Like his fellow Frankfurt School theorists Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer’s Dialectic of Enlightenment (see here), Herbert Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man (1964) offers another theoretical lens through which to critique the ‘What Works’ agenda in education – the notion that ‘evidence-based practice’ must be grounded in measurable data, arguably at the expense of qualitative research, professional judgement and ethical or value-based considerations.

^{_{Herbert Marcuse in Newton, Massachusetts in 1955 (Wikicommons)}}

Writing in the context of post-war capitalist societies, Marcuse argued that advanced industrial culture had created a new form of social control – not through overt repression, but through the internalisation of a particular mode of thinking. This was what he called one-dimensionality: the dominance of a form of rationality that privileges technical efficiency, standardisation and the status quo, while suppressing critical, oppositional and imaginative thought.

In education, this one-dimensional logic finds a clear expression in the dominance of ‘What Works’ evidence-based practice as a managerial tool. In this configuration, ‘What works’ becomes synonymous with ‘what is measurable,’ and educational value is increasingly equated with quantifiable outcomes like standardised test scores or cost-efficiency (Biesta, 2010; Ball, 2021). This narrows the scope of educational purpose to what can be captured by data and flattens diverse pedagogical aims into a single dimension: impact.

Marcuse warns that technological rationality, when uncritically embraced, leads to the collapse of critical reason. Tools and systems designed to liberate human potential instead entrench conformity and administer behaviour. In this world, dissent doesn’t disappear – it simply becomes unthinkable. As he writes, ‘The range of choice open to the individual is not the decisive factor in determining freedom, but what can be chosen‘ (Marcuse, 1964, p. 7). When the only choices available are those already framed by technical rationality, critical alternatives fade from view.

In education, this manifests in how policy, funding and professional development are increasingly tied to a narrow range of evidence-backed interventions (see Jones, 2025). Teachers are urged to ‘follow the science,’ but the science is often defined narrowly – as that which adheres to experimental designs and statistical validation. Alternative paradigms – such as critical pedagogy, culturally responsive education or democratic schooling – struggle to gain legitimacy because their aims are not easily measurable or because they challenge dominant ideologies.

Moreover, Marcuse’s analysis of language in One-Dimensional Man is especially relevant here. He critiques how language in advanced industrial societies becomes flattened, stripped of its oppositional force. Terms like ‘freedom,’ ‘choice’ or ‘progress’ are emptied of their historical and philosophical complexity and used to reinforce existing structures. In the educational domain, the language of ‘evidence,’ ‘rigour’ and ‘effectiveness’ often functions similarly – invoking objectivity while foreclosing deeper ethical or philosophical questions.

For instance, a reading program may be declared ‘effective’ because it boosts reading comprehension scores in a trial. But what kind of reading? For what ends? Does it cultivate a love of literature, an ability to question the world or merely functional decoding skills? These qualitative distinctions disappear in a one-dimensional framework where efficacy is assumed to be self-evident.

Marcuse would also urge us to consider the political implications of this technocratic orientation. The depoliticisation of education – where questions of justice, equity and ideology are bracketed in favour of ‘neutral’ data – serves to reinforce existing hierarchies. When the goals of education are defined exclusively in terms of performance and economic utility, the space for imagining radical alternatives shrinks. As Marcuse (1964) argues, even criticism can become ‘repressive’ when it is permitted only within the bounds of sanctioned discourse.

Thus, the ‘What Works’ approach does not merely guide practice; it shapes the entire horizon of what is thinkable in education. It limits not only how we teach, but what we imagine education is for. The teacher ceases to be a critical intellectual and becomes a data-driven deliverer of interventions. Students, in turn, become recipients of input, outputs to be optimised, rather than agents in their own learning.

To resist one-dimensionality in education, we need a reassertion of the qualitative, the critical and the utopian. Marcuse does not reject science or rationality per se, and I certainly don’t reject the ‘science of learning’ in my own practice, but he insists that they must be connected to human emancipation. In the educational context, this means using evidence in dialogue with values, purposes, and political commitments – not as a substitute for them.

We must ask not only what works, but what liberates.

References

Ball, S. J. (2021). The education debate (4th ed.). Policy Press.​

Biesta, G. (2010). Good education in an age of measurement: Ethics, politics, democracy. Routledge.

Jones, A. (2025). Pedagogical prophet? David Hargreaves’ 1996 vision for a research-based profession: A 2024 reality check. PRISM: Casting New Light on Learning, Theory and Practice. Advance online publication. https://openjournals.ljmu.ac.uk/index.php/prism/article/view/

Marcuse, H. (1964). One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society. Beacon Press.