Giroux, Henry A. (1943–)

Henry Armand Giroux has spent and continues his professional life as a critical educator par excellence. His writings and teaching focus on the need for the development of a critical pedagogy in which both teachers and cultural workers can understand their roles as agents of social change and as transformative intellectuals. His critical pedagogy is rooted in the works and tradition of distinguished dissenters and reformers of educational, political, and social realities, such as Karl Marx, John Dewey, George S. Counts, the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory, and Paulo Freire.

Giroux is a prolific writer, as indicated by his numerous publications whether as journal articles, chapters in books, or books. He integrates what he thinks and writes within his own seminars and classes. His enthusiasm in the classroom has been observed to move the students to a new sense of social and educational reform in their own lives and in societal schooling practices. He exudes both passion and enthusiasm for his ideas in his writings and in his teaching, which challenge the reader and student to construct a new awareness and understanding of what is, in view of what could be. He imparts to his readers and students both a language of critique and a language of possibility. Through his language of critique, he is indeed a dissenter against what presently happens in society and in education; and through his language of possibility, he is a societal and educational reformer. His critical pedagogy constantly calls for a redefining of the purpose and meaning of schooling.

Giroux's writings, reflecting both a critique and a call for reform, already span several decades. He has critiqued the educational policies of several presidential administrations from Reagan (A Nation at Risk), to Bush and Clinton (America Goals 2000), to George W. Bush (No Child Left Behind) and those policies on public education and school choice that fall between these national policies. He has focused his critique of schooling practices at every level, including higher education. His critique of popular culture includes films about schooling, other popular films, consumerism and greed, technology and new information sources, youth culture, and Disney World. He has critiqued the public and political response to incidents of violence, racism, and terrorism, including the attacks of September 11, 2001, and to natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina.

His notions of a critical pedagogy have developed in dialogue with feminism, postmodernism, liberation theology, and postcolonialism. However, amidst his critiques from a contemporary and radical standpoint, Giroux values the notions of a progressive democratic state as developed in the modernistic era, and the values of liberty, equality, and justice and the hope for the creation of a more just and humane world, which also originate in modernism. His writings continue to be a response of dissent and reform, characterized by a language of critique and a language of possibility, to those contemporary incidents and movements that continually happen within popular culture, the current political, social, and educational arenas.

Giroux was born in 1943 in Providence, Rhode Island, to a working-class family. It is from these roots that he began his journey of reflecting upon the role of social class on his own personal development and identity. His academic credentials include his undergraduate work at the University of Maine, a master's degree from Appalachian State University, and his doctoral degree from Carnegie Mellon University (1977). He began his professional career in education as a high school history teacher, already at that time utilizing a perspective of critique and social justice in addressing the social realities of those revolutionizing years of 1968 to 1975, characterized by societal and educational dissent and reform.

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