Public and higher education have fallen prey to forces of commercialization, privatization, and market considerations that undermine civic and critical learning while devaluing young people as a referent for a democratic and just future. This article criticizes this position and makes a case for reclaiming such vital institutions as fundamental to…

This article examines major categories of classical and critical Marxism and reviews issues emerging about their usefulness for radical social theory. These issues are analyzed with regard to how they have influenced the course of radical education theory. Finally, a theoretical discourse for developing an alternative radical theory of education…

Changing historical conditions posit new problems, define different projects, and often demand fresh discourses. In some cases, theories fashioned in one historical moment seem hopelessly out of date, if not irrelevant, in another. Any critical theory both defines and is defined by the problems posed by the contexts it attempts to address. The…

Discusses controversy over language, clarity, and experience in educational theory, recommending a language theory that recognizes complexity and difference. Linguistic clarity suppresses differences and multiplicity and reproduces a populist elitism that disempowers educators. People need knowledge and skills to be able to govern and shape…

A critique of existing conceptions of citizenship education is presented. The major conceptual areas that must be clarified are discussed in order to provide the foundation for a reconstructed theory of citizenship education. (Author/MLF)

Some theorists are rejecting the traditional model of curriculum and raising questions about the relationship between schools and society. (Author/MLF)

Asserts that Paulo Freire's work has been appropriated in ways that denudes it of some of its important political insights. Argues that Freire's work must be read as a postcolonial text and that North Americans must engage in a radical form of border crossing to reconstruct Freire's work in the specificity of its historical and political…

Mainstream conservative and liberal views are inadequate for a discourse about moral education. More appropriate methods for linking schooling and ethics are the following: (1) link ethics and morality to politics; (2) define those maxims necessary for moral adequacy; and (3) develop a radical view of authority that will transform pedagogical…

Administrators and teachers should rethink their role as public intellectuals and reject the cult of knowledge, expertise, and disembodied rationality permeating curriculum theory discourse. Educators must redefine educational leadership through forms of social criticism, civic courage, and public engagement allowing them to oppose the forces…

Educators and other cultural workers need a new political and pedagogical language for addressing the changing contexts and issues facing a world in which capital draws upon an unprecedented convergence of resources--cultural, political, economic, scientific, military, and technological--to exercise powerful and diverse forms of hegemony. In this…

Compares the ways in which traditional and critical educational theorists relate the issues of school knowledge and control to the notion of power. Analyzes some of the major contributions each of the various positions has made to understanding how power and knowledge function in school life. (HTH)

Examines dialectical tensions existing between teacher-education programs and the dominant society through a set of concepts that link and demonstrate the interplay of power, ideology, biography, and history. Analyzes the rationality presently dominating these programs. Includes implications of and methods for overcoming this rationality.…

Three authors review the book by Harold Entwistle about the theoretician of Marxist social theory, Antonio Gramsci. Conclusions are that the book does not accurately reflect Gramsci's view on education. (KC)

Analyzes Gramsci's work on education, discussing right-wing attempts to subordinate public education and the role of cultural politics in spearheading this assault. The paper examines attempts by right-wing theorists to appropriate Gramsci's views on education for conservative educational work, noting implications of Gramsci's work for defending…

Examines the concept of ideology as a basis for a theory of emancipatory pedagogy. Argues for a critical theory of schooling based on a view of ideology that recognizes people's ability to know, criticize, and act upon the world. (Author/MJL)