I recently asked a fellow academic, in conversation, how they try to integrate critical thinking into their classroom, and they replied that they don’t have "much time for that kind of thing." I quickly realised that they didn’t know what I was talking about and likely confused it for something else. This shouldn’t have been entirely surprising to me, given research by Lloyd and Bahr (2010) indicates that, unfortunately, many educators are not au fait with what critical thinking actually is. Following further conversation, I came to understand what this academic was referring to: critical theory. This was neither the first time I’ve encountered such confusion of terms, nor was it the first time I heard criticism of the field.

I recognise that the phrasing "critical lens" one often hears in educational contexts might be a bit ambiguous and could be perceived in various ways. Critical thinking is many things, but one thing it is not is critical theory. Critical theory is an arts and humanities approach to identifying, critiquing, and challenging social dynamics and power structures within society (e.g., see Tyson 2023, Marcuse, 1968). Simply, it’s a critique of society; hence, the name—though some in the field would argue this and uphold the belief that it’s an association with our beloved critical thinking. I would argue that such people would fit in well with the aforementioned cohort of people who don’t really understand what critical thinking is.

The critical theory approach developed out of post-World War II German social climates as a means of exploring how Germany and, indeed, Europe got to where they were at that point in time. This is reasonable; indeed, psychology was interested in these implications as well (e.g., consider the work of Milgram and Asch). Critical theory grew from there into other socially aware........

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