Critical pedagogy
Encyclopedia
Critical pedagogy is a philosophy of education
Philosophy of education
Philosophy of education can refer to either the academic field of applied philosophy or to one of any educational philosophies that promote a specific type or vision of education, and/or which examine the definition, goals and meaning of education....

 described by Henry Giroux
Henry Giroux
Henry Giroux, born September 18, 1943, in Providence, Rhode Island, is an American cultural critic. One of the founding theorists of critical pedagogy in the United States, he is best known for his pioneering work in public pedagogy, cultural studies, youth studies, higher education, media studies,...

 as an "educational movement, guided by passion and principle, to help students develop consciousness
Critical consciousness
Critical consciousness, conscientization, or conscientização , is a popular education and social concept developed by Brazilian pedagogue and educational theorist Paulo Freire, grounded in Marxist critical theory...

 of freedom, recognize authoritarian tendencies, and connect knowledge to power and the ability to take constructive action."

Based in Marxist
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...

 theory, critical pedagogy draws on radical democracy
Radical democracy
Radical democracy as an ideology was articulated by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe in their book Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics, written in 1985. They argue that social movements which attempt to create social and political change need a strategy which...

, anarchism
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...

, feminism
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...

, and other movements that strive for what they describe as social justice
Social justice
Social justice generally refers to the idea of creating a society or institution that is based on the principles of equality and solidarity, that understands and values human rights, and that recognizes the dignity of every human being. The term and modern concept of "social justice" was coined by...

. Critical pedagogue Ira Shor
Ira Shor
Ira Shor is a professor at the City University of New York, where he teaches composition and rhetoric. In collaboration with Paulo Freire, he has been one of the leading exponents of critical pedagogy.-Biography:...

 defines critical pedagogy as:
"Habits of thought, reading, writing, and speaking which go beneath surface meaning, first impressions, dominant myths, official pronouncements, traditional clichés, received wisdom, and mere opinions, to understand the deep meaning, root causes, social context, ideology, and personal consequences of any action, event, object, process, organization, experience, text, subject matter, policy, mass media, or discourse." (Empowering Education, 129)

Critical pedagogy includes relationships between teaching and learning. Its proponents claim that it is a continuous process of what they call "unlearning," "learning," and "relearning," "reflection," "evaluation," and the impact that these actions have on the students, in particular students whom they believe have been historically and continue to be disenfranchised by what they call "traditional schooling."

Philosopher John Searle
John Searle
John Rogers Searle is an American philosopher and currently the Slusser Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley.-Biography:...

 suggests that, despite the "opaque prose" and lofty claims of proponents, the true goal of critical pedagogy is "to create political radicals".

Background

Critical pedagogy was heavily influenced by the works of Paulo Freire
Paulo Freire
Paulo Reglus Neves Freire was a Brazilian educator and influential theorist of critical pedagogy.-Biography:...

, arguably the most celebrated critical educator. According to his writings, Freire heavily endorses students’ ability to think critically about their education situation; this way of thinking allows them to "recognize connections between their individual problems and experiences and the social contexts in which they are embedded." Realizing one’s consciousness ("conscientization
Critical consciousness
Critical consciousness, conscientization, or conscientização , is a popular education and social concept developed by Brazilian pedagogue and educational theorist Paulo Freire, grounded in Marxist critical theory...

") is a needed first step of "praxis," which is defined as the power and know-how to take action against oppression while stressing the importance of liberating education. "Praxis involves engaging in a cycle of theory, application, evaluation, reflection, and then back to theory. Social transformation is the product of praxis at the collective level."

Postmodern, anti-racist, feminist, postcolonial, and queer
Queer
Queer is an umbrella term for sexual minorities that are not heterosexual, heteronormative, or gender-binary. In the context of Western identity politics the term also acts as a label setting queer-identifying people apart from discourse, ideologies, and lifestyles that typify mainstream LGBT ...

 theories all play a role in further explaining Freire’s ideas of critical pedagogy, shifting its main focus on social class to include issues pertaining to religion
Religion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...

, military identification
Military rank
Military rank is a system of hierarchical relationships in armed forces or civil institutions organized along military lines. Usually, uniforms denote the bearer's rank by particular insignia affixed to the uniforms...

, race, gender
Gender
Gender is a range of characteristics used to distinguish between males and females, particularly in the cases of men and women and the masculine and feminine attributes assigned to them. Depending on the context, the discriminating characteristics vary from sex to social role to gender identity...

, sexuality
Sexual orientation
Sexual orientation describes a pattern of emotional, romantic, or sexual attractions to the opposite sex, the same sex, both, or neither, and the genders that accompany them. By the convention of organized researchers, these attractions are subsumed under heterosexuality, homosexuality,...

, nationality
Nationality
Nationality is membership of a nation or sovereign state, usually determined by their citizenship, but sometimes by ethnicity or place of residence, or based on their sense of national identity....

, ethnicity, and age. Many contemporary critical pedagogues have embraced postmodern, anti-essentialist
Non-essentialism
In philosophy, non-essentialism is the belief that any given entity or subject cannot be propositionally defined in terms of specified values or characteristics, which that entity must have in order to be defined as that entity. For example, some humanists may have an idea of what the essence of...

 perspectives of the individual, of language, and of power, "while at the same time retaining the Freirean emphasis on critique, disrupting oppressive regimes of power/knowledge, and social change." Contemporary critical educators, such as bell hooks
Bell hooks
Gloria Jean Watkins , better known by her pen name bell hooks, is an American author, feminist, and social activist....

 appropriated by Peter McLaren
Peter McLaren
Peter McLaren is a Professor in the Division of Urban Schooling, the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles . He is the author and editor of forty-five books and hundreds of scholarly articles and chapters...

, discuss in their criticisms the influence of many varied concerns, institutions, and social structures, "including globalization, the mass media, and race/spiritual relations," while citing reasons for resisting the possibilities to change.

Joe L. Kincheloe
Joe L. Kincheloe
Joe Lyons Kincheloe, , was a professor and Canada Research Chair at the Faculty of Education, McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He wrote more than 45 books, numerous book-chapters, and hundreds of journal articles on issues including critical pedagogy, educational research, urban...

 and Shirley R. Steinberg have created the Paulo and Nita Freire Project for International Critical Pedagogy at McGill University. In line with Kincheloe and Steinberg's contributions to critical pedagogy, the project attempts to move the field to the next phase of its evolution. In this second phase critical pedagogy seeks to truly become a worldwide, decolonizing movement dedicated to listening to and learning from diverse discourse
Discourse
Discourse generally refers to "written or spoken communication". The following are three more specific definitions:...

s from peoples around the planet.

Writing from outside the critical pedagogy camp, philosopher Stephen Hicks
Stephen Hicks
Stephen Ronald Craig Hicks is professor of philosophy at Rockford College, where he is also Executive Director of the Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship.-Biography:...

 describes the motives and practical application of what he terms "postmodern education"
In education, postmodernism rejects the notion that the purpose of education is primarily to train a child’s cognitive capacity for reason in order to produce an adult capable of functioning independently in the world. That view of education is replaced with the view that education is to take an essentially indeterminate being and give it a social identity. Education’s method of molding is linguistic, and so the language to be used is that which will create a human being sensitive to its racial, sexual, and class identity. Our current social context, however, is characterized by oppression that benefits whites, males, and the rich at the expense of everyone else. That oppression in turn leads to an educational system that reflects only or primarily the interests of those in positions of power. To counteract that bias, educational practice must be recast totally. Postmodern education should emphasize works not in the canon; it should focus on the achievements of non-whites, females, and the poor; it should highlight the historical crimes of whites, males, and the rich; and it should teach students that science’s method has no better claim to yielding truth than any other method and, accordingly, that students should be equally receptive to alternative ways of knowing.


History

During South African apartheid, legal racialization
Racialization
Racialization refers to processes of the discursive production of racial identities. It signifies the extension of dehumanizing and racial meanings to a previously racially unclassified relationship, social practice, or group...

 implemented by the regime drove members of the radical leftist Teachers' League of South Africa to employ critical pedagogy with a focus on nonracialism in Cape Town schools and prisons. Teachers collaborated loosely to subvert the racist curriculum and encourage critical examination of religious, military, political, and social circumstances in terms of spirit-friendly, humanist, and democratic ideologies. The efforts of such teachers are credited with having bolstered student resistance and activism.

Literature

Authors of critical pedagogy texts include not only Paulo Freire
Paulo Freire
Paulo Reglus Neves Freire was a Brazilian educator and influential theorist of critical pedagogy.-Biography:...

, as mentioned above, but also Michael Apple
Michael Apple
Michael W. Apple is a leading critical educational theorist, recognized for numerous books and scholarly interests, which center on education and power, cultural politics, curriculum theory and research, critical teaching, and the development of democratic schools.He is currently the , at the...

, Kitty Kelly Epstein, Henry Giroux
Henry Giroux
Henry Giroux, born September 18, 1943, in Providence, Rhode Island, is an American cultural critic. One of the founding theorists of critical pedagogy in the United States, he is best known for his pioneering work in public pedagogy, cultural studies, youth studies, higher education, media studies,...

, Antonia Darder
Antonia Darder
Antonia Darder, Ph.D. is an internationally recognized scholar, artist, poet, activist, and public intellectual. Dr. Darder holds the Leavey Presidential Endowed Chair in Ethics and Moral Leadership in the School of Education at Loyola Marymount University...

, bell hooks, Gloria Ladson Billings, Peter McLaren
Peter McLaren
Peter McLaren is a Professor in the Division of Urban Schooling, the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles . He is the author and editor of forty-five books and hundreds of scholarly articles and chapters...

, Joe L. Kincheloe
Joe L. Kincheloe
Joe Lyons Kincheloe, , was a professor and Canada Research Chair at the Faculty of Education, McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He wrote more than 45 books, numerous book-chapters, and hundreds of journal articles on issues including critical pedagogy, educational research, urban...

, Howard Zinn
Howard Zinn
Howard Zinn was an American historian, academic, author, playwright, and social activist. Before and during his tenure as a political science professor at Boston University from 1964-88 he wrote more than 20 books, which included his best-selling and influential A People's History of the United...

, Donaldo Macedo
Donaldo Macedo
Donaldo Macedo is a Cape Verdean-American critical theorist, linguist, and expert on literacy and education studies. Macedo is professor of English and a Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Education at the University of Massachusetts Boston...

, Khen Lampert
Khen Lampert
Khen Lampert is an educator and a philosopher who teaches Philosophy, History, Cultural Studies and Education. He has extensive experience working with children in underprivileged neighborhoods in Israel, both Jewish and Arab....

, and others. Educationalists including Jonathan Kozol
Jonathan Kozol
Jonathan Kozol is a non-fiction writer, educator, and activist, best known for his books on public education in the United States. Kozol graduated from Noble and Greenough School in 1954, and Harvard University summa cum laude in 1958 with a degree in English Literature. He was awarded a Rhodes...

 and Parker Palmer
Parker Palmer
Parker J. Palmer is an author, educator, and activist who focuses on issues in education, community, leadership, spirituality and social change.-Education:...

 are sometimes included in this category. Other critical pedagogues known more for their anti-schooling, unschooling
Unschooling
Unschooling is a range of educational philosophies and practices centered on allowing children to learn through their natural life experiences, including play, game play, household responsibilities, work experience, and social interaction, rather than through a more traditional school curriculum....

, or deschooling
Deschooling
Deschooling is a term used by both education philosophers and proponents of alternative education and/or homeschooling, though it refers to different things in each context...

 perspectives include Ivan Illich
Ivan Illich
Ivan Illich was an Austrian philosopher, Roman Catholic priest, and "maverick social critic" of the institutions of contemporary western culture and their effects on the provenance and practice of education, medicine, work, energy use, transportation, and economic development.- Personal life...

, John Holt
John Caldwell Holt
John Caldwell Holt was an American author and educator, a proponent of homeschooling, and a pioneer in youth rights theory.-Biography:...

, Ira Shor
Ira Shor
Ira Shor is a professor at the City University of New York, where he teaches composition and rhetoric. In collaboration with Paulo Freire, he has been one of the leading exponents of critical pedagogy.-Biography:...

, John Taylor Gatto
John Taylor Gatto
John Taylor Gatto is a retired American school teacher with nearly 30 years experience in the classroom, and author of several books on education...

, and Matt Hern
Matt hern
Matt Hern is an activist, organizer, writer and academic who lives and works in East Vancouver with his partner and daughters.He directs the and founded ....

.

Much of the work draws on anarchism
Anarchism
Anarchism is generally defined as the political philosophy which holds the state to be undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful, or alternatively as opposing authority in the conduct of human relations...

, feminism
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...

, Marxism
Marxism
Marxism is an economic and sociopolitical worldview and method of socioeconomic inquiry that centers upon a materialist interpretation of history, a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis and critique of the development of capitalism. Marxism was pioneered in the early to mid 19th...

, György Lukács, Wilhelm Reich
Wilhelm Reich
Wilhelm Reich was an Austrian-American psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, known as one of the most radical figures in the history of psychiatry...

, postcolonialism
Postcolonialism
Post-colonialism is a specifically post-modern intellectual discourse that consists of reactions to, and analysis of, the cultural legacy of colonialism...

, and the discourse theories of Edward Said
Edward Said
Edward Wadie Saïd was a Palestinian-American literary theorist and advocate for Palestinian rights. He was University Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University and a founding figure in postcolonialism...

, Antonio Gramsci
Antonio Gramsci
Antonio Gramsci was an Italian writer, politician, political philosopher, and linguist. He was a founding member and onetime leader of the Communist Party of Italy and was imprisoned by Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime...

 and Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...

. Radical Teacher
Radical Teacher
Radical Teacher is a socialist, feminist, and anti-racist magazine dedicated to issues of education. It is published triannually by the Center for Critical Education, Inc., a nonprofit organization. It is edited by a collective of nearly 50 individuals....

is a magazine dedicated to critical pedagogy and issues of interest to critical educators. The Rouge Forum is an online organization led by people involved with critical pedagogy.

Searle argues that critical pedagogy's objections to the Western canon
Western canon
The term Western canon denotes a canon of books and, more broadly, music and art that have been the most important and influential in shaping Western culture. As such, it includes the "greatest works of artistic merit." Such a canon is important to the theory of educational perennialism and the...

 are misplaced and/or disingenuous:
Precisely by inculcating a critical attitude, the "canon" served to demythologize the conventional pieties of the American bourgeoisie and provided the student with a perspective from which to critically analyze American culture and institutions. Ironically, the same tradition is now regarded as oppressive. The texts once served an unmasking function; now we are told that it is the texts which must be unmasked.


Furthermore, bell hooks, who is greatly influenced by Freire, points out the importance of engaged pedagogy and the responsibity that teachers as well as students must have in the classroom:
Teachers must be aware of themselves as practitioners and as human beings if they wish to teach students in a non-threatening, anti-discriminatory way. Self-actualisation should be the goal of the teacher as well as the students.

Institutions

The Transformative Studies Institute
Transformative Studies Institute
The Transformative Studies Institute is an independent 501 nonprofit educational think tank based in the United States. It “was created to provide an inclusive educational space for research and practice for social justice by academics, community organizers, activists, and political leaders”...

 is one example of an educational research institution founded on the principles of critical pedagogy. Its supporters include well known authors of critical pedagogy Henry Giroux
Henry Giroux
Henry Giroux, born September 18, 1943, in Providence, Rhode Island, is an American cultural critic. One of the founding theorists of critical pedagogy in the United States, he is best known for his pioneering work in public pedagogy, cultural studies, youth studies, higher education, media studies,...

 and Peter McLaren
Peter McLaren
Peter McLaren is a Professor in the Division of Urban Schooling, the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles . He is the author and editor of forty-five books and hundreds of scholarly articles and chapters...

 among others.

Journals

Theory in Action
Theory in Action
Theory in Action is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal covering sociology and political science. It takes an interdisciplinary approach, examining interconnections between theory and action aimed at promoting social justice...

is a quarterly peer-reviewed
Peer review
Peer review is a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility...

 academic journal
Academic journal
An academic journal is a peer-reviewed periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as forums for the introduction and presentation for scrutiny of new research, and the critique of existing research...

. http://www.transformativestudies.org/publications/theory-in-action-the-journal-of-tsi/ It takes an interdisciplinary
Interdisciplinarity
Interdisciplinarity involves the combining of two or more academic fields into one single discipline. An interdisciplinary field crosses traditional boundaries between academic disciplines or schools of thought, as new needs and professions have emerged....

 approach based on critical pedagogy. It was established in 2008 and is edited by John Asimakopoulos
John Asimakopoulos
John Asimakopoulos, born September 10, 1970, is associate professor of sociology at the City University of New York-Bronx. He is also a social justice activist, author, and public intellectual.-Background:...

 and Ali Zaidi.

See also

  • Adult education
    Adult education
    Adult education is the practice of teaching and educating adults. Adult education takes place in the workplace, through 'extension' school or 'school of continuing education' . Other learning places include folk high schools, community colleges, and lifelong learning centers...

  • Anti-oppressive education
    Anti-Oppressive Education
    Anti-oppressive education encompasses multiple approaches to learning that actively challenge different forms of what proponents describe as oppression.-About:...

  • Anti-racist mathematics
    Anti-racist mathematics
    Anti-racist mathematics is a branch of education reform theory that sees a need to form a curriculum to counter a perceived bias in mathematics...

  • John Asimakopoulos
    John Asimakopoulos
    John Asimakopoulos, born September 10, 1970, is associate professor of sociology at the City University of New York-Bronx. He is also a social justice activist, author, and public intellectual.-Background:...

  • Critical consciousness
    Critical consciousness
    Critical consciousness, conscientization, or conscientização , is a popular education and social concept developed by Brazilian pedagogue and educational theorist Paulo Freire, grounded in Marxist critical theory...

  • Critical psychology
    Critical psychology
    Critical psychology is an approach to psychology that takes a critical theory–based perspective. Critical psychology is aimed at critiquing mainstream psychology and attempts to apply psychology in more progressive ways, often looking towards social change as a means of preventing and treating...

  • Critical thinking
    Critical thinking
    Critical thinking is the process or method of thinking that questions assumptions. It is a way of deciding whether a claim is true, false, or sometimes true and sometimes false, or partly true and partly false. The origins of critical thinking can be traced in Western thought to the Socratic...

  • Curriculum studies
    Curriculum studies
    Curriculum studies is a field that addresses distinct and important issues related to education. These issues tend to transcend the various areas of educational inquiry as they impact upon the design, implementation, and evaluation of educational programs. These issues tend also to be holistic and...

  • Ecopedagogy
    Ecopedagogy
    The ecopedagogy movement is an outgrowth of developments in critical pedagogy, a body of educational ideas and practices influenced by the philosopher, Paulo Freire...

  • Inclusive school
  • Left-wing politics
    Left-wing politics
    In politics, Left, left-wing and leftist generally refer to support for social change to create a more egalitarian society...

  • Literacy
    Literacy
    Literacy has traditionally been described as the ability to read for knowledge, write coherently and think critically about printed material.Literacy represents the lifelong, intellectual process of gaining meaning from print...

  • Popular education
    Popular education
    Popular education is a concept grounded in notions of class, political struggle, and social transformation. The term is a translation from the Spanish educación popular or the Portuguese educação popular and rather than the English usage as when describing a 'popular television program,' popular...

  • Praxis intervention
    Praxis intervention
    Praxis Intervention is a form of participatory action research. Where other forms of participatory action research emphasize the collective modification of the external world, the praxis intervention model emphasizes working on the Praxis potential of its participants...

  • Praxis School
    Praxis School
    The Praxis school was a Marxist humanist philosophical movement. It originated in Zagreb and Belgrade in the SFR Yugoslavia, during the 1960s.Prominent figures among the school's founders include Gajo Petrović and Milan Kangrga of Zagreb and Mihailo Marković of Belgrade...

  • Rouge Forum
    Rouge Forum
    The Rouge Forum is an organization of educational activists, which focuses on issues of equality, democracy, and social justice.- Origins :The Rouge Forum emerged from a series of political controversies within the National Council for the Social Studies during the 1990s...

  • Social criticism
    Social criticism
    The term social criticism locates the reasons for malicious conditions of the society in flawed social structures. People adhering to a social critics aim at practical solutions by specific measures, often consensual reform but sometimes also by powerful revolution.- European roots :Religious...

  • Student voice
    Student voice
    Student voice describes the distinct perspectives and actions of young people throughout schools focused on education."Student voice is giving students the ability to influence learning to include policies, programs, contexts and principles."...

  • Teaching for social justice
    Teaching for social justice
    Teaching for social justice is an educational philosophy designed to promote socioeconomic equality in the learning environment and instill these values in students. Educators may employ social justice instruction to promote unity on campus, as well as mitigate boundaries to the general curriculum...

  • Women's rights
    Women's rights
    Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...

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