Critical Pedagogy

Critical pedagogy emerged from a wide array of radical theory that wanted to make schooling more democratic and emancipatory by transforming oppressive social processes and structures in schools through praxis and empowering teachers, students, and the community with a critical view of how society perpetuates oppression. It problematizes dominant modes of thinking and pushes teachers to become activists in their approach to addressing social inequalities. Critical pedagogy seeks to address the problems that arise from a society that is inherently unequal, especially in regard to race, class, and gender. Ultimately, critical pedagogy seeks to emancipate oppressed groups and unite people in a culture of critique, struggle, and hope in the quest to end different forms of oppression that exist today. Arising from the Frankfurt School of critical theory founded in 1923, Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis's Schooling in Capitalist America (1977), the early progressive movement and John Dewey, Miles Horton's work during the civil rights movement, and the efforts in Brazil by activists like Paulo Freire and his seminal book Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1970), critical pedagogy greatly influenced many critical scholars in education with their examination of social and cultural issues utilizing a Marxist framework.

One of the first concerns of critical pedagogy is the role that politics plays in people's everyday lives. For example, critical pedagogy seeks to expose the implicit and explicit functions of schooling in a capitalist society. Schools are ideological arenas of struggle and contestation where students are exposed to the dominant culture's beliefs, values, and attitudes. Freire saw the inherent problems when schooling was used to oppress certain groups while empowering others. Freire argued that the function of education should be to put forth a new world and to change existing social structures to become more liberating and empowering. Teaching and learning should not resemble a bank where teachers deposit information into passive students. Instead, teachers and students should be co-creators of knowledge within the classroom, and dominant ideologies should be exposed for critique and discussion. According to Freire, education has reinforced and created myths (about capitalism, heroes, social class, etc.), stressed rugged individualism, separated knowledge from reality, and [Page 407]omitted any discussion of social problems. Teachers and students must understand schooling from this perspective to understand the link between knowledge and power and to become active and critical citizens. This means that schooling is never neutral but instead is always political in nature. Because schooling is political, this means that schooling practices that at one time appeared to be natural are actually supporting the status quo. Thus, classroom learning and instruction cannot be separated from the larger political and social context.

Another concern is the role that culture plays in society. Specifically, schooling legitimates and prepares students for a particular form of cultural and social life. This cultural experience tends to arise from the dominant class and favors forms of knowledge;specific visions of the past, present, and future;and the naturalization of an unequal and tiered society that specifically benefits them. Without access to the cultural capital that society values, students outside of privileged groups do not receive the same educational experiences or socialization, further exacerbating poverty, apathy, and hopelessness. Competition, individualism, and victory are the types of cultural capital that are valued and will be stressed and rewarded in schools. This also means that racism, classism, heterosexism, ableism, and sexism are reproduced in schools. The Frankfurt School is credited as one of the founding centers on critical theory that sought to examine culture and its structural forms from a traditionally Marxist perspective. Herbert Marcuse, Theodore Adorno, and Jürgen Habermas were all influential in the development of critical pedagogy. Their focus on the role that popular culture has in the reproduction of the dominant culture, the importance of economics and its role in human suffering, and the effects of the proliferation of technology in society has guided present-day critical scholars in their examination of how schools reproduce oppression.

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