The Self (Intensive Adjective or Being) Authentic, Hiding or Material?

Abstract

The present chapter takes on the underlying assumptions of ‘the self’ grounded once again in a duality—the individual outside the bodily, the material, and the one inside, the immaterial but more ‘real’. A number of examples are shared through which the consequences are discussed for education and schooling. The authors explain that these consequences show the multiple issues that are relevant to who holds the power, and who has the right to say to somebody whether he or she really understands or does not. Through their analysis, the authors emphasize that we seem to have a preference for the hidden, the ‘true self’ and their reasons, their whys rather than for what is available to us as the product of their doings.