Developing ‘emancipatory interest’: learning to create social change

Developing an emancipatory interest enables individuals to free themselves from the intersubjective or commonly held meanings that dominate their understanding of their current world, and subsequently change their practices. We argue that developing an emancipatory interest is critical in learning to create social change, that is, wanting to create a better world and society for self and others. In this paper we provide an insight on how to do this by drawing on research about a learning program with Australian university students. A semi-structured interview schedule using eight broad questions was administered between March and May 2011 with students involved in the program. The discussion is informed by Habermas' concept of the life-world and the use of the data analysis tool Leximancer.