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An Update on Critical PedagogyPaul McPherron & Jason SchneiderPublished online: 10 Jun 2010.

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An Update on Critical Pedagogy

Critical English for Academic Purposes: Theory, Politics and Practice. SarahBenesch, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., 2001, 161 pages,$19.95 (softcover), $39.95 (hardcover).

Critical Academic Writing and Multilingual Students. Suresh Canagarajah,Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002, 279 pages, $18.00 (softcover).

Beyond Methods: Macrostrategies for Language Learning. B. Kumaravadivelu,New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003, 338 pages, $35.00 (softcover).

The ESL Classroom: Teaching, Practice, and Community Development.Brian Morgan, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998, 167 pages, $16.95(softcover), $45.00 (hardcover).

Critical Applied Linguistics: A Critical Introduction. Alastair Pennycook,Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc., 2001, 206 pages, $19.95 (soft-cover), $39.95 (hardcover).

Paul McPherron and Jason SchneiderUniversity of California, Davis

A graduate student’s required reading can, at times, be inspiring: It answers ques-tions from past studies; it suggests new directions of thought; or, occasionally, ittouches on one’s core beliefs and values. Such was the case for both of us when weencountered the work of Suresh Canagarajah and Brian Morgan in a seminar on re-cent research in teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL). Theirwritings addressed some of our key concerns: How can instructors of an “imperialis-tic” language negotiate a morally tenable place in English language teaching(ELT)?; how might classrooms deal with the linguistic needs of students without be-

JOURNAL OF LANGUAGE, IDENTITY, AND EDUCATION, 4(3), 227–235Copyright © 2005, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

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ingapolitical?;howshould issuesofpersonal identityandculturaldiversitybe incor-porated into language learning and teaching? While we already had some of our ownresponses, because we had both spent time in English as a foreign language contexts,the introduction to a “disciplinary thought collective” (Ramanathan, 2002) of “criti-cal” writers offered the chance to consider more formal reflections on the issues. Wesoonformedacriticalpedagogy/critical literacyreadinggroup—alocaldisciplinarythought collective—through which we began to explore “critical” TESOL. Amongour readings were the five recently published books reviewed here.

We have structured our review around three common themes: (a) the notion of“critical” (which we have decided to keep in quotes, because understandings vary);(b) representations of resistance; (c) the theory-practice “dichotomy.” Based on thisframework, we will explore the books’points of intersection and departure, and thenreflectonwhatweperceiveassometensionsandambiguities in“critical”studies.

WHAT IS “CRITICAL”?

At the end of her book, Benesch writes about the many interpretations of “critical”relating to teaching:

At conferences, I have heard everything from “Critical teaching is getting students tomarch in the streets” to “Critical teaching is the imposition of the teacher’s politicalagenda,” to “Critical teaching is letting students choose their own topics,” indicatingthat for some it is political indoctrination while for others it is simply student-cen-tered teaching. (p. 138)

As the quote indicates, the meaning of “critical” remains tenuous, both for thosewho are skeptical of the term—like Benesch’s interlocutors—as well as for thosewho use it as a self-descriptor. These books are no different in this regard. How-ever, there is at least one important similarity in the authors’ views: the belief that(political and social) transformations are central tenets of a “critical” perspective.

Focusing on politics, the books argue that language and teaching are not neutraland value-free. Pennycook maintains that “critical applied linguistics must neces-sarily take up certain positions and stances” since language necessarily needs to beconnected “to broader political concerns” (p. 10). This group of writers seems toregard language use as a site of constructed meanings, negotiation, and resistanceto dominant political interests. Morgan writes, “Language does not simply reportor transmit reality. Language ‘conditions’ our expectations and desires, and com-municates what might be possible in terms of ourselves” (p. 12). For Morgan andthe others, teachers and researchers should then act as advocates to “explore thepossibilities of social advocacy, or active citizenship, as a potential area of growth”(p. 19). In this way, “critical” means a focus on politics, but also on transformation.

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Some of the core writers associated with critical pedagogy, such as Henry Girouxand Paulo Freire, base their theories of education on a notion of transformation,and their work strongly informs these books. Specifically, Canagarajah usesGiroux’s term when he claims that writing instructors should be “transformativeintellectuals” (p. 29), and Benesch writes that “Freire’s concept of hope is the onethat distinguishes traditional and critical EAP [English for academic purposes]most clearly” (p. 49). Perhaps Kumaravadivelu makes the transformation empha-sis most apparent by placing the teacher as transformative intellectual at the top ofa hierarchy of “teacher roles.”

The idea of “transformation” raises at least two perspectives regarding its un-derlying theories and context of use. First, Pennycook devotes large sections of hisbook to explaining why a theory of “critical” that is based on neo-Marxist politicsand an “emancipatory modernist” framework, like that of Freirean critical peda-gogy, does not fit into his idea of “critical” or transformative. Echoing earlier femi-nist criticism of critical pedagogy, including Gore (1993) and Ellsworth (1989), hewrites, “there are questions to be asked about the adequacy of the sociologicalframework supplied by neo-Marxist analysis, particularly the rather simple divi-sion between oppressed and oppressors, dominated and dominators, and the pri-macy given to capitalist accumulation as the primary source of power” (p. 38). In-stead, Pennycook calls for a “critical” approach that is self-reflexive,“problematizing,” and informed by postmodernism, poststructuralism, and femi-nism. Benesch offers a second perspective by suggesting that criticisms of the“revolutionary claims” of transformation that are directed toward “critical” writerscan be addressed by “offering illustrations of critical practice showing the relation-ship between critical theory and complicated and messy classrooms” (p. 141).

REPRESENTATIONS OF RESISTANCE

Resistance assumes a central place in all the books, explicitly or implicitly. As withthe very notion of “critical,” however, there is no one, accepted understanding ofthe term; the books’ representations of resistance differ with regard to context,means, and goals. Canagarajah, for example, focuses on multilingual writers’ at-tempts to resist established academic discourses. Through a discussion of tradi-tional approaches to non-native writing, including the “normative” and “relativis-tic” approaches, he arrives at the idea of “difference-as-resource” or “thenegotiation model”:

… the negotiation model requires that students wrestle with the divergent discoursesthey face in writing to creatively work out alternate discourses and literacies that rep-resent better their values and interests. In some cases this means appropriating the ac-ademic discourse and conventions in terms of the students’own backgrounds. (p. 15)

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This notion of appropriation guides Canagarajah’s understanding of how multilin-gual writers can carve out spaces for their voices in the academic context by posi-tioning their own voices inside the dominant modes, rather than against them. Thiscarving out of spaces does not mean capitulating to dominant discourses, but ratherintegrating them with local, “native” ways of responding to the world.

Somewhat differently, Benesch and Morgan concentrate on unified, stu-dent–teacher resistance towhatBenesch terms,generally, “unfavorablesocial, insti-tutional, and classroom conditions” (p. 108); also, they both see resistance as a com-munity event. Benesch’s claim that “Critical EAP helps students articulate andformalize their resistance, to participate more democratically as members of an aca-demic community and in the larger society” (p. 61) echoes Morgan’s position that“When small victories and dissenting voices are discerned … alternative and sus-tainable ways of community life have the real possibility of developing” (p. 126).And based on their own successes in classrooms, such assertions seem justified. Af-ter several lessons about the difficulties immigrants have negotiating the Canadianjob market, some of Morgan’s adult students take part in a discussion at a communityconference and present their compositions; in a linked EAP/anthropology course, a“delegation”ofBenesch’sstudentseffectivelyconfronts theanthropologyprofessorabout some unclear pedagogic practices. In both instances—and several others intheir books—resistance is collective, and it is the whole community that benefits.

Unlike Canagarajah, Morgan, and Benesch, however, whose representations ofresistance might be termed resistance modeling, because they demonstrate realclassroom examples of resistance, Kumaravadivelu and Pennycook seem to advo-cate resistance to dominant “thought collectives” in the field. By describing a“postmethod condition,” Kumaravadivelu problematizes the very notion of methodand critiques teacher education programs that emphasize methodology. Althoughhis 10 “macrostrategies” for language instructors are not specific ways for teachersto challenge dominant discourses, he does offer these strategies within the frame-work of a “postmethod” discussion. Pennycook, meanwhile, perceives his wholeproject as resistance-oriented: “Critical applied linguistics, then, is not just a criticaldimension added on to applied linguistics: It involves a constant skepticism, a con-stant questioning of the normative assumptions of applied linguistics” (p. 10).

THE THEORY/PRACTICE “DICHOTOMY”

All of the books mention the common split between theorists and practitioners, andthey all argue in favor of teachers and researchers theorizing their practice.Pennycook explains that theory in applied linguistics is often derided as “not aboutthe real world” (p. 3). In a slightly different way, Kumaravadivelu writes that the di-vide can also occur because of the common belief that “the theorist conceives andconstructs knowledge and the teacher understands and applies that knowledge” (p.

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18). This leads to a hierarchy in which theorists are viewed above teachers, andteachers-in-training are not taught the importance of creating their own context-spe-cific theories of learning and language. For the “critical” writers reviewed here,breaking down the theory/practice wall results in more relevant theories and “em-powered” teachers and researchers. Morgan writes, “If theoretical knowledge is tobe relevant, it must begin by negotiation and a considerable amount of local auton-omy” (p. 131), and he later adds, “The key point for teachers here is that they have totake responsibility for their own practice. I hope that teachers … always look criti-cally and creatively at what is or is not ESL” (p. 132). In this way, bridging the theoryand practice divide is also related to empowerment and transformation. Each writer,however, presents a different way to go about this task.

Pennycook deals mostly with theories without a clear practice section to “avoidthe theory-into-practicedirection”andencourageapplied linguists to see themas in-tertwined (p. 3). He calls this idea “praxis,” which is the “continuous reflexive inte-gration of thought, desire and action” (Simon, quoted in Pennycook, p. 3). This ap-proach allows Pennycook to imagine the various forms applied linguistics mighttake, andhe leaves teachersand researchers toapplyhis ideasand theories to their in-dividual contexts. His later discussion of “engaged research” continues this attemptto bring theory and practice closer together. He writes that this “engaged focus” is anapproach to“applied linguistics that sees issuessuchasgender, race, class, sexuality,postcolonialism, and so on as so fundamental to identity and language that they needto form the basis of curricular organization, pedagogy and research” (p. 160). ForPennycook, the elements of “engaged research,” difference, participation, power,and change should inform all research and teaching as well as theorizing.

Benesch and Morgan offer a more context specific approach to narrowing thetheory/practice split. Each section in The ESL Classroom first brings up authorsand studies that connect to the lessons in the chapter. For example, Morgan citesPhillipson, Krashen, and Goldstein in arguing for the inclusion of overt teaching ofpolitical ideas (p. 27). He writes, “we should promote greater diversity in ourteaching strategies and show a willingness to explore ‘unusual’ ideas about politi-cal experience generated through dialogue with our students” (p. 27). His next sec-tion then details his lesson plans and “critical” practices about the Gulf War. Alter-natively, the first half of Benesch’s book is entitled “Theory and Politics,” and it isdevoted to tracing the history of EAP/English for specific purposes (ESP), provid-ing an overview of the debates on “general English” and EAP, and proposing herown vision of critical EAP based on “rights analysis,” “critical pragmatism,” andFreire’s notion of hope. In the second half, Benesch takes the theory into the class-room by discussing her work as an EAP instructor in linked anthropology and psy-chology courses.

Toward bridging the practice/theory split, both Canagarajah andKumaravadivelu propose different forms of participant action research similar towhat Pennycook calls “engaged research.” Kumaravadivelu’s “macro-strategies”

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arenotmeant tobespecificpedagogicalpractices, andhisbook isnot focusedondis-cussing new theories in applied linguistics but in assisting teachers in creating per-sonal theories and “postmethod” classrooms. In this way, he advocates a conceptionof teaching that is situated in the context of a teacher’s classroom. He writes, “If theconcept of method authorizes theorizers to centralize pedagogic decision-making,the postmethod condition enables practitioners to generate location-specific, class-room-oriented innovative strategies” (p. 33). Focusing on writing, Canagarajah of-fers “types of observation and inquiry that will enable us to theorize ESOL [Englishfor speakers ofother languages] writing from the bottom up” (p. 28). Specifically, heusesanapplicationsectionat theendofeverychapterandexamplesofhisown“criti-cal” ethnographic studies of student writing in Sri Lanka to illustrate the ways teach-ers can also be researchers. For example, at the end of the second chapter, readers areasked to create their own literacy biographies using questions such as: “What wereyour impressions of the assignments your teachers gave you? Which approach (asoutlined earlier) did their pedagogical practice resemble? … Did you ever feel thattheir grading was unfair? … Did you ever feel that you were being forced to adopt anidentity or an image of yourself in your writing that you were not comfortable with?”(p. 43).

TENSIONS AND AMBIGUITIES IN “CRITICAL” STUDIES

The theory/practice dilemma offers a good lead-in to a discussion of the tensions inthe “critical” approach, because in our view it is on the level of classroom that“critical” work becomes most challenging. Because these books “concretize thetheory,” as Benesch puts it, by exploring real classroom experiences, they exposesome of the challenges in both pedagogical practice and research reporting. In ourexamination of these moments, we have tried to restate the issues as questions toourselves, as applied linguistics graduate students who are undertaking our ownclassroom research projects.

One tension relates to self-reflexivity on the part of the action researcher. Al-most all of the writers mention the necessity of self-reflexivity: Pennycook notesthat, “If critical applied linguistics needs to retain a constant skepticism, a constantquestioning of the givens of applied linguistics, this problematizing stance mustalso be turned on itself” (p. 8); Benesch talks about how a critical stance “includesproblematizing not only research results but also the way one’s own research is re-ported” (p. 63); Canagarajah says, “Intellectuals should continue to critically ex-amine their own biases in relation to their experiences of students, prepared to re-vise their assumptions and values based on this encounter” (p. 101); and Morganemphasizes the Freirean notion of dialogue as a way “to help us critically reflectupon what we do and what we expect in our classrooms” (p. 101). Nonetheless,

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there are moments when these attitudes may be undermined by the constraints ofacademic discourse.

One such instance occurs during Morgan’s lessons about the Gulf War withadult students. After a series of discussions and assignments relating to theWar—and to war in general, because several of the students have experiencedwar—Morgan arranges for a discussion between a Grade 7 class and his students.During the discussion, the Grade 7 teacher, who turns out to be quite hawkish, ar-gues with several of Morgan’s students. He describes part of the exchange:

… The teacher countered by asking, “What would you do if a robber came to yourhouse, attacked your family and stole your property? Would you do nothing? That’swhat Saddam Hussein did in Kuwait.” … one of my students pointed to the class-room teacher and said, “I completely agree with you.” I was surprised, because hehad not stated this view in our previous discussions. (p. 34)

At this moment, Morgan, the critical educator, is faced with the realization that de-spite his efforts to create a democratic classroom that addresses students’ everydayconcerns, at least one student has been reluctant to share his opinions. Morgan com-ments that “[t]his was a moment to reflect on how my teaching practices might havesilenced his point of view” (p. 34). This is a crucial observation, but we feel it shouldhave been probed further, since it might have offered real insight into the problem ofstudents’ counter resistance to critical pedagogy (especially given Morgan’s keensensitivity to classroom dynamics). We do not take this as a sign of Morgan’s lack ofinterest in the question; rather, in the spirit of research (“critical” or otherwise), Mor-gan is expected to “make a point” and not wallow in self-doubt. This expectation hasperhaps forced him to brush aside some potential self-problematizing. (Indeed, if hewere to pursue every such “moment to reflect,” his book would include nothing butsuch moments!) So the question we draw from this, as teachers and researchers, is:How can we maintain truly self-problematizing stances while conforming to the tra-ditional thesis-driven structure of academic discourse?

While this problem relates to dilemmas in research reporting, the behavior ofMorgan’s students during the Gulf War lesson suggests also another tension relatedtoclassroompractice:whatmightbecalledstudents’counter resistance to resistanceteaching and the need for the “critically” oriented teacher to be alert to it. Benesch’sdescription of her linked EAP/psychology class also highlights this conflict. Due toanabsenceofwomen’spsychologyandwomenpsychologists in thecoursesyllabus,sheasksherEAPstudents to readanovelaboutananorexic teenager.Threemalestu-dents react negatively to the text in class discussions and journal entries, complain-ingvariously that it is “boring,” that theprotagonist is“crazy,”or thatanorexia is sim-ply uninteresting. Benesch debates whether or not to share one of the student’sjournal responses with the whole group, thinking this might be a way to “make it apedagogical moment” (p. 75). In the end, she decides not to do this, but she questions

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the choice: “… I may have inadvertently short-circuited further dialogue on impor-tant questions appearing in his journal entries by not encouraging him to go publicwith them” (p. 77). As in Morgan’s case, Benesch’s conscientious pedagogicchoices, which aim to resist “unfavorable social, institutional, and classroom condi-tions”—the professor’s sexist syllabus in this instance—are challenged by membersof the community that the choices are meant to benefit.

As teachers, such counter resistance is familiar to us (and it is reassuring toknow that seasoned instructors like Morgan and Benesch struggle with it too). Soin the spirit of being self-reflexive, we wonder: How can we challenge dominantmodels and discourses without alienating the ideologies of individual students?And has resistance served its purpose if in overcoming certain unfavorable class-room conditions it has created new ones?

Finally, we sense a tension in the multiplicity of interpretation promoted by criti-cal pedagogy and the promotion of one particular interpretation of student behaviorand writing. During his exploration of the notion of identity, Canagarajah analyzeshow a Ukrainian student, Irina, “construct[s] a voice for herself” (p. 109) in an essay.Heconcludes that“Irinachooses toaccommodate thedominantdiscoursesandinsti-tutions in order to get approval and respect from the instructor … she doesn’t seem todevelop a respect for her native Ukrainian discourses and styles” (p. 109). AlthoughCanagarajah may be correct in his interpretation of Irina’s essay and her motives, itseemspossible that thestudenthaschosen toconstructherwriting identity inherpar-ticular way based on her own, personal (private) respect for her native discourse. Inany case, it remains a matter of textual interpretation (and Irina’s own identity as animmigrant is probably evolving, as she struggles to negotiate and renegotiate herUkrainian and American “selves”). Canagarajah, however, who appreciates theseperspectives—afterall,his ideologicalpositionsarepremisedon theverypossibilityof multiple readings—offers only one interpretation of Irina’s text, which may over-simplify her stance. So as we begin some of our own action research, which inevita-bly involves the interpretation of student behavior, we are struggling with this is-sue—and Canagarajah’s own reflections on the subject may be the best guide: “…the challenge is to strike the right balance between acknowledging the multiple val-uesandconditions that impingeon theresearchprocesswhileexplicating thesignifi-cant thematic strands for readers” (Canagarajah, 1996, p. 329).

CONCLUSION

In his influential study of ELT, Phillipson (1992) investigates “awkward and diffi-cult questions about the role of the English teaching profession internationally”and analyzes “some of the possibly unquestioned ideological tenets of our work”(p. 15). These books represent a continuation of that work. Grounded in self-re-flexivity, none of the books offer a strong conclusion or end point to the investiga-

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tion; instead, they all echo Kumarvadivelu’s claim that his research “does not rep-resent a final product; rather, it represents a starting point, both for me and for you”(p. 317). After reading the books, we are challenged to keep asking questions abouthow to address political and social transformation in our research, classrooms, anddiscipline. We are also encouraged to examine the place of “critical” researchwithin the wider field of applied linguistics. Even a skeptic of “critical” studies likeDavies (2003), who claims that this kind of work is “marginal to the applied-lin-guistics enterprise,” still concedes that such theories “provide a useful debate onthe nature of the discipline” and “need to be taken into account” (p. 142). Wewould add that “critical” writers offer a necessary pushing of the limits within thefield. Hopefully, their constant questioning (and self-questioning) will allow thenotion of “critical” to remain a force of progress and change.

REFERENCES

Canagarajah, A. S. (1996). From critical research practice to critical research reporting. TESOL Quar-terly, 30, 321–331.

Davies, A. (2003). An introduction to applied linguistics: From practice to theory. Edinburgh, UK: Ed-inburgh University Press.

Ellsworth, E. (1989). Why doesn’t this feel empowering? Working through the repressive myths of crit-ical pedagogy. Harvard Educational Review, 59, 297–324.

Gore, J. (2003). The struggle for pedagogies. New York: Routledge.Phillipson, R. (1992). Linguistic imperialism. Oxford, UK: OUP.Ramanathan, V. (2002). The politics of TESOL education: Writing, knowledge, critical pedagogy. New

York: Routledge.

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