciousness within that framework as the route to meaningful action.
The paper’s own description of Freirean pedagogy makes clear that its concern extends beyond acquiring knowledge or evaluating evidence. It is concerned with critical consciousness and transformation, with reflection being linked to action through praxis.
Protect and Teach does not regard that as synonymous with teaching critical thought.
We believe the distinction is essential.
Education should not have a predetermined political destination
There is nothing wrong with children becoming politically engaged adults. There is nothing wrong with children campaigning for causes they genuinely believe in. There is nothing wrong with teaching children how democracy works, how campaigns operate, how Parliament functions, how laws are changed, or how citizens can participate.
Indeed, the national curriculum for citizenship explicitly expects pupils to develop the ability to research and interrogate evidence, evaluate viewpoints, present reasoned arguments and take informed action.
But informed action is not the same as prescribed action.
- A child may investigate an issue and become an activist.
- Another child may investigate the same issue and reject activism.
- Another may decide that both sides have merit.
- Another may change their mind later.
- Another may conclude that the evidence does not support the campaigner’s proposed solution.
Those are all legitimate outcomes of education.
The purpose of independent education should not be to ensure that critical thinking produces a particular political behaviour. It should be to ensure that pupils possess enough knowledge and intellectual independence to decide for themselves what, if anything, they wish to do with that knowledge.
The paper makes an important leap from experience to educational prescription
The participants’ experiences are valuable. They are entitled to describe their activism as educational. They are entitled to believe that formal education did not adequately meet their needs. They are entitled to argue for changes to education.
But these are participants’ perspectives. They are not automatically empirical evidence that their preferred model of education is better.
The study involves three young people from one particular activist movement and one particular geographical context. The University of Bristol’s description confirms that the study focuses on the same three participants across the two periods of data collection.
That is perfectly capable of producing meaningful qualitative research. Though it places limits upon what can reasonably be claimed.
The study can tell us something about: how these young activists experienced activism and how they understood its educational significance.
It cannot, by itself, establish:
that activism is generally a superior form of education;
that formal education is generally deficient in the ways identified by these participants;
or:
that schools should adopt Freirean critical pedagogy.
Those propositions would require additional evidence.
The paper itself describes its contribution as a conceptualisation arising from one specific site of youth climate activism and suggests that similar processes may occur in other social movements. The word “may” matters. Possibility is not evidence of general applicability.
Researcher positionality matters; without making the researcher’s position illegitimate
This is another area where precision matters. The researcher identifies an explicit connection with environmental activism and a teaching practice informed by Freirean critical pedagogy. The paper consequently approaches the subject through a theoretical framework that is already sympathetic to the proposition that activism can be educational.
We do not argue that this automatically invalidates the research. Nor should researchers be expected to pretend that they have no intellectual framework. Indeed, BERA’s own ethical guidance recognises the importance of ethical and reflexive practice in educational research.
But readers should distinguish between:
the participants’ accounts,
the researcher’s interpretation of those accounts,
and
the researcher’s broader educational argument.
Those are not the same thing.
The fact that participants experienced activism as educational is one finding. The proposition that activism therefore represents a model from which the formal education system should learn is an interpretation. The proposition that education should be transformed in that direction is a normative argument. Keeping those categories separate is essential if educational research is to inform policy responsibly.
There is a danger in treating the formal education system as the problem by definition
The Freirean “banking model” critique deserves particular scrutiny. The paper presents traditional education as an approach in which pupils become passive recipients of knowledge, with the implication that such education helps maintain the status quo.
But this creates an unnecessarily false choice:
knowledge transmission versus critical thinking.
The two are not opposites.
- A pupil cannot meaningfully evaluate an historical claim without sufficient historical knowledge.
- A pupil cannot critically assess a scientific argument without sufficient scientific knowledge.
- A pupil cannot evaluate an economic proposal without understanding the relevant economic concepts.
- A pupil cannot distinguish reliable evidence from persuasive rhetoric without possessing the knowledge needed to understand what the evidence actually says.
Knowledge is not the enemy of critical thinking. It is one of its foundations.
The English curriculum itself reflects this relationship. The citizenship curriculum requires pupils to acquire knowledge and understanding while also developing the ability to interrogate evidence, evaluate viewpoints and construct reasoned arguments.
Likewise, the English curriculum expects pupils to distinguish statements supported by evidence from those that are not and to identify bias and misuse of evidence.
That is critical thought without requiring pupils to adopt a Freirean account of society.
The problem is not activism per se. It is the power relationship between teacher and child
The central concern for Protect and Teach is not whether children can learn through political activism. Of course they can.
The more important question is who is introducing the political framework through which the child is being taught to understand the world and what happens when that framework is introduced by an adult who holds institutional authority over them?
A teacher is not simply another participant in a political discussion. The teacher has authority.
They determine what is taught, what questions are asked, which concepts are introduced, which sources are selected and, within the classroom, often which interpretations receive legitimacy and attention.
Children are correspondingly situated within a relationship of dependency. They are developing their understanding of subjects and of the world around them while an adult educator occupies a position of considerable authority.
That power imbalance is precisely why political impartiality in education matters.
Freirean critical pedagogy does not merely ask children to question evidence or examine competing arguments. Its theoretical framework explicitly concerns power, oppression, critical consciousness, liberation and praxis.
If children are repeatedly encouraged to understand social questions primarily through a framework of power and oppression, the teacher is not simply teaching a neutral intellectual skill. The teacher is introducing a particular theory about how society operates. If children are then encouraged to move from developing “critical consciousness” towards action intended to transform that society, the educational process has moved beyond teaching children how to think.
It begins to tell them what kind of understanding should be developed and what that understanding should lead to. That is the point at which education risks becoming political mobilisation.
The distinction is fundamental
A teacher saying:
“Here are the competing explanations. Examine the evidence and decide what you think.”
is facilitating independent thought.
A teacher saying, in effect:
“Let us identify the power structures and oppression operating here, develop our critical consciousness and consider how we can act to transform them.”
is operating within a very different educational philosophy.
The second approach may be sincerely motivated. It may even be intended to empower children. Empowerment is not the same thing as neutrality.
Indeed, the paradox is that a pedagogy designed to challenge power can itself involve a significant exercise of power when introduced by an adult educator to children.
- The teacher decides which social structures are presented as oppressive.
- The teacher decides which experiences are interpreted through that framework.
- The teacher introduces the language through which pupils are encouraged to understand those experiences.
- And the teacher can then position activism or social action as the appropriate response.
The child may experience this as empowerment. It does not follow that a political conclusion reached through a language of empowerment makes the process politically neutral. It does not.
The political impartiality framework draws an important boundary
This is where the issue becomes particularly relevant to schools. Political impartiality does not mean avoiding politics. The Department for Education explicitly states that teaching political issues and different viewpoints is an essential part of a broad and balanced curriculum. Schools should help pupils develop the ability to form their own views and opinions.
The law instead prohibits schools from promoting partisan political views.
The DfE explains that partisan political views can come not only from political parties but also from campaign groups, lobbyists and charitable organisations. It defines promotion as encouraging pupils to support or adopt those views.
Most importantly for this discussion, the DfE provides an environmental example. Schools can encourage pupils to think about environmental issues and can support non-political environmental action.
But it would not be appropriate for a teacher to suggest that pupils join a particular campaigning group or participate in a specific political activity, such as an upcoming protest. Teachers may explain how pupils can become more involved outside school, but should provide information about the competing political positions and a balanced account of the issue.
That distinction is remarkably relevant to the paper under consideration.
The paper is not a school lesson and the researcher is not thereby accused of breaking school law. Yet its theoretical proposition creates an important question:
If activism is conceptualised as education, what prevents education from becoming activism?
The legal framework for schools provides part of the answer:
political education must leave room for pupils’ own judgement rather than treating a particular political action as the desired educational outcome.
A child’s political freedom is not a licence for adult political direction
There is another distinction that should not be lost. Children and young people have political opinions. They have freedom of expression. Older pupils may participate in lawful political activity outside school. The DfE explicitly recognises that pupils’ interest and engagement in political issues should be encouraged.
Supporting a child’s autonomy is not the same as directing that autonomy.
A school that says:
“Here are the facts. Here are the arguments. Here is how political participation works. Decide what you think.”
is supporting autonomy.
A school that says:
“The development of critical consciousness requires action to transform society.”
has moved into a different philosophical territory.
The difference is not whether children are allowed to act. It is whether the educational institution has predetermined what meaningful critical consciousness ought to lead them towards.
The paper’s own language makes the distinction especially important
The paper concludes that the young activists’ actions represented the political and moral practice of critical pedagogy and that, through their activism, they demonstrated their capacity to educate themselves and others and to imagine better futures.
That is a legitimate scholarly argument. But it is also a normative educational argument.
The paper is not merely saying:
“These young people learned through activism.”
It is saying, in substance:
“This activism demonstrates a form of critical pedagogy from which education can learn.”
That is where Protect and Teach draws the line.
We do not believe that children should be treated as empty vessels whose views must simply be filled by adults. Nor do we believe that children should be treated as political instruments for social transformation.
We believe children deserve something more fundamental: the opportunity to acquire knowledge and develop the intellectual independence to decide what they think.
That includes the freedom to become activists.
It also includes the freedom not to become activists.
What would teaching free from political activism look like?
- It would not be politically silent.
- It would not avoid controversial issues.
- It would not prevent pupils from challenging their teachers.
- It would not prohibit political discussion.
- It would not require every viewpoint to be treated as equally supported by evidence.
Instead, it would establish a clear separation between knowledge, analysis and advocacy.
A teacher might say:
Here is what the evidence shows.
Then:
Here are the competing interpretations.
Then:
Here are the arguments for and against the proposed policies.
Then:
Examine the evidence, challenge the assumptions and reach your own conclusion.
What the teacher should not do is quietly turn:
“Reach your own conclusion”
into:
“Reach the conclusion that genuine critical consciousness requires you to act.”
That is the difference between education for independent thought and education for political mobilisation.
Protect and Teach’s position
Protect and Teach does not oppose:
- teaching about the climate change; environmental policy; political activism; protest movements; social movements etc;
- children questioning authority;
- children challenging accepted ideas;
- children forming opinions that may be political;
- or children participating lawfully in democratic life.
We oppose the idea that education should be built around a predetermined political or ideological account of society.
We oppose treating children as though the correct development of critical thought necessarily requires them to identify structures of oppression and then participate in transforming them.
And we reject the assumption that critical thinking requires Freirean critical pedagogy.
- A child can critically examine a proposition without being taught that society should be interpreted through a particular theory of power.
- A child can challenge authority without being taught that authority is inherently suspect.
- A child can recognise injustice without being taught that every educational or social question should be understood principally through oppression and liberation.
- A child can become politically active without being educated for activism.
And perhaps most importantly:
A child can think critically and conclude that the activist position is wrong.
That possibility must remain genuinely open.
Conclusion: Education should open minds, not prescribe their destination
The Hennessy paper provides a qualitative account of how three young climate activists understood their experiences and how those experiences can be interpreted through Freirean critical pedagogy. It is legitimate scholarship to explore those questions. However, we should not confuse an interesting account with an established educational prescription. Nor should we confuse critical thinking with critical pedagogy.
The former can equip a child to question everything; including the premises of the teacher, the researcher, the campaigner, the government, the activist movement and the prevailing social consensus. That is precisely why knowledge matters.
Education should give children the tools to ask:
- What do we know?
- How do we know it?
- What evidence supports it?
- What evidence challenges it?
- What assumptions are being made?
- What alternative explanations exist?
- What conclusions can reasonably be drawn?
And finally:
What do I think?
The answer to that last question belongs to the child. It should not be predetermined by an educational philosophy, however intellectually respectable its origins.
There is a profound difference between educating children to participate in a democracy and educating children towards political activism.
The first protects intellectual freedom. The second risks turning education into an instrument for political and social transformation.
For Protect and Teach, teaching free from political activism does not mean teaching without politics. It means teaching about politics without teaching children what political conclusion they are expected to reach; and teaching critical thought without deciding in advance what that thought must lead them to do.
The purpose of education should not be to produce activists. It should be to give children the knowledge, reasoning skills and intellectual freedom to decide for themselves what they believe; and what, if anything, they choose to do about it.
Glossary: Understanding the Educational and Political Concepts Discussed
This glossary explains some of the academic, educational and political terminology used in the research discussed in this article. The definitions below are intended to help parents, educators and members of the public understand the terminology without requiring prior knowledge of educational theory.
- Activism: Taking action to try to change something, usually a political, social or environmental issue. This can include campaigning, protests, petitions or political organising.
- Agency: A person’s ability to make their own choices, express their views and take action.
- Critical consciousness: A Freirean term for becoming aware of power, inequality and oppression in society, and recognising that these can be challenged and changed.
- Critical pedagogy: An approach to education, strongly associated with Paulo Freire, which focuses on power, oppression, inequality and social change. It sees education as something that can help people challenge and change society.
- Critical thinking: The ability to examine evidence, question claims, consider different explanations and reach your own reasoned conclusion. Critical thinking does not require a particular political belief.
- Dialogue: Learning through discussion and questioning rather than simply having information given by the teacher.
- Empowerment: Giving people greater confidence, ability or opportunity to make decisions and take action for themselves.
- Ideology: A set of ideas or beliefs about how society works or how society should work. An ideology is not automatically good or bad. The important question is whether it is being examined or promoted.
- Oppression: The unfair use of power or control over people or groups. In critical pedagogy, the term is often used more broadly to describe social systems or structures that are considered to disadvantage particular groups.
- Partisan: Supporting a particular political side, position, party or campaign.
- Political impartiality: The requirement for schools not to promote partisan political views and, where political issues involve competing views, to ensure pupils are able to consider them fairly. Political impartiality does not mean that schools cannot teach politics or controversial subjects.
- Political socialisation: The process through which people develop their political views, attitudes and understanding. Children can be influenced by parents, friends, schools, media, social media and wider society.
- Praxis: A Freirean term meaning roughly thinking about a problem and then taking action to change it. In simple terms: reflection → action → reflection → further action. This is important because it connects education with activism and social change.
- Power: The ability to influence, control or make decisions. In a school, teachers have a position of authority over pupils. This is one reason why the way political or ideological ideas are presented to children matters.
- Social transformation: Changing society, its institutions or its structures in significant ways.
- Youth activism: Political or social campaigning carried out by young people. Young people can have political opinions and participate in lawful democratic activity. The question considered in this article is whether schools should actively encourage political activism as part of education.
The most important distinction
The terms critical thinking and critical consciousness can sound similar, but they are not the same.
Critical thinking:
What is the evidence? What are the arguments? What should I conclude?
Critical consciousness:
What power structures are operating here? Who is disadvantaged? What needs to change?
And praxis takes this further:
Having identified what needs to change, what action should we take?
Understanding that distinction is important to the argument made by Protect and Teach in this article.
A note on the scope of this critique
This article does not argue that the Hennessy paper is unlawful, that the researcher has breached professional standards, or that youth climate activism is inherently illegitimate.
The criticism is narrower and more substantive:
The paper adopts an explicitly Freirean theoretical framework, interprets activism as education through that framework, and then uses the resulting interpretation to support a broader argument about educational transformation. Protect and Teach disputes the proposition that this constitutes the same thing as teaching children critical thought in a politically impartial educational environment.
That is a debate about educational philosophy, methodology, evidence and the proper boundaries of political activism within education not an argument against children learning about the climate or participating in democratic life.
Sources and Further Reading
The following sources were used in researching and preparing this article. Wherever possible, we have provided a direct link to the original research, legislation, government guidance or publication so that readers can examine the material for themselves.
Primary research
Hennessy, L. J. (2025). “The purpose of activism is to educate”: Young people’s climate activism as and for education in the youth strike movement in England. British Educational Research Journal. DOI: 10.1002/berj.4210. The original paper is published as an open-access article in the British Educational Research Journal. The paper sets out the study’s methodology, participants, theoretical framework, findings and conclusions. It explicitly discusses Freirean critical pedagogy, critical consciousness, activism as education and calls for educational reform.
- Read the full research paper — Wiley Online Library
University of Bristol – research record. The University of Bristol research record provides additional information about the study, including its authorship, research context and publication details.
Political impartiality and education law
Department for Education – Political impartiality in schools: This is the key government guidance for the discussion of political impartiality in this article. It explains the existing legal duties applying to schools in England, including the requirement that schools must prohibit the promotion of partisan political views and should take steps to ensure the balanced presentation of opposing views on political issues when they are brought to pupils’ attention. The guidance also discusses teaching about political issues, external organisations and speakers, extra-curricular activities and political activity involving pupils. The guidance was updated on 21 March 2025.
Department for Education – What you need to know about political impartiality in schools: The DfE also provides a shorter summary document explaining the main requirements concerning political impartiality. This is particularly useful for parents because it sets out the principles in a more accessible format.
Education Act 1996; sections 406 and 407 – Sections 406 and 407 of the Education Act 1996 establish important statutory requirements concerning political indoctrination and political impartiality in maintained schools. Section 406 concerns the prohibition on the promotion of partisan political views. Section 407 concerns the requirement to secure a balanced presentation of opposing views when political issues are brought to pupils’ attention. The current DfE guidance explains how these provisions operate and notes that equivalent requirements apply to academies through their funding agreements.
Department for Education – Teachers’ Standards: The Teachers’ Standards establish the minimum requirements for teachers’ practice and conduct in England. Part Two is particularly relevant when considering teachers’ professional responsibilities, including maintaining public trust in the profession, respecting the rights of others and having regard to pupils’ wellbeing and vulnerability. The standards have statutory force under the relevant regulations.
Curriculum, knowledge and critical thinking
Department for Education – National curriculum: Citizenship: The statutory citizenship curriculum provides an important comparison with the educational model discussed in the article. It states that citizenship education should provide pupils with knowledge and understanding of democracy, government and participation while also equipping them to explore political and social issues critically, weigh evidence, debate and make reasoned arguments. This is important to the Protect and Teach argument because the curriculum itself demonstrates that political education and critical thought do not require political activism to be the educational objective.
Department for Education – National curriculum: English: The English curriculum provides further examples of the importance of knowledge, discussion, evidence, argument and reasoned judgement. It requires pupils to develop knowledge, understanding, discussion and debate skills and to become confident in expressing and explaining their own ideas.
Department for Education – Citizenship studies GCSE grade descriptors: The GCSE citizenship grade descriptors provide a useful example of how critical analysis is assessed within formal education. Higher attainment requires pupils to demonstrate relevant knowledge, consider a variety of viewpoints, construct convincing arguments, undertake evidence-based analysis and reach well-substantiated conclusions. The descriptors therefore provide a useful distinction between critical analysis and political advocacy.
Research ethics and educational research
British Educational Research Association – Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research, fifth edition (2024): BERA’s Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research provide a major reference point for educational researchers. The guidelines discuss responsibilities to research participants, research methods, publication and dissemination, researcher conduct and the ethical responsibilities associated with educational research. They also discuss the importance of recognising differences in perspective, including political belief, and acknowledge that educational research encompasses different philosophical and methodological approaches. These guidelines are particularly relevant when considering researcher positionality, interpretation and the distinction between empirical findings and wider theoretical or normative claims.
School attendance
Department for Education – School attendance and absence: The government’s school attendance overview explains the statutory expectation that children of compulsory school age receive an education. For children enrolled in school, absence is recorded and managed through the statutory attendance framework. This is relevant to the article because learning something through an activity outside school does not automatically change the legal status of school attendance or make an absence educationally authorised.
Department for Education – Working together to improve school attendance: This statutory guidance provides the more detailed framework governing attendance responsibilities for schools, trusts, local authorities, parents and pupils. It explains how schools should work with families, record attendance and absence, identify attendance problems and respond to persistent or severe absence.
Department for Education – Monitor your school attendance: The DfE’s attendance monitoring guidance provides further information about how attendance and absence data are recorded and analysed. It is particularly useful for understanding the distinction between individual absence, persistent absence and severe absence.
Why these sources matter to this article
These sources have been selected deliberately rather than simply because they support the position taken by Protect and Teach.
The article distinguishes between:
- what the research paper actually studied;
- what its participants reported;
- the theoretical framework used to interpret those accounts;
- the wider educational conclusions drawn from that interpretation;
- and the legal and educational framework governing schools in England.
Children should be taught in a way that protects their ability to examine evidence, question competing claims and reach their own conclusions; rather than having political activism or social transformation presented as the predetermined purpose or outcome of developing critical consciousness.
Readers are encouraged to examine the original sources and reach their own conclusions.