Critical Pedagogy

Support of social reconstructivism as a practical educational paradigm often engenders the reification of Critical Theory as Critical Pedagogy. With regard to Critical Pedagogy, McLaren (2009) suggests that knowledge is organic and subjective; that is, he believes that knowledge is the product of an ongoing conversation between members of a given society at a given time. McLaren further asserts that “[c]ritical pedagogy asks how and why knowledge gets constructed the way it does, and how and why some constructions of reality are legitimated and celebrated by the dominant culture while others clearly are not” (p. 63).

McLaren delves deeper into the subgroups of knowledge and suggests that emancipatory knowledge is often utilized by critical educators to bring to parity quantifiable knowledge and analytical knowledge and, in so doing, create “the foundation for social justice, equality, and empowerment” (p. 64).

McLaren goes on to point out that Critical Pedagogy is a tool by which educators self-critically analyze modes of thought generation and dominant discourse in an effort to expose power asymmetries and their manifestation in school curricula with particular regard to notions of cultural capital. He suggests that “[s]tudents from the dominant culture inherit substantially different cultural capital than do economically disadvantaged students, and schools generally value and reward those who exhibit that dominant cultural capital” (p. 81). He further explains that students who subscribe to the subordinate class culture often find that the cultural capital that they inherit from such an oppressed culture holds very little value as a social currency within schools that systematically devalue that said cultural capital. As such, in McLaren’s view:

Cultural capital is reflective of material capital and replaces it as a form of symbolic currency that enters into the exchange system of the school. Cultural capital is therefore symbolic of the social structure’s economic force and becomes in itself a productive force in the reproduction of social relations under capitalism. Academic performance represents, therefore, not individual competence or the lack of ability on the part of disadvantaged students but the school’s depreciation of their cultural capital. The end result is that the school’s academic credentials remain indissolubly linked to an unjust system of trading in cultural capital which is eventually transformed into economic capital, as working-class students become less likely to get high-paying jobs. (p. 81)

References:

McLaren, P. (2009). Critical pedagogy: a look at the major concepts. In A. Darder, M.P. Baltodano, & R. D. Torres (Eds.), The Critical Pedagogy Reader (pp. 61-83) New York, NY: Routledge.

Personal Reflection: Classism

My most memorable experience of classism was in high school. I was a very solitary person in school; I did not enjoy the company of others. However, in high school, it is nearly impossible to avoid everyone all of the time. As a result of my solitary nature, I often found myself socializing with what was at the time the smallest and most remote of the social circles: the punks. For the most part, they were an impoverished group with tense smiles stretched across thin faces. I saw hunger written in the outlines of their ribcages and in the knobs of their boney spines, both clearly visible through their tee-shirts. It was a hunger for more than just food; it was a hunger for an answer—an answer to the wild fists they threw in the air. It seemed to me that every patch and pin sewn and tacked to their battered denim jackets was a frustrated start in the fitful sleep of their young lives. They were living a nightmare from which they could not rouse themselves. They did not know what society would grant them in their tomorrow or even that it would guarantee such a kindness as a tomorrow, and it frustrated them.

I remember seeing all that the rich students had. I remember seeing new cars. And I remember seeing the newer cars that replaced those that had been wrecked in frivolity. I saw new letterman’s jackets and new sneakers. And it all stood in stark contrast to the punks’ canvas high tops, worn through from having to walk rather than drive. They did not have patches and medals on brushed wool and leather that told the story of the school’s appreciation for a job well done; they wore different patches. The patches they wore spoke of impotent frustration. I made a few friends in that community. I saw those same friends become the living manifestations of Rilke’s panther. I saw my friends lash out at everyone and everything before giving in to the despair that haunts poverty. It upset me greatly.

I remember visiting one of my friends a year after I had gone away to college. I remember walking into his room and seeing him lying in bed, completely strung out on heroin. I can still see the puffy skin around the track marks in his arms. At the time, I was so angry with him for becoming a cliché. But it is not a cliché; it is a reality. It is a reality that my friend shared with everyone who had been just as poor and just as desperate. Although I am not a social person, I miss my friend.

Now, when I hear upper-middle class republicans talk about socialism as if it were the most vile and cruel thing ever conceived of by man, I think of their sons and daughters who had all they wanted, and then I think about my friend with a needle in his arm and the thousand yard stare that told me he was gone.