Juggling Theory

Working hard to engage in critical action research

2006-06-25T18:31:00.000-05:00

Considering our discussions on power/knowledge/truth and critical theory I think Joe Kincheloe takes us to a different place and explains to us how we can construct knowledge through action research. Critical Action Research is a justifiable methodology which is under regular attack from "expert" researchers because of its value laden positions and its ultimate goal of constructing change (hence action). More troubling to us - which Kincheloe doesn't mention because of the sate of publication - is that NCLB defines (or regulates a regime of truth) experimental design research as the only acceptable mode of research for contemporary educators. So those of us who engage in C.A.R. or hope to engage in C.A.R in the future do so with little support and lots of risk. But that is okay right? After all even talking about Critical Theory is resistant - teaching for social justice within the contemporary political and economic context is resistant. Why should our research not also be resistant? It should and mine is (I hope!)

The problem that I often have is knowing whether my research is reflexive enough (am I looking inward at myself enough). I also wonder if I have involved the students enough. I have engaged in "member checking" and informal dialogue with the students - I have used their words and their work to spawn new lessons, discussions, and action but is this what Kincheloe means when he reminds us that we need to work with the subjects of our study not mearly study them? C.A.R. is a constant battle over what questions to ask, what data to collect, how to reflect on that data and how to determine if the interpretations of that data are trustworthy. AND, as I said before it is risky. Do I think I'll get hired somewhere as a new Ph.D. if my dissertation based on Critical Action Research as a methodology? Will I run into roadblocks if I am labeled as a Critical Educational Theorist? Will I ever be able to get ppast thejargon so that I may help other teachers examine their teaching and work sites critically? I don't know. I hope so because as one of the members of my Dissertation Committee said to me at the end of my proposal defense:

"Jay you are dealing with dangerous stuff. The people in places of power don't want to hear this. You have to make sure you are right. You have to be so much better than them because if you're not ... they'll eat you alive!"

Following Bethany's Lead

2006-06-21T10:03:00.000-05:00

I Liked how Bethany tried to situated herself, here I try to do the same...

In Teaching to Transgress: Educating as the Practice of Freedom (1994), bell hooks reminds us that “our lives must be the lived example of our politics” (p. 48). Despite their diversity, critical educational theorists share a “dedication to the education and development of individuals and society through a commitment to democracy, diversity, and social justice” (Heilman, 2003, p.248). Though I am not yet prepared to accept the title of critical educational theorist, as my experiences, analytical tools, and thought processes need to develop further, I share the commitment to educating individuals and society for democracy, diversity, and social justice. As such, my teaching is an attempt to live the example of my politics. The following is an attempt to explain how my life experiences have merged with critical educational theory to inform my practice as a teacher.

Life Experiences

My most concrete memories of childhood center on my parents’ struggle to provide food and shelter for our family. In the mid 1970s and my father, an Army Captain and helicopter pilot, was involuntarily released from the service do to post-Vietnam force reductions. Luckily my father had vocational training outside of piloting helicopters on which to fall back. Unfortunately, in the era of oil shortages, he was a Teamster truck-driver. Irregular employment prevented a steady income. The differences between our family and the affluent families in our town were readily apparent. At a young age, I could not figure out why our lives were so different from the people in our neighborhood and our church. The confusion did not turn to anger until my father was offered a new job. After years of trying to regain employment as an Army aviator my father’s dream finally came true when I was nine years old.
Our family packed up and left our day-to-day, hand-to-mouth existence behind and moved south for the opportunity that changed our lives. From the moment that we drove onto the military base in Virginia, I knew we were in a different world. Because of my dad’s new position, our family was met snappy salutes and obvious signs of respect, instead of the usual furrowed brows of contempt that we were accustomed to as a poor family in a wealthy town. I still remember wondering why people treated us differently. We had not changed; we were still the Walsh’s. I was mistaken. My dad’s uniform, his title, and our income, changed. Perhaps most significantly our address changed, we now living in Officer’s Quarters – the good part of town. I did not fully comprehend it at the time but, for the first time in my life, I had experienced the effects of class differences.
Our move forced me to confront race for the first time in my young life. Before moving to Virginia, I spent considerable amounts of time with my extended family in Cambridge, MA. There, my aunts and uncles were undeniably shaped by the struggles of our working-class backgrounds and the ongoing forced school bus situation occurring in Boston and had developed strong anti-minority feelings. “Nigger” was a word that flew from their mouths without hesitation. My only experiences with the Black community, until I moved to Virginia, were through the hateful words of my extended family who believed that all “other” were criminals intent on stealing their jobs.
My concept of “others” was challenged the first moment that I stepped onto the playground at my school. That morning I was being harassed by a tough White student. The only person to stand-up to defend me was a Black student named Ronnie. He jumped to my defense and, for reasons that I still do not understand, fought the White student. It was one of the most brutal school yard fights I had ever seen. In the end all three of us were called into the Principal’s Office in order to receive our discipline. The sound’s of the Principal’s paddle striking Ronnie still ring in my ears. This kid had fought for me and had taken a beating from the principal because he stood up for a White kid from New England. Every day from then until the day I left Virginia, I was fully accepted by the Black students and ostracized by the White students. It is still not sure to me what race had to do with that school yard fight or what it had to do with Black students teaching me everything I needed to know about surviving as an “other” in a rural southern school. What that experience did teach me was the experience of “otherness” and the humanity of students I would have otherwise defined as “other”
Eye opening experiences like these affected me through out my life. My father died a couple of years later and we left the Officer family’s elite lifestyle to return to the role of the poverty ridden family in a wealthy town. I attended an all-boys Catholic high school where racist, sexist, elitist, and homophobic themes were usually, if not always, the undercurrent to the formal and informal curriculum. The American Dream was the mantra yet it did not resonate with me because my mother and father both worked hard yet, do to circumstances beyond our control, my family lived in poverty. When I reflect on adolescence I begin to wonder if my poor performance in school was because the curriculum did not reflect my life experiences. I wanted to figure out why the world was unjust but explanations usually followed Catholic Doctrine. Why there was such a thing as second class citizenship? Why was a family considered different simply because of the father’s occupation? Instead I received a steady stream of the dominant ideology that did not mesh with reality. My reality did not match the rhetoric of the Reagan Administration which labeled welfare mothers as shiftless lazy women intent on bearing more children in order to collect more government assistance. I became one of those students who quietly rebelled by non-compliance. For years I resigned myself to learning how to play the game. Rather than expose myself as the type of inferior person who was a drain on society I joined the chorus of voices who condemned the poor, minorities, women, and homosexuals.
Years later, when I was a young adult living in San Diego, I was forced to further consider issues of “otherness” and injustice. First, I was challenged to reconsider previously held notions of homosexuality. Living in, working in, and socializing in a gay community brought me face to face with my own homophobia and heterosexism. These experiences with openly gay, lesbian and transgender people again transformed my understanding as “others” as I experienced the warmth, friendship, openness, and caring of people who I would have previously ignored, or worse ostracized and ridiculed.
Second, I worked as a cycling coach teaching inner-city youth how to race bicycles. I saw reflections of myself in these students, I saw Ronnie, and I saw students trying to figure the world out around them despite being force fed the dominant ideology and the goal of the American Dream. I knew from my interactions with them that they did not believe the adages “if you work hard you can make it” or “if you’re poor it’s your own fault.” It was then that I knew I could no longer continue to play the game. I was possessed by the need to figure out how to transform the world. It became apparent to me that change had to start in the schools. Even though I had no conception of critical pedagogy at the time I instinctively knew that students’ experiences in school need to be closely connected with the realities that they had experienced in their own lives. Education needed to be empowering. To me education became a means of establishing a just and democratic society.

Professional Experiences

I left San Diego and moved back East intent on returning to school to become a teacher, and begin the work of making the world a better place. While going to school I had the opportunity to work on a number of political campaigns that added to the experiences I had while growing up. While working on these campaigns my frustration grew. Voters believed that they had little or no voice. They gave up on the system. When I engaged them in issues that mattered to them suggesting were ways to contribute to society, other than voting, I met resistance. They were not empowered. They simply believed that the world was the way it was and there was little that they could do to change it. Their resignation strengthened my resolve to empower children through my own teaching.
A few years later, after completing my teacher education program, I landed my first teaching job in an urban high school in Massachusetts. During my first year of teaching I was persistent in asking my colleagues “Why do we do what we do?” I did not think that this was a difficult question to answer. If we did not know why we were teaching how could we plan our teaching? Unfortunately my questions were met with blank stares. Few people had even considered the question and fewer could answer it. I held the belief that education should serve to empower students so that they could affect change but I needed to further develop my thoughts.
The process of working through my thoughts usually took place in the office of my department chair. I had the fortune of having a department chair who was the same age, had a passion for teaching, was reflective, and most importantly was willing to help me work through my thoughts. We had the same planning period and would usually spend one to two hours a day discussing topics and issues that related to teaching and why we teach. He came into the office one day, after a vacation, very excited about a book he had come across. He was visiting his sister in New York City and discussing teaching with her friend, she showed him a book that she was reading in her teacher preparation program – Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Everything began to make sense to me the day that he shared passages of the book with me. The transformation was not immediate but gradual. Over time, my personal and professional experiences merged. I read and re-read the book and the realities of the world became clearer and clearer. It was not long after that I joined the doctoral program. I began the process of figuring out the things I needed to learn in order to provide better educational experiences for students so that they could become active participants in changing the world.

Does Ellsworth's critique still resonate today?

2006-06-18T19:27:00.000-05:00

There were many thoughts running through my head while I read Elizabeth Ellsworth's piece.

Her struggles did not appear to be different than some of the ones that I feel like I have encountered. I always assumed that they were part of the dialectics of critical pedagogy and as other contradictions require critical analyses so to do these contradictions.
As for her critique of rationality, I'm not sure I get it. Critical Theory (at least from the Frankfurt School's perpective) is highly critical of rationality. Henry Giroux does a good job of explaining the historical roots of this in Theory and Resistance in Education p.11-17.
Hegel's conception of dialectic must be understood through reason, but Marx and Engels version of dialectics is understood through practice and though (praxis). I would have to go back and read the sources that Ellsworth cites but I am confused by her critque of CP's rationality.
I wonder how Ellsworth's critiques may be a result of little literature of teachers practicing CP? Could it be that praxis was missing and thus understandings of CP were limited? Could it also be that CP does not have a particular method, in essence it needs to be continuously reinvented because the subjectivity or the students and teacher changes? Also, the particular struggles are historically different.
The biggest thing I am left wondering is whether recent critical pedagogy (1990-Present) has developed theoretical works which address Ellsworth's concerns clearly. I think - though I havn't gone to look for it - that CP has moved in various ways since this piece was written 17 yrs ago.

On Dialectic and Dialogic

2006-06-14T06:34:00.000-05:00

dialactics is about contradictions, i.e. the contradicition inherent in capitalism which lead to the decling rate of profit
dialactics in the hegelian sense deals the the contradiction of ideas
dialactics in the Marxist sense (which is where Critical Theory begins whether you like it or not) deals with the contradictions of materialism and the economic relations to the methods of production
dialogics in the Bahktinian sense refers to an ongoing dialogue over time and between many sources including texts, literature, etc.

Dialectic and dialogic are not the same thing

Living Critical Pedagogy

2006-06-12T21:21:00.000-05:00

I have come to see critical pedagogy as a way of life. It is far more that simply a teaching method. CP is informed by a certain theoretical position (critical theory). Seeing the world through the lens of critical theory compells us to act in manners consistent with that world view. This is not to say that I will define my actions once and for all and continuously refer to some "Critical Theory/Critical Pedagogy How to Live Your Life and Act Politically Manual". That would be inconsistent with critical theory as an epistemological position. Rather, we must continuously engage in praxis.

Joe Kincheloe does so much to remind me of the things I do, the ways I think, why I think that way, and what I need to remain aware of.

Especially important to me are:
Critical pedagogy is dedicated to the alleviation of human suffering - this section has caused me to reconsider how I organize the 9th grade world history course that I teach. I am thinking about how I could problematize human suffering from 1500-present and use history to examine the ways that people have resisted suffering and the ways that power has been brought to bear to continue suffering.

"please support us in our explorations of the world" p 17. - I need to find a way to get students and parents to see the value in this statement rather than "tell me what I need to know and I'll give t back to you.

Teachers as researchers- I have collected my dissertation research within the action research paradigm. Kincheloe has helped me (again - see Critical Theory and Education Research: McLaren & Kincheloe) to put words to why what I am doing is so important.

Social Change and Cultivating the Intellect - When I read this section I thought of Carol's question in class on Monday. "If you want a revolution why are you in this program?" Social change can not happend without rigorous intellect - I was missing the tools of the intellectual. I needed to fill the tool box, learn how to use the tools, learn why I would use some tools often and others would never get out of the box (but I would still have them and know how they operate). I don't think that revolutionary actions require completely disassociating oneself from society (or the systems which opress). In fact freire tells us that the oppressed must liberate the oppressors. If we see those who write education reforms as the oppressors we need to be able to speak to them in a discourse they understand - hence my participation in this program. perhaps I am using the Master's tools to dismantle the master's house.

Kincheloe's critique of positivism was clearly stated and convincing. Enough said (Bethany?)

I am left wondering how Kincheloe's explanation of science as regulating may or may not be related to how Foucault discusses the regulation of regimes of truth.

critical pedagogy as transgression

2006-06-10T18:41:00.000-05:00

I have read many of Freire's books and each time I pick one up I am develop a deeper understanding of something I thought I already understood well. Reading this excerpt again from Pedagogy of the Oppressed was no different.

Some things that mattered to me this time:

"...The humanist, revolutionary educator cannot wait for this possibility (that people will someday recognize their oppression and then begin to work against it) to materialize."p 60 Those of us concerned about oppression and exploitation [regardless of its origin] must work to make it visible from the earliest moment possible - to hope that people recognize their own oppression later leaves too much to chance.

I have had colleagues ask if I thought critical pedagogy was indoctrinary. My reply is no - it is liberating because it allows students the opportunities to reflect on their world and to consciously act to reproduce or reconstruct it. (the choice is important...the existing reality benefits many people and they will not choose to transform it. Plus if the only option were transformation than CP would be indoctrinary and Freire explains why we can not suplant one indoctrinary system with another.) To me standards, cultural literacy, the 'cannon', and banking education are indoctrinary because they only allow students to 'know' the world as it is presented and limits them to fitting into the world rather than providing possibilities for transformation. The last paragraph on p.62 confirms this for me.

"Where as banking education anesthetizes and inhibits creative power, problem-posing education involves a constant unveiling of reality. The former attempts to maintain the submersion of consciousness; the latter strives for the emergence of consciousness and critical intervention in reality." This passage really struck me because I had a student describe my Senior Seminar class in the following way:

"I think we are more well versed in what’s going on now and I don't think we didn't learn anything but I don't know how much more we're actually prepared to make a difference uh but I think there's a big difference in being like unconscious of everything that’s going on like a lot of us were before we came to the class and now we can see the things going on around us so you know maybe some people are more ready to go make a difference but I think everybody sees what’s going on and doesn't just walk around saying yeah that’s the way it is you know what I mean like everybody the problems now I don't know who's ready to fix them but their visible" (transcript of student discussion)

"In problem-posing education, men develop their power to percieve critically the way they exist in the world with which and in which they find themselves...as a reality in process, in transformation."

Following the reading of Freire with the reading of bell hooks was important to me for many reasons.

First she demonstrates that we can not abandon all of the contributions of one person simply because we may be critical of some of them.

Second, she encourages us to make our lives a living example of our politics. To me this is supremely important - and something that is difficult to do consistently.

Third, and most powerful, is the image of theory as a woven tapestry. We know that threads woven together into cloth (or tapestry) are stronger than single threads -so it also seems with theory. On p52 bell hooks describes taking threads of Freire's work and weaving it into versions of feminism which matter to her. This was useful to me because I have been trying to think about how Giroux, Gramsci, Althusser, Foucault, and Bourdieu (plus McLaren, Hill, Brosio, and Apple who we haven't read) can support a 'synthesized theory rather than looking at how they weaken each other.

Questions for Bourdieu

2006-06-06T07:04:00.000-05:00

If the educational system "reproduces... the structure of the distribution of cultural capital among classes" in such a way that social injustices persist what is the way out?

Should schools function to "provide" cultural capital to those who don't have it?

Is there room for pluralism?

If capitalism was not the dominant economic system would cultural capital be different - closer to the working class than the capitalist class?

Tying Gramsci, Althusser, and Foucault together for...emancipation (Yes, Foucault I said emancipation!)

2006-06-06T05:42:00.000-05:00

Ok here are some initial thoughts.

Gramsci, Althusser, and Foucault are not that different.

Combining the theories of Gramsci, Althusser, and Foucault together will help with the human emancipation project.

Humans are not able to reach their full potenital because they are:
exploited by the capitalist system (Marx)
dominated through hegemony or direct domination (Gramsci)
interpellated by the Ideological State Apparatuses (Althusser)
subjects to regimes of truth (Foucault)

Humans can emancipate themselves if:
the organize revolution (Marx)
construct counter-hegemonies (Gramsci)
they can't, their are always already interpellated (Althusser)
"who cares about emancipation" (Foucault)

But, if we think about these theories as being able to serve each other there is a way!
Assume that Foucault's theory of power is true- that power/knowledge is the supreme concept (?). Power then supercedes capitalism, hegemony, ISA/RSA. If that is true then why does power have power - Foucault says it is because of regimes of truth.

Ok, regimes of truth make power possible. How are regimes of truth constructed? They are constructed through hegemony and ISAs, which support the ultimate regime of truth. The ultimate regime of truth is the one which contributes to the organization of society. Which in this case is capitalism. Power can not exist without regimes of truth; regimes of truth are constructed by pursuasion (hegemony), direct domination (RSA); and, Ideology (ISA) which support the ultimate Regime of Truth

Foucault: Truth and Power

2006-06-03T17:32:00.000-05:00

Truth and Power draws explicit connections between Giroux et al., Gramsci, Althusser, and Foucault. It has further helped me formulate in my mind how they inform my practice and anticipate how Bourdieu will add to the formulation of my critical pedagogy.

I have some questions of Foucault:

When Foucault discusses (p 109) the need to examine ‘smaller’ sets of knowledge like psychiatry because the ‘larger’ issues are impossibly complex, doe he mean that we should ignore examining larger complex issues? Can we really transform society through tackling small project after small project? Or do we need to tackle small projects because they are ‘manageable’ and relate them to the larger projects?
I wonder how events (p 114) are similar/dissimilar to/from organic or conjectural movements?
The questioners categorize discourse as transparent (p115). How is it transparent, in a way that we can not see it? Or in a was that it is clear and doesn’t hide anything?
What is the “productive aspect of power?” (p 119)

My ideas on Marxism have been challenged and reaffirmed at the same time (sounds odd? I’ll explain):
While I do not support economic determinism in a fundamentalist Marxist sense, I have thought that economic processes were the determining factor in the last instance of overdetermined social processes – much like Althusser. The following quote from Foucault made me think that maybe power is the issue not economic processes.

“So long as the posing of the question of power was kept insubordinate to the economic instance and the system of interests which is served, there was a tendency to regard these problems as of small importance.” (p 116)

The appeal of Marx is his critique of capitalism – which I saw as the root of injustice. This quote made me think that the need to analyze capitalism is secondary to analyzing the power relations which make capitalism possible. Thus I was perplexed, how could I rectify this (personal?) conundrum?

I began to think that the purpose of examining capitalism is because it is the most powerful contemporary social system. So if we are concerned with power we must also be concerned with the capitalist class process. Foucault seems to nod toward this on (p 125)

“the economic system that promotes the accumulation of capital and the system of power that ordains the accumulation of men are, from the seventeenth century on, correlated and inseparable phenomena”
and on (p 133)
“This regime in not merely ideological or superstructural; it was a condition of the formation and development of capitalism.”

Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses

2006-05-30T21:36:00.000-05:00

I can not get my head around Althusser’s definition of ideology and thus have a difficult (impossible?) time understanding ‘interpellation’. I get all of the other stuff – reproducing the conditions of production, Repressive State apparatus, Ideological State apparatus etc. The idea that ideology is the imagined relations to existing reality is problematic for me. To claim that it is imagined means that there must be a ‘true’ explanation – I guess for Althusser this is ‘in the last instance’ economically determined. But how does this explain the ideology of capitalists who do not see themselves as exploiters? Or how does it explain those who see their relationship to the means of production as being exploited – do they somehow magically possess an ideology which is accurate and not imagined?

Althusser makes it seem as if people are duped, I don’t think that we are that susceptible to being ‘fooled’. I think that understanding the complexity of how we are situated is extremely difficult (witness me botching it right now). In addition, if we dig deep enough – to the root causes of our situation, which we can never truly do because of the complexity of the whole thing – we find it difficult to imagine that we contribute (in many ways) to an unjust world. The combination of not wanting to face up to our contributions to injustice and the difficulty in unraveling it all make us willing to settle for persuasive explanations. Perhaps we are convinced of these explanations through mass media and popular culture (thanks Lesley). And/Or these explanations are forwarded by the ISA (Althusser) or through hegemony (Gramsci).

If anyone can help me understand interpolation I would appreciate it. Sorry if my rambling ideas don’t make sense.

Richard Wolff wrote an article titled Ideological State Apparatuses, Consumerism, and U.S. Capitalism: Lessons for the Left which helped me understand Althusser, especially overdetermination.

Here is a link to an text Althusser and the Renewal of Marxist Social Theory (the entire thing is online)

Another article which gives some perspective on Althusser is: http://www.tamilnation.org/ideology/klages.htm

Gramsci: Intellectuals and Hegemony

2006-05-30T11:23:00.000-05:00

Okay, this one was tough for me in places. I am not sure if it is because Gramsci was writing this while in prison (and thus needed to “code” his ideas) or because I wasn’t sure when he wrote it (early 1920s? post-Russian revolution but pre-depression?).

What I got from Gramsci: Intellectuals and Hegemony

Everyone is intellectual but some people function as intellectuals in society.
Intellectuals should use intellectual activity in social relations to create new conditions (political, economic, cultural, etc)
People are dominated by persuasion “hegemony” or force “direct domination”
if intellectuals are progressive and wish to move society forward they need to work through persuasion (hegemony) to exert moral leadership to win power

What I was confused/unsure about:

as Gramsci writes about historical moments does he mean it the same way that Marx’s mean in Capital?
structure / superstructure – the same as Marx?
Does Gramsci contradict himself when he says “But the monopoly held by the ecclesiastics in the superstructural field was not exercised without a struggle or without limitations…” (¶ 2) and a few sentences later “Since these various categories of traditional intellectuals experience through an “esprit de corps” their uninterrupted historical continuity and their special qualification, they thus put themselves forward as autonomous and independent of the dominant social group.” (¶ 3) How can the monopoly be uninterrupted if it is contested? Is the answer to this related to ‘organic’ and ‘conjectural’ movements?

How I think this is connected to our “projects”:
Here I am specifically talking about what was written in part #2 Revolution in the West.

“A crisis occurs, sometimes lasting for decades. This exceptional duration means that incurable structural contradictions have revealed themselves (reached maturity), and that, despite this, the political forces which are struggling to conserve and defend the existing structure itself are making every effort to cure them, within certain limits, and to overcome them.”

Contemporarily, I understood this to equal the “conservative restoration” in the US since 1980. The structural contradictions include the political, economic, cultural problems which have grown with the construction of neoliberal economic polices. Those that seek to “conserve and defend the existing structure itself” do so by saying ‘well it takes time’ or ‘we haven’t gone far enough’ or the ‘unions are too strong’ or ‘the immigrants are a burden’ etc.

By “making every effort to cure them” they continue to reform the capitalist system and defend ‘free markets’. To me this is at the heart of what Gramsci means when he writes about the differences between conjectual movements and organic movements. Conjectural movements are arguments about how to reform the system so that the apparent contradictions are lessened. Organic movements are about realizing that capitalism is the root cause of injustices and reforms (welfare, immigration, affirmative action etc are conjectural) will not solve the real problems.

Link for Gramsci (I didn't find 3 I liked)

http://www.theory.org.uk/ctr-gram.htm - A useful site which includes biographical info, connections with Marxist thought, thoughts about hegemony and the merits and flaws of Gramscian theory

Some additional thoughts on Giroux et al

2006-05-25T06:22:00.000-05:00

First, I feel like I might need to explain why I try to respond in some manner to everyone’s blog. I can not be in class on Thursdays because I teach EDC 503 at URI at the same time on the same night. Since I can not be part of the in-class conversation I wanted to engage your thoughts in this space.

Second, I’d like to take a minute to try in synthesize (in only one possible way) some of the common questions or issues that saw across the entries on “The need for cultural studies”.

I think each blog dealt with the idea of resisting intellectuals and what this might entail. Questions were also raised about moving resistance beyond the disciplines or the classroom. I have been thinking about this a great deal before this class because I have struggled with where to place my energies as I fight social injustices.

In my case I am torn between the contradictions of being a neo-marxist/post-marxist (I’m still not positive of the difference) and living in a capitalist society and providing for my family. AM I certain that all of the products I purchase are produced by humans who are not exploited? No, in fact I am certain that my consumer habits contribute to exploitation. Does that mean that I am as complicit as the capitalist who has the power to exploit labor-power? I don’t think so, they own the means of production and have access to political power which reproduces the conditions needed for the accumulation of capital.

Do I benefit from a patriarchal, white supremacist, able-bodied culture which values heterosexuality and property ownership? Yes. Does that mean that I will purposefully work to ensure its continued existence? No, I resist in my daily life in many ways. Sometimes I don’t resist when I should other times I don’t recognize the opportunity until it has passed.

One of the blogs on “the need for cultural studies” asked what does it mean to engage in projects which create oppositional public spheres and challenge social injustices. I will take a stab at providing some examples from my life:

I would like to support radical leftists for public office but there are no candidates. So rather than disengaging from the political process I support that that begin t challenge the status quo. I hope that by supporting (and working for them) I can contribute to a general move away from the neoliberal/neoconservative/New Right/conservative restoration taking place in the US.
I would like to engage in a type of education which is very different from the standards-based textbook driven curriculum. My need to maintain an income requires that I modify my practice somewhat. Still, I find the cracks and crevices in the system which allow me to challenge it and allows me the space to provide opportunities for my students to consider alternatives to the present conditions.
I would like to make sure that I never enter into a financial transaction which exploits others. This is not possible in a capitalist system. So I am left with two basic alternatives – completely aabandon society and not purchase any goods or services which are produced within capitalism – or make choices which limit exploitation whenever possible (not whenever convenient)
There are other ways of resisting, simple everyday ways. Recognizing that my neighbors and colleagues are suffering under the capitalist system helps me have patience when they act in ways that may cause me to become angry. This does not excuse their actions rather it gives me an opportunity to provide compassion which may be lacking in their lives (because we are all stricken by oppression we suffer and find it difficult to be compassionate). By doing so we develop positive relationships which lead to conversations which give me a chance (eventually) to help them find ways of understanding their oppression.
I resist when I question the media or challenge oppressive and exploitative actions of family, colleagues, and friends.

Do I take advantage of every opportunity to resist? No but there are plenty of opportunities for resistance inside and outside of the academy try not to let them pass us by.

Giroux et al: The Need for Cultural Studies

2006-05-22T22:07:00.000-05:00

Henry Giroux, David Shumway, Paul Smith, and James Sosnoski make a persuasive argument for Cultural Studies as an alternative public sphere for the radical critique and transformation of society in The Need for Cultural Studies: Resisting Intellectuals and Oppositional Public Spheres.

Their argument is based on criticisms of the arbitrary boundaries of traditional academic disciplines. They see the disciplines as obstacles to transformative critique and action because each discipline as requiring its own discourse thereby preventing collective understandings of the problems which we face and ways of addressing them.

A couple of points struck me. Either I misunderstand their meaning or much of their work has changed in the 20yrs since this piece was written. In the second paragraph they write:

"The conventional wisdom is for academics is to let members of
other departments do whatever they say is their work in whatever way they choose
-- as long as this right is granted to them."

This appears to be a similar criticism cast on cultural studies by Michael Apple. At the 2006 AERA Conference, Apple took theorists engaged in cultural studies to task for "doing whatever they want" and "having no organizing point" (These are paraphrased from my recollections).

Later in the 2nd paragraph under Public Spheres, Popular Culture... they state:

"Resisting intellectuals must legitimate ... books for the general public...."

This struck me as ironic because I have not seen Giroux's work aimed at the general public.

The article was reaffirming in its commitments to praxis, both within and beyond the classroom. They do this by arguing for the move from academia to the public and by focusing on "collective inqiries into social ills."

One connection between my experiences and the article was with the discussion on new Ph.D.s. Though I am not there yet (new Ph.D.), I have found myself struggling with explaining my work to those who are already "in the club." Because my work (at least my interests) is similar to resisting intellectuals I find it troubling to enter into a conversation with a faculty member who seems to be evaluating me for my ability to conform to the dominant academic discourse.

I had a difficult time thinking about how to apply these ideas to my work as a high school teacher. The need to resist is met with the need to keep a job. While I am part of a system which is broken into disciplines and reproduces social inequalities I find it most diffucult to resist in substantial ways within the confines of my classroom. The pressure to conform may only be perceived rather than real, but questions by parents about how their children are doing on "tests" and colleagues costantly wanting to know what chapter I am on always have me "looking over my shoulder" wondering who is watching me resist.

Most important to me in the article was that our work must be "involved with that which has to be done" and "the precondition of such action is critical resistence to prevailing practices" which reproduce oppression.

A source of constant frustration has been the amount of argument among those who wish to critically analyze the root of oppression and work for the radical transformation of society. Among these are marxists arguing with each other, critical theorists arguing with each other, and both arguing with cultural studies theorists arguing with both (really the arguments appear to be endeless). All the while I agree with almost all of them generally and struggle only with the particulars which they seems to disagree on. This makes it difficult for me to determine just where I fit in to the Conversation. I guess that may clarify itself over the coming weeks.

Initial Findings on the Web

2006-05-22T17:26:00.000-05:00

Here are some of the Cultural Studies web sights I have found useful in the past (they are in no particular order):

http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/kellner/kellnerhtml.html
Douglas Kellner has written extensively about cultural studies in multiple ways. His web page is a treasure chest of articles and multimedia texts which cover a range of topics including pieces using cultural studies to critique contemporary issues and other pieces which bridge some difficult terrain (i.e. the relationship between the Frankfurt School and Cultural Studies)

http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/pages/mclaren/
This is the home page of Peter McLaren. He is one of the preeminent theorists concerned with critical pedagogy calls himself a Marxist Humanist (you will have to read his writings to figure out what he means). His web page has links to some of his writings.

http://www.jceps.com/
The Journal for Critical Educational Policy Studies is an online journal which examines educational policy from a marxist perspective. All of the journal articles published by JCEPS are available in the archive.

http://www.jceps.com/index.php?pageID=article&articleID=59
The Culturalization of Class and the Occluding of Class Consciousness: The Knowledge Industry in/of Education Deb Kelsh and Dave Hill argue that marxian analyses of class are central to understanding contemporary problems with education policy. Educational theorists concerned with issues such as "cultural studies" distract us from the root of the problem, according to Kelsh and Hirsh.

http://mingo.info-science.uiowa.edu/~stevens/critped/index.htm
Critical Pedagogy on the Webis a useful web page which is broken into sections dealing with:

That's it for now. I will add more as I find them.

The beginning....

2006-05-22T17:15:00.000-05:00

Okay, I'm guessing that everyone who reads this will already know me and have some ideas about my academica interests. Currently, I am working to understand how classroom practices can create opportunities for students to engage in critical practices and begin to make the invisible visible.

Other than being in this class I teach high school social studies, and EDC 503: Education in Contemporary Society at URI. Because of an overlap in my teaching (URI) and learning (RIC) I will miss our Thursday night classes (but I will still be blogging and reading your blogs!)

Outside of school, I spend as much time as possible with my young daughters and my wife. I will also spend a considerable amount of time this summer working on a state-wide political campaign.