Peter McLaren

For the Australian footballer, see Peter McLaren (footballer). For the Canadian politician, see Peter McLaren (politician).

Peter McLaren
McLaren in 2015
Born	(1948-08-02) August 2, 1948 (age 76) Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Spouse	Yan Wang
Academic background
Alma mater	University of Waterloo University of Toronto Brock University
Thesis	Education as Ritual Performance (1984)
Doctoral advisor	Richard Courtney [1]
Influences	Paulo Freire [2] Henry Giroux Emmanuel Levinas [3] Karl Marx [4] Paul Ricœur [3]

First phase, 1980–1993

The theoretical orientations of the first ten years of McLaren's research and writing can be traced to his early undergraduate work in Elizabethan drama and theater arts and his graduate studies in symbolic anthropology, critical ethnography, and social semiotics. As a young man, McLaren had always admired the life and work of William Morris, author, poet, artist and craftsman, printer and calligrapher, formidable socialist and activist, businessman, and private individual. At the time that he enrolled in doctoral studies at the University of Toronto's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (Institut d'Etudes Pedagogiques de L'Ontario), Victor Turner, the world-renowned symbolic anthropologist, was conducting path-breaking transdisciplinary work at the University of Virginia, bringing dramaturgical theory and anthropology into close collaboration, particularly as this applied to the study of ritual. McLaren soon became a scholar of Turner's work. After auditing a course at the Toronto Semiotics Institute taught by philosopher Michel Foucault and another by Umberto Eco, McLaren began to develop a transdisciplinary approach to the study of ritual. He found a rich transdisciplinary milieu in which to conduct his studies at Massey College, University of Toronto. Modeled after Balliol College, Oxford University, England, Massey College facilitates interdisciplinary collaboration among high-achieving graduate students from various departments on campus. Looking back at his educational experiences at Massey, it is not surprising that the work of performance theorists, political economists, anthropologists, dramaturgical theorists, literary critics, and symbolic interactionists informed the theoretical basis of his first major scholarly publication, Schooling as a Ritual Performance Towards a Political Economy of Educational Symbols and Gestures (first edition, Routledge, 1986; revised editions, 1994, 1997) which was based on his Ph.D. dissertation. ^[21]

McLaren's early work from 1984 to 1994 spanned diverse intellectual and empirical terrains. He remained steadfast in his interest in the contemporary themes of the Frankfurt School: social psychology in the context of a lack of revolutionary social protest in Europe and the United States, a critique of positivism and science, developing a critical theory of art and representation; an interrogation of the mass media and mass culture; investigating the production of desire and identity; and the globalization of capitalism and forms of integration in neoliberal societies. In other words, when viewed against the major themes of the Frankfurt School, there was a fundamental coherence to his work as a whole. ^[21]

Peter McLaren with Daniel Ellsberg, 2005.

Further, each of McLaren's scholarly projects attempted to explore the construction of identity in school contexts within a neo-liberal society. This meant engaging in numerous critical projects: exploring the debilitating effects of logical positivism in the social sciences and the assault on critical theory and critical ethnography; exploring the increasing colonization of the lifeworld by the mass media and developing a critical pedagogy of media literacy and political aesthetics of pedagogical experience; analyzing the decline of critical rationality in postmodern societies and the development of critical literacies; advancing in specific pedagogical terms the struggle to redefine the meaning of liberation and empowerment in an age of despair and cynicism; investigating the politics of post-liberal societies with specific reference to the practices of cultural racism and sexism, and developing an analysis of the production, distribution, consumption, and exchange of cultural objects in schools and larger social sites with an emphasis on the social construction of subjectivity. ^[21]

In this early period, McLaren's research emphasized the development of critical emancipatory consciousness, self-conscious reason, and the centrality of nonidentity thinking towards a non-essentialist view of revolutionary consciousness grounded in a theory of intersubjective understanding through language. Practically, his work attempted to create an oppositional cultural politics that enabled teachers and students to analyze how the dominant and negotiated meanings that inform classroom texts were produced and to uncover the ideological and political meanings that circulated within them. Through critical reading strategies, McLaren attempted to illuminate the dominant pedagogical codes of teachers and the normative codes within classroom cultures of students. His purpose was to create alternative readings as well as new pedagogical practices. In this sense, as McLaren was formulating it, critical pedagogy attempted to reengage a social world that operates under the assumption of its collective autonomy and remains resistant to human intervention.

In his early work, McLaren engaged four main strands in educational theory and studies: critical ethnography, critical pedagogy, curriculum studies, and critical multiculturalism.

Second phase, 1994–present

Peter McLaren being awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Lapland, Finland, in 2004.

McLaren's work during the past several decades is not so much a break from his early work as an extension of it. A discernible shift occurred in the sense that he now focuses more on a critique of political economy. But his early work also included a critique of capitalism, except during that time McLaren operated from primarily a Weberian understanding of class and was concerned at that time with the politics of consumption and lifestyle/identity. McLaren's new turn saw him focus on the social relations of production and its relation to the production of subjectivity and protagonist agency. Between 1994 up to the present, McLaren's work is less directed at the classroom per se, and more focused on issues such as a critique of political economy, cultural contact and racial identity, anti-racist/multicultural education, the politics of white supremacy, resistance and popular culture; the formation of subjectivity, the coloniality of power and decolonial education; revolutionary critical pedagogy informed by a Marxist humanist analysis and liberation theology. ^[22]

During this time McLaren began spending time in Latin America – working with Chavistas in Venezuela and with labor and union leaders in Mexico and Colombia and becoming more interested in Marxist critique of political economy. McLaren came to believe that postmodern theory could be quite a reactionary approach in so far as it failed to challenge with the verve and sustained effort that is demanded of the times the social relations of capitalist production and reproduction. While McLaren adopted the term, critical postmodernism, or resistance postmodernism, to describe his work up until the late 1990s, he recognized that he needed to engage the work of Karl Marx and Marxist thinkers. ^[22]

The more McLaren began engaging in the work of Marx, and meeting social activists driven by Marxist anti-imperialist projects throughout the Americas, he no longer believed that the work on "radical democracy" convincingly demonstrated that it was superior to the Marxist problematic. It appeared to McLaren that, in the main, such work had despairingly capitulated to the inevitability of the rule of capital and the regime of the commodity. That work, along with much of the work in post-colonialist criticism, appeared to McLaren as too detached from historical specificities and basic determinations. McLaren believed that Marxist critique more adequately addressed the differentiated totalities of contemporary society and their historical imbrications in the world system of global capitalism. Rather than employ the term critical pedagogy, McLaren now uses the term that the British educator Paula Allman has christened revolutionary critical pedagogy. McLaren describes his current work as Marxist humanist, a term developed by Raya Dunayevskaya, who once served as Trotsky's secretary in Mexico and who developed the tradition of Marxist humanism in the US. McLaren's work constitutes counterpoint to the way social justice is used in progressive education by inviting students to examine critically the epistemological and axiological dimensions of democracy in the light of a Marxist critique of political economy and the coloniality of power (a term developed by Anibal Quijano). McLaren's work today comprises poetry, reflections on his activist work in Venezuela, Mexico, and other countries, contributions to critical theory, and Marxist analysis as applied to current educational policy and reform initiatives. ^[22]

Peter McLaren hosted by the Rarámuri and Tarahumara indigenous people in 2012.

Although McLaren's theoretical work has developed in these stages, the preface to the most recent compilation of his oeuvre argues that these phases aren't distinguished by theoretical breaks but by political "maturation." This latest interpretation argues that there are two continuities throughout his phases. The first is his effort to create new temporalities, spatialities, subjectivities, and modes of production that don't entail exploitation and oppression. Second, this pursuit has always been "rooted not in the transcendence of the ideal, but in the immanence of corporeal reality." ^[23]

With his comrades worldwide, Peter McLaren has searched for justice and thirsted for peace since the 1980s. He has learned from brave and visionary comrades in Mexico who never give up fighting for justice, from the fearless revolutionaries in Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia, Cuba, Turkey, and in all the other countries where teachers, other transformative intellectuals, and ordinary people never give up hope such as his native Canada and adopted home of the United States, Finland, Sweden, Ireland, England, China, Croatia, Serbia, Peru, Spain, Portugal, New Zealand, Thailand, Japan, Korea, Pakistan, Israel, Palestine and Australia. Peter McLaren has received numerous invitations from different countries over the years, but his physical disability has prevented him from accepting most of them since the 2020s. In his Pedagogy of Insurrection, he mapped his journeys as follows:

The different pathways I have trodden in my intellectual as well as my activist work have taken me to the rare book collections of libraries throughout the world, to radical bookshops selling cheap plaster busts of Marx, to coffee shops where stacks of second-hand anarchist works were free for the taking, to streets convulsed in tear gas and chants demanding freedom, to the favelas and barrios of grassroots activists, to meeting places in communities where the land had been seized by the campesinos, to South African classrooms in shack dweller communities, to alternative community centers in Roma neighborhoods, to education conferences in Muslim and Hindu countries, to schools where martyred teachers adorn the murals on the walls, to universities occupied by radical students and to the mahogany and brass offices of university administrators.

Peter McLaren and Mexico's President Andrés Manuel López Obrador

Our journey has also taken us along different spiritual pathways no less important to us. It has taken me from Buddhist temples in Thailand, to Taoist temples in China, to Shinto temples in Japan, to Christian churches throughout Europe, to the Vatican, to Maori whare whakairo in New Zealand, to Santeria ceremonies in Havana, to Umbande and Candomblé terreiros in Bahia, Brazil, to Hare Krishna temples, to an abbey in Ireland, to the Self-Realization Fellowship temple of Paramahansa Yogananda and to evangelical churches in the U.S. where the Lord is praised in whoops and hollers. This sojourner thirsting for salvation and social justice has taken off his thirsty boots in decrepit hostels in Mexico, rested his feet on the mini-bars of luxury hotels in Spain, and boarded for the night in rooming houses in Caracas while supporting the Bolivarian revolution. Over the years, I have joined groups of religious pilgrims on a spiritual path. This has been as important to me as my scholarship and political activism. To me, they go hand-in-hand. Together, we have tried to break through all the barriers that constrain us from realizing the Kingdom of God, not realizing that it is already upon us. We have tried to make our own consciousness the object of our thought. We have tried to bolster our potential to think about thought itself. We have tried to blast open the continuum of history in order to arrive at Benjamin’s messianic “now-time,” at Leary’s “white light,” at Suzuki’s satori, seeking our “profane illumination” as we smashed our fists through the prison doors of homogeneous, empty time, searching for that flashpoint moment where the temporal-ontological distance between the past, present and future vanishes and we are engulfed by an orgasm of history. We have been crazy fools and holy fools both. Some of us have found in revolutionary critical pedagogy an opportunity to bring together our spiritual and political struggles. Forces busy at work disabling our quest are neither apparent nor easily discerned and critical educators have managed to appropriate many different languages with which to navigate the terrain of current educational reform. ^[24]

McLaren's Critical Pedagogy

Professor Emeritus Peter McLaren at home on 14 May 2024

McLaren's work has broken new ground in education. He is considered one of the architects of critical pedagogy, having been influenced early in his career by Paulo Freire and Henry Giroux. He also has been credited with laying the groundwork for performance studies in education by publishing his book, Schooling as a Ritual Performance. The Peter McLaren Upstander Lecture was announced as part of the Annual International Critical Research in Applied Theater Symposium in Auckland, New Zealand. The lecture will be presented each year by a graduate student in education from the School of Critical Studies in Education at the University of Auckland.

McLaren is known as one of the leading exponents of revolutionary critical pedagogy, an approach to everyday life influenced by Marxist humanist philosophy, also known as a "philosophy of praxis." McLaren's work is controversial for its uncompromising politics of class struggle. McLaren is also a gifted orator and social activist, and his academic writing has been both praised and criticized for its unique blend of poetry and literary tropes and cutting-edge theoretical analysis. At least one documentary is in the planning about McLaren's life.

David Geoffrey Smith, an award winning author, and Professor of Education at the University of Alberta wrote: "Peter McLaren is one of my heroes. I wanted to put this up-front, especially after a recent experience in a doctoral oral when I attempted to address a point in the thesis using an argument McLaren might have made. Honestly, you’d think I’d invoked the Devil Incarnate. McLaren’s name had barely passed my lips when eyes started rolling, various hurrumphing and moaning noises were heard, and for a moment I thought one member was about to swallow her tongue, so intense was her apoplexy. Whew! If only more of us could inspire such depth of feeling with our scholarship, and rescue contemporary educational thinking from its current morass of banalities and cowardly evasions of the defining issues of our time. I love Peter McLaren, not because I necessarily agree with him on everything but because he has guts, commitment, and a brilliant intelligence capable of naming sources of our personal and collective pain. His writing is often too verbose, but just as often it explodes in epiphanic utterances of pure poetry." Furthermore, Smith has described McLaren's critical pedagogy as follows: "As a former theologian, I judge Peter McLaren to be a prophet, and prophets are seldom recognized in their own countries except when they tear away the veils of hypocrisy, and then ...?" ^[25]

McLaren approaches critical pedagogy as a praxiological effort to develop a politics of everyday life in a number of ways. First, it situates its critical analyses within the realms of popular culture. Secondly, it pays close theoretical attention to how everyday discourses and social practices constitute and reinforce relations of power and serve as sites for struggle, resistance, and transformation. Thirdly, as developed by McLaren, critical pedagogy attempts to seize opportunities to make links between new social movements and the networks of power associated with "school life." It attempts to link the micropolitical (everyday lives of teachers and students) with the macropolitical (larger economic, cultural, social, and institutional structures).

The school building (in La Escuela Normal Superior de Neiva) named after Peter McLaren in Neiva, Colombia

As McLaren develops it, critical pedagogy seeks to analyze the possibilities for the resistance and transformation of social life, both individual and collective, personal and macropolitical. It engages in such an analysis by attempting to understand how wider relations of power are played out in the agential spaces of classroom and community life but also by attempting to investigate how broader structures of mediation at the level of the economy are able to "take root" in the everyday lives of students and teachers who operate at the level of common sense actions. This means constantly reflecting on the cultural construction of teachers, students, and researchers' identities and connecting such critical reflection to a broader terrain of political action and class struggle. McLaren takes critical pedagogy beyond discursive politics, which sees politics as merely a text to be deconstructed and interpreted. Instead, McLaren approaches cultural politics as a terrain that operationalizes the textuality of political life by linking textuality to materiality. That is, McLaren seeks to make connections between the texts that we read (cultural artifacts) and those that read us (the realm of language and discursive structures in general) in light of current modes and social relations of production and the political consequences that these connections bring about in our pedagogies, curricula, and policies.

Since 1994, McLaren revised and extended some of his earlier insights in Schooling as a Ritual Performance, Life in Schools, and other works by engaging with Marx and leading Marxist philosophers and theorists.

bell hooks and Peter McLaren in the late 1980s in Cincinnati, Ohio.

While anti-capitalist struggle and Marxist analysis have an indistinct and relatively undigested place in the field of educational theory, there is some movement towards Marx in the social sciences here in North America. Marx is being revisited by social scientists of all disciplinary shapes and sizes – even, and perhaps most especially and urgently today, when capitalism is in a state of severe crisis. While hardly on their way to becoming entrenched and pervasive, Marx's ideas are taking their significance most strikingly from the particular and varied contexts in which his ideas are being engaged. Marx's ideas are gaining traction in education thanks to McLaren's work.

In McLaren's post-1994 phase, Marxist theory has provided McLaren with a fundamentally necessary approach to praxis to contextualize changes in the socio-political and economic sphere related to education. Through McLaren's current re-engagement with Marx and the tradition of historical materialism, McLaren supports the work of colleagues who pave the way for new generations of educationalists to encounter Marx. Marx is being reevaluated on numerous fronts today: sociology, political science, philosophy, economics, ethics, history, and the like. ^{[26] [27] [28] [29]}

Highlighting the dialogical nature of McLaren's critical pedagogy, he and Nobel Prize-winning economist Vernon Smith, known for his transformative work on trust and trade, engaged in a profound and respectful dialogue at Chapman University in 2017. Despite their apparent ideological differences – McLaren, a Marxist humanist, and Smith, a libertarian – the exchange revealed common ground. The scholars from working-class backgrounds explored topics from early careers to influences like liberation theology and economic necessity. Their six-day, 12,000-word email exchange showcased that differences need not hinder meaningful dialogue. ^[30]

Pedagogía crítica revolucionaria

McLaren converted from his Anglican roots to Roman Catholicism when he was 35 and completing his dissertation. Subsequently, McLaren became interested in Catholic social justice teaching and liberation theology. ^[31] Since then, McLaren’s work has been expressly Catholic, and his eschatological position is that the eschaton has already arrived and that humanity is called to respond to the injunction by Christ to love our neighbor and bring justice to the world. McLaren's work is critical of Christians who postpone the eschaton, thus failing to heed Christ's call to social justice In the here and now. Those theologies that do not accept the eschaton as having arrived are tools deliberately used by the masters of this world to prevent Christ's message from revolutionizing the world and bringing about the messianic kingdom on earth. ^[32]

McLaren has also been compared to Francis of Assisi. ^[33] In another instance, it has been stated that McLaren work is "a testimony to an examined life in the service of humanity" and he follows Jesus, who chose the path of non-violence. McLaren pointed out that ”all acts of violence generate forms of evil” and through evil and violence there can not be the Kingdom of God. ^[34]

James Pew of Wokewatch Canada asserts that the "Three Musketeers" of critical pedagogy—Peter McLaren, Henry Giroux, and Joe Kincheloe—may be considered "Canada's second most successful academic influence internationally, with Jordan Peterson being the first." Pew further contends that a significant distinction between Peterson's influence and that of the three pedagogical "Musketeers" lies in their target audiences. Peterson's work primarily addresses young adults and older, whereas critical pedagogy is imposed on children from kindergarten through 12th grade. Pew suggests that when viewed from this perspective, McLaren, Giroux, and Kincheloe might ultimately prove to be even more influential than Peterson. ^[35]

Of McLaren’s intellectual legacy, João M. Paraskeva writes: “Justifiably, he [McLaren] is considered in many constituencies as one of the most prominent male neo-Gramscian Western pedagogues” ^[36] . Antonio Gramsci, a key figure in Marxist theory, spent the last decade of his life (1926–1937) imprisoned under crippling conditions. Arrested on the orders of fascist leader Benito Mussolini, Gramsci was seen as a significant threat to the regime's authoritarian rule. McLaren’s anti-fascist writings, much like Gramsci's, challenge the rise of authoritarianism—in McLaren's case, opposing the MAGA movement's efforts to transform American democracy into a chaotic autocracy and reduce education to a farcical tool of control.

McLaren Versus the Far-Right

Pedagogía crítica revolucionaria (fragmento)

McLaren’s work is popular among progressive and leftist North and South America constituencies. His North American critics often focus only on the first of his over forty-five books, which was on the life and teachings of Che Guevara and Paulo Freire, the latter of whom was a friend and mentor of McLaren. Furthermore, his critics often fail to engage his work on Catholic social teaching and liberation theology. McLaren’s work has been greatly influenced by Mexican Christian communist militant and Jesuit theologian José Porfirio Miranda, who believed that the eschaton, or the Last Judgement, had already arrived. McLaren believes the same; his work is best understood in this context.

Peter McLaren has faced criticism and attacks from right-wing circles for years. His work challenges dominant power structures and advocates for social justice, equity, and transformative education. As a result, he has often been a target of conservative commentators, policymakers, and institutions who oppose his perspectives and the changes he advocates for in education and society. As a result, McLaren has faced not only intellectual criticism but also personal attacks and attempts to discredit his work and character.

An example is a fake video posted anonymously on YouTube with false and made-up captioning designed to discredit McLaren. ^[37] However, despite these challenges, he remains a resilient advocate for transformative education and social justice, inspiring and influencing scholars, educators, and activists worldwide.

Another case is right-wing Catholic Christopher Rufo, a leading critic of Critical Race Theory, who is closely aligned to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, has accused McLaren of “the ruthless application of politics to the most intimate recesses of the human spirit” in his book, America's Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything. ^[38]

McLaren has responded to Rufo in two ripostes accusing him of pseudo-intellectualism, a failure to understand the fundamentals of critical theory and critical pedagogy and attempting to create moral panic around critical pedagogy that resembles the “Red Scare” tactics of the 1950s. ^[39] McLaren has also described Rufo’s attacks on critical race theory as embedded in “a hermeneutics of evil.” ^[40] Professor John Baldacchino has described McLaren as “a Mannerist—equally Catholic, yet unlike Illich, he is shy of any sense of liberal Protestantism by which grace could be mistaken for being simply predestined and one’s behavior justified. If I were to place McLaren’s depiction, I would say that it claims its humanist origin in the Late Renaissance, by which it then acclaims the radicalism of a Caravaggio and Tintoretto, loudly claiming redemption by means of its stark realism.” ^[41]

McLaren has been a fierce critic of Trumpism, stating that "Trump has put democracy on the slaughter bench of history." McLaren characterizes Trumpism as follows:

"The fidelity to Trumpism by his base has a lot to do with the ways in which media technology have fostered present-day ideological affiliations and are forcing the remaining remnants of American democracy into a political dumpster filled with the stinking rot of Trumpism. American fascism is a type of blended plutocracy where the global scope of capitalist rationalization is seamlessly integrated into the bureaucracy, technology, hierarchy, and institutional and political structures, whose power is camouflaged by the banality of its appearances and especially because it is draped in the fleshy propaganda of freedom and democracy." ^[42]

In January 2006, McLaren was caught up in the Bruin Alumni Association's controversial "Dirty Thirty" project, ^[43] which listed UCLA's most politically extreme professors. The list was compiled by a former UCLA graduate student, Andrew Jones, who had previously been fired by his mentor David Horowitz for pressuring "students to file false reports about leftists" and for stealing Horowitz's mailing list of potential contributors to fund research for attacks on left-wing professors. ^[44] The Association offered students up to $100 for tapes of lectures that show how "radicals" on the faculty are "actively proselytizing their extreme views in the classroom." ^[45] McLaren topped the list at number one; Doug Kellner, also in the School of Education and Information Studies at UCLA, was number three.

The Los Angeles Times reported: "On one of its websites, the Bruin Alumni Group names education professor Peter McLaren as No. 1 on its “The Dirty Thirty: Ranking the Worst of the Worst.” It says “this Canadian native teaches the next generation of teachers and professors how to properly indoctrinate students.” McLaren called the alumni group’s tactics “beneath contempt” and said that “Any sober, concerned citizen would look at this and see right through it as a reactionary form of McCarthyism. Any decent American is going to see through this kind of right-wing propaganda. I just find it has no credibility.” ^[46]

Bibliography

Professor McLaren in Georgia, USA, kicking the Ku Klux Klan in the butt. A cartoon in a Brazilian newspaper

McLaren is the author, co-author, editor, and co-editor of approximately forty books and monographs. Several hundred of his articles, chapters, interviews, reviews, commentaries, and columns have appeared in dozens of scholarly journals and professional magazines worldwide.

Books

• The War in Ukraine and America. DIO Press, 2022.
• Critical Pedagogy Manifesto. Teachers of the World Unite. DIO Press, 2021.
• He Walks Among Us: Christian Fascism Ushering in the End of Days. DIO Press, 2020.
• Postdigital Dialogues on Critical Pedagogy, Liberation Theology, and Information Technology (with Petar Jandric). Bloomsbury Academic, 2020.
• Breaking Free: The Life and Times of Peter McLaren, Radical Educator (with M. Wilson). Myers Education Press, 2019.
• Pedagogy of Insurrection: From Resurrection to Revolution. Peter Lang, 2016.
• Revolutionizing Pedagogy: Educating for Social Justice Within and Beyond Global Neo-liberalism (with S. Macrine, S., and D. Hill, Eds). Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
• Academic Repression: Reflections from the Academic Industrial Complex (with A. Nocella, S. Best, S., Eds.) (2010). AK Press, 2010.
• Havoc of Capitalism. Educating for Social and Environmental Justice (with G. Martin, D. Houston, D., & Suoranta, J., (Eds.). Sense Publishers, 2010.
• Critical Pedagogies of Consumption: Living and Learning in the Shadow of the "Shopocalypse" (with Sandlin, J.A.). Routledge, 2019.
• Pedagogy and Praxis in the Age of Empire (with N. Jaramillo). Sense Publishers, 2007.
• Rage + Hope. Peter Lang, 2006.
• Capitalists and Conquerors. Rowman and Littlefield, 2005.
• Teaching Against Global Capitalism and the New Imperialism (with R. Farahmandpur). Rowman and Littlefield, 2005.
• Red Seminars: Radical Excursions into Educational Theory, Cultural Politics, and Pedagogy. Hampton Press, 2005.
• Marxism Against Postmodernism in Educational Theory (with D. Hill, M. Cole, & G. Rikowski). Lexington Books, 2002.
• Red Chalk (with M. Cole, D. Hill, and G. Rikowski). The Tufnell Press, 2000.
• Che Guevara, Paulo Freire, and the Pedagogy of Revolution. Rowman and Littlefield, 2000.
• Life in Schools: An Introduction to Critical Pedagogy in the Foundations of Education, 1998.
• Revolutionary Multiculturalism: Pedagogies of Dissent for the New Millennium. Westview Press, 1997.
• Counternarratives (with H. Giroux, C. Lankshear & M. Peters). Routledge, 1997.
• Critical Pedagogy and Predatory Culture. Routledge, 1995.
• Schooling as a ritual performance. Routledge, 1986.
• Cries from the corridor: The new suburban ghettos. Methuen, 1980.

Cover of Revista Argentina de Investigación Educativa

Translations

• Sociedad, cultura y escuela (with Henry A. Giroux) (1988)
• Pedagogia crítica y postmodernidad (1992)
• Hacia una pedagogía crítica de la formación de la identidad posmoderna (1993)
• Pedagogía crítica, resistencia cultural y la producción del deseo (1994)
• Rethinking Media Literacy (1994)
• Multiculturalismo Critico (1997)
• Utopias Provisorias: As Pedagogias Criticas num cenario pos-colonial (1999)
• Pedagogia, poder e identidad (Spanish) (1999)
• A Pedagogia da Utopia (2001)
• Kriittinen Pedagogiikka (with Henry Giroux) (2001)
• Pedagogia Revolucionaria Na Globalizacao (with Ramin Farahmandpur) (2002)
• Pedagogia Critica: Contra o Imperio (2007)
• La Pedagogia Critica Revolucionaria: El Socialismo y los Desafios Actuales (2012)

He is also the author of Life in Schools: An Introduction to Critical Pedagogy in the Foundations of Education (Allyn & Bacon), which is in its fifth edition (2006). Life in Schools has been named one of the 12 most significant writings worldwide in the field of educational theory, policy, and practice] by an international panel of experts assembled by the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences; other writers named by the panel include Paulo Freire, Ivan Illich, and Pierre Bourdieu. ^[47] In 2011, Instituto Peter McLaren was established in Ensenada, Mexico. ^[48] Peter McLaren's book, Pedagogy of Insurrection, has been honored by the international academic publisher, Peter Lang, who has added McLaren's book to its list of "classic" works to be reissued to academics around the globe. ^[49]

Peter McLaren and Aleida Guevara in 2007.

McLaren's work has been the subject of three recent books: Teaching Peter McLaren: Paths of Dissent, edited by Marc Pruyn and Luis M. Huerta-Charles (Peter Lang, 2005) [translated into Spanish as De La Pedagogia Critica a la pedagogia de la Revolucion: Ensayos Para Comprender a Peter McLaren, Mexico City, Siglo Veintiuno Editores], Peter McLaren, Education, and the Struggle for Liberation, edited by Mustafa Eryaman (Hampton Press, 2008), and Crisis of Commonwealth: Marcuse, Marx, McLaren, edited by Charles Reitz (Lexington Books, 2013).

McLaren debuted as a poet with his poem "The Despoiling of the American Mind" in MRZine. ^[50] His works have been praised, among others, by Slavoj Žižek and Paula Allman. Žižek comments on McLaren's book Che Guevara, Paulo Freire and the Pedagogy of Revolution as follows: "Che Guevara is usually perceived as a Romantic model whom we should admire while pursuing our daily business as usual – the most perverse defense against what Che stood for. What McLaren's fascinating book demonstrates is that, on the contrary, Che is a model for our times, a figure we should imitate in our struggle against neoliberal global capitalism." Allman notes that the book is a "brilliant blend of passion, commitment, and critical analysis and insight. ... It is also one of the most important books on critical education, and thus also education and social justice, to have been written in the twentieth century." ^[51]

Recent developments

Following Russia's military intervention in Ukraine, McLaren actively engaged in discussions and debates concerning the conflict. He has published a book and several articles on the topic, highlighting the impact of the war and its consequences. Some of his texts have been translated into Ukrainian. Through his work, McLaren sought to shed light on the situation's complexities and contribute to the discourse on finding a peaceful resolution. McLaren serves on the editorial board of the Ukrainian journal Philosophy of Education. ^[52]

Peter McLaren was interviewed by Mia Funk, founder of The Creative Process international educational initiative, podcast, and traveling exhibition. Other interviewees include Julian Lennon, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Liza Featherstone, Jericho Brown, Dr. Farhana Sultana, Richard D. Wolff, Dr. Eban Alexander, Avi Loeb, Peter Singer, Joyce Carol Oates, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Noam Chomsky. ^[53]

Honorary doctorates

Peter McLaren was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Lapland, Finland, in 2004, by Universidad del Salvador, Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 2010, by the Universidad Nacional de Chilecito in La Rioja, Argentina, and the Centro de Estudios Latinoamericanos de Educación Inclusiva (CELEI), Chile, in 2021. ^{[54] [55]} He also received the Amigo Honorifica de la Comunidad Universitaria de esta Institucion by La Universidad Pedagogica Nacional, Unidad 141, Guadalajara, Mexico.

A poster announcing Peter McLaren's Third Annual Leavey Presidential Lecture, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, 2016.

La Fundacion McLaren de Pedagogía Critica

Sergio Quiroz and Peter McLaren in Chiapas Mexico 2014

In 2005, Professor Sergio Quiroz Miranda established La Fundacion McLaren de Pedagogía Critica along with Peter McLaren to develop a knowledge of critical pedagogy throughout Mexico and to promote projects in critical pedagogy and popular education throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. ^[56] On September 15, 2006 the Catedra Peter McLaren was inaugurated at the Bolivarian University of Venezuela.

Awards

Professor McLaren's career has been marked by numerous accolades celebrating his profound impact on education, critical pedagogy, and social justice. His work has earned him some of the most prestigious awards in these fields. Among the early highlights is the Lifetime Achievement Award that Pedagogy and Theater of the Oppressed, Inc. and Miami University of Ohio bestowed upon him. Adding to this distinction, he was recognized with the Central New York Peace Studies Consortium Lifetime Achievement Award for his enduring commitment to peace studies. In 2013, the Critical Studies Association in Athens, Greece, acknowledged his scholarly contributions with the Award of Achievement in Critical Studies. He received recognition from Antioch University, Los Angeles, presenting him with the First Annual Social Justice and Upstander Ethics in Education Award. The inaugural Social and Economic Justice in Public Education Award, conferred by the Marxian Analysis of Society, Schools, and Education special interest group within the American Educational Research Association, further underscored his influence in the field.

Professor McLaren’s reputation as a leading voice in social justice reached global dimensions when the Paulo Freire Research Center in Finland awarded him the Paulo Freire International Social Justice Award. The University of Toronto’s Center for the Study of Education and Work further recognized his dedication to education and equity, which honored him with the Ann-Kristine Pearson Award in Education and Economy. Continuing this trajectory, McLaren was presented with the Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar Award by the American Educational Research Association, highlighting his role as a torchbearer of Freirean pedagogy. His international influence extended even further when the Venezuelan Ministry of Education honored him with the International Award in Critical Pedagogy. His efforts in promoting education for justice also saw him receiving the First International Award for Social Justice and Equity through Education from Mexico’s Instituto Universitario Internacional de Toluca. Moreover, McLaren’s solidarity with educators in Mexico earned him the "Friend in Solidarity with the Struggle of Mexican Teachers" award from the National Union of Educational Workers in Michoacan, as well as the "Distinción Académica Educación, Debates e Imaginario Social" from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.

In recognition of his advocacy for Indigenous peoples' rights, McLaren was honored with the Defense of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Award by the Higher Council of Community Government, the Council for Civil Affairs, and the Education Commission of Cheran, Michoacan. This distinction paid tribute to his role in commemorating the second anniversary of the defense of the forests in the region. His fight against global capitalism and activism in transformative education earned him Westchester University’s First Annual Excellence in Anti-Global-Capitalism and Activism Award. In Turkey, the Education and Science Workers’ Union at Ankara University honored him in 2013 with the "Academia Honor Award" for his efforts in labor, democracy, and social sciences, alongside the "Award of Honor in Critical Pedagogy" from Ankara University’s Department of Adult Education and Lifelong Learning. The same year, the Association of Educators of Latin America and the Caribbean recognized him as the Outstanding Educator of America. By 2014, McLaren’s influence had become so far-reaching that he was named Honorary Global Ambassador of Critical Pedagogy and Global Ethics by the Instituto de Ciencias de la Educación at the Universidad Autónoma "Benito Juárez" de Oaxaca in Mexico. ^[57]

See also

• John Asimakopoulos § Transformative Studies Institute
• Critical consciousness
• Ecopedagogy
• Frantz Fanon
• Liberation psychology
• Post-structuralism
• Praxis intervention
• Praxis school
• Queer pedagogy
• Radical Teacher
• Structuralism
• List of University of Waterloo people

References

Footnotes

1. "Early Years | Peter McLaren, PHD".
2. Cruz 2013, p. 8.
3. Borg, Mayo & Sultana 1994, p. 2.
4. Cummings 2015, p. 358.
5. M. D. Smith & Rodriguez 2013, p. 101.
6. "Faculty Profile".
7. "20+ Chapman Faculty Make Top 2% List | Chapman Newsroom". News.chapman.edu. 3 November 2022. Retrieved 28 February 2023.
8. "Chapman democracy activist offers a radical critique of capitalism". The Orange Country Register. 16 August 2015. Retrieved 28 February 2023.
9. "Foreword to Peter McLaren's pedagogy of insurrection". 9 January 2016.
10. McLaren 1995, pp. ix–xi.
11. McLren, P. (2016). Pedagogy of Insurrection: From Resurrection to Revolution. Peter Lang; McLaren, Peter (2020). He Walks Among Us: Christian Fascism Ushering in the End of Days. DIO Press.
12. McLaren 2015.
13. Kennedy 2014.
14. Kennedy 2014; McLaren 2015; Pruyn & Huerta-Charles 2007.
15. Davis, Creston (8 March 2015). "An Interview with a Revolutionary, Professor Peter McLaren". The Huffington Post. Retrieved 1 October 2020.
16. Peter McLaren, revolutionary activist and professors of critical pedagogy
17. McLaren, P. & Jandrić, P. (2020) Postdigital Dialogues on Critical Pedagogy, Liberation Theology, and Information Technology, Bloomsbury, p. 36
18. Macrine 2016a, pp. xi–xxi; Malott 2016.
19. McLaren, Peter (27 September 2019). "Teaching Against the Grain: A Conversation between the Editors of the Griffith Journal of Law & Human Dignity and Peter McLaren on the Importance of Critical Pedagogy in Law School". Griffith Journal of Law & Human Dignity. 7 (1).
20. Take a wild ride into Chapman Professor Peter McLaren's mind The Orange County Register (subscription required)
21. Eryaman 2009.
22. Pruyn & Huerta-Charles 2007, pp. xvii–xxxix.
23. Ford, Derek R.; Alexander, Rebecca (2020). "Preface: A collection of raw materials for re-imaginings". In Pruyn, Marc; Malott, Curry; Huerta-Charles, Luis (eds.). Tracks to Infinity: The Long Road to Justice: The Peter McLaren Reader (Volume II). Charlotte: Information Age Publishing. pp. xvi. ISBN   978-1-64113-662-4.
24. Peter McLaren, Pedagogy of Insurrection, p. 53–54.
25. Smith, David Geoffrey (2009), Interchange, 40(1), 93–117. DOI: 10.1007/s10780-008-9082-z
26. Career section is based on the following sources: Eryaman 2009; Macrine 2016b; Pruyn & Huerta-Charles 2005; Reitz 2013; D. G. Smith 2009.
27. McLaren, Peter (19 February 2009). "Being, Becoming and Breaking-Free: Peter McLaren and the Pedagogy of Liberation". Radical Notes. Interviewed by Kumar, Ravi. Archived from the original on 25 December 2013. Retrieved 1 October 2020.
28. Pozo, Michael (2003). "Toward a Critical Revolutionary Pedagogy: An Interview with Peter McLaren". St. John's University Humanities Review. Vol. 2, no. 1. Retrieved 1 October 2020.
29. McLaren, Peter (2013). "Education as Class Warfare: An Interview with Scholar/Author Peter McLaren". Praxis. Vol. 17, no. 2. pp. 90–101. ISSN   2313-934X . Retrieved 1 October 2020.
30. "What Unites Us - Can scholars cross ideological divides to engage in a rich, respectful dialogue? This seems like a good time to find out". 15 March 2017.
31. McLaren, Peter (1986). "Making Catholics: The Ritual Production of Conformity in a Catholic Junior High School". Journal of Education. 168 (2): 55–77. doi:10.1177/002205748616800206.
32. Neary, Mike (2017). "Pedagogy of hate". Policy Futures in Education. 15 (5): 555–563. doi:10.1177/1478210317705742.
33. "Peter.mclaren.mexico 4". YouTube . 7 August 2012.
34. Neary, Mike (2017). "Pedagogy of hate". Policy Futures in Education. 15 (5): 555–563. doi:10.1177/1478210317705742.
35. "The Radical Canadians who made Education "Critical"". 4 March 2024.
36. Series Editor’s Introduction: ‘At the Beginning It Was the Commodity’: What Happened to Critical Theory? In Peter McLaren, Critical Theory: Rituals, Pedagogies and Resistance. Leiden and Boston: Brill, p. 12
37. https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=PDRcJuZSdHw; the actual video used as a template, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrsSGKH8amo
38. "The Left is Reengineering the Human Soul. Our Children Are the Guinea Pigs. | Christopher Rufo". 18 July 2023.
39. "The Eschaton is Now: José Porfirio Miranda Against the Catholic Right's Anti-Woke Christianity". 15 December 2023.
40. "Mr Rufo's Renegades and the Hermeneutics of Evil". 3 October 2023.
41. Baldacchino, John (2017). "The travails of criticality: Understanding Peter McLaren's revolutionary vocation. An article review of Peter McLaren, Pedagogy of Insurrection (New York: Peter Lang, 2015)". Policy Futures in Education. 15 (5): 574–589. doi:10.1177/1478210317719813.
42. ""Online Trump worship has offline consequences": MAGA makes plans for "apocalyptic battle"". 4 March 2024.
43. Wiener, Jon (26 January 2006). "UCLA's Dirty Thirty". The Nation. ISSN   0027-8378 . Retrieved 10 October 2019.
44. "Campus Activist Goes Right at ‘Em", The Los Angeles Times, 22 January 2006: B1 and B16
45. "UCLA's Dirty Thirty". The Nation . 26 January 2006. Retrieved 17 December 2021.
46. https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2006-jan-18-me-ucla18-story.html, https://www.npr.org/2006/01/19/5162955/group-offers-money-for-reports-on-left-wing-faculty
47. UCLA Education Professor Peter McLaren's 'Life in Schools' Ranked in Top 12 Significant Writings of Foreign Authors Archived 2005-01-01 at the Wayback Machine
48. "Instituto Mc Laren de Pedagogia Critica". Archived from the original on 24 September 2015. Retrieved 17 June 2011.
49. Pedagogy of Insurrection. 18 February 2016.
50. McLaren, Peter (16 March 2007). "The Despoiling of the American Mind". MRZine.
51. "Communism". 27 November 2014.
52. "Peter McLaren | Filosofiya osvity. Philosophy of Education".
53. "Peter Mclaren". 23 November 2020.
54. "UNdeC: El filósofo Peter Mclaren recibió el título de Doctor Honoris Causa". 22 October 2019.
55. "Ceremonia de Investidura a Peter McLaren como Doctor Honoris Causa de CELEI". YouTube . 14 November 2021., https://www.ulapland.fi/news/Lapin-yliopistoon-14-uutta-kunniatohtoria/i5psmaft/b72292e4-1e76-492c-8ee6-596bc7d6b674
56. "La Fundacion McLaren de Pedagogía Critica". Archived from the original on 9 June 2017. Retrieved 9 March 2006.
57. https://www.peterlang.com/peter-mclaren-honored-with-two-lifetime-achievement-awards/, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35469-4_34-1, http://www.politicsofevidence.ca/dr-peter-mclaren/, https://ptoweb.org/2013/01/announcing-peter-mclaren-speak-pto-conference/, https://philosopheducation.com/index.php/philed/mclaren

Works cited

• Borg, Carmel; Mayo, Peter; Sultana, Ronald (1994). "Revolution and Reality: An Interview with Peter McLaren". Education. 5 (2): 2–12. Retrieved 1 October 2020.
• Cruz, Ana L. (2013). "Paulo and Nita: Sharing Life, Love and Intellect – An Introduction". International Journal of Critical Pedagogy. 5 (1): 5–10. ISSN   2157-1074 . Retrieved 18 September 2020.
• Cummings, Jordy (2015). "The Abode of Educational Production: An Interview with Peter McLaren". Alternate Routes. 26: 354–375. ISSN   1923-7081 . Retrieved 1 October 2020.
• Eryaman, Mustafa Yunus, ed. (2009). Peter McLaren, Education, and the Struggle for Liberation. New York: Hampton Press.
• Kennedy, Lynda (2014). "Peter McLaren: Intellectual Instigator". In Totten, Samuel; Pedersen, Jon E. (eds.). Educating About Social Issues in the 20th and 21st Centuries: An Annotated Bibliography. Volume 4: Critical Pedagogues and Their Pedagogical Theories. Charlotte, North Carolina: Information Age Publishers. pp. 237–256.
• Macrine, Sheila (2016a). Foreword. This Fist Called My Heart: The Peter McLaren Reader. By McLaren, Peter. Pruyn, Marc; Huerta-Charles, Luis M. (eds.). Vol. 1. Charlotte, North Carolina: Information Age Publishers.
• Macrine, Sheila (2016b). Introduction. This Fist Called My Heart: The Peter McLaren Reader. By McLaren, Peter. Pruyn, Marc; Huerta-Charles, Luis M. (eds.). Vol. 1. Charlotte, North Carolina: Information Age Publishers.
• Malott, Curry Stephenson (2016). "The Dialectics of This Fist: A Preface". This Fist Called My Heart: The Peter McLaren Reader. By McLaren, Peter. Pruyn, Marc; Huerta-Charles, Luis M. (eds.). Vol. 1. Charlotte, North Carolina: Information Age Publishers. pp. xxiii–xxiv.
• McLaren, Peter (1995). Critical Pedagogy and Predatory Culture. London: Routledge.
• McLaren, Peter (2015). "Self and Social Formation and the Political Project of Teaching: Some Reflections". In Porfilio, Brad J.; Ford, Derek R. (eds.). Leaders in Critical Pedagogy: Narratives for Understanding and Solidarity. Leaders in Educational Studies. Vol. 8. Rotterdam, Netherlands: Sense Publishers. pp. 127–139. doi:10.1007/978-94-6300-166-3_10. ISBN   978-94-6300-166-3.
• Pruyn, Marc; Huerta-Charles, Luis M., eds. (2005). Teaching Peter McLaren: Paths of Dissent. New York: Peter Lang Publications.
• Pruyn, Marc; Huerta-Charles, Luis M. (2007). "Introduction: Teaching Peter McLaren; The Scholar and This Volume". In Pruyn, Marc; Huerta-Charles, Luis M. (eds.). Teaching Peter McLaren: Paths of Dissent. New York: Peter Lang Publications.
• Reitz, Charles (2013). Crisis of Commonwealth: Marcuse, Marx, McLaren. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books.
• Smith, David Geoffrey (2009). "Engaging Peter McLaren and the New Marxism in Education". Interchange. 40 (1): 93–117. doi:10.1007/s10780-008-9082-z. ISSN   1573-1790. S2CID   144867904.
• Smith, Matthew David; Rodriguez, Arturo (2013). "Peter McLaren". In Kirylo, James D. (ed.). A Critical Pedagogy of Resistance: 34 Pedagogues We Need to Know. Transgressions. Rotterdam, Netherlands: Sense Publishers. pp. 101–104. doi:10.1007/978-94-6209-374-4_26. ISBN   978-94-6209-374-4. ISSN   2214-9740.

External links

Peter McLaren's webpages and CV

• Official website
• Peter McLaren's testimony in the "Cold War Truth Commission" on Sunday, March 21, 2021

Peter McLaren's text

• Toward a Red Theory of Love, Sexuality and the Family by Peter McLaren and Lilia D. Monzo, Iberoamérica Social, December 2014 Issue
• Brothers and Sisters in the Struggle to Rebuild the World by Peter McLaren, Iberoamérica Social, November 2014 Issue
• Austerity/Immiseration Capitalism: What Can We Learn From Venezuelan Socialism? by Peter McLaren and Mike Cole, Iberoamérica Social, May 2014 Issue
• An American Scene by Peter McLaren, Iberoamérica Social, December 2013 Issue
• Living in the Nightwatchman State: A Riposte to Despair by Peter McLaren, Iberoamérica Social, September 2013 Issue
• Rage and Hope by Peter McLaren, Iberoamérica Social, August 2013 Issue
• Che Guevara, Paulo Freire, and the Politics of Hope: Reclaiming Critical Pedagogy - pdf
• George Bush, Apocalypse Sometime Soon, and the American Imperium - pdf
• The Dialectics of Terrorism: A Marxist Response to September 11 - part 1 & part 2
• The Pedagogy of Oppression: A Brief Look at 'No Child Left Behind' by Peter McLaren, Monthly Review, July–August 2006 Issue
• Peter McLaren Responds to Bill Ayers: Bad Faith Solidarity January 22, 2007
• Peter McLaren on Paulo Freire in Jacobin magazine

Texts on Peter McLaren

• Peter McLaren Reflects on the Crisis of Academic Freedom by Samuel Day Fassbinder, Monthly Review, April 6, 2006
• Educating for Equality by Michael Viola, Monthly Review, November 16, 2006
• Pedagogy and Praxis in the Age of Empire by Samantha Cohen, The Humanities Review, Fall 2007 issue
• Education Professor Peter McLaren Honored with Chair and Foundation by the University of California Newsroom

Interviews

• From liberation to salvation: Revolutionary critical pedagogy meets liberation theology by Petar Jandrić, Policy Futures in Education, 15(5): 620-652, 2017
• Critical Revolutionary Pedagogy is Made by Walking: In a World Where Many Worlds Coexist by Petar Jandrić, Policy Futures in Education, 12(6): 805-831, 2014
• Critical Pedagogy Against Capitalist Schooling: Towards a Socialist Alternative
• A Radical Educator's Views on Media
• Capitalism, Critical Pedagogy, and Urban Science Education
• Educating for Social Justice and Liberation
• Peter McLaren and the Pedagogy of Liberation by Ravi Kumar, Radical Notes, February 19, 2009
• The Role of Critical Pedagogy in the Globalization Era and the Aftermath of September 11
• Towards a Critical Revolutionary Pedagogy December 9, 2003
• Revolutionary Critical Pedagogy and the Struggle against Capital Today by Derek R. Ford
• George Yancy interviewed McLaren on his mentor, Paulo Freire, September 27, 2021