Critical pedagogy focuses on understanding and disrupting power imbalances in education, especially related to issues of race and class. It draws from critical social theory and aims to provide a liberating education that allows students to question relationships of power and oppression in society. Key principles include examining class struggle and cultural capital, reading social justice issues in the world rather than just texts, and naming processes that promote hegemony. Teachers identify generative themes raised by students to guide classroom investigation.

1. Critical Pedagogy
Kurt Love, Ph.D.
Central Connecticut State University

2. Critical Pedagogy
• Major Focus:
Understanding and disrupting power imbalances that are
present in educational settings especially connected to issues
of race and class
• Etymology:
Critical Social Theory, Frankfurt School of Thought, Michel
Foucault, Marxism, Critical Race Theory
• Major Contributors:
W.E.B. DuBois, Carter Woodson, Paulo Freire, bell hooks,
Henry Giroux, Joe Kincheloe, Peter McLaren, Antonia Darder

3. Major Critical Critiques of
Education
Critical Theory
★ Power is concentrated in the production
of knowledge
★ Content areas seen as disconnected from
power and as a result are viewed as
neutral.
★ Subject areas perpetuate hegemony of
socioeconomic classes and race

4. 3 Types of Curricula
• Mainstream Curriculum - Curriculum that is
explicit
• Hidden Curriculum - Messages that are implicit
• Null Curriculum - Messages that are silenced,
omitted, or just simply not included. These also
are critical views of the mainstream and hidden
curricula

5. 3 Types of Curricula
• Mainstream Curriculum - Columbus was a strong, brave
“explorer” that opened the doors for European
colonization of the Americas.
• Hidden Curriculum - Europeans are more advanced and
sophisticated than the indigenous peoples of the Americas.
Eurocentrism, patriarchy, technology over nature.
• Null Curriculum - Columbus violently exploited and
dominated the indigenous peoples of the Americas, which
was part of a larger European mindset that allowed for
genocide, enslavement, assimilation, colonization and in
contemporary settings, globalization (or global
Westernization).

6. Hidden Curriculum in a
Teacher’s Practice
Heterosexism
Sexism Naturism
Anthropocentrism Corporatism
Eurocentrism Classism
Patriotism/
Racism
Militarism
Teaching
Practice

7. Hidden Curriculum in a
Teacher’s Practice
What did did you learnschool today, dear little boyboy mine?
What you learn in in school today, dear little of of
I learned that Washington never told a lie
mine?
I Ilearned that soldiersnot so bad
learned that war is seldom die
I learned about that great ones we have had
I learned the everybody's free
We fought in the teacher said to me
That's what Germany and in France
And that's what II learned in my chance
And someday might get school today
And that's what I Ilearned in school today
That's what learned in school
That's what I learned in school
What did you learn in school today, dear little boy of mine?
What did you learn in school today,my friends boy of
I learned that policemen are dear little
I learned thatmine? never ends
justice
II learned that our government must becrimes
learned that murderers die for their strong
Even if we make a and never wrong
It's always right mistake sometimes
And that'sleaders learned finest men
Our what I are the in school today
That's what I learned in school
And we elect them again and again
And that's what I learned in school today
That's what I learned in school

8. Critical Pedagogy:
Major Principles
• Liberatory Education:
An educational experience that allows for students
to question power and power/knowledge
relationships in society.
• What is a power/knowledge relationship?

9. Liberatory Education
• Identifying potential concepts that have embedded relationships of
oppression, cultural colonization, or any form of social injustice.
• Questioning scientific method
• Questioning historical “facts”
• Using math as a tool for community investigation
• Questioning “profit”
• Questioning language
• Questioning public health policies
• Investigating poverty in our own community and globally

10. Critical Pedagogy:
Major Principles
• Class Struggle:
The primary mode of analysis comes from looking
at how socioeconomics limits people’s power. Jean
Anyon’s study of how knowledge is treated
differently based on the class of the students.

11. Class Struggle in
Educational Contexts
• Jean Anyon’s (1981) study of how knowledge is
treated differently based on the class of the
students.
• How is knowledge treated in the professional/elite
schools? Middle class schools? Working class
power schools?
• How is knowledge treated in “honors” tracks?
“Academic” or lower tracks?

12. Critical Pedagogy:
Major Principles
• Cultural Capital:
Those knowledges that are valued by the dominant
elites

13. Cultural Capital
• Knowing which fork to use.
• Knowing how to play golf or sail.
• Knowing what car to buy.
• Knowing where to go on vacation that avoids the middle
class people.
• Knowing which private school to send your children.
• Not saying “aks” in a job interview setting.
• Not having an “accent.”

14. Critical Pedagogy:
Major Principles
• Reading the World vs. Reading the Word:
Understanding and investigating social justice issues vs.
having technical decontextualized knowledge

15. Reading the World
• Excavating political meanings and cultural
capital in texts
• Investigating ecological conditions in one’s
community
• Incorporating the voices of subordinated
groups as forms of analysis

16. Critical Pedagogy:
Major Principles
• Naming:
Exposing and identifying those social processes that
promote hegemony and social injustice

17. Naming ☛ Hegemony
• “The people participate in their own domination.”
• Hegemony is the perpetuation of social injustices
(i.e. classism, racism, sexism, heterosexism).
• Hegemony allows for the powerful elites to retain
their power while non-violently controlling the less
powerful groups.
• Hegemony is perpetuated through social consensus,
social forms, and social structures including schools,
church, media, political system, and family.

18. Naming ☛ Forms of Hegemony
• Legitimization: Domination is seen as “just” or “fair”
• Example: Ranking schools in newspapers is fair.
• Reification: Domination is seen as “normal” and
“natural.” They are also seen as “always having been this
way.”
• Example: Meritocracy is normal and natural.

19. Naming ☛ Forms of Hegemony
• Fragmentation: Subordinated groups are divided and
turned against one another.
• Example: Latin Kings, Los Solidos, 20 Luv -- Gangs in
Hartford
• Dissimulation: Domination is concealed.
• Example: Predatory lending practices by commercial
banks and mortgage lenders.

20. Critical Pedagogy:
Major Principles
• Cognizable Objects:
An object from every day life that is used
for deconstructing social processes that
create social injustice.

32. Critical Pedagogy:
Major Principles
• Generative Themes:
Topics and questions raised by students
become classroom topics for investigation
and exploration.

33. Generative Themes
• Teacher listens to what students discuss
amongst each other as well as the
questions and comments they offer during
class discussions.
• Over time, these topics become centralized
for investigation, inquiry, and community-
based work.

34. Generative Themes
• Students interested in:
• Local politics and policy-making
• Decisions that affect their schools and neighborhoods
• Ecological conditions
• Community-based actions
• Issues present in media
• Cultural commons