The Practical Critical Educator

1. Front Matter

   Pages 1-23

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2. Critical Literacy for A Democratic Education

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-2

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3. Critical Literacy for a Democratic Education

   1. Critical Literacy in Action

      • Karyn Cooper, Robert E. White

      Pages 3-16

   2. A Critical Issue in Critical Literacy

      • Carole Edelsky, Meredith Rogers Cherland

      Pages 17-33

   3. Soup Kitchen Democracy

      • Patrick Inglis, John Willinski

      Pages 35-49

   4. Critical Literacy Educators at Work

      • Barbara Comber

      Pages 51-65

4. Critical Learning for A Democratic Education

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 67-69

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5. Critical Learning for a Democratic Education

   1. Critical Theory for Schooling-Education and Society

      • Richard A. Brosio

      Pages 71-93

   2. Shared Authority in Democratic Classrooms

      • Barbara J. Thayer-Bacon

      Pages 95-109

   3. Teaching the Queer Character of Racism

      • William F. Pinar

      Pages 111-120

   4. Not Rocket Science

      • David G. Smith

      Pages 121-131

6. Critical Leadership for A Democratic Education

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 133-135

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7. Critical Leaderhip for a Democratic Education

   1. Duplicity, Democracy and Domesticity

      • Duncan Waite, Susan Field Waite, Sharon Fillion

      Pages 137-149

   2. Ghosts in the Procedure

      • Noah De Lissovoy, Peter McLaren

      Pages 151-163

   3. Opening the Text

      • Terry Wrigley

      Pages 179-194

8. Critical Leadership for a Democratic Education

   1. Reaching Out and Reaching In

      • Hilary Janks

      Pages 165-178

9. Back Matter

   Pages 195-204

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10. Back Matter

    Pages 205-207

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I am delighted to have the opportunity to write this foreword for Karyn Cooper’s and Robert White’s splendid and compelling edited text on The Practical Critical Educator. Critical practice in education is grounded in two bodies of thought and action: critical theory and critical pedagogy. Drawing on classical Marxism and its articulation of how oppression and injustice arose through capitalism’s economic exploitation of labour, critical theories of society took a cultural turn in the writings of Adorno and Horkheimer, European Jewish refugees who fled to America, where they articulated how the power relations and oppressive forces of capitalism expressed themselves in the alienating symbolic forces of culture, music and art. When booming demographics and an economic surplus fuelled the student movement of the late 60s, and in to the 70s, in many Western nations, new forms of cultural Marxism were added to this body of critical theory, extending beside but also far beyond the classical Marxist preoccupations with economic equalities of social class. British writers, such as the articulate and elegant cultural Marxist Raymond Williams, revived and refined the “lost” work of Italian Marxist, Antonio Gramsci from the 1920s, and his concern with the influence of what he called hegemony – the force through which ruling classes could maintain existing structures of domination by defining, through language, media and culture, what was normal, natural, true, beautiful and defensible, and what was eccentric, unreasonable, or unworthy of serious consideration.

• Educational Leadership
• critical theory
• curriculum
• education
• learning

"Cooper and White’s inspiring and imposing collection brings together and publishes for the first time some of the best writers and writing from across the world in critical theory and critical pedagogical practice.... Karyn Cooper’s and Robert White’s book makes critical theory practical for any and all teachers who are authentically concerned about promoting social justice among their students and in their world. Modest, not messianic in personality, witty not weary in disposition, compassionate rather than cutting in their engagements with those around them, Cooper and White have produced a book that reflects their vision as professionals and their values as people. If you want to make a difference, and want to change the world, this is the book that will get you started and keep you going."
(Andy Hargreaves, Boston College)

• Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto, Canada

  Karyn Cooper

• School of Education, St. Francis Xavier University, Canada

  Robert White

Policies and ethics