Habermas is much celebrated as a social theorist, but he is not easily categorised due to his range of interests: linguistics, philosophy, developmental psychology, political action.

He was associated with the Frankfurt School in Germany and as such he has always been influenced by the contrast between social and political realities and the world as it could be if opportunities for democratic / emancipatory action were taken. He has at the same time been intensely interested in how we can reach agreement while encouraging democratic debate and the expression of difference.

Habermas introduced the idea of communicative as a special kind of discourse in which there was ‘no other force than that of the better argument’ and no other motive other than ‘the cooperative search for truth’. This cooperative search for truth, or search for genuine consensus, needed to take place in a kind of ideal speech situation in which those with competence were allowed to speak, no one was constrained in speaking, all were allowed to question the grounds for any assertion and new assertions could be put forward. His later work has revisted and revised the idea of ideal speech but it has remained a notion that has been explored in many contexts including education, as in my paper below:

Hammond, M. (2015). A Habermasian perspective on joint meaning making online: What does it offer and what are the difficulties? International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 10(3), 223-237.

This paper turn draws on a paper in our case studies sections.

Bamber, J., & Crowther, J. (2012) Speaking Habermas to Gramsci: Implications for the vocational preparation of community educators. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 31(2), 183-197.

Meanwhile if you would like to follow a more philosophical take on Habermas you could go to this online lecture by Rick Roderick:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itGtf3ZSkyQ