The Tasks of the Critical Scholar/Activist in Education

• In Event: 65.025 - Challenges and Possibilities for Educational Critical Scholars/Activists and Socially Just Schools

Abstract

Many of the discussions of "justice" in education have been largely rhetorical. They have failed to specify in detail what the complex role of the critical scholar/activist actually is in enhancing the debates over and movements toward social justice. As J. L. Austin argues in his book "How To Do Things With Words," language performs many functions. It can be used to describe, explain, control, legitimate, and mobilize (Austin, 1962). While each of these functions plays an important part, rhetorical talk that legitimates and mobilizes is not sufficient for other purposes involving critical research. In response to this, and expanding on the arguments present in "Can Education Change Society?" (Apple, 2013), I will detail ten tasks of the critical scholar/activist that responds to the larger role of critical research. In the process, I will take up Pierre Bourdieu's challenge to critical social and cultural researchers to "not stand on the sidelines, neutral and indifferent, while the future of the world is at stake" (Bourdieu, 2003) by justifying an expanded intellectual, political, and personal role of both critical scholarship and the critical scholar.

Apple, M. W. (2013). Can Education Change Society? New York: Routledge.
Austin, J. L. (1962). How to Do Things With Words. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Bourdieu, P. (2003). Firing Back: Against the Tyranny of the Market 2. New York: The New Press.

Author

• Michael W. Apple, University of Wisconsin - Madison