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The Critical Turn in Education
The Critical Turn in Education traces the historical emergence and development of critical theories in the field of education, from the introduction of Marxist and other radical social theories in the 1960s to the contemporary critical landscape. The book begins by tracing the first waves of critical scholarship in the field through a close, contextual study of the intellectual and political projects of several core figures including, Paulo Freire, Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Michael Apple, and Henry Giroux. Later chapters offer a discussion of feminist critiques, the influx of postmodernist and poststructuralist ideas in education, and critical theories of race. While grounded in U.S. scholarship, The Critical Turn in Education contextualizes the development of critical ideas and political projects within a larger international history, and charts the ongoing theoretical debates that seek to explain the relationship between school and society. Today, much of the language of this critical turn has now become commonplace―words such as "hegemony," "ideology," and the term "critical" itself―but by providing a historical analysis, The Critical Turn in Education illuminates the complexity and nuance of these theoretical tools, which offer ways of understanding the intersections between individual identities and structural forces in an attempt to engage and overturn social injustice.
192 pages, Paperback
First published August 15, 2015
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October 2, 2022
This book provides a great history of the rising influence of neo-marxism and post-modernism, the merger of two being called "wokeism" by some, on modern educational theory. The book is succinct, accessible to non-experts (although some trips to the dictionary and encyclopedia may be required) and meticulously documented.
The book starts off by documenting how many of the 60s radicals moved into educational theory after the social upheaval died down. They brought with them an interest in Marxism and developed such notions as "correspondence theory", whereby education's output would ultimately end up being that which met the needs of the capitalist economy. Racial matters were also a big interest: in particular, the Coleman Report found that it was not the financial resources available to schools that most determined educational outcomes but family income. This was controversial at the time and, from the book, you get the feeling that the results were not ultimately accepted by all. It did, however, get educational theorists interested in what cultural factors were shaping school outcomes. Enter a shift away from classical Marxism to cultural, or "neo" Marxism and taking on the name "critical pedagogy".
Gottesman documents the work of Henry Giroux who was the leader in the early development of critical pedagogy. Gottesman also discusses the exceptionally strong influence of the Brazilian Marxist Paulo Freire but, correcting current misconceptions, goes into detail describing how critical pedagogy was already well underway with Henry Giroux and others before Freire. He describes how Freire's work fascinated Giroux and turbo charged the field's interest in Marxism and Marxist variants.
Gottesman also documents scholars in Britain's growing interest in neo-Marxism and how all roads among theorists lead to the work of Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci. Gramsci had written about the problem of cultural reproduction whereby the institutions in a capitalist society including, importantly, schools, would reproduce the ways of thinking and ideologies in people necessary to keep capitalism dominate. This Gramsci called this "hegemony" and he wrote that it was more important than what Marxists called "the base": the day to day activities under capitalism such as buying and selling good, and "the superstructure" which were the important institutions in society such as the government and legal system that created and implemented its laws. The critical theorists concluded that by changing education they could solve what Marxists considered the problem of the cultural reproduction of capitalism from generation to generation.
Another line of thinking that Gottesman documents is the growing influence of post-structuralism and post-modernism. Both emphasized that the source of power was not centrally located in a society but diffuse and deeply ingrained through things like language. Gottesman documents how it was post-structural feminism, with Elizabeth Ellsworth being the key initial figure, who brought post-modern ideas into critical theories of education. A key notion feminists brought with them was that of "situated knowledge". This meaning that one's position in the power structure of society, for example one's race and sex, determine what they consider to be valid knowledge and valid forms of knowledge production.
Gottesman's last chapter documents how "critical theories of race" including Critical Race Theory (yes, there are other critical theories of race, CRT referring to one that originated in the study of law) followed on the notion of identity that the feminists originally brought and came to be a strong influence on modern educational theory.
One of the strengths of the book is how clear Gottesman's writing is. There is never any gobbledygook including in the passages he choses to quote to demonstrate his points. This despite the fact that, according Gottesman, some of the writings, for instance by Giroux, have been accused by fellow academics of being incomprehensible. That being said, for some passages they might require two or three readings to fully grasp. This does mean that reading the book does not go as quickly as the low page count would suggest. This, for example, if you are not quite sure what the difference between post-structuralism and post-modernism is. Nevertheless the investment in time is definitely worth it to see where teachers are currently at in terms of their thinking.
The chapter on "Critical Theories of Race" is good reading given the current debate about whether or not Critical Race Theory is taught in schools. The answer is that while K-12 students are most assuredly not reading primary sources, CRT is a strong influence on teachers colleges, teachers, and, hence, the key concepts are trickling down to students. One amusing part of this chapter was that it spent a great deal of time discussing what CRT is. This is amusing since conservatives have been accused of not being able to define CRT and that they just use the term to describe anything related to any teachings of racial matters. From this chapter we learn that critical race theorists themselves cannot define it, do not try to, but instead discuss what it emphasizes with different notion of what the emphases are. The chapter even says that critical academics themselves often lump any critical teaching of race under the name "critical race theory". Gottesman even goes on to say that he himself does not have a definition of what critical theory is!
There are a couple of particularly alarming things described in the book, or, I should say, things I think most who are not themselves critical education theorists would find alarming:
1) The first is the notion that schools should explicitly be thought of as places where students are taught how the capitalist system oppresses them, that it should explicitly be a place to build activism against it, including being part of a "public sphere" with the surrounding community to engage in such political work.
2) The second alarming thing discussed in the book is the influence of post-modernism including how it weakens our criteria for what is considered valid knowledge. If scientists really have not been completely objective in the past is the correct solution to determine that we should not find ways to become more objective, or is it to weaken standards of knowledge to "lived experience", for instance, with all the rather obvious problems that would entail? To go even further than that and conclude that the weakened standards are what truly constitute "strong objectivity"?
In the conclusion of the book, Gottesman does describe how he feels that academic standards are not as high as they should be among critical educational theorists. Having read some leftist academic literature myself I would go further and say that it is nearly always something that you do not need to have a graduate degree to find problems with. Indeed even having truly grasped Critical Thinking and Stats 101 is sufficient to quickly identify the problems. One thing Gottesman does not discuss is the reason the standards are so low.
From the book it is not possible to tell if critical theorists get much critical feedback from other non-critical scholars. I suspect it is more of an echo chamber leading young researchers to think they can publish anything that gives the right conclusion and the rigor will not be looked at. I also suspect that it is the post-modernist attack on strict means of knowledge and its replacement by things like "qualitative" interpretation of "lived experience" which leads scholars to think they can just publish anything that sounds good.
Postscript: I suspect many will be considering reading this book because of the attention it has received from James Lindsay. A big part of my interest in this book was to "spot check" what Lindsay was saying about education: was he being accurate or spinning things? After reading the book I can confidently say that his New Discourses podcasts do present an accurate representation of the book's contents. The only criticism I have is that there does seem to be more debate within the field rather than being a completely monolithic hive mind: this with the qualification that the debate does seem to be mostly between critical scholars and themselves. An example of the internal debate is socialists liking many of the ideas post-modernism bring, but not liking the fact that post-modernism, by its focus on power, tends to make one distrustful of all power including leftist power. (Indeed, some right wing movements are now incorporating post-modernist themes.)
The book starts off by documenting how many of the 60s radicals moved into educational theory after the social upheaval died down. They brought with them an interest in Marxism and developed such notions as "correspondence theory", whereby education's output would ultimately end up being that which met the needs of the capitalist economy. Racial matters were also a big interest: in particular, the Coleman Report found that it was not the financial resources available to schools that most determined educational outcomes but family income. This was controversial at the time and, from the book, you get the feeling that the results were not ultimately accepted by all. It did, however, get educational theorists interested in what cultural factors were shaping school outcomes. Enter a shift away from classical Marxism to cultural, or "neo" Marxism and taking on the name "critical pedagogy".
Gottesman documents the work of Henry Giroux who was the leader in the early development of critical pedagogy. Gottesman also discusses the exceptionally strong influence of the Brazilian Marxist Paulo Freire but, correcting current misconceptions, goes into detail describing how critical pedagogy was already well underway with Henry Giroux and others before Freire. He describes how Freire's work fascinated Giroux and turbo charged the field's interest in Marxism and Marxist variants.
Gottesman also documents scholars in Britain's growing interest in neo-Marxism and how all roads among theorists lead to the work of Italian Marxist Antonio Gramsci. Gramsci had written about the problem of cultural reproduction whereby the institutions in a capitalist society including, importantly, schools, would reproduce the ways of thinking and ideologies in people necessary to keep capitalism dominate. This Gramsci called this "hegemony" and he wrote that it was more important than what Marxists called "the base": the day to day activities under capitalism such as buying and selling good, and "the superstructure" which were the important institutions in society such as the government and legal system that created and implemented its laws. The critical theorists concluded that by changing education they could solve what Marxists considered the problem of the cultural reproduction of capitalism from generation to generation.
Another line of thinking that Gottesman documents is the growing influence of post-structuralism and post-modernism. Both emphasized that the source of power was not centrally located in a society but diffuse and deeply ingrained through things like language. Gottesman documents how it was post-structural feminism, with Elizabeth Ellsworth being the key initial figure, who brought post-modern ideas into critical theories of education. A key notion feminists brought with them was that of "situated knowledge". This meaning that one's position in the power structure of society, for example one's race and sex, determine what they consider to be valid knowledge and valid forms of knowledge production.
Gottesman's last chapter documents how "critical theories of race" including Critical Race Theory (yes, there are other critical theories of race, CRT referring to one that originated in the study of law) followed on the notion of identity that the feminists originally brought and came to be a strong influence on modern educational theory.
One of the strengths of the book is how clear Gottesman's writing is. There is never any gobbledygook including in the passages he choses to quote to demonstrate his points. This despite the fact that, according Gottesman, some of the writings, for instance by Giroux, have been accused by fellow academics of being incomprehensible. That being said, for some passages they might require two or three readings to fully grasp. This does mean that reading the book does not go as quickly as the low page count would suggest. This, for example, if you are not quite sure what the difference between post-structuralism and post-modernism is. Nevertheless the investment in time is definitely worth it to see where teachers are currently at in terms of their thinking.
The chapter on "Critical Theories of Race" is good reading given the current debate about whether or not Critical Race Theory is taught in schools. The answer is that while K-12 students are most assuredly not reading primary sources, CRT is a strong influence on teachers colleges, teachers, and, hence, the key concepts are trickling down to students. One amusing part of this chapter was that it spent a great deal of time discussing what CRT is. This is amusing since conservatives have been accused of not being able to define CRT and that they just use the term to describe anything related to any teachings of racial matters. From this chapter we learn that critical race theorists themselves cannot define it, do not try to, but instead discuss what it emphasizes with different notion of what the emphases are. The chapter even says that critical academics themselves often lump any critical teaching of race under the name "critical race theory". Gottesman even goes on to say that he himself does not have a definition of what critical theory is!
There are a couple of particularly alarming things described in the book, or, I should say, things I think most who are not themselves critical education theorists would find alarming:
1) The first is the notion that schools should explicitly be thought of as places where students are taught how the capitalist system oppresses them, that it should explicitly be a place to build activism against it, including being part of a "public sphere" with the surrounding community to engage in such political work.
2) The second alarming thing discussed in the book is the influence of post-modernism including how it weakens our criteria for what is considered valid knowledge. If scientists really have not been completely objective in the past is the correct solution to determine that we should not find ways to become more objective, or is it to weaken standards of knowledge to "lived experience", for instance, with all the rather obvious problems that would entail? To go even further than that and conclude that the weakened standards are what truly constitute "strong objectivity"?
In the conclusion of the book, Gottesman does describe how he feels that academic standards are not as high as they should be among critical educational theorists. Having read some leftist academic literature myself I would go further and say that it is nearly always something that you do not need to have a graduate degree to find problems with. Indeed even having truly grasped Critical Thinking and Stats 101 is sufficient to quickly identify the problems. One thing Gottesman does not discuss is the reason the standards are so low.
From the book it is not possible to tell if critical theorists get much critical feedback from other non-critical scholars. I suspect it is more of an echo chamber leading young researchers to think they can publish anything that gives the right conclusion and the rigor will not be looked at. I also suspect that it is the post-modernist attack on strict means of knowledge and its replacement by things like "qualitative" interpretation of "lived experience" which leads scholars to think they can just publish anything that sounds good.
Postscript: I suspect many will be considering reading this book because of the attention it has received from James Lindsay. A big part of my interest in this book was to "spot check" what Lindsay was saying about education: was he being accurate or spinning things? After reading the book I can confidently say that his New Discourses podcasts do present an accurate representation of the book's contents. The only criticism I have is that there does seem to be more debate within the field rather than being a completely monolithic hive mind: this with the qualification that the debate does seem to be mostly between critical scholars and themselves. An example of the internal debate is socialists liking many of the ideas post-modernism bring, but not liking the fact that post-modernism, by its focus on power, tends to make one distrustful of all power including leftist power. (Indeed, some right wing movements are now incorporating post-modernist themes.)
January 14, 2025
I'm so happy that I decided to pick up this book! In navigating a daunting amount of critical scholarship, this resource helps to succinctly hold my hand through the history of critical thought in education. I would say this is definitely not replacement for picking up the actual historically important works in the field, but instead serves as a digestible overview of critical thought and how it has transformed and influenced feminist and critical race theoretical ideas. This resource is definitely going to help me weed through all the critical scholarship and pick up the most important commentaries pertinent to my dissertation work! Thank you!!!
June 4, 2022
A call to arms for critical theorists everywhere. This book chastises educators who’ve forgotten that critical theory is intended to do more than divide society and make children miserable. It’s purpose is revolution. The author does a fine job tracing the marxist origins and evolution of critical theory over the decades to its current forms in order to remind teachers that they’re falling short in delivering a Marxist utopia.
October 17, 2025
There should be a badge on Goodreads for making it through the Post Modern, Post Structuralist, Post Raisin Bran gobbledegook of acedemic and head up ass language that all lf these kinds of works have.
But if one is going to study the history of the Marxist influence on education and modern discourse then you have to give the devil his/he/him/they do.
But if one is going to study the history of the Marxist influence on education and modern discourse then you have to give the devil his/he/him/they do.
August 9, 2018
As a student of critical theory, this book was tremendously helpful in providing an extensive historical background of critical theory and its leading scholars. The references offered throughout are helpful in discerning which important works/authors I had read and which ones I still need to explore further. I found Gottesman's conclusion particularly insightful as he unpacked four "action steps" for critical scholars to take in order to continue advancing the scholarly work of critical theory: read broadly, read closely, publish broadly, and focus on teaching and learning. I will continue to refer back to this book as I continue work on my dissertation and future work with critical theory and critical media literacy.
November 30, 2025
I started going through this book by listening to the New Discourses podcast with James Lindsay. He only read the introduction and prologue to this, but I ended up reading through the entirety of it.
Let's say that Gottesman's utopian hopes are as vapid as Marx's Communist paradise that will never come to pass.
Let's say that Gottesman's utopian hopes are as vapid as Marx's Communist paradise that will never come to pass.
July 28, 2023
great overview of critical educational scholarship over the past 40 years
December 21, 2023
A roadmap to implementing Communism.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews