Critical Studies in Education and Culture Series – serie

The single most important educational theory in schools and universities today is not derived from Dewey, Piaget, R. S. Peters, or an other significant researcher or theorist in education. It is public choice theory, which is derived from neo-classical economics. This work describes public choice theory in its component parts and as a coherent and potent contemporary factor influencing education today. It is this theory that licenses talk of accountability; provider capture; outcomes; and delivery as the most significant aspects of education, and thereby sets aside the discourses of responsibility; professionalism; social justice; and learning.Public choice theory is defined by its proponents as the application of economics to politics. It is based on the assumption that economics is the paradigmatic social science that can provide answers to all social questions. By reducing all political and social questions of a particular form of economics it reduces society to a market that is subject to the forces of supply and demand. Citizens become consumers rather than members of a civil society entitled to certain rights. This work describes public choice theory in its component parts and as a coherent and potent contemporary factor influencing education today.

The author adopts a holistic approach in exploring the ontological, epistemological, ethical, and pedagogical dimensions of Paulo Freire's thought. The book discusses Freire's approach to adult literacy education and investigates the political, dialogical, and critical aspects to the multidimensional word in Freirean theory.The author outlines and assesses a number of key critiques of Freire's modernism, concentrating in particular on questions pertaining to the problem of pedagogical intervention. He responds at some length to C.A. Bowers, one of Freire's most important and persistent critics, and finds fault with behaviorist, stage-based accounts of consciousness raising. The Freirean concept of conscientization is reinterpreted in light of the postmodern notion of multiple subjectivities. From this book, Freire emerges as a complex educational figure: a thinker and teacher deeply committed to the universalist ideal of humanization, yet also wary of some of the exaggerated certainties of modernism. His work, for all its flaws and contradictions, remains highly influential and stands opposed to technicist and neoliberal tendencies in recent educational reform initiatives.

Although Foucault departs from Marxism, his own approach constitutes a form of consistent materialism which has theoretical implications for the analysis of social and educational discursive systems. In seeking to demonstrate a correct reading of Foucault, linguistic readings of his work, such as those of Christopher Norris (1993), which represent him as part of the linguistic turn in French philosophy, where language (or representation) henceforth defines the limits of thought, will be dispelled in the process of being corrected. Rather, Foucault will be represented, as Habermas (1987) has suggested, not merely as a historicist but at the same time as a nominalist, materialist, and empiricist.Because the distinctiveness of Foucault's approach can best be seen in contrast to other major philosophical systems and thinkers, considerable attention is given to examining Foucault's relationship to Marxism, as well as his relations to Kant, Gramsci, Habermas, and the Greeks. In relation to education, there is in Foucault's approach a double emphasis which constitutes an ordering principle for this work. On the one hand, attention is directed to discursive practices which perform an educative role in the constitution of subjects and of human forms of existence. On the other hand, forms of education are constituted and utilized for the purposes of collective ethical self-creation, a theme Foucault emphasized in his later works. The book assesses some of the more interesting recent utilizations of Foucault in educational research.

Armitage taught for one year in a British grammar school from 1971 to 1972 when the school amalgamated with a secondary modern school to form a comprehensive school. He followed the political practices and episodes of the amalgamation in relation to their political and educational significance.The amalgamation seemed to result in an ineffective and underperforming school and he tried to introduce practical and constructive changes. His narrative describes his political struggle to reform the school in the face of an anti-democratic and authoritarian culture. The causes of failure are analyzed, and the real, complex, and messy functioning of a school system uncovered. The need to understand the politics and culture of schooling is advocated. A model of micropolitical action and responsibility is demonstrated that could help result in improvement of educational institutions.

This book maintains that there has not been sufficient dialogue and cross-fertilization between various forms of critical approaches to education, notably multicultural/anti-racist education, feminist pedagogy, and critical pedagogy. Contributors from Canada and the United States address educational issues relevant to aboriginal peoples, people of color, and people of religious minorities in light of feminist and critical pedagogical theory. They are sensitive and responsive to the power relations operative in a setting, and address the multiple and contradictory subjectivities of teachers and learners on the basis of race, gender, class, religion, ethnicity, age, and ability.

For peoples whose legal agreements, treaties, and other accords and conventions with the United States have been violated, multiculturalism as a pedagogical tool often becomes suspect of reinforcing the continued reification and abstraction of their cultures and nations with little if any real meaning for educational and social transformation. The continued oppression and repression of the exercise of self-determination for African Americans; the persistence of policies aimed at the destruction of indigenous populations and land; the insidious continuation of classical colonialism in the case of Puerto Rico are all vivid reminders to these peoples of the racist, classist, sexist, and homophobic patriarchy that characterizes their status. In order to restore people's rights to fully determine their own histories, Jackson and Solis point out that it is imperative to destroy the material foundations that breed and recycle the ideology, discourse, and cultural practices of domination. It is not enough to celebrate diversity and difference; there must be grand-scale social, political, economic, and educational transformation.

This book summarizes structural, reproduction, and resistance theories of education and provides a social research approach to problems of social inequity. It analyzes how these perspectives contribute to the political analysis of the production of early school departures and the consequent disadvantages and poverty. Fagan follows a deconstructive approach to research methodology that presents a text in which real characters and events are brought to life. Dublin working-class kids speak for themselves, tell their stories, and discuss their futures openly. They describe their schooling and their colorful responses to situations that seemed meaningless or demeaning when they were in school. They share their insecurities about the future and their experiences with poverty and unemployment outside the mainstream of middle-class society. As a unique contribution to cultural studies and a rare ethnographic glimpse of Irish urban society, this study establishes a model in educational and sociological research.

Multiracial students have unique needs that are not being met in schools, because teachers and school personnel assume that those needs are the same as those of monoracial minority children. Children of multiple races are, in fact, invisible in the schools. On school and federal forms, they are racially categorized based on one race only, and such categorizations are not limited to documents. Schools and teachers may unknowingly transmit monoracial identity messages to multiracial students, which is problematic for some students who may want to identify with more than one race. Our racial categorization process reflects the deficiencies of the concept of race in American culture and needs to be renegotiated.The multiracial child is a microcosm of the American cultural identity. Current racial categorization of multiracial children reflects a society that is still renegotiating its own racial and ethnic identities, and these children bear the burdens of the difficulties. As America continues to become increasingly populated by diverse peoples, what it means to be American is in transition. Americans are moving away from a fixed notion of the American cultural identity toward an expanded, more inclusive resolution.

Leonardo introduces an integrated theory of ideology that examines its necessary, negative, and positive functions. A three-dimensional theory highlights the concept of ideology during the reform process and links it to domination. Through an ideological critique of reform language, the book provides insights into domination and ways to counteract it.The movement for educational change lacks a concerted engagement with ideology with respect to school reform. Ideology is a central, structuring concept in education, especially regarding the intractable problem of domination. Race, class, and gender inequalities have become dilemmas that plague many students' chances for academic success, let alone the good life. In addition to constructing ideology as a form of distortion, the book considers it as a necessary mechanism for teachers as they make meaning of their daily experiences as well as a positive force for teachers who combat relations of domination.This work introduces an integrated theory of ideology that examines its necessary, negative, and positive functions. A three-dimensional theory highlights the concept of ideology during the reform process and links it to educational and social inequality. This work looks at the rhetoric of education reform and ways to counteract it so that the goal of educational equality will be possible for all.

This work is a systematic analysis of texts with arguments on political performance of representation and agency in education. The author critically examines discourses on the politics of difference including those of Paulo Freire, Claude Levi-Strauss, Iris M. Young, and Chantal Mouffe. Derrida's thoughts on the political as a way to understand difference and identity in education concludes the volume.This work begins with an examination of Hegel's work on the relationship between the lord and the bondsman, which is implemented in the political discourse of Paulo Freire. It explores the methodological value of concepts of opposition; it looks at the work by Levi-Strauss on cultural differences as well as that of Iris M. Young and Chantal Mouffe on the politics of difference.Anxious Identity calls for a consideration of Derrida's thoughts on the poltical as an approach to understanding difference and identity. In addition to work of Western philosophers and theorists, included are the postcolonial writers Homi Bhabha and Gayatri Spivak.

In today's vernacular, Marx outed capitalism well over a century ago, but his explanation has been both ignored and misinterpreted by not only his detractors but also by many socialists and even a considerable number of Marxists as well. Today we are experiencing the full impact and suffering the repercussions of capitalism's inherent need to become, more than ever before, a fully internationalized and integrated system of socio-economic control and domination--the global system that many commentators have suddenly remembered Marx and Engels (1848) presciently forecasted in the Communist Manifesto.When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, the victory of capitalism and liberal democracy was triumphantly proclaimed. The Cold War was over, and we were promised a lasting peace. But as we enter the third millennium, we are facing escalating social divisions, injustice, and oppression, with an environment in varying stages of ecological decay. Daily we are bombarded by the schizoid media images of capitalism's extremes on television news: the ravaged faces and wasted bodies of some of the thousands suffering famine, or the millions living in the world's slums, and then the gleaming, yet vacuous smile and sumptuously adorned figure of some extravagant, wealthy individual who is one of the select members of the global upper-class. Are we becoming conditioned to accept such contrasts and regard them as normal and inevitable at a time when we have the potential to eliminate scarcity and eradicate human deprivation? The author argues that critical education is needed to form a movement capable of challenging and then transforming capitalism. She also offers an accessible account of Marx's dialectical critique and exposé of capitalism, clearly demonstrating the real enemy that should be the focus of anti-capitalist and anti-globalization struggles. This is an account that explains why our main focus should not be on greedy, individual capitalists or particular multinational corporations, or even their handmaiden institutions, such as, the World Bank, IMF, WTO, etc. but instead the global network of capitalist social relations and consequent habituated human practices in which we are all involved. These together with the historically specific form of capitalist wealth are the real enemy--the essence of capitalism--that must be abolished in order for humanity to have any hope of social and economic justice in the future.

Believing that transformation is possible and that it must come from within, Clar Doyle illustrates the vital connection between drama and critical pedagogy. Presuming that a practice informed by the theory of critical pedagogy is essential to achieve an emancipatory education, Doyle shows how well drama and aesthetic education can encourage a pedagogy that is critical. He explores the real as well as the perceived values and understandings given to the aesthetic in school settings, how tastes and awareness are produced and how students' backgrounds inform the way in which art and drama are experienced. Furthermore, Doyle shows the ways in which the dominant cultural agencies rob both teachers and students of creativity through their reproductive policies.The book explores such critical questions as: the nature of culture; the historical place of drama within education; and the debate between drama and theatre as it applies to schooling. With a critical perspective, he reviews the current status of drama education and suggests ways in which educators can redefine their mission and refine their practice. By examining the influence of the culture industry and the issues surrounding style choices, Doyle highlights the challenge that teachers must meet in order to use performance skills to tease out attitudes and understandings. He concludes by showing how drama can help students, not only to bring about change in their own lives, but to effect change in the world around them.

Conceiving of pedagogy as a form of cultural politics and teachers, therefore, as cultural workers, Simon offers a fresh vision of the notion of pedagogy. Grounded in an ethical and political stance devoted to the advancement of human dignity, Simon reflexively considers the basis on which teachers form their own dispositions and feelings, and urges them to consider not only what they might do as teachers but what social visions are supported by their practices. In this in-depth discussion of the requirements for a pedagogy of possibility, Simon highlights the significance of his theoretical commitment as applied to educational practice.To illustrate the ways that pedagogy is implicated in the construction of a social imaginary, Simon explores how the substance of schooling might be recast in a way that involves the work of teaching in reconstituting a progressive moral project for education that can constitute part of a broadly based social transformation. He subsequently offers a social vision on which a pedagogy of possibility might be founded, and shows how schools, along with other sites of cultural production, may be understood as integral to the struggle to establish such a vision. In addition, he discusses in detail how a practice of pedagogy might be conceptualized that would help establish concrete forms of hopeful practice.

In recent years, debates over culture and education have entered the public consciousness as never before. Politicians, bureaucrats, and scholars have credited these endeavors with the capacity to influence matters ranging from public morality to national productivity. Trend examines points at which art and learning intersect in both traditional and nontraditional settings and offers a variety of alternatives for the construction of a new cultural pedagogy. He argues that we need to redefine concepts like art, literature, and education, to integrate them more fully into our lives.On one hand, Trend uses a critical approach to examine how cultural work and pedagogy intersect within a range of discourses such as Marxist, feminist, deconstructionist and postcolonial. Yet on the other, he focuses on the use of specific examples of cultural practice within and outside the classroom to emphasize the importance of action as well as philosophy to bring about social change. Trend provides a theoretical overview of the ideological battles over texts and their discursive contexts and then analyzes how cultural education has evolved in such settings as the school, the university, and the community. He concludes with a discussion of pedagogy and democracy which suggests a range of possible resolutions.

This work explores the philosophical positions of five postmodern thinkers—Lyotard, Rorty, Schrag, Foucault, and Derrida—to show how their critiques imply that scholars are unduly limited by the belief that inquiry is fundamentally about gaining knowledge of phenomena that are assumed to exist prior to and independent of inquiry, and to persist essentially unchanged by inquiry. The author argues that there are good reasons why this constraint is both unnecessary and undesirable, and he resituates the disciplines within a more flexible foundation that would expand what counts as legitimate inquiry. This foundation would emphasize the inquirer as a cause of reality, not just an observer who aims to accurately describe and explain phenomena. Mourad proposes an intellectual and organizational form which he calls post-disciplinary research programs. These dynamic programs would be composed of scholars from diverse disciplines who collaborate to juxtapose disparate disciplinary concepts in order to create contexts for post-disciplinary inquries.

The authors' goal is to explore how an alternative, politically viable public discourse on education can be constructed. They examine the kinds of conditions, concerns, and subjectivities that must be attended to in order to develop an effective and resonant new language that can re-focus the purposes of education in this society. The authors' agree that educational discourse must be transformed into a visible, morally and politically vital, public commentary and debate - one that can begin to address the social, cultural, and spiritual crises that now confront humanity.

Coming out is the process of acknowledging same-sex attractions to oneself and to others. It is both a personal and a public process. For many gay and bisexual students, college marks a pivotal point where for the first time they feel free to explore their same-sex attractions. This book is about the struggles students face in coming out. The focus is twofold: the experiences individuals face in coming to terms with their sexual identity and the process of developing a group identity. The development of a group identity involves a degree of political investment. For some students, becoming political means adopting a queer persona. As one student noted, Queer is kind of an `in your face' attitude toward heterosexism and homophobia. A primary focus of this book revolves around the notion of queer identity and how students engage as cultural workers seeking both campus and societal change.

This collection explores the way in which critical theory and practice can unite into a common vision of democratic hope. While each author has his or her own specialty, the thread of shared dreams is portrayed in a call for solidarity. The separate viewpoints are drawn together to constitute a democratic platform for an enlightened critical education agenda. From narrative to critical ethnography, case studies explore the multicultural and power struggles of states, districts, and schools. Intimately connected to all contributions in this collection is the commitment of each author to similarly share a common pregnancy of intention within a language of possibility.

Critical pedagogy refers to the means and methods of testing and attempting to change the structures of schools that allow inequities. It is a cultural-political tool that takes seriously the notion of human differences, particularly those related to race, class, and gender. Critical pedagogy seeks to release the oppressed and unite people in a shared language of critique, struggle, and hope, to end various forms of human suffering. In this revised edition, Kanpol takes the pre- and in-service educators along some initial steps to becoming critical pedagogists. As before, university professors and public school teachers alike will learn how to address their own prophetic commitments to belief and faith in the fight against despair, institutional chaos, oppression, death of spirit, and exile.

The yearning to remember who we are is not easily detected in the qualitative dimensions of focus groups and ethnographic research methods; nor is it easily measured in standard quantified scientific inquiry. It is deeply rooted, obscured by layer upon layer of human efforts to survive the impact of historical amnesia induced by the dominant policies and practices of advanced capitalism and postmodern culture. Darder's introduction sets the tone by describing the formation of Warriors for Gringostroika and The New Mestizas. In the words of Anzaldua, those who cross over, pass over . . . the confines of the `normal.' Critical essays follow by Mexicanas, poets, activists, and educators of all colors and persuasions. The collection coming out of the good work of the Southern California University system relates to all locales and spectrums of the human condition and will no doubt inspire excellent creativity of knowing and remembering among all who chance to read any part thereof.

a book for all practitioners and all members of the greater community. Giroux demands reader involvement, transformation, and empowerment. He helps us understand that the political relationship between schools and society is neither artificial nor neutral nor necessarily negative. Rather, school personnel have a positive and dynamic political role to play. Educational Leadership We are fortunate to have these ideas expressed so clearly and in one place. It is a very useful book. . . . Choice Offers educators ways for reflecting critically on their own practices and the relationship between schools and society. The Educational Digest

This book is a unique collection of new and existing articles about progressive architectural teaching and learning. It is about restructuring architectural education--a project that defines itself within a transformative definition of society. Dialectically linking architectural education and society, the book presents authors who conceptualize architectural pedagogy within a critical analysis of the larger society, and who construct forms of teaching and learning experiences that reveal and contest professional and societal directions. The authors present a multiplicity of voices, including women, people of color, and students; voices often marginalized but crucial to a remapping of the cultural-political terrain in their struggle to make issues of gender, race, class, etc. central to a reconceptualization of architectural education and pedagogy. This anthology, then, is more than a mere list of projects and pedagogies--it is a theoretical investigation of critical practices in architectural education that engage the world in order to change it.This book will challenge architectural educators to think consciously of their work and experiences in political and cultural terms. Insofar as architectural teachers plan instruction, determine readings, and select programs and building types for studio investigations, they are implementing a theory. The question, of course, is whether teachers are fully aware of the theoretical base of their actions. Since theory usually embodies interests grounded in societal forms of power, it has political consequences. This book sees education and pedagogy as forms of cultural politics--constructing a new terrain that will invigorate architectural pedagogy and focus discussion toward a needed architectural/educational/political project. Voices in Architectural Education will be invaluable to professors and students of architecture in both graduate and undergraduate education, as well as to practitioners of the architecture profession.

This book calls for a new type of teacher education that empowers teachers to be self-directed professionals. Joe Kincheloe believes that the current trend of teaching teachers to learn an empirical knowledge base which they then implement in their classrooms is demeaning to teachers and teaches them not to think. He cites, for example, the emphasis on lesson plan format, the writing of behavioral objectives, and pre-packaged activities. One way to achieve thoughtful empowerment is through critical action research, or teaching practitioner thinking.The author illustrates the roots of his theory in Deweyan learning through action and in the more modern active learning approach. He then applies Piagetian constructivism and critical hermeneutics to develop a post-formal model of practitioner thought, which he labels critical constructivism. Kincheloe theorizes on the ways such a model would impact teaching and learning in a college of education. Autonomous, self-reflective, critical thinking teachers who take their profession seriously must understand the political consequences of this approach, states the author, as it will change the face of the school and elicit a backlash of opposition. While the book develops a unique vision of practitioner thinking, it is also firmly grounded in the realities of school life and is written in an accessible style that is not geared to one specific group.

Believing that transformation is possible and that it must come from within, Clar Doyle illustrates the vital connection between drama and critical pedagogy. Presuming that a practice informed by the theory of critical pedagogy is essential to achieve an emancipatory education, Doyle shows how well drama and aesthetic education can encourage a pedagogy that is critical. He explores the real as well as the perceived values and understandings given to the aesthetic in school settings, how tastes and awareness are produced and how students' backgrounds inform the way in which art and drama are experienced. Furthermore, Doyle shows the ways in which the dominant cultural agencies rob both teachers and students of creativity through their reproductive policies.The book explores such critical questions as: the nature of culture; the historical place of drama within education; and the debate between drama and theatre as it applies to schooling. With a critical perspective, he reviews the current status of drama education and suggests ways in which educators can redefine their mission and refine their practice. By examining the influence of the culture industry and the issues surrounding style choices, Doyle highlights the challenge that teachers must meet in order to use performance skills to tease out attitudes and understandings. He concludes by showing how drama can help students, not only to bring about change in their own lives, but to effect change in the world around them.

The translation of Lyotard's work into English in 1984 marked an important stage in the globalization of the modernity/postmodernity debate involving the central thinkers of the late 20th century, Michel Foucault, Jurgen Habermas, Richard Rorty, and others. This collection of 10 essays brings together for the first time a number of contributions on Lyotard's work made by philosophers, educationalists, and sociologists in the English-speaking world around the special focus of education. The intent behind the essays from scholars in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand is to examine Lyotard's notion of the postmodern condition and its relevance and special significance for the field of education. Lyotard's work, first published in Paris in 1979, was important in that it developed a particularly original interpretation of the state of knowledge in the most highly developed societies, reviewing and synthesizing a wide range of material on contemporary science, the sociology of postindustrial society and studies of postmodern culture. Lyotard brought together diverse threads and separate literatures in a prophetic analysis that signalled an epochal break with the so-called modern era.

This book addresses an area that is theoretically undeveloped in educational studies—the constitution of the human subject. The author uses psychoanalysis to explore this gap in critical studies of education. Educational progressivism overestimates the power of rationality and represses any understanding of unconscious mental processes. What is needed is the development of a psychodynamic 'social psychology of classes.' According to the author, we need to investigate the differential relations between institutional and self-formative processes.

Poststructuralism—as a name for a mode of thinking, a style of philosophizing, a kind of writing—has exercised a profound influence upon contemporary Western thought and the institution of the university. As a French and predominantly Parisian affair, poststructuralism is inseparable from the intellectual milieu of postwar France, a world dominated by Alexandre Kojève's and Jean Hyppolite's interpretations of Hegel, Jacques Lacan's reading of Freud, Gaston Bachelard's epistemology, George Canguilhem's studies of science, and Jean-Paul Sartre's existentialism. It is also inseparable from the structuralist tradition of linguistics based upon the work of Ferdinand de Saussure and Roman Jacobson, and the structuralist interpretations of Claude Lévi-Strauss, Roland Barthes, Louis Althusser, and the early Michel Foucault. Poststructuralism, considered in terms of contemporary cultural history, can be understood as belonging to the broad movement of European formalism, with explicit historical links to both Formalist and Futurist linguistics and poetics, and with aspects of the European avant-garde, especially André Breton's surrealism. Each essay in this unique collection by and for educators is devoted to the work and educational significance of one of ten major poststructuralist philosophers.

This critical ethnography of school libraries contributes to the study of the politics of literacy at the elementary school level as well as provides an interesting case study of border crossing. The book interrogates two accounts of social reproduction and proposes a third. Students at working-poor Chavez Elementary resisted attempts to get them hooked on reading fiction, but while many were socialized to the labor of a piecework economy, many also found ways to use texts as they chose. At professional-managerial Crest Hills, students managed their discourse practices in ways that reproduced those of their office workplace, but their success was achieved at the expense of great anxiety about the future. At working-class Roosevelt, the librarians attended to the rhetoric of librarianship, but students reassembled knowledge on their own terms. A second project theorizes the school library as a geopolitical space, and critiques children's fiction and the social order that its texts help construct through a semiotic analysis of text classification within school libraries. An investigation of the origins of that system and of the ways of reading that it promotes—with particular attention to the history of the popular novel—describes the gender- and class-based politics of leisure reading.

College students and graduates have fond memories of campus events such as commencement, founder's days, convocations, and baccalaureate. These events, defined as rites of passage, secular ceremonies, or cultural performances, create a special feel to a campus remembered for years to come. Borrowing from interpretive anthropology, the author spotlights the following ideas: culture is revealed and forms of life are expressed through the actions and words of community members; human communities are dynamic, complex, and ever-changing environments revealed though analysis of cultural events; and commonplace rituals and ceremonies play a central role in the cultural work of human meaning. The purpose of the book is to explore campus culture as revealed through rituals and ceremonies.While rituals are unique to each campus, this book discusses higher education ceremonies and traditions and offers explanations about the roles they play in building and maintaining campus culture. Dr. Manning combines educational research methodology, higher education and anthropological theory to vividly describe college rituals. In a readable fashion, case studies describing the rituals are interspersed between chapters discussing the theory of rituals. The cases include convocation, presidential inauguration, junior show, charter day, founder's birthday celebration, baccalaureate, and laurel chain and alumnae parade.