The Critical Turn in Education: Analysis of the Editor's Introduction
The Goals and Scope of Critical Pedagogy
Summary: Series Editor’s Introduction
It was James Lindsay’s verbal analysis of the introduction to The Critical Turn in Education1 (going forward, I’ll abbreviate this as: TCTiE) that first piqued my interest in this book (that episode of New Discourses is well worth hearing2). After listening to Lindsay’s podcast, then reading and taking detailed notes on the introduction, it’s my impression that the editor, Michael Apple, is providing what amounts to a metaphorical “50,000-foot view” of Critical Pedagogy’s development. Apple describes Critical Pedagogy’s scope, as well as several larger strategic goals and practices.
A brief note on terminology: I’ll be using the term “Critical Educator” to denote a teacher or administrator who has been trained to apply the principles of Critical Pedagogy in the classroom, but who does not necessarily contribute new ideas to the teaching philosophy. Critical Educators are the people who bring the ideas of Critical Pedagogy into practice. It’s worth noting that many individuals in this category are a mixed bag in terms of the teaching principles and methods they apply but are the people who bring Critical Pedagogy to life.
The Purpose of the Critical Turn
Apple starts his introduction with a story about when he was working with Critical Educators in Asia who impressed him because they were already familiar with the tenets and research in critical educational theory, even though many were still graduate students. It turns out that many of the core principles of Critical Pedagogy were not only taught in programs of study but were included on standardized tests required for educators to matriculate. This reinforced the idea that Education is a field that has been thoroughly captured by Critical Social Justice ideology. It serves as a model of what happens to a discipline when the Woke capture it and gives us an idea of what kinds of strategies and tactics they use.
One of the things I found interesting in this section is that Apple implicitly characterizes education prior to “The Critical Turn” as an institution that perpetuates the status quo by preparing children for participation in the cultural, social, and economic power structures of society. If that is how early Critical Educators viewed the existing field of education, then the broad goal of Critical Education contrasts as follows:
“…critical education seeks to expose how relations of power and inequality (social, cultural, economic) in their myriad forms, combinations, and complexities are challenged in the formal and informal education of children and adults.”3
Hence it is the role of Critical Pedagogy to transform education from an institution that maintains oppressive power structures into one that actively opposes them. From the perspective of Critical Social Justice, this turns education from a force that upholds an evil system into a one that exposes the hidden evils of society.
The Components of Critical Pedagogy
The subtitle of the book has divulged the three main components of Critical Pedagogy: Marxism, Poststructuralist Feminism, and Critical Race Theory. Apple is not very clear about the definitions of these three terms, let alone their distinctions or similarities, but with some background familiarity with each, it’s possible to connect the three into a common thread. Marxism, Poststructuralist Feminism, and Critical Race Theory all have the goal of imparting a “critical consciousness” to their adherents and followers. To have a critical consciousness means to have some variant on the worldview: Though life seems good, this is a deception by powerful interests in the system to maintain their power and prevent a revolution. A person with a critical consciousness realizes this and strives to “raise the consciousness” of other people such that they too attain a critical consciousness in the hope that eventually The Revolution will arrive and Utopia shortly after.
Marxism, Poststructuralist Feminism, and Critical Race Theory have different ideas about what critical consciousness means and different approaches to raising such a critical consciousness. However, it’s the focus on the result of bringing people to this type of viewpoint that caused Critical Pedagogy to incorporate each of these ideas.
Marxism
The earliest form of critical consciousness incorporated into Critical Pedagogy was the Marxist “class consciousness,” or the state where the poor, the working class, and the intelligentsia realize that they are all being exploited by the bourgeoisie. Many of Critical Pedagogy’s early efforts were aimed at bringing this type of class consciousness into schools. The goal of identifying forms of oppression due to wealth or class differences comes from the original Marxist tradition. This contrasts with the other two components which generally focus on the need to identify oppression and exploitation associated with cultural practices and identity. In the context of wealth and class, Critical Pedagogy wants to impart a “politics of redistribution.” This is shorthand for imparting a critical consciousness that drives one to identify and oppose oppression pertaining to wealth distribution or class disparities.
Poststructuralist Feminism
The next major development in Critical Pedagogy was to push the need for a critical consciousness that focused on the oppression associated with cultural institutions and personal identity. Here Critical Pedagogy is drawing on either Poststructuralist Feminism or Critical Race Theory. To raise consciousness regarding oppression associated with race, gender, sexuality, etc., Apple discusses the need for a “politics of recognition.” He doesn’t indicate how the approaches or goals of Poststructuralist Feminism and Critical Race Theory differ, just that both involve politics of recognition. From what I understand about Poststructuralist Feminism, I suspect that this aspect is mostly going to be imparting a critical consciousness about the ways in which cultural norms such as “the patriarchy” or beauty standards are forms of oppression. However, these methods of raising critical consciousness will extend to issues beyond those associated with traditional feminism including sexual and gender identity, heteronormativity, and “fatphobia.” The incorporation of Poststructuralist Feminist ideas into Critical Pedagogy enables the Critical Educator to train students to see oppression in gender roles, sexual norms, disability status, fitness, etc.
Critical Race Theory
Critical Race Theory seeks to generate a type of critical consciousness that can be concisely defined as “racial consciousness.” To have racial consciousness means to be aware of the myriad ways in which race is used by a privileged racial group to oppress (or grant privilege to) other racial groups. Race, like gender roles and sexual norms, is also seen as culturally constructed, but Critical Race Theory differs somewhat from Poststructuralist Feminism in the way it conceptualizes, and thus opposes oppression. While a thorough contrast between the two is beyond the scope of this piece (See Cynical Theories4 for a brilliant analysis of both theories), a reasonable working distinction is that Poststructuralist Feminism views the cultural structures of power that are used to oppress (patriarchy, toxic masculinity, the male gaze, cis-heteronormativity, fatphobia, etc.) as needing to be removed or destroyed, while Critical Race Theory views the oppressive power structure of race as needing to be preserved, emphasized, and utilized whenever possible. I suspect that the reasons for these differences are at least partly rooted in both political pragmatism and a pathological inability to conform to reality, but I think that the main operational difference is what the ideology does with the power structure that causes the oppression.
In the context of Critical Pedagogy, incorporating the ideas of Critical Race Theory allows for methods of consciousness raising that include classes, sessions, or events in which only students of a particular race are invited to participate, a push for white students to “understand their complicity” in racist power structures, and a proliferation of racial hypersensitivity intended to instill a practice of self-censorship for fear that comments could be construed as racist.
Mix it All Together
Apple makes the distinct point that all these approaches must be considered and utilized jointly. Or to use the latter-day parlance: “used intersectionally.” I’ll discuss intersectionality in more detail in a future piece, but put simply, it’s the doctrine that unifies all the Critical Theories into a Critical Social Justice movement. One could argue that Intersectionality found its first home in Critical Pedagogy.
The Prescriptive Advice
Despite having a huge presence in the modern educational establishment Apple is ambivalent about the success that Critical Pedagogy achieved. He continually cautions current Critical Educators not only against complacency, but of the dangers of being “caught up in the contradictory relations of power.”5 This concern is rich on buzzwords, nearly devoid of meaning, and serves as the starting that Apple uses to launch into his prescriptive advice for Critical Educators. Below is my summary of each piece of advice along with my interpretation in italics.
Bear witness to negativity—always look for ways in which the educational policy is connected to (or even complicit with) oppressive power structures.
This is an instruction to be on the lookout for oppression everywhere. Since one of the main ideas behind all Critical Theories is that oppression is hiding in plain sight, it is important that the Critical Educator find it and train students to see it as well.
Point to spaces of possible action—always look for opportunities to create a counter hegemony to oppose the structures of power
Connecting the previous point, it’s important to not just see the oppression, but to act against it. Again, since oppression can be found everywhere, nearly anything is a potential target for activism. The Critical Educator has a responsibility to identify the targets of opportunity for activism in education.
Broaden what counts as research—define the act of engaging and assisting with “Critical” groups and social movements as research
The meaning of “Critical” in this context refers to groups with some sort of critical consciousness (generally radical leftist activists). The objective of this instruction is to get Critical activism reclassified as “research,” accomplishing three goals. One, it opens opportunities to have activism funded by government research money. Two, it portrays leftist activism as a self-evident pursuit of truth, and thus not open to discussion associated with different moral or political viewpoints. And three, it creates a broad body of “published work,” that can be cited as justification for violent leftist activism or used as an authority against narratives that run counter to that of the leftist activists.
Reconstruct the form and content of elite knowledge—classify an “elite education” as one that engages in progressive social needs
The main goal here is that the Critical Educators want to have their students engage in activism as a required aspect of education. This accomplishes two smaller objectives: the first is to increase the number of leftists, and the second is to have young people unable to distinguish the difference between being educated and being an activist. The ramifications of the second point are enormous because people who are subjected to this will have an insatiable demand for racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression just so they have something to do with their “education.” Of course, this also comes with the costs that such students will lack competence to produce anything of real value.
Keep traditions of radical and progressive work alive—maintain connection with the intellectual roots of Critical Pedagogy by engaging in the constant pursuit of a radical, utopian ideal.
Here we have a reminder that all Critical Theories originated with the communist radicals of the 1960s. Those people didn’t just vanish, they went into the universities, generally in education and other humanities departments. Critical Educators must remember that the worldview of Critical Pedagogy was formed by people who idealized communist revolution (often by any means necessary). Critical Educators should not be seen as merely stodgy academics, but as radicals who seek to fundamentally overturn Western Civilization.
Supportively criticize such traditions when necessary—acknowledge that not all these traditions have been effective, so communicate in such a way that is more appealing to the reader or listener. To use Apple’s own words, “…say important things in ways that do not require the audience or reader to do all of the work.”
On the face of it, this guidance seems to acknowledge the fact radical leftism ultimately wasn’t very popular and they need to move away from it. However, this doesn’t square with the previous point. Instead, this is a reminder to be aware that being up front about the radical nature of the worldview and goals of Critical Pedagogy is not effective. Apple would have you believe it’s because the “audience” is incapable of reaching the critical consciousness on their own, and so it’s the job of the Critical Educator to frame things in a certain way that will convince them. However, the truth is that most people don’t want a Communist or Cultural Revolution in line with what the Critical Theorists want, so really this advice amounts to tricking people into believing that Critical Theories are not as radical as they are.
Act in concert with progressive movements—as a Critical Educator, it is important to engage with other progressive activist movements.
This basically means what it says. But these goals are not actually progressive, especially since we’ve regressed to practices like segregated classrooms. That said, if you replace “progressive” with “leftist” I think it is entirely accurate.
Blend the roles of scholar and activist together—embody a commitment to do excellent research with the aim of righting an unjust society
Given the emphasis on the importance of engaging in leftist activism, a blending of the two roles amounts to recognizing that the purpose of “research” is to make activism more effective. One way research can do this is by generating a large body of “authoritative” literature that activists can appeal to justify their actions, diffusive counter narratives, and force opponents to slog through if they want to oppose Critical Social Justice. In this sense, the research they engage in is not a genuine inquiry, but an imitation of an objective process by which they can justify their a priori conclusions.
Use your privilege to speak for those who are not there—speak for those who do not have positions in educational policy or academia
A noble sentiment, but it’s interesting how it plays out in practice. The key here is that the Woke believe they are, by definition, “the voice of the unheard.” In this sense they don’t need to seek out new ideas or perspectives in their fields of study, they just need to espouse their Woke ideology.
Some might argue I’m cynically interpreting these positions. It’s a reasonable objection that many, perhaps even most, Critical Educators wouldn’t think of these points the way I interpreted them. However, if educators take Apple’s advice seriously, the effect will be the continued destruction of education and thinking in the ways I indicated.
Crossover Terms
This introduction uses a few crossover terms that are important to identify, because they are commonly used by Critical Educators and those developing Critical Pedagogy. For my explanation of how I analyze crossover terms, see The Basic Structure of My Analysis. I’ll also be including an additional point to elaborate on how the term is used strategically by the Critical Theorists.
There are four important crossover terms from this section, three that were used multiple times, and one that I found sufficiently important to include here even though Apple only uses it once.
Critical (Critical Pedagogy, Critical Educator, Critical Scholar, Critical Activist, Critical Impulses, Critical Commitments)
Motte: An adjective describing habits of thinking or behavior characterized by:
a willingness to question assumptions
rigorous analysis
openness to new ideas and
an active-minded approach to understanding ideas.
Bailey: An adjective identifying a person, a pattern of thinking, or type of behavior as advocating for Critical Social Justice.
The idea here is to have critical be a sufficiently nebulous term, but have it generally associated with good habits of thinking. Critical Pedagogy wants to retain that association with good thinking, but also have “Critical” mean advocating for Critical Social Justice.
Seizing the Motte and Bombing the Bailey: We want to train thinkers to question their assumptions, provide thorough and deep analysis of what they are looking at, and be open to exploring new ideas in a way that subjects them to rigorous scrutiny. Critical Social Justice does not do this. Between its prima facie conclusion that some sort of oppression is everywhere (waiting to be identified) and the poor standards of evidence used for many of these claims, Critical Social Justice ideology has the net effect of degrading a person's ability to think. Critical Social Justice only allows for a single type of conclusion: X is oppressing marginalized group Y, where nearly anything can be inserted for X or Y, and nearly anything used for evidence so long as it supports that syllogistic form. In this sense “Critical” thinking is anything but actual critical thinking.
Relations (Relations of Power, Thinking Relationally)
Motte: Part of learning is grasping the connections between seemingly disparate things in the world. To have genuine understanding you must integrate your knowledge into a cohesive whole. This is done by thinking about the “relations” between the things you study.
Bailey: The essential relations to study are those between the systems of oppression, the cultural institutions of our society, and the people who are oppressed by these systems and institutions. All relations can be understood in these terms, meaning that everything can and should be related to Critical Social Justice.
When a student experiences a breakthrough in their own knowledge it is often because they finally understand the relationship between two things that they hadn’t previously connected. An example from physics that many of my students saw was the relationship between the time-independent kinematics equation, Newton’s Second Law, and the Work-Energy Theorem. Making this type of connection is often thrilling, and the student genuinely feels as though they’ve learned something. Consequently, a system that emphasizes the importance of “thinking relationally” can have surface appeal. But the objective here is to get someone to accept that everything needs to be related to Critical Social Justice. Thinking “relationally” in the context of Critical Social Justice encourages that feeling of being thrilled to make a connection. Furthermore, it makes such connections seem easy—ultimately because the truth of the connection doesn’t need to be proven (or even true), it just needs to articulate some form of oppression.
Seizing the Motte and Bombing the Bailey: Understanding relationships is essential to expanding knowledge. Making connections is what brings different bodies of knowledge into a unified system. This is something that knowledge seekers of every kind must strive for. That said, most things cannot be understood in terms of relations of power as Critical Social Justice would have it. To attempt to cast every social challenge in these terms is to apply a truly horrendous Procrustean Bed6 as a substitute for deep, rigorous thinking.
Repositioning
Motte: “Before you judge a man walk a mile in his shoes.” To put this another way, before acting on something, try to see the issue from the other person’s (or other people’s) perspective. Trying to see an issue from another perspective is a powerful check on bias, and is essential to convincing other people of your viewpoint.
Bailey: It is of utmost importance that you “reposition” yourself to see the world through the lens of Critical Social Justice. More concisely: develop a critical consciousness. When Critical Pedagogy advocates for repositioning, it isn’t saying, “see the world from other perspectives,” it’s actually saying, “always work to put yourself in the Critical Social Justice perspective.”
The ultimate purpose of this crossover term is to take someone’s genuine willingness to look at things from different points of view and convince them that being an advocate of Critical Social Justice is what it means to consider the world from other points of view. It amounts to an admonition to always be acting Woke.
Seizing the Motte and Bombing the Bailey: Putting oneself in someone else’s position as part of the thinking process is something that strong thinkers do to improve their own arguments and to be more persuasive when explaining their position. Being an advocate of Critical Social Justice is not a substitute for a genuine attempt to see something from another person’s perspective. There are many individuals who do not subscribe to the Critical Social Justice worldview. To assert that holding positions of Critical Social Justice automatically means you have “seen things through the eyes of the oppressed” is not only arrogant, but overgeneralizes by assuming everyone in such groups holds the same perspective.
Speaking In Different Registers
This is an interesting one because it’s only used once, but looking at this in the context of education, I found myself going back to principles I use when teaching: You always consider the context of the students as you teach them. If you’re teaching them physics, you need to explain the material in a way that builds on what they already know rather than what you think they should know. This extends to general principles of communication—when trying to convince someone of something, first consider where they’re coming from.
I find this term to be an abuse of language because of where and how Apple uses it. He inserts this in his 6th prescription for Critical Educators/Scholars. In his 5th point he contends that the Critical Educator must maintain continuity with radical leftist traditions, but immediately following this, he mentions that it is sometimes important to “speak in different registers” when talking to different groups of people. I take this to mean that “speaking in different registers” is to be deceptive about the fact that you are a radical leftist when being open and honest about your convictions would be detrimental to the advancement of Critical Social Justice.
Motte: Use language and argumentation appropriate to the context of your audience.
Bailey: Use language and argumentation that will advance the cause of Critical Social Justice irrespective of whether it reflects the truth.
I think the purpose here is to get people comfortable with being dishonest about the intentions behind Critical Social Justice by convincing them they aren’t actually being dishonest. Consider the claim that “Critical Race Theory isn’t being taught in schools.” This blatantly contradicts the writings of thought leaders in Critical Pedagogy, the words and deeds of numerous Critical Educators, and the overt policies being implemented by schools around the country. And the Critical Educators know it. However, what they can do is situationally interpret Critical Race Theory as a set of legal tools that analyze the way laws and jurisprudence cause racial oppression. Appropriate for study in law school, but surely not for elementary schools. Thus, they wouldn’t view the claim “Critical Race Theory isn’t being taught in schools” as a lie, they would view it as “speaking in a different register.” In this case, that means pragmatically interpreting the meaning of Critical Race Theory in such a way that most effectively advances the Critical Social Justice movement.
Seizing the Motte and Bombing the Bailey: Considering the context of the people you are speaking to is an essential part of communicating effectively. This is not the same as representing your own position in a way that is either misleading or dishonest so that you may most effectively advance your political goals. When an advocate of Critical Social Justice makes a claim about their position that directly contradicts something that has been said or done elsewhere, it should be categorized and called out for what it is: lying.
Questions and Speculations
There’s quite a bit that Apple says in this chapter that either doesn’t make any sense or requires me to try to fill in quite a few gaps. Here are some of the things that stuck with me as I read through.
Which Asian country was Apple visiting in his initial story? I ask this question because of the follow up: has Critical Pedagogy spread that far around the world? My sense is that it was dominant in North America but didn’t have nearly as much of a hold in other cultures.
Which standardized tests have questions relating to Critical Pedagogy? This could be worth checking out, not only to know what content from Critical Pedagogy is being tested, but also how such things are evaluated.
How did the early thinkers in Critical Pedagogy characterize the state of education when they started their work? Apple indicates that, prior to the critical turn, Marxist educators had emphasized education as “a mechanism of class and economic reproduction.” The goal of Critical Pedagogy then became to shift “its attention to education as a site of resistance.” Early thinkers in Critical Pedagogy framed education in Marxist terms: first as another method by which capitalists maintained control, and today, as one of the prime fields for activism by incorporating a number of other Neo-Marxist and Postmodernist ideas.
What is a “nonreformist reform?” Apple uses this phrase in one of his instructions for Critical Educators. Specifically, he says that Critical Education “involves keeping alive the dreams, utopian visions, and ‘nonreformist reforms’ that are so much a part of these radical traditions.” In this context (particularly the connection to utopian visions), I think nonreformist reform can literally mean anything. But I think it’s intended to get the members of the movement to keep their eye on the big picture and not get too bogged down in advocating for specific things. Basically, any chance you have to inject more radical leftism into education, do it, even if it’s not in line with, or related to the particular policies you’re currently advocating for. Get the leftism in and justify it as a “nonreformist reform.”
The next piece I’ll be looking at is the Writer’s Introduction before diving into the six chapters of the book. Please leave a comment below if you have more to add about the three components of Critical Pedagogy, find my discussion of crossover terms to be missing anything, or noticed any egregious butchery of the English language.
Image Credit: Peretz Partensky https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:View_from_airplane_widow_(3801733567).jpg
Gottesman, Isaac H. The critical turn in education: from Marxist critique to poststructuralist feminism to critical theories of race. New York: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2016.
https://newdiscourses.com/2022/01/how-education-turned-critical/
TCTiE p. xii
Pluckrose, Helen, and James A. Lindsay. Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything About Race, Gender, and Identity-and Why This Harms Everybody. First edition. Durham, North Carolina: Pitchstone Publishing, 2020.
TCTiE p. xi
Procrustes, a giant in Greek mythology, would invite passersby to sleep in his bed and forcibly stretch or amputate them such that they fit into the bed perfectly. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Procrustes#Mythology