A critical pedagogy provides a framework which allows teachers and students to think critically about the realities of their world. If educators take seriously the notion of critical literacy, they must challenge the assumptions of the dominant educational rationality which serves the status quo. (GC)

Utilizes Joel Spring's "Educating the Worker Citizen" to examine limitations of the deschooling concept. Argues that deschoolers operate from a weak research base and employ erroneous historical and logical claims to support their position. Suggests ways of conceptualizing schools which will promote ongoing political activity by…

Proposes an integration of critical theory and humanistic education. Strengths and limitations of each are discussed, and a model for liberatory education is proposed. The model is illustrated with an example from a fifth grade classroom. Further dialogue among humanistic educators and critical theorists is recommended. (Author/VM)

Analyzes how and why upper-middle-class children did not receive reading remediation during a summer program designed for this purpose. Explores reasons that people may resist (covertly or overtly) while simultaneously helping to sustain a particular set of social relations, institutional practices, and ideological legitimations. (CMG)

Resistance theory draws attention to the existence of conflict and antagonism in schools and in pupils' resistance to schools' authority and ideology. In "Learning to Labor," Paul Willis unduly romanticizes resistant practices by the subjects of his ethnography. An alternative view of resistance permits a more socially and historically…

Growing social and economic inequalities and political impotency are the sources of functional illiteracy. The current educational emphasis on basic skills will not resolve these problems. Students must harness their collective forces to replace corporate control with democratic power. (Author/GC)

Examines potential sources of bias in aptitude and achievement testing of minority and, particularly, Black students. Holds that bias in standardized tests cannot be properly understood without reference to the socioeconomic matrix from which it has evolved. (Author/GC)

Argues that the power arrangements existing in schools before integration were the same as those existing after integration, with only the pathways of articulation different. One modality supporting segregation was replaced with another; both were supported by the discursive practice of grouping students by native intelligence. (SLD)

Describes the deficit theories and skills approaches shaping how teachers, administrators, and students conceive of basic writers. Critiques research on cultural conflict in the classroom and the theory that students must be initiated into academic discourse. Explores John Ogbu's "oppositional culture" theory to better understand basic…