John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist, and educational reformer. He was one of the most prominent American scholars in the first half of the twentieth century.
The philosophy of education is the branch of applied philosophy that investigates the nature of education as well as its aims and problems. It also examines the concepts and presuppositions of education theories. It is an interdisciplinary field that draws inspiration from various disciplines both within and outside philosophy, like ethics, political philosophy, psychology, and sociology. Many of its theories focus specifically on education in schools but it also encompasses other forms of education. Its theories are often divided into descriptive theories, which provide a value-neutral description of what education is, and normative theories, which investigate how education should be practiced.
Pedagogy, most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political, and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken as an academic discipline, is the study of how knowledge and skills are imparted in an educational context, and it considers the interactions that take place during learning. Both the theory and practice of pedagogy vary greatly as they reflect different social, political, and cultural contexts.
The Underground History of American Education: A Schoolteacher’s Intimate Investigation Into the Problem of Modern Schooling is a critique of the United States education system by John Taylor Gatto.
Michael Joseph Sandel is an American political philosopher and the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Government at Harvard University, where his course Justice was the university's first course to be made freely available online and on television. It has been viewed by tens of millions of people around the world, including in China, where Sandel was named the 2011's "most influential foreign figure of the year". He is also known for his critique of John Rawls' A Theory of Justice in his first book, Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (1982). He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2002.
Paulo Reglus Neves Freire was a Brazilian educator and philosopher who was a leading advocate of critical pedagogy. His influential work Pedagogy of the Oppressed is generally considered one of the foundational texts of the critical pedagogy movement, and was the third most cited book in the social sciences as of 2016 according to Google Scholar.
Critical pedagogy is a philosophy of education and social movement that developed and applied concepts from critical theory and related traditions to the field of education and the study of culture.
Henry Armand Giroux is an American-Canadian scholar and cultural critic. One of the founding theorists of critical pedagogy in the United States, he is best known for his pioneering work in public pedagogy, cultural studies, youth studies, higher education, media studies, and critical theory. In 2002, Keith Morrison wrote about Giroux as among the top fifty influential figures in 20th-century educational discourse.
Michael W. Apple is an educational theorist specialized on education and power, cultural politics, curriculum theory and research, critical teaching, and the development of democratic schools.
A hidden curriculum is a set of lessons "which are learned but not openly intended" to be taught in school such as the norms, values, and beliefs conveyed in both the classroom and social environment. In many cases, it occurs as a result of social interactions and expectations.
Peter McLaren is a Canadian-American scholar and Emeritus Professor of Urban Education at the University of California, Los Angeles, having taught at UCLA from 1993 until 2013. Prior to that, he taught at Miami University of Ohio (1985-1993). Most recently, he served as a Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies at Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University (2013-2023) until his retirement, where he was Co-Director of the Paulo Freire Democratic Project and International Ambassador for Global Ethics and Social Justice. He is the Honorary Director of the Center for Critical Studies in Education at Northeast Normal University, Changchun, China. According to Stanford University's database, McLaren belongs to the top 2% of the world’s most influential scientists.
Democratic education is a type of formal education that is organized democratically, so that students can manage their own learning and participate in the governance of their educational environment. Democratic education is often specifically emancipatory, with the students' voices being equal to the teachers'.
Pedagogy of the Oppressed is a book by Brazilian educator Paulo Freire, written in Portuguese between 1967 and 1968, but published first in Spanish in 1968. An English translation was published in 1970, with the Portuguese original being published in 1972 in Portugal, and then again in Brazil in 1974. The book is considered one of the foundational texts of critical pedagogy, and proposes a pedagogy with a new relationship between teacher, student, and society.
Radical democracy is a type of democracy that advocates the radical extension of equality and liberty. Radical democracy is concerned with a radical extension of equality and freedom, following the idea that democracy is an unfinished, inclusive, continuous and reflexive process.
Multicultural education is a set of educational strategies developed to provide students with knowledge about the histories, cultures, and contributions of diverse groups. It draws on insights from multiple fields, including ethnic studies and women studies, and reinterprets content from related academic disciplines. It is a way of teaching that promotes the principles of inclusion, diversity, democracy, skill acquisition, inquiry, critical thought, multiple perspectives, and self-reflection. One study found these strategies to be effective in promoting educational achievements among immigrant students.
Herbert Gintis was an American economist, behavioral scientist, and educator known for his theoretical contributions to sociobiology, especially altruism, cooperation, epistemic game theory, gene-culture coevolution, efficiency wages, strong reciprocity, and human capital theory. Throughout his career, he worked extensively with economist Samuel Bowles. Their landmark book, Schooling in Capitalist America, had multiple editions in five languages since it was first published in 1976. Their book, A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and its Evolution was published by Princeton University Press in 2011.
The Rouge Forum is an organization of educational activists, which focuses on issues of equality, democracy, and social justice.
Educational anthropology, or the anthropology of education, is a sub-field of socio-cultural anthropology that focuses on the role that culture has in education, as well as how social processes and cultural relations are shaped by educational settings. To do so, educational anthropologists focus on education and multiculturalism, educational pluralism, culturally relevant pedagogy and native methods of learning and socializing. Educational anthropologists are also interested in the education of marginal and peripheral communities within large nation states. Overall, educational anthropology tends to be considered as an applied field, as the focus of educational anthropology is on improving teaching learning process within classroom settings.
Feminist pedagogy is a pedagogical framework grounded in feminist theory. It embraces a set of epistemological theories, teaching strategies, approaches to content, classroom practices, and teacher-student relationships. Feminist pedagogy, along with other kinds of progressive and critical pedagogy, considers knowledge to be socially constructed.
Teaching the Actuality of Revolution: Aesthetics, Unlearning, and the Sensations of Struggle is a 2023 book by American educational theorist, author and academic Derek R. Ford. The book, which is their eighth monograph, explores the intersection of aesthetics, pedagogy, and the experiential aspects of revolutionary movements. The book draws on diverse Marxist traditions, including those of Paulo Freire, Louis Althusser, Henri Lefebvre, Brian Becker, Peter McLaren, and Fredric Jameson, weaving their insights together to explore the revolutionary potentials in formal and informal education.
