Manifesto For A Post Critical Pedagogy

The belief in the transformative potential of education has long underpinned critical educational theory. But its concerns have also been largely political and economic, using education as the means to achieve a better - or ideal - future state: of equality and social justice. Our concern is not whether such a state can be realized. Rather, the belief in the transformative potential of education leads us to start from the assumption of equality and to attend to what is "educational" about education. In Manifesto for a Post-Critical Pedagogy we set out five principles that call not for an education as a means to achieve a future state, but rather that make manifest those educational practices that do exist today and that we wish to defend. The Manifesto also acts as a provocation, as the starting point of a conversation about what this means for research, pedagogy, and our relation to our children, each other, and the world. Manifesto for a Post-Critical Pedagogy invites a shift from a critical pedagogy premised on revealing what is wrong with the world and using education to solve it, to an affirmative stance that acknowledges what is educational in our existing practices. It is focused on what we do and what we can do, if we approach education with love for the world and acknowledge that education is based on hope in the present, rather than on optimism for an eternally deferred future.

This book addresses essential educational dimensions of the university that are often overlooked, not only by prevailing discourses and practices but also by standard critical approaches to higher education. Each chapter takes a different approach to the articulation of a ‘post-critical’ view of the university, and focuses on a specific dimension, including lectures, academic freedom, and the student experience. The ‘post-critical’ attitude offers an affirmative approach to the constitutive educational practices of the university. It is ‘post-’ because it is a movement in thought that comes after the critical, which, in its modern and postmodern forms is considered, in Latour’s terms, to have ‘run out of steam’. It is an attempt to articulate new conceptual and methodological tools that help us grasp our current conditions. It is not anti-critique; but rather than seeking to debunk current practices, this affirmative approach offers perspectives that shed new light on what we do as educators, on the essence of our educational practices, and on their immanent value. The focus on the educational, then, applies not only to practices that happen to take place in the educational space of the university, but also to those practices whose value we can understand in educational terms.

The crisis of capitalism, the ascendency of a post-truth politics, the expansive reach of an increasingly militarized surveillance state and the rampant consolidation of the Fourth Industrial Revolution characterized by a fusion of technologies have blurred the lines between the physical, digital, ideological and biological spheres. The historically generated social relations that have legitimized racism, homophobia, misogyny, misanthropy and misology have spawned a new generation of white supremacist, neo-Nazi militias and have led to a murderous assault on Black men by police and a generalized assault on people of color. The information ecosphere and the current infodemic which is promulgating the conspiracy theories that are both prolonging and intensifying the damage done by the pandemic and climate change by suggesting that the pandemic and climate change are not real, that they were created by the deep state solely for the purpose of providing cover for a further consolidation and intensification of the surveillance state, has led to a massive attack on progressive and critical educators. Bills are being created to ban the teaching of "divisive concepts" in public schools such as those related to race and gender. The teaching of the history of slavery is deemed an act of racism against white people. QAnon mythology that fabricates lies about a stolen 2020 election, and that Satan-worshipping pedaophiles are in control of the government, media and financial institutions, is fast becoming normalized within the US Republican Party and spreading to other countries. The world's masses are increasingly being transformed into 21st century compliant and self-censoring human beings who appear defenseless in the face of nationalist calls for military solutions to global problems, of white supremacist chauvinistic attacks on people of color and of narratives championing nationalism, isolationism, and fascism. For four decades Peter McLaren has been writing about these world-historical developments and urging educators to seek a socialist alternative. In the performative style that has been the signature of McLaren's work, The Critic Pedagogy Manifesto is meant to remind readers what is at stake in these precarious and dangerous times and to offer armed hope in the struggle ahead. This is vintage McLaren making use of his creative talents with humor and irony. We need more of this alternative literary presentation of ideas to make the arguments that bland statements in articles present with a straight face. McLaren leads the way. --Michael A Peters Distinguished Professor of Education Beijing Normal University, PR China For years, Professor Peter McLaren has followed his radical cosmopolitan path and invented an original language of critical theory and pedagogical critique, which, fundamentally, culminates in his artistic expression.....capturing the absurd days of chaos in the world's leading rogue state. - Juha Suoranta, Professor of Adult Education, Tampere University, Finland "'The poet laureate of the left' writes with characteristic aplomb to expose the realities of Trump and the very real danger of the consolidation of fascism in the US." --Mike Cole, author of Trump, the Alt-Right and Public Pedagogies of Hate and for Fascism: What Is To Be Done?"

This book brings together a collection of multi-disciplinary voices to discuss, debate, and devise a series of ahuman pedagogical proposals that aim to address the challenging ecological, political, social, economic, and aesthetic milieu within which education is situated today. Attending to contemporary calls to decenter all-too-human educational research and practice, while also coming to terms with the limits and inheritances through which such calls are made possible in the first place, this book aims to interrogate, but also invent, what we are calling an ahuman pedagogy. Organized in three main sections — Conjuring an Ahuman Pedagogy, Machinic Re/distributions, and Non-pedagogies for Unthought Futures — this multi-disciplinary experiment in ahuman pedagogies for the age of the Anthropocene offers an experimental – albeit always speculative and incomplete – series of pedagogical proposals that work to unthink and counter-actualize educational futures-as-usual.

The Routledge International Handbook of Sociology and Christianity examines the intersection of the sociology of religion – a long-standing focus of sociology as a discipline – and Christianity – the world’s largest religion. An internationally representative and thematically comprehensive collection, it analyzes both the sociology of Christianity and Christian approaches to sociology, with attention to the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant branches of Christianity. An authoritative, state-of-the-art review of current research, it is organized into five inter-connected thematic sections, considering the overlapping emergence of both the Christian religion and the social science, the conceptualization of and engagement with Christianity by sociological theory, the ways in which Christianity shapes and is shaped by various social institutions, the manner in which Christianity resists and promotes various forms of social change, and the identification, diagnosis, and correction of social problems by sociology and Christianity. This volume is an invaluable collection for scholars and advanced students, with special appeal for those working in the fields of sociology and social theory, as well as religious studies and theology

Many accounts of critical pedagogy, particularly accounts of trying to enact it within higher education (HE), express a deep cynicism about whether it is possible to counter the ever creeping hegemony of neo-liberalism, neo- conservatism and new managerialism within Universities. Hopeful Pedagogies in Higher Education acknowledges some of these criticisms, but attempts to rescue critical pedagogy, locating some of its associated pessimism as misreading of Freire and offering hopeful avenues for new theory and practice. These misreadings are also located in the present, in the assumption that unless change comes within the lifetime of the project, it has somehow failed. Instead, this book argues that a positive utopianism is possible. Present actions need to be celebrated, and cultivated as symbols of hope, possibility and generativity for the future - which the concept of hope implies. The contributors make the case for celebrating the pedagogies of HE that operate in liminal spaces – situated in the spaces between the present and the future (between the world as it is and the world as it could be) and also in the cracks that are beginning to show in the dominant discourses.

Social Theory and Health Education brings together health education scholarship with a diverse range of social theories to demonstrate the value and impact of their application to associated health and education contexts. For the first time, this book draws together cutting-edge research that demonstrates the productive and impactful ways social theory can be applied to the diversity of research in this field. Topics covered include digital health, health education in sexuality, gender and health, food and nutrition, mental health and wellbeing, environment, and alcohol and drug use. In exploring these topics, each author utilises different theorists and concepts to compellingly demonstrate their application to a range of health education research contexts. This collection provides examples for both students, early career and established scholars that showcase ways that social theory can be utilised in empirical and theoretical research. The collection also highlights how health education scholarship can be enhanced by engaging with social theory. It also explores the viability of various theories for work in this field, and their potential to generate new approaches for research.