Annotated Bibliography of Critical Pedagogyby Jennifer Claro

Bernays, E. (1928). Propaganda (reprinted 2005 with an introduction by Mark Crispin Miller). New York: Ig Publishing.

Propaganda was written in 1928 (this edition in 2005) by Edward Bernays, nephew of Sigmund Freud, and its influence on the world cannot be overstated. Bernays has been credited with (amoung others) helping to convince America to get into World War 1, with making it fashionable for women to smoke, and with convincing the American public that Guatemala was becoming a haven for communists, leading to its democratically government being overthrown, all on behalf of the United Fruit Company. Propaganda is a wonder in itself; Bernays seeks to convince us that propaganda is good for us, that we need it, that it indeed helps to grease the wheels of democracy. “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society” (p. 37). At some times he portrays himself as one of us, yet at others he coldly separates himself. On page 71 we read, “If we understand the mechanism and motives of the group mind, is it not possible to control and regiment the masses according to our will without their knowing about it?” This master of propaganda, whose writings even influenced and aided Goebbels in his propaganda efforts against Jews prior to World War 2, is a calculating shrewd businessman who can sell anything to anyone, including war, and this book describes in clear detail how to do it. That his methods are still being used today by governments and corporations to sell war makes this a chilling but thoroughly absorbing read.

This book is a central resource in my research. How governments use propaganda to convince the public that war is good for democracy and helps to make the world safer (doublespeak) is a main focus of my research. This book explains clearly how propaganda works and exemplifies the immense power of propaganda to sway public opinion on even the gravest of topics.

Burbules, N., & Berk, R. (1999). Critical thinking and critical pedagogy: Relations, differences and limits. In T. Popkewitz & L. Fendler (Eds.), Critical theories in education: Changing terrains of knowledge and politics (pp. 45-65). New York: Routledge. Retrieved from http://faculty.ed.uiuc.edu/burbules/papers/critical.html

In this article, Burbules & Berk’s goal is to explore, compare, and contrast the similar yet different literatures of critical thinking and critical pedagogy. Similarities between the two include the educational goal of helping students “become more skeptical toward commonly accepted truisms” (p. 45) and helping learners to see the world as it is and to increase freedom. However, within the critical thinking tradition, the focus is on skills like logic, analysis, and “reliable procedures of inquiry” (p. 46) and how to correct a faulty argument. While critical pedagogy does promote the deconstruction of faulty logic and the construction of sound arguments as well, the locus is different. Critical pedagogy is situated in the context of the power structures of society. Critical pedagogues cannot separate an argument from the context of who is asking the question, and how they benefit from the stated answer. Critical pedagogy might be interpreted by some as critical thinking within in a political context, from which it cannot be extricated; whereas critical thinking has no such connection to a particular context.

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The goal of action as a logical consequence of criticality is also noticeably absent from critical thinking, while in critical pedagogy, the goal is informed action to change the status quo. After describing the affordances and constraints of each tradition, Burbules & Berk claim that the main faults of both are their claim to universality and their inability to recognize their limitations and to continue to evolve and grow.

This article is very useful for my research because it helps to define the somewhat nebulous boundaries of critical pedagogy as well as to contrast it with the related field of critical thinking. The faults that Burbules & Berk find in critical pedagogy are useful and may help me to be critical of critical pedagogy itself.

Freire, P. (1993). Pedagogy of the oppressed. London: Penguin Books.

Paulo Freire is known as the father of critical pedagogy and, Pedagogy of the Oppressed is his most known book, having been translated into eighteen languages. In Pedagogy, Freire justifies the need for a pedagogy of the oppressed. Some main points are the following;

1) The oppressors must also be liberated from the cycle of oppression; both oppressors and oppressed will become fully human.

2) Praxis is “the action and reflection of men and women upon their world in order to transform it” (p. 60). Both action and reflection are necessary for transformation.

3) Liberation is a process of the oppressed recognizing their oppression and acting to end it. Liberation cannot be given to people; they have to fight for it themselves.

4) The banking method of education, in which the teacher deposits knowledge into passive students, serves the interests of the oppressors, and is incompatible with a pedagogy for liberation.

This book is essential to my research not only because it is a seminal work on critical pedagogy but because Freire’s passion for his subject is so infectious. The reader feels Freire’s commitment to his students, and his work and his words are inspiring.

Kincheloe, J. L. (2008). Critical pedagogy and the knowledge wars of the twenty-first century. International Journal of Critical Pedagogy, 1(1), 1-22.

Kincheloe begins by exploring the ownership of knowledge by powerful individuals and transnational corporations. Standardized educational systems pass on the officially stamped version of the truth and promote the sociopolitical and economic interests of the regime. To combat this, Kincheloe advocates engaging in a “transformative multilogicality”, or exploring the world from diverse perspectives. The politics of knowledge must become a central dimension of any curriculum, and researchers and teachers must incorporate subjugated knowledge from their own and other cultures. He rejects positivist logic and the separation of values from facts. In Kincheloe’s view, all research has an ethical dimension. How can it be that so many researchers do not see the ethical dimensions of their own research, how their research will affect people?

Joe Kincheloe was one of the foremost researchers in critical pedagogy in recent times. His focus in this article on the ownership of knowledge and the resulting disempowerment of the people is

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central to my dissertation. This article describes many of the ways that information is shaped and selected for us (description of the problem) and he suggests a useful alternative to this one-way flow of information (possible solution). His many references to the work of other researchers are very useful for broadening my research base in this and related areas.

McLaren, P., Martin, G., Farahmandpur, R., & Jaramillo, N. (2004). Teaching in and against empire: Critical pedagogy as revolutionary practice. Teacher Education Quarterly, 31 (1), 131-153.

This article situates critical pedagogy within the context of the American empire of today and aims to show that education can be “a vehicle for social transformation” (p. 140). The authors open by recounting many of the current injustices in the USA, for example, the deplorable state of current public schooling (and the focus on testing and accountability) and the forced militarization of public high schools. The corporate media and their reluctance to print anything critical of the current regime is discussed briefly. Radical teacher education reform, as conceptualized by Dave Hill, is described in detail and the authors agree with and support Hill’s model of a teacher as a “transformative intellectual” (p. 138). Disconcertingly, the authors next call for more critical pedagogues to call for the abolition of capital. While the authors believe that working for reform is necessary, their larger goal is “the advancement of socialism and the creation of a society free of class divisions” (p. 144). While many will agree that a society free of class divisions is a worthwhile goal, not everyone will agree that socialism is the means to this end.

This article is useful to me because it encompasses many of the themes that I focus on; empire, the mass media, problems with capitalism, and how to end war. The authors’ focus on critical pedagogy as a meaningful path towards both reform and transformation is beneficial in that they believe that we have to push for both, and not on one to the exclusion of the other. But their focus on Marxism as the solution to the major problems of our world is unsettling and the continual reference to Marxism in this article could even cause some readers to wonder whether critical pedagogy is, in their view, a means of pushing for a socialist state.

Shor, I. (1997). What is critical literacy? Journal of Pedagogy, Pluralism, and Practice, 4, 1-26. Retrieved from http://www.lesley.edu/journals/jppp/4/index.html

Ira Shor is a leading researcher in the teaching of critical pedagogy through composition and rhetoric. This article is a broad introduction to what critical literacy is, why we need it, and how to achieve it. Shor begins by recounting many recent occurrences in schools where students have been silenced and shut down. For one example, a class of fifth-graders was stopped by their principal from performing their original anti-sweatshop play. Shor recounts the tremendous disparities between the rich and the poor; whose children may go to school hungry, and whose children are most likely to go on to university. Gender and racial bias is described as well, and critical literacy is described as “a pedagogy for those teachers and students morally disturbed by… ‘savage inequalities’ (Kozol, 1991)… for those who wish to act against the violence of imposed hierarchy and forced hunger” (p. 5). Shor reflects mainly on the work of Dewey and Freire, but one of the strengths of this article is his many references to the work of others in the

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field of critical literacy (the reference section has 140 references, all of which he cites in his article).

This article is very relevant to my research because of Shor’s engagement in critical pedagogy and his applications of it to composition and rhetoric. He describes many of the problems that exist in society and in school and, through many real-life examples, shows teachers a way to empower their students.

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