CRITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS OF SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS: AN INVESTIGATIVE SURVEY

The whole human race is travelling through an age of exploitation, social, political, economic, cultural and so on. All these ill-treatments influence the daily life of the common man as a considerable issue. Critical consciousness of a person significantly affects the situation. It enables man to critically analyze the structural oppression and to change inequalities within their sociopolitical environments (Freire, 1973, 1993) through critical reflection and critical action. At the same time it keeps them away from victimization. The society expects rattling renovations from the new generation which is the only way for structural improvement of the milieu. All that depends on the critical consciousness of the imminent generation. Hence the study focuses on the mensuration of critical consciousness of secondary school students who represent the impending generation. At the same time the study values the effectiveness of prevailing educational system of the state in developing critical consciousness as the system is said to be rooted in Freirian ideas and concepts and giving prominence to the development of critical consciousness. The present study attempts to chalk out the level of Critical Consciousness among secondary school students of Kerala. Survey method is adopted for the study. Sample constitutes 125 students of standard eighth. Critical consciousness Scale developed by the investigators is used for the data collection. The survey reveals mediocrity of Critical Consciousness among the secondary school students.