Crane 1

Tim Crane

ENG 371 Independent Study

Dr. Janice Chernekoff

22 April 2009

Critical Pedagogy: Annotated Bibliography

Since Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed was translated into English in 1970,

there’s been much discourse around the potential of “critical pedagogy.” While an admirable

goal, adopting critical pedagogy for the American classroom has been complicated. Freire’s calls

for revolution and optimism in the face of such great obstacles – specifically dehumanizing

teaching practices and capitalization of public education – appealed to me. I wanted to learn

more about this “critical pedagogy.” Freire asserted that education and politics are not only

related, but inseparable. Schools reflect and reinforce the cultural values and political structures

that surround them. Education, like democracy, relies on participation to be effective. If

Americans are to continue to identify their country as “a model of democracy,” our schools must

create citizens that are able to function in that capacity (Literacy 120). Public education in a

democracy requires teachers to critique our institutions, examine our roles in those institutions,

and create environments deliberative of our society.

I’ve grown very much committed to pursuing education as a means of practicing

democracy. It remains my fervent conviction that students deserve a hand in their education, that

teachers should be leaders and not just managers, and that schools have a role to play in the

creation of a more democratic society. I recognize that I have been both the victim and

committer of oppression and work against being either. My definition of literacy has expanded to

include television shows, my students’ attitudes, and even my own pedagogy as texts. I’ve made

the distinction between affirming student experience as part of a challenging curriculum and

Crane 2

affirming student experience as part of a “feel good” education. Despite all this, several issues

still remain unresolved in my mind. What are the best ways to give students power without

spiraling into chaos? Where do we make humor a part of the admittedly serious work that lies

before us? When do we know we’re maneuvering the system as opposed to reinforcing it? How

do we stop ourselves from “burning out” in an educational culture that resists innovation? These

and other questions continue to push me further into the discourses composing and surrounding

critical pedagogy in search of applications to the secondary classroom. My trek through the

discourses has certainly incited me to develop a critical pedagogy of my own, but the questions

of how still linger.

Freire’s now-classic work analyzes the approaches to and practices of education

perpetuating oppression of the poor, thus dehumanizing them. What he calls “the banking

method of education” imposes ignorance on students and places them in opposition to the teacher

who possesses all the knowledge students need or deserve to know (Pedagogy 8). In this model,

the assumption is that students have nothing to offer and only teachers are capable of

contributing to the process of education. Freire envisions an approach to education that corrects

this imbalance. It hopes to empower students in such ways as to enable them to create classroom

discussion. By posing observable, relatable situations as problems to the students, the teacher

engages in dialogue and thus constructs knowledge with the students. These critically conscious

students, in Freire’s view, will revolutionize the oppressive conditions in which they find

themselves. One of his biggest contributions to education was the creation of praxis, the main

task of a critical pedagogue. “Liberation,” writes Freire, “is a praxis: the action and reflection of

men and women upon their world in order to transform it” (Pedagogy 79). Through praxis,

educators can fight alongside the masses in struggle for a more equal society. Freire’s writing has

Crane 3

inspired an entire movement dedicated to ending oppression and practicing democracy in the

classroom and society at large.

Articles dedicated to the theory of democratic education compose most of the

conversations I’ve observed in critical pedagogy. Giroux, McLaren, and others have made great

strides in answering several questions surrounding education with liberatory intentions. The

matters of what oppression is, who is oppressing, how they are doing it, and where to see the

mechanisms at work all receive much analysis and lengthy (often overbearing) discussion.

Referencing Marxist scholar Ernst Bloch, McLaren assesses the claim that

there exists both bad ideology (false consciousness) and good ideology (true false consciousness).

The latter category cannot simply be reduced to false consciousness. Although the primary site of

ideology is the superstructure, there always exists a cultural ‘surplus’ which outlasts the society

and social strata in which it develops (McLaren 185).

Their expertise lies in analyzing topics such as the ideologies behind traditional and progressive

teaching, oppressive facets of certain modes of assessment, and the consumerist Eurocentrism

guiding educational policy. Critical pedagogy requires looking at a variety of social factors –

economic, political, historical, social, cultural, racial – as relevant to education. All find

themselves under the lens of the theorists of critical pedagogy. While their writings have value

and are inseparable from the study of critical pedagogy, they are by no means instruction

manuals for making these ideas work in any particular context. These thinkers are dedicated,

perceptive, and often brilliant; they are not practitioners.

Their reflection is not on practice, but on their own theories. They create a discourse full

of ideas (both promising and unfeasible), articulate a critical pedagogy vocabulary (some terms

illuminating, others useless), and provide points of interest for those hoping to practice. For

instance, Giroux defines literacy as “a myriad of discursive forms and cultural competencies that

Crane 4

construct and make available the various relations and experiences that exist between learners

and the world” (Literacy 10). Those patient enough to the cut through the jargon will note that,

essentially, literacy is a means of exploring the world and our lives through developing

familiarity with the conversations occurring around us. In the process of revising literacy,

though, Giroux does not take us any closer to obtaining his vision of literacy. He leaves that job

to others – the teachers. This is not to say that critical teachers sit silently in their classrooms,

awaiting their marching orders from the intellectual elite in the field. It merely means that for all

of their analysis, the theorists have little to offer in the way of exploring the questions of who

critical pedagogy runs the risk of oppressing and most importantly how we achieve the change

they call for, which speaks to so many disheartened by the bureaucracy suffocating public

education. If critical pedagogy requires praxis (which it does), then these men and women fulfill

the theoretical component. Anyone attempting to practice critical pedagogy with only this half of

the equation in mind will be sorely disappointed at best and at worst, be part of the oppression

that he has attempted to combat.

Thankfully, the blind spots of the theorists have not been ignored. There are those who

have forcefully and insightfully articulated the shortcomings of the early attempts at this

approach. Most of these critiques have come from the feminist and poststructuralist perspectives.

One critic in particular, Elizabeth Ellsworth, interrogates the gap between the theory of liberatory

education and the stark realities associated with its practice. Her experiments with critical

pedagogy showed her the difficulty of finding a way of teaching that didn’t oppress somebody.

“Why Doesn’t this Feel Empowering?” accepts the inescapability of bias in the classroom, but

looks for ways of communicating across differences. Ellsworth comes up with a statement that

I’d best describe as “poststructuralist praxis”:

Crane 5

If you can talk to me in ways that show you understand that your knowledge of, the world, and

‘the Right thing to do’ will always be partial, interested, and potentially oppressive to others, and

if I can do the same, then we can work together on shaping and reshaping alliances for

constructing circumstances in which students of difference can thrive (Ellsworth 115).

Such awareness of our ability to unconsciously oppress marks a vital shift from the certainty of

the earlier theorists. This newer praxis complicates each attempt to translate Freire’s practice into

one’s own. Invoking “the spirit of Paulo,” Joe Kincheloe praises critical pedagogy as a

“hallowed tradition” (Kincheloe 11). His attitude treats “critical pedagogy” as the creed that will

humbly enlighten a world he presumes to be devoid of any engaging, challenging, critical

teaching. Such sanctimony betrays the responsibilities awaiting critical educators. We cannot

merely take the originator’s work and translate it to American ways of thinking. For our efforts

to be successful, we must render his work taking into account the schools in which we operate,

our own life experiences, each of our student’s life experiences, the subject we teach, and the list

extends into infinity. While the Kincheloe’s of the field may seek to convince us that critical

pedagogy is a doctrine to which we must adhere, the Ellsworth’s demonstrate that it is dependent

on tweaks and overhauls from every aspect of teaching. These reflections inform idealistic

teachers about operating with the structure we have at any given time.

Interestingly enough, the writers who seemed to most embody critical pedagogy were

those who never applied the phrase to themselves. The people that contribute to this discourse

are educators themselves who don’t feel obligated to use the ever-expanding vocabulary of

critical pedagogy’s more militant supporters. In particular, June Jordan’s “Nobody Mean More to

Me than You And the Future Life of Willie Jordan” offers an inspiring example of democratic

education straight from her classroom in which her college students confronted a problem

Crane 6

profoundly relevant to their lives. Responding to a fatal incident of police brutality against

student Willie Jordan’s brother, Jordan’s “The Art of Black English” class wrote personal letters

to the police department expressing their outrage, frustration, and personal experiences with the

authorities. The most impressive part about their writing process was the decision to write in

Black English, the class’s content area. Though their decision “had doomed [their] writings”

(they received no response), their firsthand experiences force readers to reflect on the volumes of

ideology dominating the conversation (Jordan 136). Of the works listed here, Shor’s

Empowering Education holds the most promise for linking practice to the theories that need

basing. He, like Jordan, writes from the lens of a practicing educator in a college setting. It is

these types of voices – the voices of experience – that complete the praxis, adding the

disregarded elements of classroom practice and more importantly, student voice.

Despite the inclusion of classroom stories, certain debates continue to feed the

conversation. For one, critical pedagogues allude to ineffective and harsh methods of classroom

management, but rarely propose substitutions for these methods. If students are to be allowed

authority in the classroom, then we must discover ways of respecting that power while

maintaining a sense of order to the conversation (not to mention keeping our jobs). In adjusting

management techniques, many will grapple with new ways of guiding students towards practices

that observe mutual responsibility and obligation to the community of the classroom.

Struggling to reach a true praxis persists as the most challenging obstacle to creating

one’s own critical pedagogy. If one thinks too much and does not ground his theory in practice,

he is just as powerless as one who teaches without any regard to the ideology and decisions

behind his work. Verbalism (theory without practice) and activism (practice without reflection)

are equally dangerous to the hopes of practicing freedom through education. While interrogating

oppression and encouraging student voice, teachers must always keep in mind that all voices are

Crane 7

“at best be tentative and temporary given the changing, often contradictory relations of power”

we face daily (Orner 79). Still, we must address McLaren’s concern that “unable to speak with

any certainty” teachers may “[refuse] to speak at all” (Lather 125). Critical pedagogy needs

teachers to apply their ideas to the classroom while reflecting on the successes and failures of

those applications. It is a process that requires our constant attention.

Critical pedagogy does not demand answers. In fact, certainty in having answers negates

the praxis at the heart of our efforts. Instead, a critical pedagogy depends on asking questions. If

we have asked a critical question, we can expect an insightful answer (or better yet, another

question). These questions create the dialogues Freire envisioned. Yet in asking, we must not

forget to listen. What do our students want to know? What are their obstacles? Where do those

obstacles intersect with the curriculum? How are they to adjust to critical pedagogy when it’s so

radically different than what they’re used to? Our students have their own concerns and it is with

them that we engage in this struggle. We must be prepared to hear them not just as students, but

as human beings with needs, as citizens who share a stake in not just our classrooms or even our

schools, but in our world. Our mutual capability in shaping our environment must serve as the

foundation for conversations that welcome the differences each of us has developed

independently of each other. If we as educators are up to this challenge, then we can engage in

the ongoing project to realize our democracy – that is, the process of sharing power among those

affected by it - on the most basic of levels, the classroom. The works listed below are just the

first steps of that project.

Crane 8

Bartolomé, Lilia I. “Critical Pedagogy and Teacher Education: Radicalizing Prospective

Teachers,” Critical Pedagogy: Where Are We Now? (Counterpoints: Studies in the

Postmodern Theory of Education). New York: Peter Lang, 2007. 263-286.

In this research study, Bartolomé observes teachers who address the harmful conditions their students face as part of their classroom practice. It points to the fact that teachers increasingly come from White suburbs as a need to study the “ideological orientations” teachers unconsciously harbor against their students’ culture (265). Future change in teacher education curriculum should guide prospective teachers towards “political [and] ideological clarity” as well as an attitude more accepting of student difference (264). All of the teachers the author observes recognize Eurocentric supremacy in their environment, reject beliefs in the inferiority of their minority students, and actively work to correct the imbalances of respect and power. Most of their practices assume “honest teacher-student communication” and instructional action beyond the warm and fuzzy sentiments pervasive in modern education (278). By equaling privileged children’s access to information, the teachers hope to help their students “navigate school and mainstream culture” (279). Bartolomé encourages teachers to study ideologies as a vital component to this work of educators. Without detail as to how to establish them, she praises the creation of classrooms that defend disempowered, low-income students. While not necessarily a study of critical pedagogues, this article provides examples of teachers that do not silence themselves in the face of cultural and linguistic diversity and use their voices to (267). It expands the already crowded critical pedagogy lexicon without providing any truly new practical information.

Bowles, Samuel, and Herbert Gintis. "Can There Be a Liberal Philosophy of Education in a

Democratic Society?" Critical Pedagogy, the State, and Cultural Struggle. Giroux, Henry

A., and Peter L. McLaren, Eds. New York: SUNY, 1989. 24-31.

The authors scrutinize the philosophy of liberalism. While liberalism champions personal freedom, it contradictorily seeks to create a society based on equality. This theory praises the expression of choice, but “liberalism is silent on how people might get to be what they want to be, and how they might get to want what they want to want” (27). To circumvent the domination inherent in this expression of subliminally formed preference, Bowles and Gintis propose a “becoming-by-acting model”, one that forces choosers/producers/teachers to be accountable to learners/consumers/students. By resolving these binaries, the authors intend to address the “formation of wills” which is more important than the expression of those wills (29). They target liberalism’s failure to adapt to options presented by the marketplace and large-scale elections, arguing that it can no longer be considered a viable philosophy of education. This article successfully redirects attention to the problems of liberalism and provides a few points of focus that could combat capitalist views of education including working with students to develop their values, not just giving them an environment that reinforces them.

Crane 9

Ellsworth, Elizabeth. “Why Doesn’t this Feel Empowering? Working Through the

Oppressive Myths of Critical Pedagogy.” Luke, Carmen, and Jennifer Gore, Eds.

Feminisms and Critical Pedagogy. New York: Routledge, 1992. 90-119.

Incorporating her own attempts at critical pedagogy, Ellsworth writes on current critical pedagogical practices’ failures to make good their promises of empowering students. She presents an expansive set of questions from a poststructural feminist view. One obstacle to critical pedagogy according to Ellsworth is binary thinking, an inherently oppressive practice that creates an “Other” in every relationship (94). Despite critical educators’ acknowledgement of inequality in classrooms, they have yet to examine the “barriers that this imbalance” imposes on their efforts to liberate (101). She agrees with critical pedagogues that teachers are not omniscient, but questions their (lack of) collaboration with students in their discussions. Student silence elicits much of the article’s focus as the author identifies student motivation for separating themselves from the conversations in her classroom (107). Ellsworth ends her intense interrogation of the current discourse with a poststructuralist praxis for those hoping to communicate across difference. This statement stresses awareness of one’s universal potential to oppress as well as the partiality of knowledge, but insists on the possibility of “constructing circumstances in which students of difference can thrive” (115). It is an outstanding critique of the blind spots of earlier work in critical pedagogy and asks incisive questions that deserve research.

Feinberg, Walter. “Fixing the Schools: The Ideological Turn.” Critical Pedagogy, the State, and

Cultural Struggle. Giroux, Henry A., and Peter L. McLaren, Eds. New York: SUNY,

1989. 69-91.

Feinberg studies six resources and articles available to teachers. The most telling part of this article comes from the comparison between the American and Japanese schools Feinberg studies. Among the vast differences between the systems, Feinberg points to our system’s testing compulsion. This compulsion translates into an exclusion of creativity that drives students to value the test over knowledge. Although high school for the Japanese student consists of “intense pressure and rigorous study”, it encourages learning as opposed to testing well (79). The author assesses Mortimer Adler’s The Paideia Proposal, a call for reformation based on unified student experience (i.e., elimination of electives). He concludes that the intense reactions surrounding the work are unwarranted and fail to ask the right questions of the system. A Nation At Risk also gains Feinberg’s attention as a document that seeks to explain the problems with public education, not to solve them. The majority of the articles he discusses call for “more autonomy for the local school”, mainly in the forms of curriculum development and reception of funding (85). With this autonomy, schools would be free to choose from the recommendations the article synopsizes and critiques. This article documents the flaws within the American system of education and demonstrates that another way is possible, justifying the need for

Crane 10

critical pedagogies.

Fine, Michelle. “Silencing and Nurturing Voice in an Improbable Context: Urban

Adolescents in Public School.” Critical Pedagogy, the State, and Cultural Struggle.

Giroux, Henry A., and Peter L. McLaren, Eds. New York: SUNY, 1989. 152-173.

In an admittedly “odd study of what’s not said in school”, Fine writes on firsthand observations in an urban public high school (153, original emphasis). Silencing involves burying, camouflaging, and discrediting ideas and practices in opposition to the current hegemony (154). She empathizes with teachers who deny the grim realities of their situation as well as the students who have no opportunity to address their struggles (discrimination, graduating, impoverished home lives, etc.) in a classroom context. Reasons for student silence included perceived inferiority of their culture and language as well as their status as “academic critics.” (167). These critics often drop out after dissenting, despite their intellectual abilities. Administrative failure to attempt solutions - teacher silence - serves to perpetuate the paralyzing conditions of the school. This article makes a clear case for open communication across official status boundaries. Fine aims to create a “participatory pedagogy” that confronts the difficulties of student life in such a way as to respect their intelligence as well as their situation (155). It provides statistics, accessible analysis, and the much needed element of student voice.

Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. London: Burns & Oates, 2001.

Freire explores methods of domination, effects of oppression on oppressor and oppressed, and the necessity of pedagogy in combating these destructive forces. Through domination, oppressors dehumanize the oppressed as well as themselves and Freire sees education as a way out of domination. The author rejects what he calls the “banking concept” of education, which treats students as depositories to be filled by the already-learned teacher (73). His pedagogy seeks to create dialogue between teacher and student, appreciating the knowledge all bring into the classroom. In this dialogue, a “teacher-student” poses problems to “student-teachers” based on their experiences. Freire’s pedagogy seeks to revolutionize schools, treating “education as the practice of freedom” (8). In this practice, teachers and students work together to create communities that allow participants to become more fully human. Despite his optimism, Freire admits that any revolution will be subject to a host of obstacles stemming from impatience to egoism to combating “housed oppressors.” Solutions to these problems demand praxis in which “action and reflection occur simultaneously” (128). Through praxis, revolutionaries reach a necessary balance between theory (verbalism) and reality (activism), ensuring the success of their bottom-up revolution. This revolution seeks to throw off oppressive forces and create an environment in which all citizens may engage in critical dialogue.

Crane 11

Freire, Paulo and Donaldo Macedo. Literacy: Reading the Word and the World.

New York: Routledge, 1987.

Freire and Macedo seek to create radical literacies based on a “dialectical theory of voice” (19). The authors establish the word as separate from the world, but address the importance of reading and writing both. By “reading” their effects on the world, students are better able to reflect upon their actions. After reflecting, they are more able to act upon the world (as opposed to being acted upon). It is in this action that they “write” upon the world. With this form of literacy, students transfer skills from observed, felt experience into the context of written word. Freire uses this approach both as a path towards literacy and practice of existing within an inescapable “interplay of tensions” (49). Employing a dialogue format, the authors discuss the problems preventing literacy in the United States. They claim American education ignores “the political nature of pedagogy” and demands literacy in the hegemonic discourse (122). Freire discusses the conditions that inspired Pedagogy of the Oppressed and calls upon educators to “investigate all of these conditions in their own contexts” (134). He offers concrete examples that illustrate concepts mentioned in Pedagogy and looks more into the obstacles associated with critical education. In revolutionizing perceptions and attitudes towards literacy, the authors interrogate the dominating discourse and its effects on popular culture. In stimulating “the certainty of never being too certain,” students can arrive at a critical literacy that uses school to extend conversations already in progress (57). The authors provide a good balance of experience in practicing their pedagogy and informing that practice with theory.

Gilyard, Keith. “First Lessons” & “Rapping, Reading, and Role-playing.” Voices of the Self: A

Study of Language Competence (African American Life Series). Detroit: Wayne State

University Press, 1991. 15-32.

Gilyard first offers an autoethnography about growing up in New York City in the 1950’s. Stories of sibling rivalry, attempts to enjoy childhood, and the trials of city life narrate the author’s compelling childhood story. Most prominent in the experiences is Gilyard’s mother, whose style of discipline “made all her points clear with that [her] belt” (20). The author’s struggle to find a male voice in a house full of females helps prove the universal potential of oppression. He then takes the Black English from his childhood and analyzes it grammatically. Meeting his autoethnography with linguistic jargon, he diagrams sentences to demonstrate Black English’s legitimate differences from Standard English. For instance, the sentence “Ain’t no teacher can keep no class late like that” features “the double negatives that appear commonly in all nonstandard forms of English…and is perhaps the most noncontroversial marker of that language variety” (30). Gilyard discusses code-switching, a skill which nonstandard speakers must choose to learn if they are to find success in the mainstream culture (31-32). He brings typical academic analysis and theory to the underappreciated and often degraded subject of

Crane 12

nonstandard English in such a way as to inspire further inquiry. These chapters embrace student voice and studying life beyond the classroom.

Hooks, Bell. Teaching to Transgress: Education As the Practice of Freedom. New

York: Routledge, 1994.

Hooks focuses on creating an engaged pedagogy that culminates in a “true revolution of values” (27). Her writing draws heavily from her personal experience as a professor hoping to change academic thinking to be more inclusive of difference. Writing from the rare perspective of the racially focused feminist, she notes the interracial conflict between white woman (leading the feminist movement at large) and black women (left to struggle in isolation). Instead of competing for equality, hooks proposes solidarity by using conflict as a “catalyst for new thinking” (113). Most useful is her dialogue with colleague Ron Scapp. In their conversation, they address a myriad of topics from student expectations of college education to celebrating the tradition of progressive curriculum. Scapp validates the “entertaining” potential of education, warning skeptics “not to confuse informality with a lack of seriousness” (145-146). Standards, according to hooks must be “high” without being “absolute and fixed” (157). With a deep, abiding respect for everyone she meets, hooks puts a liberating “emphasis on voice” that values the students as they are, yet pushes them to make strides in their thinking (148). She makes it a point to allay fears that all teachers have coming into the classroom, reassuring that mistakes are an inevitable part of the process of revolution. The personal narratives are rich in detail, but countered well with the advice and lessons hooks draws from them.

Jordan, June. “Nobody Mean More to Me than You And the Future Life of Willie Jordan.” On

Call: Political Essays. Boston: South End Press, 1985. 123-140.

Jordan’s essay chronicles her relationship with Willie Jordan (a Black student) and attempt to develop a course teaching Black English. She begins stressing the need for varieties of “English” and the necessity to embrace their operation within a “natural [and] uncontrollable continuum of development” (124). She spends the rest of the essay discussing the experiences that came from her academic treatment and teaching of Black English. Her “guidelines for Black English” provide grammatical structure and example sentences from this unorthodox method of writing (130). A profound shift in the text comes at the death of Willie’s brother, Reggie, a victim of police brutality (134). Resulting is Jordan’s inclusion of the incident in her mostly Black class as a problem and opportunity for use of their newly discovered voices. Though she does not label her work “critical pedagogy,” there is no reason one could not call Jordan’s efforts liberating and scholarly. This truly original piece diverts attention from abstractions to a gifted practitioner who keeps her distance from the popular theorists in critical pedagogy.

Crane 13

Jordan, June. “Problems of Language in a Democratic State.” On Call: Political Essays. Boston:

South End Press, 1985. 27-36.

This essay confronts the imbalance of power and pursues it to its roots in the language. In Jordan’s view, language is the only currency remaining common to every citizen in capitalist America. Focusing on education, Jordan historicizes institutional racism from the days of slavery to the present. Because “state power serves the powerful,” minority voices are completely unable to disrupt the status quo that constantly fails them (28). Her personal anecdotes expose unclear, exclusionary, and intentionally passive uses of language while her refreshing and invigorating style avoids overly theoretical language. As concise as her criticisms are, she is equally capable of proposing solutions. She expresses the potential to “drown out the official language of the powerful with our own mighty and conflicting voices” (36, my emphasis). Despite deep-seated inequality, she remains confident that transformation is possible through citizen action. The probing of hegemony is meant to inspire readers to change their attitudes about their power as individuals. It is an indispensable text in restoring the need for democratic pedagogy intent on social change.

Kincheloe, Joe L. “Critical Pedagogy in the Twenty-first Century: Evolution for Survival”,

Critical Pedagogy: Where Are We Now? (Counterpoints: Studies in the Postmodern

Theory of Education). McLaren, Peter, and Joe L. Kincheloe, Eds. New York: Peter

Lang, 2007. 9-42.

In this article, Kincheloe confesses to oversights on behalf of the critical pedagogy movement, while proclaiming his fellow theorists must carry on the “hallowed tradition” started by Freire (11). He mentions the contributions of “post-discourses”, but offers no voices from the feminist, poststructuralist, or other critical movements (18). In combating “cultural pedagogy,” that is, means of perpetuating hegemonic thought, Kincheloe fails to recognize critical pedagogy’s identity as a cultural, thus potentially oppressive, pedagogy (24). What he does accept, however, is critical pedagogy’s need to be more inclusive and accommodating of previously subjugated ways. Also a new facet is the study of the impact emotions and the unconscious have on identity. Critical pedagogues must take into account capitalist education’s focus on affective appeal, but puts this success in the frame of irrationality, treating it as something to be understood, not necessarily utilized. Twenty-first century critical pedagogues can find an articulation of the task set before them that stays within the intellectual tradition. Kincheloe clearly writes with critiques of the tradition in mind. Still, he seeks to preserve the work of popular critical theorists at the expense of incorporating notions targeting critical pedagogy’s own hegemony. For those with previous experience with critical pedagogy, this article offers very little in the way of helpful information or inspiration for future investigation.

Crane 14

Lather, Patti. “Post-Critical Pedagogies: A Feminist Reading.” Luke, Carmen, and Jennifer Gore,

Eds. Feminisms and Critical Pedagogy. New York: Routledge, 1992. 120-137.

This article manages to elaborate upon Ellsworth’s “Why Doesn’t This Feel Empowering?” while defending it from critical pedagogy’s “chief architects” (122). Lather starts with a statement of her intentionally deconstructive efforts. Like Orner and Ellsworth, she sees the popular practices of critical pedagogy as “desperately undertheorized” (121). Lather explores “the complexities of doing praxis-oriented…work in a post-foundational context” (125). She quotes McLaren and Giroux’s criticisms of Ellsworth, chiefly that she allows herself to be paralyzed by the lack of certainty in the critical tradition and the postmodern world at large. Lather responds with a will to “problematize critical pedagogy in ways that resituate…as opposed to destroy it” (127). She calls for more feministic practice in the realm of critical education, citing an obstructive Marxist (masculine) hegemony. Evolving beyond the critical into the “(post)critical”, Lather iterates Ellsworth’s calls for intellectual difference that is finally accepting of difference (131). It is an excellent companion to, but certainly not a substitution for, Ellsworth’s article.

McLaren, Peter L. “On Ideology and Education: Critical Pedagogy and the

Cultural Politics of Resistance.” Critical Pedagogy, the State, and Cultural Struggle.

Giroux, Henry A., and Peter L. McLaren, Eds. New York: SUNY, 1989. 174-202.

McLaren delves into the ideology and theoretical backdrop of critical pedagogy. He ponders if it is possible to have logic without a “knowing subject” or if the idea of knowledge being necessarily social holds water (176). Facts, he decides, do not exist outside of a theoretical framework that seeks to interpret (create) meaning. In addressing the disapproval some have about using ideology, he defines it on his terms. Ideology in the context of this article refers to “a set of practices, structures, or methods which make meaning,” and defining language as “ideology-brought-into-speech” (179-180, 179). While ideology can still be used negatively, this new frame allows critical theorists to practice ideology, attempting to complete Freire’s praxis. Hence, ideology becomes a verb that produces a multitude of perspectives apart from the dominant culture; it becomes a “process of production” (191, original emphasis). By grounding the work of ideology in the process of pedagogy, McLaren works to inspire a “critical hope” that simultaneously imagines and realizes a better world for those engaged in praxis (202). The theoretical insight and complex style McLaren brings in this piece overpower his calls for practical change.

Crane 15

Orner, Mimi. “Interrupting the Calls for Student Voice in ‘Liberatory’ Education:

A Feminist Poststructuralist Perspective.” Luke, Carmen, and Jennifer Gore, Eds.

Feminisms and Critical Pedagogy. New York: Routledge, 1992. 74-89.

Orner enters the discourse from a feminist poststructuralist perspective. From her vantage point, the attempts to liberate students from oppression have replicated the same oppressive structures. Her complaints stem from a lack of theoretical development of critical pedagogy. In dichotomizing students from themselves, teachers have done nothing more than “justify and naturalize [the] power relations” that they claim to revolutionize (78). The problem is that critical pedagogy assumes student voice to be “singular, unchanging, and unaffected by the context in which the speaking occurs” (80). Orner argues such a steady conception of identity is unrealistic and belief in it naïve. In this false assumption, democratic educators tend to divert all interrogation away from their teaching. Issues such as the poststructuralist view of language (as untrustworthy, inherently biased) obscure efforts at genuine dialogue. Critical theorists, Orner says, must acknowledge and interrogate “the hidden curriculum of the ‘talking circle’” (83). They must explore the deep complexities of language, identity, and power they have previously ignored. In such study, they will balance out their activism and come closer to the seemingly lost praxis. This article is a good overview of the problems facing critical pedagogy, but more in-depth research of those challenges exists.

Shor, Ira. Empowering Education: Critical Teaching for Social Change. New York:

University of Chicago P, 1992.

Shor concretizes all the obstacles educators face when attempting critical pedagogy. Problems from below (lack of student participation, cynicism towards education) and above (consumerist influence, administrative interference) receive equally real consideration and solutions. The author imports much of Freire’s rationale, but incorporates more American-friendly thinkers such as Dewey and Vygotsky. He also endorses research in making his points, citing studies proving student-centered education more effective than teacher-centered education. In one such reference, “63 percent [of studies reviewed] showed superior outcomes for cooperative learning” and 89% exhibited “achievement gains” by tying group rewards to individual achievement (165). Adapting Freire’s theory to bureaucratic settings, Shor focuses on “constructing a critical culture” in his context (207). His experiences serve as much needed examples of how to translate critical theory into liberatory practice. The book offers as an invaluable collection of statistics, practices, and further information available to teachers as well as an accurate assessment of the capitalist education system awaiting democratic teachers. It provides a perfect link between theorists stuck in abstractions and voices straight from the classroom.

Crane 16

Stanley, William B. “Critical Pedagogy: Democratic Realism, Neoliberalism, Conservatism, and

a Tragic Sense of Education”, Critical Pedagogy: Where Are We Now? (Counterpoints:

Studies in the Postmodern Theory of Education). New York: Peter Lang, 2007. 371-389.

This article consists mostly of echoes of sentiments previously stated in various politically inspired analyses of and statements finding fault with critical pedagogy. Stanley recalls the social complexity that gave rise to Lippman’s democratic realism and the reduction of citizenship to the right to vote. Covering neoliberalism, he sums up Hayek’s belief in the free market’s theoretical “superiority” over liberal/progressive beliefs, including those of social equality and justice (376). Neoconservatism studies the Canon in hopes of eliminating the “permanent state of openness” poststructuralists have uncovered (379). From these summaries, he goes into a lament on the limits of the masses’ ability to access information. Citing Burbules’ sense that “everything we do impinges in a harmful way on someone, somewhere”, he arrives at the same conclusion Ellsworth reaches in her poststructuralist praxis (382). He iterates the popular fact that “we are teaching ‘other people’s children’” and thus need to act against oppressive forces carefully, lest we mimic them (385). More of an analysis than an attempt at persuasion, Stanley’s essay keeps an eye towards critical pedagogy’s past obstacles, not so much its future.