Education

EDUCATION. Two fundamental and in many respects contradictory perspective underlie virtually all of Left educational theory since the 1930s: liberatory pedagogy, which emphasizes the possibility of social change through critical teaching and learning; and Social reproduction, which analyzes the ways in which schools as institutions reproduce existing class, ‘gender, and race structures, Underlying both of these Perspectives is the question of the extent to which Schools and universities as institutions within sexist and racist capitalist society are controlled by the de‘mands of capital and the dominant ideology and the ‘extent to which they provide the spaces for critical and political work

In the early twentieth century the Progressive eduucation movement and in particular the educational thought of John Dewey influenced liberal exper ‘ments in curriculum and pedagogy; more clearly Left ‘experiments such as the anarchist Modern Schools and worker eduction programs in urban unions de‘veloped more politicized alternative pedagogies. But the frst clearly articulated analysis and program for Schools from the Left is found in the 1930, in the ‘work of George Counts and the social reconstructionist movement and in thelr journal, Social Frontier.

‘Counts called capitalism “cruel and inhumane” and ‘alled for teachers in the public schools to “build a new social order.” But while the social reconstructionists called for the political transformation of the Schools, they did not provide a theoretical analysis ‘of the role of the schools in the existing social order

After the Second World War and in the emerging ‘Cold War, the creation of a permanent war economy

Increasingly tied the universities to the demands of the defense industries and military research, while reformers like James Conant called for the reform of the public schools to better meet the needs of ani dustrialize, capitalist state, At the same time, schools and universities became the focus of right-wing attacks. Conservative groups began to monitor text books, and liberal and Left professors and teachers were condemned as Communists and in some cases lost their jobs.

Throughout this period, Left intelectuals used their energies to defend themselves from attack and to fight for rights of free expression. The ‘major exception to this defensive stance were desegregation struggles, which, in challenging racism, were «alling fora new social order, but in racial rather than ‘lass terms. Except for the powerful educational writiIngs of W. E. B. Du Bois (collected as The Education (of Black People: Ten Critiques, 1906-1960), there was no direct Left analysis of race, class, and schooling in this period.

The call for a politicized pedagogy and the development of a Left critique of the existing educational system emerged from the New Left social protest ‘movements ofthe 1960s—the civil rights movement the anti-war movement, and the women’s move‘ment. Freedom schools in the South, teach-ins around the Vietnam War, and women's conscious: nesstalsing groups provided examples of teaching {and leaming outside formal educational institutions and led to calls for mote relevant and politicized teaching within the colleges and universities and to anarchist calls for the abolishment of formal state schools. The activists of the late 1960s and carly 1970s who founded libertarian free schools, radical alternative programs in colleges, and journals such as Radical Teacher argued that a critical and liberatory schooling could be created to replace the old. Theo: retically, the basis for a Left pedagogy was fourtd in the work of Paulo Freire, whose Pedagogy of the Oppressed was translated into English in 1968. In his emphasis on the power of a politicized literacy to contribute to revolutionary movements, Freite provided «theoretical and practical model for Left teachers and Intellectuals in the United States. His work has influenced Left Catholic movements and a number of teachers in literacy programs and community colleges.

[New Left critics also turned to an analysis of the role of schools in reproducing class and, to a lesser ‘extent, race oppression. As the fundamental nature ‘of US. society as a capitalist and imperialist power twas explored, the ties of the universities to the state and the role of the public schools began to be examined and critiqued. A number of first-person accounts exposed the racism of public schools. Left histotlans of education challenged the dominant consensus in educational history that the schools were central institutions in providing social mobility and preserving democracy; instead, they asserted that schools as institutions must be viewed in relation to developments within capitalism and to the growth of the state. Michael Katz is perhaps the best known fof a number of Left historians who examined such topics as the development of urban school systems.

as a struggle among competing groups, the growth Cf scientific management and control, and the ties between the schools and capitalist elites. A number Of Left theorists addressed the ways in which cur riculum and social relationships inside schools reproduce class structure. One of the most influential analyses of schools in relation to political economy.

was Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gints's Schooling in Capitalist America, published in 1975. Bowles and Gintis argued that there is a functional correspon‘dence between what is learned in working-class schools (work discipline, acceptance of monotonous work outside of individual conttol, bureaucratic authority) and what is experienced in the workplace.

‘Thus the schools as state institutions reproduce the class structure of capitalism. While Bowles and Gintis's study has had a powerful influence on subsequent Left analyses, it has also been criticized for an Implicit functionalism and failure to address the struggles over schools documented by Left educa‘tonal historians orto recognize the various forms of radical pedagogy developed by the Left.

In the 1980s, critiques by the black, gay, and women’s movements as well a other disempowered ‘groups challenged traditional Left analyses of school‘ng, While these critiques have not always been tied to a class analysis, the criticisms of white feminists and both men and women of color have called into

question the adequacy of a Left analysis of education in solely class terms and have pointed to the need for a Left analysis to address all forms of oppression.

Despite the contributions of both the civil rights ‘movement and the women’s movement in creating Iiberatory and democratic forms of pedagogy, often these contributions have been ignored in white male calls fora socialist pedagogy or in analyses of education that discuss class exclusively without considering the fact that most teachers are women, or that the structure of schooling in the United states has been consistently racist. Henry Giroux and Michael “Apple have been the best known of a number of Left theoreticians attempting a synthesis that would take

to account the social-eproduction theories of writ‘ers like Bowles and Gintis, the iberatory pedagogy of Freire, and gender and racial struggles around teaching and schools that take place in terms of actual practice.

During the Reagan administration, conservative and righting forces began a broad attack on public education while initiating a new wave of “education reform” through a variety of national reports and commissions. This attack took varied forms, inelud{ng ideological opposition to the teaching of evolution, to sex education, and to multicultural reforms designed to revise standard curriculums in light of re visionist scholarship and the increasing multiracial ‘composition of the public school population (which, by the 1990s, was approaching forty percent non‘white). Conservatives also increasingly withdrew political and budgetary support for public schools and proposed a number of privatization and market strategies designed to undermine public education, Including vouchers, tuition subsidies for religious schools, and turning management of public schools ‘over to private, for-profit companies. These political land fiscal attacks accelerated the ongoing crisis of public schools, which was especially acute in urban areas and communities of color. Residential segregation and funding inequities among suburban and urban areas helped perpetuate a “dual school system" decades after the 1954 Supreme Court declared “separate and unequal” schooling unconstitutional

Progressive and Left forces responded to these developments in several ways. The Milwaukee-based journal Rethinking Schools, fist published in 1985 by activist public school teachers, became a national ‘voice for progressive reform, combining critical ideas about classroom practice with progressive trends in

‘multicultural and feminist curriculum reform and an antiracist, pro-equlty perspective on education issues.

‘The National Coalition of Education Activists an other groups promoted coalition building across class and race lines among teachers, parents, and education union activist. Faced with declining political support for public education, the two main teacher unions, the American Federation of Teachers and the [National Education Association, took tentative steps toward merger. Widespread concern about school failure also created space for a variety of radical ex‘periments in public schooling on a broader scale than at any time since the 1960s. These experiments i cluded decentralized school management by councils Cf parents and teachers; the creation of new, nontraditional schools and school programs, and experi‘ments in Affocentric and community-based schoolng. Limited resources, the weight of traditional bureaucratic school management, and increasing in‘equality in society at large restricted the reach of ‘these reforms, however, and by the end of the 1990s, ‘universal access to free public education for all was Jnereasingly uncertain.

{See also Teachers Union.)