Interrogating Critical Pedagogy

Educators, teacher practitioners, and social activists have successfully used critical pedagogy as a tool to help marginalized students develop awareness and seek alternative solutions to their poor educational and socioeconomic situations. However, this theory is often criticized as being mostly dominated by privileged white males, bringing issues of race and gender to the forefront. This volume provides insight on how critical pedagogy can be helpful to scholars and teachers alike in their analysis of racial, gender, linguistic and political problems. It features a wide range of respected scholars who examine the way and the degree to which critical pedagogy can be used to improve education for students of color, women and other marginalized groups.

‘It is a critical understanding of [the] liberatory tradition that precisely informs the courageous vision with which Pierre Orelus and Rochelle Brock have brought together, in this volume, the voices of educators of color to speak their own truths. In the process, these authors found a place where they could use their energy to redefine themselves and devise realistic scenarios for altering the present and constructing the future. The result is a powerful volume of diverse voices of educators of color, who contend thoughtfully and creatively with the emancipatory possibilities of critical pedagogy and the difficulties they have known and faced.’ -- Antonia Darder, Loyola Marymount University, USA'Professors Orelus and Brock offer a timely and important volume that seeks to integrate the discourse of critical pedagogy with the often muted voices of youth, women, and communities of color. These communities are spoken about or acted upon, but too rarely engaged on humane and equitable terms by movements that purport to be in their very interest. The authors not only call out this contradiction in the field; they push the dialogue forward by considering how the inclusion of these missing perspectives can actually grow and transform the field in necessary and powerful ways. The book is a must have for any serious student of critical pedagogy.' -- Ernest Morrell, Teachers College, Columbia University"A wonderful collection of contributions to critical pedagogy from a multi-ethnic and international perspective.This is the sort of extension to the critical pedagogy debate for which we have been waiting, one with anti-racist overtones. It covers multiple sites of practice. Refreshing, revealing and inspiring." -- Peter Mayo, University of Malta

Pierre Wilbert Orelus is Associate Professor in the Curriculum and Instruction department at New Mexico State University. He is the past Chair of the Post-colonial and Education Special Interest (SIG) Group and the co-chair of the Paulo Freire SIG at American Educational Research Association. He has received several awards and fellowships, including New Mexico State University Exceptional Achievements in Creative Scholarly Activity Award (2013) and New Mexico State Dean of Education award for Excellence in Research (2010). His research interests include post-colonial, language, race, immigrant, and gender studies. His most recent books include Affirming Language Diversity in Schools and Society: Beyond linguistic apartheid (2014); On Language, Democracy, and Social Justice: Noam Chomsky’s critical intervention (with Noam Chomsky, 2014); and Colonized Schooling Exposed (with Curry Malott and Romina A. Pacheco, 2014). Rochelle Brock is Associate Professor of Urban Education and Executive Director of the Urban Teacher Education Program at Indiana University Northwest in Gary, Indiana. She is also an editor for The International Journal of Critical Pedagogy and series editor of Black Studies and Critical Thinking. She has written books and articles on White privilege, teacher identity, critical pedagogy, African American culture and Black feminist theory.