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A Critical Humanist Curriculum

Journal For Critical Education Policy Studies, 2014

This essay is a critical humanist discussion of curriculum; a departure from the technicist view of education [education meant to support a global capitalist economy] and an analysis of curriculum considering critical humanism, political economy and critical race theory among other modes of critical analysis and inquiry. Our discussion supports a revolutionary curriculum: the turn from a static coercive system of domination where the everyday lives of students are controlled to a dynamic liberatory education where education supports a student's imaginary (Pinar), creativity and their everyday practice of freedom (Freire, Greene, hooks).

A Look over Curriculum from the Point of View of Critical Thinkers: Freire, Giroux and Apple

Research on Humanities and Social Sciences, 2015

The present paper investigates the approaches of three major critical thinkers about curriculum. Henry Giroux with his theory of "Border Pedagogy" combining critical, post-modern, feminist and reconceptualist views tries to help educators and learners understand manifests of traditional borders of power, knowledge, decision-making, and sociocultural curriculums could be criticized in their pedagogies and they could even go beyond them. Then borders of existing pedagogies created by imperialism would be challenged and redefined. Freire utilizes the "Emancipatory Concept" from Habermas and Frankfurt school, uses it in the field of education and manages to provide a critical ground in educational system in which critical dialogue does not merely solve the problem but discusses new issues. Michael Apple emphasizes the role of "Hidden Curriculum" in the formation of predefined goals of imperialism and offers new solutions in this regard.

Critical education as an attempt to question the dominant habitus through the educational system

Studia z Teorii Wychowania

In the article, I analyze the role of education in the prevailing system of neoliberal capitalism. On the one hand, it is used by the dominant culture characteristic for the upper classes to imprint appropriate ideological assumptions in the minds of students. On the other hand, there is strong resistance to the practices of subordination and implementation of the logic of the prevailing system. Illich's concept of deschooling society recognizes that compulsory education should be abolished. Critical educators such as Henry Giroux and Peter McLaren argue that the resistance present in the school testifies to the possibility of using the school to shape critical citizens capable of defending democracy. In my article, I argue that it is possible to partially free oneself from the logic of the dominant culture and to partially emancipate the habituses characteristic of the lower classes. However, it is not my goal to illustrate the ideas present in the theories under analysis by re...

Critical pedagogy and democracy: cultivating the democratic ethos

Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies

Neoliberalism has forged new modes of subjectivity and citizenship through a social mandate to provide for one's survival solely through individual -choice.‖ As a consequence, we have oppression, manipulation, exploitation and human misery. In this paper I support that Critical Pedagogy can contribute to the creation of a human agent who is autonomous, more humane, author of his/her decisions, dignified, with social solidarity, responsibility, and a sense of freedom that negates every dehumanizing practice through the cultivation of a democratic ethos. In essence, the democratic ethos is the starting point of a reflective praxis. This democratic ethos evolves into conscientization, which in turn becomes -responsibilization", culminating in solidarity, love, dignity, hope and mutual support through praxis, inevitably reinforcing the same democratic ethos. This means that critical pedagogy promotes a teaching culture that will foster the development of a young generation, which will inevitably negate the capitalist system.

Critical pedagogy in uncertain times: hope and possibilities

International Studies in Sociology of Education, 2011

Shelia L Macrine's edited volume, Critical Pedagogy in Uncertain Times: Hope and Possibilities, presents itself as an intervention into the current phase of neoliberal capitalism, where critical pedagogy is often conceived of as a force for a more humanistic and democratic future and as an instrument for unveiling the oppressive nature of capitalism. Incidentally, this volume also serves as a celebration, marking 40 years since the landmark publication of Paulo Freire's seminal text, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Macrine brings together ten chapters in two sections, many of which are by some of the most esteemed scholars and activists in critical pedagogy, as well as a foreword by Stanley Aronowitz, and an afterword by Gustavo E. Fischman. The foreword by Stanley Aronowitz outlines a framework of critical pedagogy based on three goals for what he calls ''radical democratic humanism'' (p. ix). The first and second goals are self-reflection and being critical as undergirding elements of human consciousness-these goals are covered in the book's first section. In the book's second section, the overall goal is concerned with agency and the role of critical pedagogy for reinstating ''education as a public good'' (p. 6). In the book's first section, Chapter 1 begins with Henry Giroux, who reinvigorates Noam Chomsky's call for the responsibility of intellectuals. Within the neoliberal context, Giroux argues that subjects in higher education have gained importance ''almost exclusively through their exchange value on the market'' (p. 16), where higher education has subsidized corporate training while enslaving students with debt. Giroux's response is for intellectuals to connect their labor to social problems in order to defend the public sphere. In Chapter 2, Kenneth Saltman outlines the disaster impulses of neoliberalism through a back door privatization framework. Back door privatization, according to Saltman, has occurred through disaster, illustrated by No Child Left Behind of 2001, Renaissance 2010 in Chicago, IL, rebuilding education in Iraq after the US invasion, and rebuilding education in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. Saltman's chapter leads to Chapter 3, where Peter McLaren and Nathalia Jaramillo articulate a revolutionary critical pedagogy situated within a critique of political economy, in which a Marxist humanist approach can help one break through the boundaries of capitalism. McLaren and Jaramillio read this Marxist humanistic approach into Latina/o education, where students serve capital through a perfidious binary in the US education system between Americanism and un-Americanism. In Chapter 4, Donaldo Macedo works to unmask the illusions associated with prepackaged Western democracy spread through the instrument of US foreign policy. The