Critical+Theory+-+Lynn

=**Critical Theory Example #1**= This website, while not exactly an organizational example of Critical Theory, sheds further light on Critical Theory in education. The "rage" and "hope" terminologies seem to humanize the process of analyzing and adapting educational practices and policies. The call to become fully aware of the circumstances and structural obstacles that individuals (and groups) face in the realm of education (and in the world itself) is the first step in the process that critical theorists optimistically embrace and pursue in the persistant hope of transformation. [] Critical educators experience rage caused by the unjust circumstances that surround the educational experiences of the dispossessed (the poor, minorities, and other marginalized people). While being fully cognizant of the immense struggles to be faced to achieve the goal of social equity, they are committed to the notion that education can be a transformative process.

"One of the tasks of the progressive educator, through a serious, correct political analysis is to unveil opportunities for hope, no matter what the obstacles may be. After all, without hope there is little we can do. For hope is an ontological need...The attempt to do without hope in the struggle to improve the world, as if that struggle could be reduced to calculated acts alone, or a purely scientific approach, is a frivolous illusion." (Freire, 1998a)

Critical educators "draw from their own personal biographies, struggles, and attempts to understand their own contradiction in the context of the contradictions of schooling and capitalism." (Torres, 1998) They also help us to debunk "two educational myths of liberalism...the notion that education is a neutral activity, and that education is an apolitical activity."(Torres, 1998) "Critical scholars in education have combined theory with political, cultural, and educational practices in unique ways. This tradition of critical studies has often been associated with a New Left in American academia; it is a tradition that emerged after McCarthyism, developing in the wake of the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights movement, in the face of the Sputnik revolution and the Bay of Pigs fiasco."(Torres, 1998) The struggles of Apple, Freire, Giroux and McLaren have moved critical education studies into the center of today's debates "on curriculum, testing, governance, teacher training, educational financing, and virtually any meaningful educational problem."(Torres, 1998)

=Critical Theory Example #2= The Mayday Group is an organization comprised of an international assortment of music educators, musicians, social and critical theorists. This organization came together in 1993 with an aim to examine current practices in music education. The group, as its name implies, believes the profession of music education to be in a state of distress, and "functions as an international think tank through e-mail, the Internet and by regular mail. They are concerned to identify, critique, and change taken-for-granted patterns of professional activity, polemical approaches to method, and social, musical and educational philosophies, educational politics and public pressures that have threatened effective practice and stifled critical and open communication among music educators" By studying the structure (technical) and social (practical) patterns within music education practices, they hope to take transformative measures to improve the effectiveness and reach of the profession and its students. []

=Critical Theory Example #3= Educational Services to indigenous peoples (Native Americans) is an area that is prepetually under the virtual microscope. Study after study reveals that the social and economical disadvantages of Native American groups need to be addressed, yet little seems to undergo any true transformation. There is a plethora of research indicating that one culture that is absorbed and/or dominated by another will suffer a variety of disadvantages. Elvira Pulitano's book "Toward a Native American Critical Theory" begins to address some of the structural and cultural obstacles to formulating universal success in our Native American communities. The cultural divide itself is named as one of the first roadblocks to critically examining Native education as Pulitano asks in her introduction "Is there such a thing as Native American critical theory? If so, how should we define it? As a non-Native critic, am I entitled to define it? Does my "speaking about" necessarily mean "speaking for"? Would my attempt be a further heavy-handed appropriation of the Other since, for more than two millennia, theory has been, as many would argue, the product of Western thinking?" The book continues to plow ahead, taking the risk that a non-Native view will still reveal an accurate critical lens.

=Critical Theory Example #4= Title VII of the ESEA - No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 has made provisions in an attempt to address the needs presented by our Native American communities. The Summary of Title VII indicates that critical theory has been applied at some level, and offers grants and education to further perpetuate analysis and study in the ulitmate pursuit of improvement in the realm of Native education: [] Critical Theory Page