Critical pedagogy

Critical pedagogy
Major works
Pedagogy of the Oppressed
Theorists
Paulo Freire · John Dewey Henry Giroux · Peter McLaren Joe Kincheloe · Shirley Steinberg
Pedagogy
Anti-oppressive education Anti-bias curriculum Anti-racist mathematics Multicultural education Curriculum studies Teaching for social justice Inclusion (education) Humanitarian education Student-centred learning Popular education Feminist composition · Ecopedagogy Queer pedagogy · Critical literacy Critical reading Critical consciousness
Concepts
Praxis · Hidden curriculum Consciousness raising Poisonous pedagogy
Related
Reconstructivism · Critical theory Frankfurt School Political consciousness
philosophy of education described by Henry Giroux as an "educational movement, guided by passion and principle, to help students develop consciousness of freedom, recognize authoritarian tendencies, and connect knowledge to power and the ability to take constructive action."[1] Based in Marxist theory, critical pedagogy draws on radical democracy, anarchism, feminism, and other movements that strive for what they describe as social justice. Critical pedagogue Ira Shor 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[2] 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, 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."[3] Realizing one’s consciousness ("conscientization") 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."[3] Postmodern, anti-racist, feminist, postcolonial, and queer 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, military identification, race, gender, sexuality, nationality, ethnicity, and age. Many contemporary critical pedagogues have embraced postmodern, anti-essentialist 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."[3] Contemporary critical educators, such as bell hooks appropriated by Peter McLaren, 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.[3] Joe L. Kincheloe and Shirley R. Steinberg have created the Paulo and Nita Freire Project for International Critical Pedagogy at McGill University.[4] 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 discourses from peoples around the planet. Writing from outside the critical pedagogy camp, philosopher Stephen Hicks[5] 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. Examples History During South African apartheid, legal racialization 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.[6] Literature Authors of critical pedagogy texts include not only Paulo Freire, as mentioned above, but also Michael Apple, Kitty Kelly Epstein, Henry Giroux, Antonia Darder, bell hooks, Gloria Ladson Billings, Peter McLaren, Joe L. Kincheloe, Howard Zinn, Donaldo Macedo, Khen Lampert, and others. Educationalists including Jonathan Kozol and Parker Palmer are sometimes included in this category. Other critical pedagogues known more for their anti-schooling, unschooling, or deschooling perspectives include Ivan Illich, John Holt, Ira Shor, John Taylor Gatto, and Matt Hern. Much of the work draws on anarchism, feminism, Marxism, György Lukács, Wilhelm Reich, postcolonialism, and the discourse theories of Edward Said, Antonio Gramsci and Michel Foucault. Radical Teacher 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[7] argues that critical pedagogy's objections to the Western canon 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,[8] 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 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 and Peter McLaren among others.[9] Journals Theory in Action is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal. [1] It takes an interdisciplinary approach based on critical pedagogy. It was established in 2008 and is edited by John Asimakopoulos and Ali Zaidi. See also Adult education Anti-oppressive education Anti-racist mathematics John Asimakopoulos Critical consciousness Critical psychology Critical thinking Curriculum studies Ecopedagogy Inclusive school Left-wing politics Literacy Popular education Praxis intervention Praxis School Rouge Forum Social criticism Student voice Teaching for social justice Women's rights References ^ Giroux, H. (October 27, 2010) "Lessons From Paulo Freire", Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved 10/20/10. ^ Searle, John. (1990) The Storm Over the University, The New York Review of Books, December 6, 1990. ^ a b c d Critical Pedagogy on the Web ^ The Freire International Project for Critical Pedagogy ^ Hicks, Stephen R.C. (2004) Explaining Postmodernism: Skepticism and Socialism from Rousseau to Foucault. Tempe, AZ: Scholargy Press, ISBN 1-59274-646-5 , pp. 18-19. ^ Wieder, Alan (2003). Voices from Cape Town Classrooms: Oral Histories of Teachers Who Fought Apartheid. History of Schools and Schooling Series, vol. 39. New York: Peter Lang. ISBN 0-8204-6768-5. ^ Searle, 1990 ^ http://www.infed.org/thinkers/hooks.htm ^ Transformative Studies Institute Wikimedia Foundation. 2010. Игры ⚽ Нужно решить контрольную? Peyton Place (TV series) Yōsuke Matsuoka Look at other dictionaries: Critical consciousness — Critical pedagogy Major works Pedagogy of the Oppressed …   Wikipedia Critical literacy — Critical pedagogy Major works Pedagogy of the Oppressed …   Wikipedia Critical reading — Critical pedagogy Major works Pedagogy of the Oppressed …   Wikipedia Pedagogy — (IPAEng|ˈpɛdəgɒdʒi), or paedagogy is the art or science of being a teacher. The term generally refers to strategies of instruction, or a style of instruction. [ [from NSF] ] Pedagogy is also sometimes referred to as the correct use of teaching… …   Wikipedia Pedagogy of the Oppressed — is the most widely known of educator Paulo Freire s works. It was first published in Portuguese in 1968 as Pedagogia do oprimido and the first English translation was published in 1970. The book examines the struggle for justice and equity within …   Wikipedia Critical race theory — (CRT) is an academic discipline focused upon the intersection of race, law and power. Although no set of canonical doctrines or methodologies defines CRT, the movement is loosely unified by two common areas of inquiry. First, CRT has analyzed the …   Wikipedia Critical management studies — (CMS) is a loose but extensive grouping of politically left wing and theoretically informed critiques of management, business and organisation, grounded originally in a critical theory perspective. Today it encompasses a wide range of… …   Wikipedia Critical friend — has its origins in critical pedagogy education reforms in the 1970s and arose out of the self appraisal activity which is attributed to Desmond Nuttall [1]. One of the most widely used definitions is from 1993, A critical friend can be defined as …   Wikipedia Critical legal studies — is a movement in legal thought that applied methods similar to those of critical theory (the Frankfurt School) to law. The abbreviations CLS and Crit are sometimes used to refer to the movement and its adherents. Contents 1 History 2 Themes 3… …   Wikipedia Critical discourse analysis — (CDA) is an interdisciplinary approach to the study of discourse that views language as a form of social practice and focuses on the ways social and political domination are visible in text and talk.[1] Since Norman Fairclough s Language and… …   Wikipedia 18+ © Academic, 2000-2025 Contact us: Technical Support, Advertising Dictionaries export, created on PHP, Joomla, Drupal, WordPress, MODx. Mark and share Search through all dictionaries Translate… Search Internet Share the article and excerpts Direct link … Do a right-click on the link above and select “Copy Link”