ERIC Number: EJ1461043
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2025-Feb
Pages: 24
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0013-2004
EISSN: EISSN-1741-5446
Available Date: 2025-02-09
Rethinking Schools: Transformative Hope and Utopian Possibility
Darren Webb1
Educational Theory, v75 n1 p27-50 2025
This article explores the work of "Rethinking Schools" (RS). RS is at one and the same time a grassroots movement of teacher-activists, a quarterly journal, and a publishing house. For almost four decades the movement has sought to enact Freirean-inspired curricular/pedagogical initiatives within US public schooling. What makes the work of RS significant is the way it connects critical pedagogy to specific examples of concrete practice. It thus provides an invaluable corrective to the abstruseness and high levels of theoretical abstraction one finds in critical pedagogy as an academic field. Of particular interest is the explicitly "utopian" dimension to the work of the movement. Underpinning all the curriculum materials, resources, lesson plans, reading lists, and pedagogical strategies is a desire to provide children and young people with an opportunity to flex their utopian imaginations. Drawing on Freirean theory to reflect on the practice of the movement, Webb highlights the ways in which RS finds utopian possibility blooming in that most unpromising of grounds -- public schooling. While the context for utopian praxis feels unpropitious to say the least, "Rethinking Schools" offers a corrective to doom-laden assessments of the scope for radical pedagogical initiatives within public schooling, not only in the US but more widely.
Descriptors: Educational Change, Educational Improvement, Public Schools, Educational Practices, Curriculum Development, Instructional Materials, Educational Resources, Lesson Plans, Reading Lists, Educational Strategies
Wiley. Available from: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030. Tel: 800-835-6770; e-mail: cs-journals@wiley.com; Web site: https://bibliotheek.ehb.be:2191/en-us
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Descriptive
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Author Affiliations: 1School of Education, University of Sheffield