An Organizational Critique of Critical Pedagogy: Reconnecting Praxis With Practice

• In Event: Roundtable Session 79
  In Roundtable Session: Critical Theory in Education Policy Analysis

Abstract

This paper serves to explore the disconnection between critical pedagogy and organizational theory in order to promote a stronger strategic approach to educational equity. Using a theoretical framework, the major contributions of the cannons of critical pedagogy in terms of organizational theory are described. While critical theorists from Freire to Ladson-Billings highlight the personal and interrelational characteristics of class stratification, they have largely detached from the more concrete line of division posed by Marx and Engels: property ownership. Organizational theorists offer alternative ways of conceptualizing the effects of stratification that highlight gaps in relationships between organizational theory and critical pedagogy. By reconnecting praxis to practice, more appropriate strategies may be developed and advances toward educational equity may be achieved.

Author

• Gioioa Sue von Disterlo, University of Washington