On Critical Pedagogy

by Giroux, Henry A.

• ISBN13: 9781441168191
• ISBN10: 1441168192
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-06-16
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

For thirty years Henry Giroux has been theorizing pedagogy as a political, moral, and cultural practice, drawing upon critical discourses that extend from John Dewey and Zygmunt Bauman to Paulo Freire. This impassioned book starts with the crucial role of pedagogy in schools before extending the notion to the educational force of the wider culture. Giroux focuses on five crucial elements associated with critical pedagogy. First, he presents an overview of the term as it applies to schooling and to larger cultural spheres. Second, he analyzes the increasingly empirical orientation of teaching, focusing on the culture of positivism. Section Three examines some of the major economic, social, and political forces undermining the promise of democratic schooling in both public and higher education. Giroux then outlines increasing attempts by both right wing and liberal interests to reduce schooling to training and students merely to customers. Finally, the book focuses on the legacy of Paulo Freire and issues a fundamental challenge to educators, public intellectuals, and others who believe in the promise of a radical democracy.

Table of Contents

I. Introduction: 1.Critical Pedagogy in Dark TimesII. Pedagogy as Cultural Politics:2. Schooling and the Culture of Positivism: Notes on the Death of History3. Rethinking Cultural Politics and Radical Pedagogy in the Work of Antonio Gramsci4. The Promise of Critical Pedagogy in the Age of GlobalizationIII. Critical Pedagogy and the Politics of Youth:5. No Bailouts for Youth: Education and Pedagogy in an Era of Disposability6. Higher Education and the Politics and Pedagogy of Educated HopeIV. Neoliberalism, Public Pedagogy, and the Legacy of Paulo Freire7. Neoliberalism and the Role of Public Pedagogy8. Rethinking Education as the Practice of Freedom: Paulo Freire and the Promise of Critical PedagogyV. Does Critical Pedagogy  Have a Future?9.  Does Critical Pedagogy have a Future? Henry A. Giroux Interviewed by Manuela Guilherme