This collection of essays incorporates some of the most important and longstanding foundational texts in education developed by the leading educational neo-Gramscian social theorist Peter McLaren. The volume provides a much necessary framework for understanding more precisely not only the historical and philosophical foundations for McLaren's ideas, but even more importantly, it unpacks a clear understanding of the dynamics of ideological production framing the epistemicidal nature of capitalist schools. The chapters provide state of the art approaches grounded in both Marxist social theory and 'post-critical' sensibilities. They show the unique opportunities provided by critical theoretical approaches towards revolutionary pedagogies which are crucial to address the current challenges one is facing locally, nationally, and internationally. "Critical Theory: Rituals, Pedagogies and Resistance speaks to the current challenges we face as humanity, not only situating them historically, but also securitizing the role that our educational institutions, curriculum matrixes and teacher education programs have played in such social havoc. It provides crucial insights, not only to help a better understanding of the accomplishments produced by the critical educational and curriculum river in the struggle against the educational and curriculum epistemicide, but also to help explore alternative ways responsive to the world's endless epistemological difference and diversity. While the future of our field needs to go beyond Peter McLaren's intellectual thesaurus, it cannot certainly avoid going through him. The itinerant curriculum theory - and the ICTheorists - are conscious about that." - Joao M. Paraskeva, Professor of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, University of Strathclyde

Paulo Freire is one of the century's great thinkers on education and the politics of liberation. Known mostly for his literacy campaigns in Latin America and Africa, and for his seminal work Pedagogy of the Oppressed, his thinking continues to be rediscovered by generations of teachers, scholars, community activists and cultural workers in Europe and North America. While his name is synonymous with the practice of Critical Literacy' and A Pedagogy of Liberation', his work has been appropiated in many diverse fields of discipline and site-based projects of social reform. This volume represents a pathfinding analysis of Freires work and in many cases it offers an extension of his thinking in order to make it more applicable to first world contexts. Peter McLaren and Peter Leonard have brought together a divergent group of scholars widely recognized for their contributions to critical theory and critical pedagogy. Themes addressed include Freier's relation to feminist critique, his philosophical roots and an evaluation of his ideas from postmodernist and postcolonialist perspectives. The collection will be essential reading for anyone interested in the radical sociology of education and the politics of liberation.

Illuminating one of the most pervasive issues of our time, Popular Culture is the first book to link the importance and implications of popular culture with pedagogical practice. It shows how cultural forms such as Hollywood films, pop music, soap operas, and televangelism are organized by gender, age, class, race, and ethnicity, thus providing the contradictory text that both enables and disables emancipatory interest, so fundamental to the formation of self and society. What emerges is a redefinition of the very notion of popular culture.

Postdigital Dialogues on Critical Pedagogy, Liberation Theology and Information Technology presents a series of dialogues between Peter McLaren, a founding figure of critical pedagogy, and Petar Jandric, a transdisciplinary scholar working at the intersections between critical pedagogy and information technology. The authors debate the postdigital condition, its wide social impacts, and its relationship to critical pedagogy and liberation theology, as part of a transdisciplinary effort to develop a new postdigital revolutionary consciousness in the service of humanity. Throughout the dialogues we see how McLaren's thinking on critical pedagogy and liberation theology have developed since the publication of Pedagogy of Insurrection, and how these developments play out in Jandric's theory of the postdigital condition. The book includes a foreword by Peter Hudis and an afterword by Michael A. Peters.

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.

A Language of Freedom and Teacher's Authority: Case Comparisons from Turkey and the United States explores dimensions of authority that are deeply embedded in the profession of teaching. It examines critical dimensions of the foundations of Turkish and U.S. public education, both of which are under new pressures due to changes in the relationship between public schooling and current reforms in education. The contributors reflect on varied dimensions of authority, of which ideals are shifting under political and economic pressures. In both Turkey and the U.S, public education reflects the early influence of secular equalitarianism, revolutionary democratic developments, and an Enlightenment-based sense of the human right to education. Against this, we see the opposing dialectic where state control and curricular censorship and constriction appear too often.

This work by one of North America's leading educational theorists and cultural critics culminates a decade of social analyses that focuses on the political economy of schooling, Paulo Freire and literacy education, hip-hop culture, and multicultural education. Peter McLaren also examines the work of Baudrillard as well as Bourdieu's reflexive socio

This new edition brings McLaren's popular, classic textbook into a new era of Common Core Standards and online education. The book is renowned for its clear, provocative classroom narratives and its coverage of political, economic, and social factors that are undervalued in other educational textbooks. An international committee of experts ranked Life in Schools among the top twelve education books in the world.

First Published in 2004. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This Fist Called My Heart: The Peter McLaren Reader, Volume I is "at the same time an homage, a gathering, an intellectual activist's...toolkit, a teacher's bullshit detector, a parent's demand list and an academic's orienting topography. This collection of essays...represents some of the most central and important work of Peter McLaren; work he has done on behalf of people's liberation and humanization over more than three decades. [It provides] readers with an opportunity to develop a deep understanding of McLaren's intellectual history and academic development, and the thinking processes that lead to his current framework and intellectual/philosophical/political situatedness in humanist Marxism. Through these gathered and sequentially presented essays, readers will be able to `see' McLaren in the process of his theory construction, over time, without missing his essence of struggling for a just society that promotes the full humanity and liberation of all people. [Here,] we have curated some of the most exemplary essays along the trajectory of Peter McLaren's long and impactful career. These pieces track and document Peter's intellectual grow as one of North America's most important intellectuals and advocates for critical pedagogy; his theorizing of the discursive and the everyday through post-modernist and post-structural lenses; his contributions to the literature and practice of critical multiculturalism; his stirring work on capitalist empire, and valiant struggles to resist it; through to his foundational, long held connection and cutting edge contribution to the field of humanist Marxism."

This Fist Called My Heart: The Peter McLaren Reader, Volume I is "at the same time an homage, a gathering, an intellectual activist's...toolkit, a teacher's bullshit detector, a parent's demand list and an academic's orienting topography. This collection of essays...represents some of the most central and important work of Peter McLaren; work he has done on behalf of people's liberation and humanization over more than three decades. [It provides] readers with an opportunity to develop a deep understanding of McLaren's intellectual history and academic development, and the thinking processes that lead to his current framework and intellectual/philosophical/political situatedness in humanist Marxism. Through these gathered and sequentially presented essays, readers will be able to `see' McLaren in the process of his theory construction, over time, without missing his essence of struggling for a just society that promotes the full humanity and liberation of all people. [Here,] we have curated some of the most exemplary essays along the trajectory of Peter McLaren's long and impactful career. These pieces track and document Peter's intellectual grow as one of North America's most important intellectuals and advocates for critical pedagogy; his theorizing of the discursive and the everyday through post-modernist and post-structural lenses; his contributions to the literature and practice of critical multiculturalism; his stirring work on capitalist empire, and valiant struggles to resist it; through to his foundational, long held connection and cutting edge contribution to the field of humanist Marxism."

Scholar, activist, and educator Paulo Freire was one of the first thinkers to fully appreciate the relationships between education, politics, imperialism, and liberation. This volume is a testament to the works of Paulo Freire in the field of Education as well as the life of the man: a "story of courage, hardship, perseverance, and unyielding belief in the power of love." In this comprehensive collection, prominent intellectuals including Noam Chomsky and Donald Macedo reflect on Freire's "politics of liberation" and add important new dimensions to the revolutionary, innovative ideas that Freire bequeathed to a generation much in need.

To understand contemporary times, we must appreciate the extent to which our lives are affected by the cultural and political struggle between "official" narratives and the counternarratives which emerge as oppositional responses. "Counternarratives" develops a concept of "postmodern counternarratives" as a frame for exploring the politics of media, technology and education within everyday struggles for human identities and loyalties.
The authors identify two forms of counternarratives. One functions as a critique of the modernist propensity for grand narratives. The second concept, which is the focus of the book, builds on the first; the idea of "little stories" addressing cultural and political opposition to the "official" narratives used to manipulate public consciousness.
Successive chapters explore a diverse range of "little stories." Each marks an important point of contestation within contemporary education and culture: curriculum, pedagogy, literacy, media representations and applications of new technologies. Specific case studies look at the potential for cultural studies as a tool for teachers to confront the official narrative of classroom education; the "slacker" subculture as a response to official accounts of what youth should be; media accounts of the Gulf War; Paulo Freire's counternarrative of pedagogy and education and the role of the university within contemporary metropolitan and post-colonial cultures; and the possibilities for critical pedagogy in cyberspace.

"Utopian in theme and implication, this book shows how the practices of critical, interpretive inquiry can help change the world in positive ways . This is the promise, the hope, and the agenda that is offered."--Norman K. Denzin, From the Foreword

"Its focus on learning, education and pedagogy gives this book a particular relevance and significance in contemporary cultural studies. Its impressive authors, thoughtful structuring, wide range of perspectives, attention to matters of educational policy and practice, and suggestions for transformative pedagogy all provide for a compelling and significant volume."--H. Svi Shapiro, University of North Carolina Greensboro

Distinguished international scholars from a wide range of disciplines (including curriculum studies, foundations of education, adult education, higher education, and consumer education) come together in this book to explore consumption and its relation to learning, identity development, and education. Readers will learn about a variety of ways in which learning and education intersect with consumption. This volume is unique within the literature of education in its examination of educational sites both formal and informal where learners and teachers are resisting consumerism and enacting a critical pedagogy of consumption.

Postmodernism has become the orthodoxy in educational theory. It heralds the end of grand theories like Marxism and liberalism, scorning any notion of a united feminist challenge to patriachy, of united anti-racist struggle, and of united working-class movements against capitalist exploitation and oppression. For postmodernists, the world is fragmented, history is ended, and all struggles are local and particularistic. Written by internationally renowned British and American educational theorists Marxism Against Postmodernism in Educational Theory-a substantially revised edition of the original 1999 work Postmodernism in Educational Theory-critically examines the infusion of postmodernism and theories of postmodernity into educational theory, policy, and research. The writers argue that postmodernism provides neither a viable educational politics, nor the foundation for effective radical educational practice and offer an alternative 'politics of human resistance' which puts the challenge to capitalism firmly on the agenda of educational theory, politics, and practice.

Scholar, activist and educator Paulo Freire was one of the first thinkers to fully appreciate the relationships between education, politics, imperialism and liberation. This volume is a testament to the works of Paulo Freire in the field of education as well as the life of the man: a "story of courage, hardship, perseverance, and unyielding belief in the power of love". In this comprehensive collection, prominent intellectuals including Noam Chomsky and Donald Macedo reflect on Freire's "politics of liberation" and add important new dimensions to the revolutionary, innovative ideas that Freire bequeathed to a generation much in need.

To understand contemporary times, we must appreciate how much our lives are affected by the cultural and political struggle between 'official' narratives and the counternarratives which emerge as oppositional responses. Counternarratives develops a concept of 'postmodern counternarratives' as a frame for exploring the politics of media, technology and education within everyday struggles for human identities and loyalties.

`McLaren's book represents a valuable contribution to advancing debates in critical pedagogy and the changing nature of education generally. He has a great ability to give readers new understandings and to generate productive ideas through a combination of his own insights and his appropriations of various other crtics and theorists. He does this by writing in an accessible, even passionate, style with a powerful turn of phrase that evokes the very points he discusses.' - Critical Forum

`... should be regarded as essential reading for all those interested in the radical potential of schooling to contribute to the transformation of these increasingly dyspeptic times' - Sociology

This book consists of a collection of original essays on the work of Paulo Freire, based on diverse experiences of First and Third world contexts. All of authors argue that Paulo Freire is the cornerstone upon which a new vision and strategies of liberation can be built. The book offers a broad interpretive base addressing Marxist and post-socialist, modern and post-modern, hermeneutical, feminist and post-colonial perspectives.

"Between Borders" attempts to strengthen the links between critical pedagogy and cultural practice. This collection of essays describes how cultural practices - as portrayed in film, in sports, and in the classroom itself - enable cultural studies to deepen its own political possibilities and construct diverse geographies of identity, representation and place. The book is organized around three related themes: the relationship between pedagogy and media literacy; the intersection of critical pedagogy with issues concerning postmodernism, race, the politics of desire and post-colonialism; and the question of representation with respect to the relationship between popular culture, the arts and the state.

"Cultural Studies" explores popular culture in a uniquely exciting and innovative way. Encouraging experimentation, intervention and dialogue, "Cultural Studies" is both politically and theoretically rewarding.

Foreword by:
Paulo Freire

"Utopian in theme and implication, this book shows how the practices of critical, interpretive inquiry can help change the world in positive ways?. This is the promise, the hope, and the agenda that is offered."--Norman K. Denzin, From the Foreword

"Its focus on learning, education and pedagogy gives this book a particular relevance and significance in contemporary cultural studies. Its impressive authors, thoughtful structuring, wide range of perspectives, attention to matters of educational policy and practice, and suggestions for transformative pedagogy all provide for a compelling and significant volume."--H. Svi Shapiro, University of North Carolina?Greensboro

Distinguished international scholars from a wide range of disciplines (including curriculum studies, foundations of education, adult education, higher education, and consumer education) come together in this book to explore consumption and its relation to learning, identity development, and education. Readers will learn about a variety of ways in which learning and education intersect with consumption. This volume is unique within the literature of education in its examination of educational sites ? both formal and informal ? where learners and teachers are resisting consumerism and enacting a critical pedagogy of consumption.