After completing the weekly readings, provide a thorough response in your own words to the weekly questions posted below. Please make sure you submit a one-word document with all your answers. A minimum of 550 words and a maximum of 700 words (font size 12, single-spaced) are required for each complete assignment. Please follow APA format in your work. Please remember to include one or two sentences identifying the
habits of mind Links to an external site.
you have used to promote the reflection of the readings.
- After reading the Pinar & Bowers article and reviewing the PowerPoint presentation,
(1) Reflect on the key terms/concepts presented by Pinar and Bowers, and how do they relate to the field of politics of curriculum? (Be specific and address each key term/concept you identified)
- From Aronowitz and Giroux Chapter 2:
- (2) Compare Bloom’s and Hirsch’s educational reforms to education (Be Specific and provide examples from the chapter), and
- (3) Aronowitz and Giroux state on p. 52 that Hirsch and Bloom seem to promote “a public philosophy informed by a crippling ethnocentricism”. What are the implications of such a statement on pedagogy? (Be specific in your answer)
CHAPTER 2
TEXTUAL AUTHORITY,
CULTURE, AND THE
POLITICS OF LITERACY
Since the second term of the Reagan administration, the debate on edu
cation has taken a new turn. Now, as before, the tone is principally set
by ~he _right, but i~s position has been radically altered. The importance
of linking educational reform to the needs of big business has contin
ued to influence the debate, while demands that schools provide the
ski lls necessary for domestic production and expanding capital abroad
have slowly given way to an overriding emphasis on schools as sites of
cultural production. The emphasis on cultural production can be seen
in current attempts to address the issue of cu ltural literacy, in the de
velopment of national cu rriculum boards, and in reform initiatives
bent on providing students with the language, knowledge, and values
necessary to preserve the essential traditions of Western civilization.1
The right’s position on cultural production in the schools arises from a
consensus that t he problems faced by the United States can no longer
be reduced to those of educat ing students in the skills they will need to
occupy jobs in more advanced and middle-range occupational levels in
such areas as computer programming, financial analysis, and elec
tronic machine repair.2 Instead, the emphasis must be switched to the
current cultural crisis, which can be traced to the b roader ideological
tenets of the progressive education movement that dominated the cur
riculum after the Second World War. These include the pernicious doc
trine of cultu ral relativism, according to which canonical texts of 1hc
Western intellectual tradition may not lw lwld superior to olhN’>; 1lw
.l·I
THE POLITICS OF LITERACY D 25
notion that student experience should qualify as a viable form of
knowledge; and the idea that ethnic, racial, gender, and other rela
tions play a significant role in accounting for the development and in
fluence of mainstream intellectual culture. On this account , the 1960s
proved disastrous to the preservation of the inherited virtues of West
ern culture. Relativism systematically downgraded the value of key lit
erary and philosophical traditions, giving equal weight to the dominant
knowledge of the “Great Books” and to an emergent potpourri of “de
graded” cultu ral attitudes. Allegedly, the last twenty years have w it
nessed the virtual loss of those revered traditions that constitute the
core of the Western heritage. The unfortunate legacy that has emerged
has resulted in a generation of cultural illiterates. In this view, not only
the American economy but civilization itself is at risk.
Allan Bloom (1987) and E. D. Hirsch (1987) represent different ver Of c mrr<,c, the only serious solution [for reform in higher
Pd11c,1tlonf Is almost universally rejected: the good old Great
llnok-. appro,l<'h, In which a liberal education means reading
e 1 ,1.,111 1w1u 1r,1lly 111c ognl/t•d classical texts, just reading them,
lc-111111-( the•111 die I.lie• wh,11 tlw qw•-;lion<, on• and the method of 1
111 IJ 1111 1’111111« ‘I I II I lltN
approachi,,g them – not forcing Il11•m 111111 111ft 14111h II 111o1l, 11 w,
This propensity for making sweeping claims without even a shred of Both of these books represent the logic of a new cultural offensive, Textual authority is both pedagogical and political. As a social and 11 It I 1111 11 1 ct I 111 l{,\I ‘ I 1 ‘1
11..1, 1111lt1P p,utl, 111 11 Yh •w 1111111• world. A~”‘ pedagogical practice, the Bloom’s critique of American education does not address the indiffer Bloom’s attack on liberal educational practice and the philosophy ‘/1 lJ 1111 1•1111111 1 II llltN
Bloom’s sweeping agcndJ i11h•11d1, lo 1•11111111,,11• 111111111 , ,, ,1•rlous For Bloom, the teachings of Plato and Socrates provide the critical He enjoys the liberties hard won over centuries by the alliance I111 I C ll 1111 t 11 111 11(1\1 \ I l .l’I
11 , h , 111 -.11111 1, 1111• 1, 111,11ll’ 11110 ., no1H,lop, commercially11 11 11 111i , \ 11 -.011tl11w11ts, In thl!. case, have been shaped by what he per-111 ,11 ,1 111 youth: a challenge to authority formed by the stud~nt move-1111 1ho!iC.’ judgments merely provide a prologue to a ~uch more force 1 _life; and, in a more politically charged context, the decad_e of the Marxism. , h1This brief description does not exhaust the breadth of B o~m ~ . y- Commanding his minions to revise radic~lly _the curncu~um’. to 1 111 11 1111 l’I 11 Ille ‘• 11t I llllll\1
p•,st. Bloo m’s call for curriculum rcforrn Is d1•,11 , I 1111 tit, 1111111 111 tltt• ()f course, the state universities and colleges are now populated by It would be too easy to dismiss th is frankly aristocratic vision of edu For, un like Irving Kristol’s rantings against the 1960s New Left (who II H I II II It I I I I111 IC/\1 ‘ I I II
11 IH”” ,1111hhl the cl,111w 11111 ,111d 11,,ht,y ll1ll11t•11(u o f the discourses of I•, ,,g,1111,11l.1111.,,11 ‘ ‘ “‘ 111,, c lih•I ( ulprit in the decay of higher learning, as Pluralists and democrats might dismiss these elitist ruminations In Bloom’s exegesis, the past must p lay a crucial role in the formu Bloom’s attack o n higher education conveniently excludes the de I’ 1111 l’t II lllt 111 I IIINAI
knowlcdge-produu•r s, who, It, ,1dv,11u 1•d 1 ,1pl1,,lI-.1 111 It 11, h,,w Ill’ In his last chapter Bloom alludes to business civilization and de The tension between t radition and innovation plagues all who are The conservative appeal to the past becomes an ideological flag car II Ill C11 II I I KA• \ II
H••111•1,,I I t 111 thl11 ,, n 1111 th, 11,1,,,111011 ••H••lmt privilege is frequently 1.111•, pilv,1tc violonn•, .ind exploitation. This, of course, is the mean When Bloom calls for reviving Latin as a requirement for educated The virtue of Bloom’s t irade, despite its reactionary content, ,s to re The historical legacy of technicization has been to turn universities 11 11 1111 ,•• >I Ill• ‘• 1 ,1 1III K I
centered learning, and o lhl1 I1, who would tt y 1111•\l1,111 1111 , 1 ,,,If .,..,v What must be accepted in Bloom’s discourse is that anti-intellectu • I tinue to maintain fresh creative and critical approaches to their tasks. This need not imply leaving aside any considerat ion of the tradition. I Ill I I II I Ill I 11 I I II 1(1\1 \ I I 11,
111liw, h11. ‘” 1t~11111 h,111111, 111 •1·d le11 ,, lltmury t anon, because it has long 11Ih1 1 w111d’I, 11 h•1H 11 Is lnlt 11 ,.-1p1•d 1 110 1 o nly quantitatively o r by perception, but also historically. ll11poI l,lnl o ne. For, unless we are to take the position made popular by While it is possible to make a strong case that reading classic texts is II, IJ II II 111 11 I Ill !’i 1 >I 111 I It
modernity can be amcllornt tid . Wl11•11 l1111 1llc, 111,,1 ~. wh11 , 111111111 ,, with When one h~ars men and women proclaiming that they must In commenting on the ” sample” of st udents Bloom uses to con [Bloom’s students who] are materially well off and academically 11 n 1 , 111 c,, 1111 KAr , 1 1 ~
11111111111 111 111111 Ii 111 t,y 1p1,,l111,,,,. 11f 1111′ 111111d that have deeper I 111 111001111 phlloNopliy .,ftc r I lcgel abandons the search for truth, . sors, much less by their students. forms of historical knowledge. In fact, high cultural texts often origi Ill 11 lltl l’I If 1111 ‘I I II I Ill HAI V
middle-class and native h istory or phllo~ophy, 111 11li111t , w,· 111,,y 1,1k11 We are sure that Bloom would find this program objectio nable b At first glance, Hirsch’s Cultural Literacy has l ittle in common with At the same time, Hirsch and Bloom share a common concern for 1111 I I 1111 II I II 11111(1\q I I 111
w,11111!,111″‘ ‘ 111 H1111d.,, 1’1111l ti ·d 11lthm o1i-. ., canon of knowledge o r a Hirsch has entered the debate on the nature and purpose of public Appropriating the radical educational position that schools are agen Ill I 1111 l’I 1111 Jc ‘• c 11 1111 l(A( \’
tant. I or Jl lirsd1 in~bls 1’1,1t M hoob lie • ,u1,ily11•d ,,., -.11, 111 lc•,111111111111 Reiteratirig the arguments of Bennett, Ravitch, and Finn, Hirsch II II I II It II I I I 1111 H/\1 \ I I 11
1111y tli,11 ,1pp11,11 111111111l1lt•11111llt ,111111111t h,111g1•,1l>h• in its determining i\\1111• l111po11,1111 1 I ll1 •11 It’~ vlt•w of hl~to 1y is the narrat!ve of the win- Hirsch does more than rely on the logic of verification and personal https://l1,11,1ct,iri.1.es I I1 llll l’llllllt •,111111 11(,\t
curriculum and fu1 thcr c:ontrlbu1t1<1 IO 1111111•, 111 p11l1l11 I!• t,11111111)'
~ar~e? by an increasing loss of authority, ('ull11111I 11 •h1tl\'h111, 1111 k oi
discipline, poor academic performance, and a rcfus,1I lo I1 ,il11 •,lwle11ti.
ade~uatel_Y to meet the demands of the changing industrl,d order.
H,_rsch Is not content merely with criticizing the public schools. He is II II I II”‘ 111 1111 ltAt \ I I II
N,,II1111 l1111ld1•1 11 1 ,1p11l1 ltw111 1t. of Mhol,nly folk materials, old q1h1l11I ,11111 Inc ,111 I ► 111 111 It 1,11f1y :.elected and reinterpreted by I lwllI Is a to talitarian unity in Hirsch’s view of culture that is at odds We w ill analyze some of the major arguments made by Hirsch in de For Hirsch, the starting point for the crisis in literacy and education r school success contains fi1 llM•ll “‘ I I • I I We believe that Hirsch ‘s reliance on h expense of others. For (:;;:~~~ct~~~d to ~~nef’.t s~me students at the
ways that tracking, the hidden c~rric~l~~s,:,i; ~s s_llf n~ regdarding the by their senior y!ar.10 The~e ~~~r!~ ~~r~~-n~of the entering freshmen ~::k~~r~~ ::\!he
aecffi;:; State-mandated t~a~!’-~ular women, within the last decade.,, o mstrumental1z1ng teaching d I . Viewing teachers as semiskilled I . . ~ii~i~~a~~te ~ave se~n a prolife~:;i~ri~/~f~~~~a~ever the (management by objectives) PBBS ( rf · minimum competency testing) I · · · c s · · · t ey use less writing in th I . o JectIves without getting ” off
1111 111 II I 11 11 11 1At V I i ‘
11t, 1,11, ~”. 11t, ~ 1111 p11, 11111,·d 1111111 11.,l11g l<•,ll hlt1g rtu1lerlab
llt,11 ,111· 111111111 I''' , 1ll11•d ll• , 1l11111k ll~h, even when they think
lh1 1, 11 11i.1tn1h1I" ,111• 1111\1•111111 lo niticl the needs of some of their
1,d11cln11t -.; ,111cl ll11•y 11 111 I lirsch appears unaware that the politics of verification and empi ri 13 schools function as agencies of social and cultural reproduction. He 15 The limitations of Hirsch’s view of the crisis are evident not only in https://aching.12 It, I 111 I CJI It,, ,II 11111
Cl”•’> bt•< 0 11w ,1 ~ul>-. l1h1 t,• 101 l isted). Dewey’s crime in this view is that he has influc nc t•d l.1tt·1 g(•ncr Hirsch misinterprets Dewey’s work. Even the most casual reading of Underlying Hirsch’s view of the major causes of the p roblems with !IHI 11111 tllllllltl\1
111111 tl,,I, 1111d1111111 1111111 11 t11111 ~, 111 111how hb 101y b sh,\pcd through 111 1« 11•,,~, ,111(1 l’t is presented without the benefit of a substantially ar- I lirsch practices historical inquiry not as a form of soci_al memory History for Hirsch is not a terrain of struggle;19 formation that merely legitimates a particular view o f itself as a set of ·Ill I I I I II l’1 II II Ic ‘• 1 11 I 111 HN ‘I’
derstood through an analysis o’f the rise o f scll•t1th1111 ,111«111, 11111111,1111 Central to Hirsch’s concept of literacy is an understanding of the re Literate culture has become the common currency for social There is a false egalitarianism defining Hirsch’s view of cu lture, one II ft I 1111 II I II I1111(1\1 \ I I ,., I
t,,llly 111 1111 I 1111-1 11,11-11 I” ‘” lh 1 11 ol ,1 glvt>11 ri.,tlon, and merely “pre- 111, .., h rl’fwm~ to ,11 ~11owh•dgc how deeply the struggle for moral and The fail ing of Hirsch’s view of culture is most evident in his analysis https://students.21 1,11 I 1111 11111 I flt Ill 11111 I
change rate In the d 1nill:. o l pow1•1 th,11 dl’lll11 111d h Hlll11111!1• 111,, A more critical understanding of the relationship between culture Given Hirsch’s view of cu lture, it is not surprising that he espouses a 1111 I 111 III t II I I I I l(At ‘ I I 11
11,111, ,, 1t11 1111111 , ,,p,11 llh ” ,,,. w,·11 ‘”‘ 1111’ mul1lph• forms of expression it 1 ••11t 11111ilw world , ,111d lh,111hc recognition and ~f!irmation ofth~se d1f If we lived in a democratic state our language would have to 24 To acknowledge different forms of literacy is not to suggest that they volves social relations in which learning takes place; power leg1t1mates This view of cu lture, knowledge, and literacy is far removed from https://knowledge.25 ‘•l 11 1111 l’I II 1111 ‘, I ti I II I K,\1’
sets of social relations, might address tlw rt11011~1111• 111111 111 ~,111,,1 Read against the recent legacy of a critical educational tradition, the II It .. 111 Ill 111 I III Kl\c \ I ‘ ti
1111111111 ,md I Ill~• It t 11111{ 111 u 1111111111111 loxtu.,I ,Hl1horlty that neither pro Notes
f . l·o r an example of this position, see William Bennett, ” ‘To Reclaim a Legacy’: Text Publication information for the two works that are the primary subjects of this chapter ‘ic’huster, 1987), and E. D. Hirsch , Jr., Cultural Literacy: What Every American Needs to 2. This issue is taken up in Martin Carnoy and Henry M. Levin, Schooling and Work 3. Given Bloom’s ti rade on popular cult ure and rock music, it is both somewhat sur 4. See Walter Benjamin, “Theses on the Philosophy of History,” in Hannah Arendt, s. In Martha Nussbaum, “Undemocratic Vistas,” New York Review of Books, No 6. Mikhail Bakhtin, The Dialogic Imagination, ed. Michael Holquist, trans. Caryl Em 7. Robert Scho les provides an i l luminating commentary on the conservat ive agenda Hirsch wants to save us through information. He thinks that knowing ‘ti I I 1111 1’111 II II !i 111 1111 It
Together, llwy sd llw t011H11vutlv11,lf1Pt1tl11 1111 A1111•1h ,11,, 1h11 ,111111
Hirsch will make sure l’hat everyone knows wl111t ‘””, 1,1-•h 11, 11111 8. The simplicity, ignorance, and political interests that often inform this particular 9. For a criticism of this form of testing, see A llan Nairn and Associates, The Reign of 10. For both a statistical and a theoretical analysis of these problems, see National 11. M ichael W. Apple, Teachers and Text: A Political Economy of Class and Gender 12. Linda Darling-Hammond, “Valuing Teachers: The Making of a Profession,” Teach 13. For a review of this literature, see Henry A. Giroux, Theory and Resistance in Edu 14. See, for example, Patrick Shannon, “The Use of Commercial Reading Materials in 15. See, for example, Michelle Fine, “Silencing in Public Schools,” Language Arts, 64 16. Martin Carnoy and Henry M. Levin, Schooling and Work in the Democratic State 17. Hirsch’s view of h istory represents what Harvey). Graff calls a radically idealist fl It 111111 t 11 I 111 l(AI \ 1 l ,,,
tt111I 111,w,, “‘ Ith ,1, wllht111t 1t111111tl11H l11lt1 tl.111111111d ih11lt 111 tw,I o, ultcrn.itlvo historical 111 t lt•1 hn1t M. Klloh111tl , //11, .~rruyglc for the American Curriculum 1893-‘/958 (New l’I t lliNl h’b view o f history is strikingly similar to that expressed by W illiam J. Bennett :.w. Hirsch argues for a notion of cultural literacy that suffers both from a misplaced hore is not simply that Hirsch claims more for literacy than it can actually do as an ideo 21. This literature is extensively reviewed in Giroux, Theory and Resistance in Educa 22. Ray Rist, “On Understanding t he Process of Schooling: The Contribution of La 23. Kathleen Rockhill, “Gender, Language and the Politics of Literacy,” British Journal
American Educational Research Association
Politics o f C urricu lum : O rig ins, C on troversies, and S ignificance o f C ritica l Perspectives 163 -190 http://www.jstor.org /stable/1167299 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR’s Tenns and Conditions of Use, available at Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact infonnation may be obtained at Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed JSTOR is a not-for-profit organization founded in 1995 to build trusted digital archives for scholarship. We work with the II American Educational Research Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend http://www.jstor.org http://www.jstor.org/stable/1167299 http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/tenns.jsp http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=aera mailto:support@jstor.org http://www.jstor.org Chapter 4
Politics of Curriculum: Origins, Controversies, and WILLIAM F. PINAR C. A. BOWERS In one sense, most educational theorists who have envisioned using the Within this group there can be said to be two subgroups. One has iden A shorter version of this essay, coauthored with William M. Reynolds, was presented at 163 164 Review of Research in Education, 18
an alternative. Collectively, this effort— increasingly diverse and acri The origins of this work will be outlined in the first section, focusing CONCEPTUAL DEVELOPMENT The first step in the effort to understand curriculum as a political text Consciousness
Superstructure
Institutions
Relations of production
Base
Material productive forces
Causality occurred unidirectionally, from base to superstructure. Ele The structure of social relations in education not only inures the student Pinar and Bowers: Politics of Curriculum 165
the social relationships of education— the relationships between admin Relying on this principle of correspondence, Apple (1979) and Giroux A second concept imported from other fields aided politically oriented Simply put ideology refers to the production of meaning. It can be described as a way of Wexler (1987) regarded ideology as the first key concept of the new First, it [ideology] has a material existence: rituals, practices, and social processes that 166 Review of Research in Education, 18
The concept of ideology became central in understanding curriculum By the early 1980s, the largely economic version of reproduction (cor The most critical [problem] is simply this: by standing in our approach as the only structural Bowles and Gintis acknowledge that their earlier argument missed certain Bowles and Gintis theorize four types of social practice, the point of This mixing of sites and practices produces two dynamic tendencies Pinar and Bowers: Politics of Curriculum 167
undermining) effects (Liston, 1988, p. 54). Bowles and Gintis acknowledge Wexler notes that “ the Frankfurt School analysis of culture was also It was the hope of Horkheimer and the others that their work would help establish a critical Giroux (1983a) regarded the Frankfurt School as fundamental to un I argued that the foundation for a radical theory of schooling can, in part, be developed The hidden curriculum, first popularized by Philip Jackson (1968), was The hidden curriculum deals with the tacit ways in which knowledge and behavior get 168 Review of Research in Education, 18
of the bureaucratic and managerial “ press” of the school— the combined forces by which Michael W. Apple, the first to reassert curriculum as a political text in The hidden curriculum in schools serves to reinforce basic rules surrounding the nature of Owing to Apple’s efforts, in part, the concept of the hidden curriculum Another major concept employed in understanding curriculum as a po The concept of hegemony helped critical curriculum scholars refine the Pinar and Bowers: Politics of Curriculum 169
functions to privilege certain sets and orders of knowledge over others Henry Giroux worried that an overreliance on the concept of repro From Reproduction to Resistance the concept of resistance to an eager audience disenchanted with repro The early 1980s saw considerable discussion of resistance theory. Par 170 Review of Research in Education, 18
“ discourse of despair,” as it ignored the pedagogical possibilities of In his introduction to Giroux’s Ideology, Culture and the Process o f A special issue of Interchange, edited by Paul Olson and published in In Giroux’s “ Hegemony, Resistance, and the Paradox of Educational In 1982, Michael Apple published two works examining issues of re Pinar and Bowers: Politics of Curriculum 171
According to Apple, the school curriculum belongs to the latter category. In an essay titled “ Curricular Form and the Logic of Technical In his second 1982 work, Apple continues his examination of resistance Two important efforts to understand the curriculum as a political text Apple and Weis (1983) discuss the movement beyond simple repro 172 Review of Research in Education, 18
them to move beyond resistance to a belief in the possibility of meaningful The concept of resistance would continue to appear in political analyses What the American work increasingly recognizes is that whether or not particular aspects Pedagogy and Practice: Issues of Race, Class, and Gender begun to turn away from reproduction and resistance theories to issues This shift toward action and practice is evident in Giroux’s many journal Freire’s work, which had been enormously influential in the late 1960s Pinar and Bowers: Politics of Curriculum 173
ulum as a political text during the latter half of the 1980s. In The Politics Apple’s work during the mid-1980s shifts also from reproduction and [Critical scholars] need to be closely connected to feminist groups, people of color, unions, In essays published in 1988, Apple extends his analysis of curriculum 174 Review of Research in Education, 18
of praxis, which involves “ not only a justifiable concern for reflective Praxis implies “ critical reflective practices that alter the material and The effort to understand curriculum as a political text has shifted from This effort to understand the curriculum as a political text has not been CONTROVERSIES and Ethics in Radical Studies o f Schooling, Daniel Liston alleges nu Pinar and Bowers: Politics of Curriculum 175
functionalist approaches, nevertheless rely on functionalist assertions and Liston is interested in ethical as well as methodological problems in Yet, Liston observes, Marxist scholars often base their criticisms of Liston’s claim of “ friendliness” appears to have been rejected, at least 176 Review of Research in Education, 18
blood-letting, an exaggerated self-flattery, and an inflated moral right Like Liston, C. A. Bowers (1987) and Kenneth Strike (1989) allege that Finally, the fact that many of those who gave us the Marxist critique of schooling seem to In Elements o f a Post-Liberal Theory o f Education , Bowers (1987) cri Perhaps the most compelling but caustic critic of political analyses of Pinar and Bowers: Politics of Curriculum 177
charts the rise and fall of the so-called “ new sociology.” Central to his In this view, new sociology of education is a rationalized cultural representation of identity In this respect, politically oriented scholars are committed to their own Furtherm ore, Wexler alleges, the primary concepts employed to un ideology-critique to awareness of systematic reproduction through the accumulation of cul The “ new sociology” may have become trapped in the progressive- 178 Review of Research in Education, 18
social movements and change that might inspire collective mobilizations. A revised version of a presentation made at the 1988 Bergamo Con In working with participants in the course Curriculum and Instruction This position is in contrast to that of critical pedagogy, which Ellsworth Pinar and Bowers: Politics of Curriculum 179
challenge specific social or political groups or positions. This failure rep A preferable goal seemed to me to become capable of a sustained encounter with currently Ellsworth (1989) advocates labor toward a position informed by feminism CONCERNS asserted itself forcefully during the 1970s and 1980s. The notion that cur 180 Review of Research in Education, 18
among the foundations of which were notions of reproduction, resistance, The phrase “ in part” leads to our first concern with this work. There Pinar and Bowers: Politics of Curriculum 181
nonadversarial fashion, not only would their boundaries be expanded, A second concern involves the import of this scholarship for the school Cameron M cCarthy (1990a, 1990b) has pointed to the failure of radical 182 Review of Research in Education, 18
pedagogical” (Giroux, 1988b). (e) A participatory democracy, wherein As these assumptions suggest, critical pedagogy and critical scholarship I have begun to see contemporary Marxism as something of a classical realist text in which Probably, few cultural groups, including the advocates of critical per Pinar and Bowers: Politics of Curriculum 183
of power and control that operate in their own lives” (M cLaren, 1989, The goals of critical scholarship (empowerment, emancipation, and so A third concern involves the relative silence of critical scholarship re Although Giroux and M cLaren (Giroux, 1991) have incorporated the 184 Review of Research in Education, 18
that contribute to living in a sustainable relationship with the habitat. The total self-corrective unit which processes information, or, as I say, “ thinks” and “ acts” He warns us to recognize that human beings, regardless of their ideas The position advanced by Leopold, Bateson, and others leads to a The ecological crisis implies that we must understand the very concept Pinar and Bowers: Politics of Curriculum 185
stream W estern intellectuals) function in species-affirmative ways. These Species extinction and genetic narrowing of the major crops aside, the loss of cultural in We are not arguing, of course, that tacit, analogical forms of knowledge The ecological crisis confronts educators with a new set of challenges 1. What cultural beliefs, values, and social practices currently trans 2. How are ecologically unsustainable aspects of our culture encoded 3. How can we reframe in curricular forms the study of diverse his 186 Review of Research in Education, 18
torical narratives in ways that enable students to recognize the conse 4. What forms of folk knowledge (technologies, social practices, etc.) 5. How do we, as educators, begin to develop the languages of dance, If, as a field, we become aware that the ecological crisis requires both Conclusion politics of curriculum. These are problems associated with gender, race, Despite these significant problems, the effort to understand curriculum Pinar and Bowers: Politics of Curriculum 187
dynamism of critique testify to the vitality and complexity of the field. REFERENCES New York: Monthly Review Press. cational Review , 49 , 361-386. Contemporary curriculum discourses (pp. 175-200). Scottsdale, AZ: Gorsuch, Apple, M. W. (1975). The hidden curriculum and the nature of conflict. In W. F. Apple, M. W. (1979). Curriculum and reproduction. Curriculum Inquiry, 9(3), Apple, M. W. (1980). Analyzing determinations: Understanding and evaluating Apple, M. W. (1981). Reproduction, contestation, and curriculum: An essay in Apple, M. W. (Ed.). (1982a). Cultural and economic reproduction in education: Apple, M. W. (1982b). Education and power. New York: Routledge & Kegan Apple, M. W. (1986). Teachers and texts: A political economy o f class and gender Apple, M. W. (1987a). Producing inequality : Ideology and economy in the national Apple, M. W. (1987b). Will the social context allow a tomorrow for tomorrow’s Apple, M. W. (1988). Social crisis and curriculum accords. Educational Theory, Apple, M. W. (1990a). Ideology and curriculum (2nd ed.). New York: Routledge Apple, M. W. (1990b). The politics of pedagogy and the building of community. Apple, M. W., & Ladwig, J. (1989, December 20). Educators reel from decade Apple, M. W., & Teitelbaum, K. (1986). Are teachers losing control of their skills Apple, M. W., & Weis, L. (Eds.). (1983). Ideology and practice in schooling. Aronowitz, S., & Giroux, H. A. (1985). Education under siege: The conservative, Barton, L., Meigham, R., & Walker, S. (Eds.). (1980). Schooling, ideology and 188 Review of Research in Education, 18
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sions of the latest and most popular conservative thrust for educational
rt•form. Each, in his own way, represents a frontal attack aimed at pro
viding a programmatic language with which to defend schools as cul
tural sites, that is, as institutions responsible for reproducing the
knowledge and values necessary to advance the historical virtues of
Western culture. Hirsch presents his view of cu ltural restoration
lhrough a concept of literacy that focuses on the basic structures of
l,1nguage, and applies this version of cultural l iteracy to the broader
up, not treating them as histo rical prodt1111,1 hut 1tyI1111I11 1n11d
them as their authors wished them to be ro~1d . • 1h11 111111
thing is certain: wherever the Great Books mako up , cc111Irnl
part of the curriculum, the students are excited and satlsrled ,
feel they are doing something that is independent and
fulfil ling, getting something from the university they cannot get
elsewhere. The very fact of this special experience, which leads
nowhere beyond itself, provides them with a new alternative
and a respect for study itself. (344)
evidence raises serious questions about the nature of Bloom’s position
as well as the quality of his own scholarsh ip. Moreover, Bloom’s posi
tion is hardly·novel. It has been with us since the Enl ightenment and
has long been invoked as an argument for the reproduction o f elites. It
is a position that advocates a social system in which a select cadre of
intellectuals, economically p rivileged groups, and their professional
servants are the only individuals deemed fit to possess the culture’s sa
cred canon of knowledge, which assures their supremacy.
one of the most elaborate conservative educational manifestos to ap
pear in decades. But it is important to recognize that this offensive rep
resents a form of textual authority that not only legitimates a particu lar
version of Western civilization as well as an elitist notion of the canon,
but also serves to exclude al l those other discourses, whether from the
new social movements or from other sources of opposition, which at
tempt to establish different grounds for the production and organiza
tion of knowledge. In effect, the new cultural offensive is not to be un
derstood simply as a right-wing argument for a particular version of
Western civilization or as a defense for what is seen as a legitimate ac
ademic canon; instead, both of these concerns have to be seen as part
of a broader struggle over textual authority. In this case, the notion of
textual authority is about the right-wing shift from the discourse of
class to the broader relationship between knowledge and power, and
the struggle to control the very grounds on which knowledge is pro
duced and legitimated. What is at issue here is not simply how differ
ent d iscourses function to reference particular forms of intellectual,
ethical, and social relations but how power works as both a medium
and outcome of what we might call a form of textual politics.
historical construction, textual authority offers readers part icular sub
ject positions, ideological references that provide but do not rigidly
11″.t lw, 111 111• 11•111111111 111!11ply .,~ <• :,ludy in the production of ideology
ltul " " p:11 I of ,1 wlcl111 i Ir n 1lI o f power that calls into play broader insti
l11l lon,1I µractices and social structures. In effect, textual authority rep
I1•~1•11ls the medium and outcome of a pedagogical struggle over the
rnl,il lonship between knowledge and power as well as a struggle over
tho construction and the development of the political subject. Need
l1iss to say, Bloom and Hirsch represent forms of textual authority
linked to a cultural practice that have broad implications for educa
tional re form and for the wider crisis in democracy. We intend to ana
lyze, in this chapter, the ideological and pedagogical content of these
books in the context of the current debates, beginning with an analysis
o f Bloom's The Closing of the American Mind.
ence of schools to the realities of the international marketplace, as in
the old technicist discourse that reduces schooling to job training. In
stead, Bloom attacks modernity, especially what he considers the ram
pant relativism that marks the last one hundred years of Western his
tory. Like Jose Ortega y Gasset, his illustrious predecessor, Bloom
seeks to restore the dominance of Platonism-that is, the belief in the
transhistorical permanence of forms of t ruth – to education. Where
President Reagan’s secretary of education, William Bennett, and the
older elitists reiterated the call for “excellence,” but never succeeded
in articulating its substance, Bloom presents his proposals in more
concrete terms.
that underlies it is a sobering reminder that political and social analy
ses, which have identified themselves with modernity as a critique of
advanced industrial societies, constitute powerful weapons in the
hands of both the right and the left. Here we have all the elements of
an elitist sensibility: abhorrence of mass culture; a rejection of experi
ence as the arbiter of taste and pedagogy; and a sweeping attack on
what is called “cultural relativism,” especially on those who want to
place popular culture, ethnic and racially based cultures, and cultures
grounded in sexual communities (either feminist or gay and lesbian)
on a par with classical Western traditions. For conservatives, each of
these elements represents a form of anti-intellectualism that threatens
the moral authority of the state. Consequently, much more than eco
nomic survival is at stake: at issue is the survival of Western civilization
as it represents itself through 2,500 years of philosophy, historiography,
and literature.
object of knowledge. According to Bloom, till’< ul1111,1lt,1 p1·"p1•tllvc is
what Plato meant by the allegory of the cave. We art' p111vu11ted from
seeing the sunlight by culture, which is the enemy of what Bloom calls
"openness." Although vaguely apologetic on the subject, Bloom ends
up arguing that Western tradition is superior to non-Western cu ltures
precisely because i ts referent is not "cultural" but is the universal and
context-free love of wisdom; for the underlying ethic of Western civi
lization, according to Bloom, is its capacity to transcend the immediate
circumstances of daily life in order to reach the good life. Lower cul
tures are inevitably tied to "local know ledge" - to family and commu
nity values and beliefs, which are overwhelmingly context-specific. As
it happened in the course of history, the Greeks managed to teach
some thinkers-Bloom being one-the way to universal truth.
referents with which to excoriate contemporary culture. Bloom sys
tematically devalues the music, sexuality, and pride of youth, and
traces what he envisions as the gross excesses of the 1960s (the real ob
ject of his attack) to the pernicious influence of German philosophy
from Nietzsche to Heidegger as refracted through the mindless relativ
ism of modernizers. Feminism is equated with ” libertinism,” or mak
ing sex easy; “affirmative action now insti tutionalizes the worst aspects
of separatism”; and rock music “has the beat of sexual intercourse”
and cannot qualify, according to Bloom’s Socratic standard, as a genu
inely harmonic reconciliation of the soul with the passions of the body.
Instead, rhythm and melody are viewed as a form of barbarism when
they take on the explicit sexual coloration of modern rock music. For
Bloom, popular culture, especially rock music, represents a new form
of barbarism whose horror he conjures up in the image of a thirteen
year-old boy watching MTV while listening to a Walkman radio:
of philosophic genius and political heroism, consecrated by the
blood of martyrs; he is provided with comfort and leisure by
the most productive economy ever known to mankind; science
has penetrated the secrets of nature in order to provide him
with the marvelous, lifelike electronic sound and image
reproduction he is enjoying. And in what does progress
culminate? A pubescent child w hose body throbs with o rgasmic
rhythms; whose feelings are made articulate in hymns to the
joys of onanism o r the killing of parents; whose ambition is to
win fame and wealth in imitating the drag-queen who makes
p1t p 11 ~ •H••d 111,..,1111h,11lo11,1I l,1111,1-.y. (75)
• 11 1v11’l , ,, ltullt ,1tlons of a serious moral and intellectual decline among 1
1111,111″ of tlw I960s and the levelin~ ideology of democratic reform
1 h,11,1c tt•ii’>tlc of radical intellectuals.
ful ,,ncl unsparing attack on nihilism, w hich ‘. according to Bloom and
hi., political and intellectual peerage, co~s1stently de_values_ s_c_hola_r
.,11 ,p, or, in its more universal aspect, the hfe of_t~e ‘.11ind. N1h_1hsm in
II loom’s philosophy is a code word for the glonf1cat,on _o_f _act’.on an?
power and represents the real threat to contempor_ary civ1hzat1on. ~1-
hlllsm has a number of historical roots: the modernism of the good life
that stresses pluralism and diversity; the vacillations of democracy that
)(‘rmit the ignorant a degree of freedom that, in four undergraduate
years, students are not prepared to use; a fragmentat ion born out of
the uncertainties of a moral order that cannot present to the young
either a unified worldview or goals to overcome the greed of modern
1960s, which was marked by a flagrant disrespect for authority, espe
cially the authority of the intellect. Here we have m_ore than_ the usual
tepid porridge of conservative disco~rse. Bloom ‘.nvokes images of
“chaos and decay” in the moral fabric of our society. However, the
sources of decay are rarely seen to be economic and po litical. l~de~d,
there is not a whisper of criticism of capitalis_m. _In fa~, cap,_tahsm
appears only as a sidelight in Bloom’s rather indirect d1scuss1on of
perbolic tirade. Our concern, of course, is focused on Bloom s v1s1on
of the crucial role schools can perform in correcting the cu_rrent state
of academic and public national culture he so roundly despises,- Natu
rally, Bloom does not expect all schools to parti~ipate in reversing <_>Ur
count ry’s spiritual malaise. The task falls to the l1terall~ twenty or thirty
first-rate colleges and universities that are ~les_se? with the best stu
dents but are regrettably frittering away their mIss1on to restore to the
West the mant le of greatness. .
purge it of allusions to student experience (which, in any case, 1s ~1~ed
in ignorance), Bloom seeks to rid the classroom of cultur~I- relativism
and of all those areas of st udy that do not venerate t he traditions of the
seexual, racial, and cultural revolution lhal anlr11.it11d 1111 • 1•111 •1,111011 11
‘v\,.,lno confronted the white men at the Pentagon and at olltrn lnstitu
~i,ons of e~onomic, polit ical, and cu ltu ral power twenty years ago. Re-
1rn1tate Latin as the l ingua franca of learning and transmit Western civ
il iizition through the one hundred greatest books that embody its
S)#’!lem of values.
th’lecasualties of contemporary culture: large numbers of ch ildren of
d iiiiorced parents, who are portrayed by Bloom as unfortunate – even
tr;·agic- products of current conditions; blacks and other minorities
“V ‘hose university experience is ” different from that of other students”
bE:B”.;wse of their history of “disadvantage,” and whose dedication is,
e:,.,<~pt in rare instances, not to learning but to practical advantage; and
di 1spirited faculty members whose dreams of l iving in a community of
sc::holars have been destroyed by the "interruptions" o f modern social
Problems. For Bloom, these conditions disqualify the state universities
a_nio colleges as appropriate sites for professors and students to expe
rience the awe and wonder o f confronting the "great minds" of the
ag;es.
C:a·tion as simply an effort to establish a new status quo conforming to
Cl.ark Kerr’s model : a three-tier postsecondary education system in
whth theoretical knowledge is confined to the Ivy League institutions
an .
“Ve1e trying to create an “adversary culture” in opposition to the su
P.-e,))ely democrat ic and capitalist society that had become America),
Blc:iom joins Hilton Kramer and t he professors of the Cold War intel li
g~~tsia of the 1950s in advocating a return to the age of the medieval
Sc:J-tnolmen, or at least to the high European cultu re of the nineteenth
c:~ n :t.,ry. Rather than praising democracy, he yearns for t he retu rn of a
11’1co1e rigidly stratified civilizat ion in which the crowd is contained
~ithn the land of the marketplace and its pleasures are confined to the
ritualsof the carn ival . W hat he wants to exclude are the majority o f thie
PC>lflUlation from t he precincts of reason. At the same time, he would
dn….,1 the vox populi from the genuine academy where the Absolut:e
Sp i it should f ind a home, but does not, because of the confusion that
111 1,,1, 0111111111111•111 , p11l1111 , ,111111•qu,1llly. Uloom identifies the impulse
w1•II ” ” tlio worst lrnp,,i.~l’ of democracy. But university administrators
111•,11 oqual rcsponslblllty for pandering to these base motives. Instead
111 lt•1-llr1g bound by tradit ion to transmit the higher learning, which,
,lil(•r sill, is the repository of what is valuable in schooling, they gave
1w,1y t·hc store. Universities lost their way in the scandal that is culture.
witho ut grasping the valid elements of the complaint. For there can be
111, doubt that the reception that Bloom’s book has enjoyed signifies
1ha1 he has struck the elitists’ collective nerve. Intellectuals are uneasy
,1bout their role as teachers because their own experiences, interests,
,ind values seem profoundly at odds with the several generations they
have taught since the 1960s. But even more searing is their growing
feeling of irrelevance, not only w ith respect to the process of educa
tion, b ut also with respect to their role in public life.
lation of the future. Intellectuals are to join in a classical evocation of a
mythically integrated civil ization that becomes the vantage point from
.which to criticize the current situation. In all o f its versions, the inte
grated past is marked by the existence of a community of the spirit; it is
a time when at least a minority was able to search for the good and the
true, unhampered by temporal considerations such as making a living.
For the idyllic past is always constructed in the images of le isure, or, to
be more fair, in an environment whe~e society provides a sufficient so
cial surp lus to support a priest class, or their secu lar equivalents. In
contrast, t he contemporary construction of the intellectual is on the
model of technical thought rather t~an pure reason. The intellectual
transmits algorithms rather t han ideas, and o rients students to careers
rather than criticizing the social structure.
gree to which the existing arrangements of social and economic power
have contributed to the shaping of the intellectual life that he so stri
dently laments. What Bloom fails to mention in h is attack on the ser
vants of higher educat ion is t hat the disappearance of political intellec
tuals corresponds to the passing of politics from “public” life.
Educational institutions, once charged w ith the task of providing a little
learning to ruling elites and providing them with a mandarin class,
have assumed a crucial p lace in the economic and cultural order. Their
task is no longer to preserve c ivilization as it has been defined by the
Greek and Roman aristocracies; these institutions are now filled with
come part o f the process of material and sod.ti r11pr11d11, 111111 I Ir•• ld<•n
of the intellectual as adversary of the dominant cultur1• 1-. 11t11•rly for
eign to current arrangements (for example, the president of Barnard
College, a former corporate lawyer, appeared on television comment
ing as an insider on the stock market crash and barely referred to her
role as educator except to observe that students were calling home and
nervously asking their parents, " How are we doing?").
scribes negatively the way economics has overwhelmed the social sci
ences in “serious” universities (taking the place once held by sociol
ogy in the days w hen students desired to help other people rather than
looking out for themselves). Sounding like a member of the Frankfurt
school of critical theory, Bloom even manages to criticize the belief,
common among natural scientists, that their disciplines yield the only
“real” knowledge. Characteristically, Bloom appeals to the elite
schools to introduce philosophy as a key component of liberal educa
tion in order to counter the threat to higher education being posed by
the rigid empiricisms of economics and natural science.
seriously concerned with education. But Bloom refuses to go beyond
scapegoating to ask how classical texts have fai led to address the gen
erations that came into postsecondary education after the Second
World War: why Latin and Greek were no longer deemed essential for
even the elite university curricula; why students, administrators, and
the overwhelming majority of faculty came to view universities as de
gree mills, at worst, or at best as places where the enterprising student
could be expected to receive a good reading list. These questions can
not be addressed, much less answered, by invective.
ried against the future. It is not that the relativists, of both left and lib
eral persuasions, want to destroy the spirit and form of Western cul
tural heritage. Rather, they seek to reveal how such a heritage has often
been employed as a weapon against those who would democratize in
stitutions, who would change relations of power. Every achievement of
civilization – the pyramids, great works of Greek philosophy and sci
ence, the wonderful representations of the human body and the soul
that emerged during the Renaissance-has been built on the backs of
slaves, or on the labor of a faraway peasantry, in short, on a material
foundation that undermines the notion of an uncomplicated marriage
between high culture and humanism. Ignoring this fact, as Walter Ben
jamin reminds us, helps to sustain the culture and civilization in
,11, 11111p,111lc•cl lty ,111 ,111 ,, ~ ,111,1111,1 Ilw Intellectuals. What oppressed
I 11•11plc• 11r111Pr ,1,111cl 111•!11•1 lh,111 most is that intellectuals are typically
….,v.111I-. of tlw 111IKhly, they ohcn provide legitimacy for deeds of
Ing o( the argument that every achievement of high culture is preceded
hy tht’ blood of those who make it possible.
youth, he opposes one of the crucial reforms of the e!ghteenth- and
nineteenth-century democratic revolutions: the establ ishment of the
vernacular as the language not only of commerce and manufacture but
also of public life, literature, and philosophy. His fealty to classical texts
excludes the Presocratics and Aristotle and focuses instead on Socrates
and his disciple Plato precisely because of their attempt to separate
truth from knowledge. Truth in Plato’s Symposium requires no external
object for its justification but refers instead to itself, particularly to pu
rity of form. Knowledge is always one-sided, referring to an external
object. l t constitutes a representation of things and not, in Pla:o’s
terms, the things themselves. This distinction was challenged dunng
the Enlightenment, when, increasingly, truth and knowledge began to
have the same external referent; subjectivity was removed from the
realm of science and occupied, as did ethics, psychology, and philos-
ophy, a quasi-religious margin. .
mind us of what has been lost in the drive for rationalization, for the
supremacy of science over philosophy, history over eternal essences.
That is, a twentieth-century obsession, to both define and celebrate
history as an evolutionary mode of ideological and material progress
produced through the marriage of science and technology, has r~
sulted in a refusal to give primacy to the important and problematic
relationship of truth, power, and knowledge. From the point of view of
a conservative for whom the past is all that is worth preserving, the
consequences of Enlightenment ideology find their apogee in the bru
tality of the cultural revolutions of 1789 and 1968; but of course he for
gets to mention the response of traditional Sch?olmen to Galile~’s dis
coveries. The intellect, in this case, defends itself by threatening to
obliterate its adversaries.
into training institutions, which creates few spaces for intellectuals.
Within the ranks of the democratic professoriate, a debate often rages
between those who spurn the elitism that emanates from the new con
servative attack on affirmative action, open admissions, and student-
ing hal!-truths from Bloom’s critique of coI1tp11II1111,1t ) pn’1l’11•10111l,11y
education (for example, open admissions is dc trlmonl 11 lo q11,1llty odu
cation, affirmative action is unfairly discriminatory, and so forlh).
alism in American education is rampant, influencing even those whos(‘
intentions are actually opposed to closing the doors to genuine learn
ing. We know that the environment in most universities is inimical to
broadly .based, philosophically informed scholarship and dialogue
concerning burning questions of politics and culture. In a few places,
!ibe~al and radical intellectuals are building microinstitutions (centers,
institutes, programs) w ithin the universities as outposts that attempt to
resist the larger trends toward instrumentalized curricula. These pro
grams wisely accept that they are engaged in an intellectual as well as a
political project; but, for the most part, their influence is confined to
t he already initiated.
On the front lines, some teachers, buffeted and bewildered
con-
In doing so, they receive little or no sustenance from the intellectuals.
The challenge, in our view, is to combine the intellectual work of cul
tural reclamat ion with the work of pedagogy. This would entail a delib
erate effort to avoid the tendency toward exclusivity on the part of in
tellectuals; to refuse the temptation to reproduce the “community of
scholars” that is the heart of Bloom’s program, even if the scholars are
democratic intellectuals. The intellectuals who boldly announce that
the search for truth and the good life is not the exclusive property of
the right and, in fact, is largely opposed to the conservative sensibility,
would be required to engage with students – to start, not from the new
great texts, much less from the old great texts, but from the texts of the
vernacular experience: from popular culture, not only in its written
forms but in its visual artifacts as well. As Bertolt Brecht quipped, “Let’s
start not from the good o ld th ings but from the bad new things.”
But the task of reworking it might be expl icitly combined with current
concerns. For if tradition is to become part of a popular canon, it
would have to justify itself either by its claim to pertinence or as a so
ciological and historical trace of the culture against which the present
contends. In this connection, it is instructive to follow the fate of sci
entific texts. Except for h istorians, practicing physicists and their stu
dents rarely, if ever, read the works of Newton, Galileo, Kepler, and Co
pernicus. Similarly, Darwin is left to the scholars. Surely, one would not
want to construct a curriculum in wh ich this rich past was left to gather
11111 ,1h,1111l11111•d IIH• ·m1111 h lw ltulll , ..ind is intent on discovery. In
I ht• rolatlonship between literary tradition and h istory is the most
I 1• •111 y ford that “history is bunk,” we are obliged to take a historical
111•1spcctive o n the present and the future. That is to say, what we kn~w
111 (‘Onditioned by historical precedents, and our natural and social
world is constituted rather than merely given. For this reason, both
k1l()wlcdge and the truths of subjects themselves presuppose the ele
I11cnts o f their formation. The danger lies in taking the position that the
P”l !Scnt is absolutely determined by the past, in which case nothing
over really happens; events are reworkings of their antecedents. l n
•1 tcad, we propose that both disruption and continuity are characteris
l lc of the nature of things. “Disruption” is a name for the proposition
that things are constituted by interactions: constituted, in the first
place, by intersubjective relations, but also by the relations of what hu
mans produce in the present and the past, which appear as a part of
lhe “natural” o rder. To critique the reificat ion of the social as an un
problematic category does not dissolve everything into intersubjective
relations- including our own “nature,” since our relation to what is
taken as nature is part of human formation. This double relation has a
history that is, to a great extent, embodied in literature and philosophy,
and in folk narratives that are incorporated into popular cultural forms.
necessary even today because they continue to speak to our condition,
we must take into account the massive shift that has occurred in the
terms of the discourse: vernacular speech and popular language are
now deeply embedded in the collective imagination. Thus any effort to
displace this language must be perceived as an imposition from on
high, an effort by p rofessional intellectuals to destroy or ignore what
has happened in the last two hundred years. We do not want to argue
that none of the privileged texts of Western culture should be incorpo
rated into the curriculum. Nor are we defending anti-intellectualism,
even as we explain some of its democratic impulses. But the responsi
bil ity of intellectuals for the current state of affairs must be acknowl
edged before the tension between tradition and modernity or post-
the established order is their last bust hopt• tu .,,,v1• 1111 •1, ~1,1111•,, 111,1kc
proclamations about educatio nal reform, they nw•,t 11•111,1111 su:.potl.
For what Bloom means by reform is nothing less than J n t•Hort to mak<·
explicit what women, minorities, and working-class students have al
ways k~own: the precincts o f higher learning are not for them, and the
educational system is meant to train a new mandarin class. Their fate is
tied to technical knowledge. This is Bloom's program. In part, this be
co_mes clear not only in Bloom's complaint that "Harvard, Yale, and
Princeton are not what they used to be- the last resorts of aristocratic
sentiment within the democracy" (89), b ut also in his attack on ethnic
ity and subordinate cultures. According to Bloom,
preserve their culture, one cannot help wondering whether this
artificial notion can really take the place of the God and
country for which they once would have been willing to die.
The “new ethnicity” or “roots” is just another manifestation of
the concern with particularity, evidence not only of the real
problems of community in modern mass societies but also of
the superficiality of the response to it, as well as the lack of
awareness of the fundamental conflict between liberal society
and culture.. . . The “ethnic” differences we see in the United
States are but decaying reminiscences of old differences that
caused our ancestors to kill one another. (192- 93)
struct his v iew of university life, Martha Nussbaum provides an illumi
nating insight into Bloom’s treatment of students who do not inhabit
the world of elite universities, particularly subordinate groups who
make up the black, ethnic, and white working class.
successful enough to go to a small number of el ite universities
and to pursue their studies there without the distraction of
holding a job are equated with those having “the greatest
talents” and the “more complex” natures. They are said to be
the pe?ple,,who are “most likely to take advantage of a liberal
education, and to be the ones who “most need education.” Jt
would seem that th~ disadvantaged, as Bloom imagines them,
also have comparatively smaller talents, simpler natures, and
fewer n_eeds. B~t Bloom never argues that they do. He simply
h~s no inte~est 1n _the students whom he does not regard as the
elite-an elite defined, he makes plain, by wealth and good
\1,11111• ~
111•101 11hl f\ tlw Sl!rvant o f technical knowledge and thereby losing its
1 1,,1111 lo w isdom. But whereas Bloom wants to reconstruct the category
111 1111th thro ugh an unproblematic, quasi-essentialist, and elitist read-
11111 ol history, we believe that recovering a notion of truth grounded in
,1 c rl t lrnl reading of history that validates and reclaims democratic pub
lic llfl’ Is fundamental to the project of educational reform. Conscious-
111•~s must take itself as i ts object, recognize t hat the process of forging
1111 Identity should be tied not to representations of what shou ld be the
K<>tt ls lo which students should aspire, but to w hat students themselves
w.int , what they think and feel, and – most important- what they al
rnady know. The assumption that a student is a tabula rasa upon which
the teacher, armed with the wisdom of ages, places an imprint, is the
basis of the widespread d istrust of education among today’s students.
rhe elite professoriate is recruited from that tiny minority of every gen
eration for w hom the life of the mind represents the pinnacle of life.
Such ideals are by no means shared by the preponderance of profes-
We are arguing for the parity of canonical text and popular text as
nated as popular novels (the works of Dickens, Dostoevsky, and Rabe
lais are just a few examples) . Their narratives were inevitably drawn
from the everyday l ives of their readers, as well as from the lives of
those who had not yet gained their own voices, either in the public
sphere or in literatu re . The novelist , argues Mikhail Bakhtin, creates a
narration worthy of canonization when a multipl icity of voices, analo
gous to a polyphonic musical work, are placed in dialogic relation to
one another.6 Among these, one can discover the popular, if by that
term we mean those excluded from literate culture; this self-d iscovery
of the voices of the popular was a basic feature of the early bourgeois
epoch. In this example, we read literature as a social semiotic, as a
string of signifiers that illuminate our past, that reveal ourselves, that
provide us with a heritage for our own times. But the rediscovery of the
popular is not the only treasure that can be scrounged from the estab
lished canon. We may d iscover in Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary,
in Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, and in Theodore Dreiser’s Chroni
cles of American Plunder-descriptions of the human sacrifices that
were made for the sake of progress at the turn of the century-the
modern tragedies and comic narratives that are the dark side of
literatu re as social knowledge, but the knowlcclgl’ IN 11ut 111,111 ohjt•t I
it is a part of the truth about ourselves.
Bloom’s work . Bloom directs his attack against a number of institu
tions, social practices, and ideologies that challenge the dominant as
sumptions of contemporary social life. As we have mentioned, his tar
gets include cultural relativism, higher education, popular culture,
Nietzsche, the left, feminism, rock music, and the social movements of
the 1960s. Hirsch’s focus is narrower; he argues for a view of cultural
literacy that serves both as a critique of many existing theories of edu
cation and as a referent for a reconstructed vision of American public
schooling. Whereas Bloom attacks the notion of cu lture as a referent
for self- and social formation, Hirsch attempts to enlist the language of
culture and the culture of literacy as bases for rethinking the American
past and reconstructing the discourse of public l ife. But the differences
that characterize these two positions are minor compared to the ideo
logical and political project that they have in common.7 In the most
general sense, Hirsch and Bloom represent different versions of the
same ideology, one that is deeply committed to cleansing democracy
of its critical and emancipatory possibilities.
rewriting the past from the perspective of the privileged and the pow
erful. In this view, history becomes a vehicle for endorsing a form of
textual and cultural authority that legitimates an unproblematic rela
tionship between knowledge and truth. Both disdain the democratic
implications of pluralism, and each argues for a form of cu ltural unifor
mity in which difference is consigned to the margins of both history
and everyday life. From this perspective, culture, along with the au
thority it sanctions, is not a ter rain of struggle: it is merely an artifact, a
1,1111111111 l11lu1111,1tlrn1 thut 11.,~ ~I11,ply to ht: transmitted as a means for
1•11111111tlt1H 1,0<1111 rndc, ,,nd u>11trol. Learning, for both Hirsch and
1111111111, lwi llltlt• to do w ith dialogue and struggle over the meanings
,111cl pt ,It tln•s o f a historical tradition. On the contrary, learning is de
flt1l’d prlmorl ly thro ugh a pedagogy of transmission, and knowledge is
1nd11tNI to a culture of great books or unrelated catalogues of shared
lt1lormation. As we indicated earlier, their positions are both part of the
111of-tt recen t effort by the aristocratic t radit ionalists to restore knowl
rn li,w .1s a particu lar form of social authority, pedagogy, and discipline
111 tlw classroom in order to replace democratic educational authority.
I ,1ch position espouses a view of culture removed from the trappings
ol power, conflict, and struggle, and in doing so, each attempts to le
glt’lmate a view of learning and literacy that not only marginalizes the
voices, languages, and cultures of subordinate groups but also de
grades teaching and learning to the practice of implementation and
mastery. Both of these discourses are profoundly antiutopian, and cor
respond w ith a more general vision of domination and control as it has
been developed during the Reagan era. Specifically, Bloom and Hirsch
represent the most popular expression of the resurgent attempt on the
part of right-wing intellectuals and ru ling groups to undermine the ba
sis of democratic public life as we have known it over the last two de
cades. In what follows, we analyze in greater detail some of these as
sumptions through an analysis of the major themes presented in
Hirsch’s version of the conservative educational credo.
school ing by way of a discourse that has gained public attention within
the last ten years. In the manner of conservatives such as William Ben
nett, Diane Ravitch, Chester Finn Jr., and Nat han Glazer, Hirsch begins
with the assumption that a state of crisis exists in the United States that
reflects not only the demise of public schooling but also the weakening
of a wider civic and public culture. Schools in this view are frontline
institutions that have reneged on their public responsibility to educate
students into the dominant t raditions of Western culture.
cies of social and cultural reproduct ion, conservatives such as Hirsch
defend this position rather than criticize it, and make it a measure for
defining both the quality of school life and that o f society at large. Im
pl icit in this position is the notion that schools represent a preparation
for and legit imation of particu lar forms of social life; they are cultural
institutions that name experience, and in doing so presuppose a vision
of the future. It is in these terms that Hirsch’s book becomes impor-
which knowledge, not merely skills, c:onstit ti lt>-. tlit• 111ml ll11po1 t,111 t
consider~lion, if public schooling is to fulfi ll ils impor,1!1vt• ,,s a trans
mitter of ..Civic and public culture. To Hirsch’s credit, he enters Lhe de
bate regarding public schooling by arguing for a particular relatio n
between tCulture and power on the one hand and literacy and learning
on the otV1er. In doing so, he not only provides an impor1·ant corrective
to the viEfV, that the curriculum in general and learning in particular
should be! organized around the developmental organ ization of learn
ing skills; fie also argues for a defin ition of l iteracy that embraces a
particular relationship between knowledge and power. Knowledge, in
this case, ,s not o:ily the basis for learning; it also enables entrance into
the social and economic possibilities that exist in the wider society.
These isst,Jes have been analyzed critically by a number of educational
traditionalists as key referents for challenging some of Hirsch’s major
assumptions. To pursue th is analysis we w ill examine Hirsch’s view of
the crisis 111 education, his reading of history and t radition, his con
struction ()f the relationship among culture, language, and power and
its contribt.ll ion to a view of literacy, and finally, the implications of Cul
tural Liter3cy for teachers and classroom pedagogy.
identifies the crisis in education through the general level of cultural
ignorance exh ibited in recent years by American students. In this view,
students lilt k the knowledge necessary to “thrive in the modern
world” (xiii). Relying heavily on the declining test scores of college
bound students, particu larly those of the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT)
and the NiJtionaf Assessment of Educational Progress, as well as on an
ecdotal evidence, Hirsch argues that there is indeed a literacy crisis in
the United States. For Hirsch, the SAT is essent ially a ” test of advanced
vocabulary/’ and as such is a “fa irly sensitive instrument for measuring
levels of literacy” (4) . In these assertions, the relationship between ig
norance ar1d learn ing, between knowledge and ideology, first becomes
evident in /1irsch’s book. At issue is a definition of literacy that is orga
nized within categories that favor knowledge as a shared body of infor
mation, and a definition of learning as the appropriation of this infor
mation. For’ Hirsch, the defin ing character o( this knowledge is that it
represents the unifying facts, values, and writings of Western culture.
In this insuince, the relationship between knowledge and power is le
gitimated tWough claims to a body of information that resides beyond
the sphere of historical conflict and the sh ifting terrain of ideological
struggle. AiJthority and meaning come together w ithin a view of his-
11111111 111 ,. 1111 1111′ p11•~1•11I ,11,cl the• luturt•, W hc1l you sec is what you get.
1I1 , ,. 111″ lht• dis< ow~1• of tllu t' litcs in histo ry that const itutes the fund
111 1 1llt111,1f ~11owlpcfgc tha1 defines literacy. Assured by his son_, who
t.111gllt lilMh ~<'hool Latin, Hirsch recognizes that students do 111 fact
I 1111w ,1111wthlng. Ignorance, for Hirsch, is not merely the ab~e_nce of
1t1lrn 1111111011. Al stake is what the students know. Literacy and 11f1teracy
,11 11 tlt•f11wd by the information students possess regarding the c~non
111 k11owlccJgc that constitutes, for Hirsch, the national -~ul~ure. Hirsch
1 l1,11,1ct,iri.1.es the crisis in literacy by the lack of fam iliarity students
huw with Western culture's canon, bequeathed by h istory as a series of
l,11 h - datcs of battles, authors of books, figures from Greek mythol
"IW, and the names of past presidents of the United State~. In effect,
tilt• crisis of l iteracy is defined primari ly as an epistemological and po
llllcal problem. In the first instance, students cannot _read and_write ade
quately un less they have the relevant background 1nf~r_mat1on, a par
licular body of shared information that expresses a privileged cultural
nurency with a high exchange value in the public sphere. In the sec
ond instance, students who lack the requisite historical and contem
·porary information that constitutes the canon of Western tradition will
not be able to function adequately in society. In Hirsch's terms, the
new ill iteracy is embodied in those expanding ranks of stud_ents w~o
are unable either to context ualize information or to communicate with
each other within the parameters of a wider national culture.
anecdote to signal the new illiteracy. He also attempts t~ analyze the
causes for its emergence in the last half of the twent1e_th century.
Hirsch begins by arguing that schools are solely responsible for the
current cultural blight plaguing contemporary youth . If students lack
the requisite historical and l iterary knowledge, it is becau:e b~th
schools of education and the public schools have been excessively in
fluenced by the theoretical legacies of the early progressive mov~ment
of the 1920s. Influenced by the t heories of John Dewey and the liberal
ideas embodied in the 1918 Cardinal Principles of Education, public
schooling is alleged to have historically shifted its. concern fro~ a
knowledge-based curriculum to one that has emphasize~ the pra_ct,cal
application of knowledge. The result has been, according to Hirsch,
the predominance in public schools of a curriculum dominated by con
cern for developmental psychology, student experienc~, and the _mas
tery of skills. Within this line of reasoning, progressive educational
theory and practice have undermined the intellectual content of the
also_intent on developing a programmatic d iscourse for constructing
curn~ulum reform. Hirsch’s message is relatively simple. He believes
that Smee literacy is in a decline caused by an overemphasis on process
at th~ expense of content, schools should begin to subordinate the
te_achrng o_f skills to what he calls common background knowledge. For
Hirsch, ~hrs common background knowledge consists of information
from mainstream culture represented in standard English. Its content is
drawn from what Hirsch calls the common culture, which in his terms
is marked by a history and contemporary usefulness that raises it above
issues of power, class, and discrimination. In Hirsch’s terms, this is “ev
erybody’s culture,” and the only real issue, as he sees it, is that we out
line its contents and begin to teach it in schools. For Hirsch, the na
!ional_la_nguage, which is at the center of his notion of literacy, is rooted
rn a c1v1c religion that forms the core of stabil ity in the culture itself.
“Culture” in these terms is used in a descriptive rather than an anthro
pological and political sense; it is the medium of conservation and
transmission. Its meaning is fixed in the past, and its essence is that it
provides the public with a common referent for communication and
exchange. It is the foundation upon which public life interacts with the
pa~t,.sustains the present, and locates itself in the fut ure. Psycholin
~u1st1c r~search and an unchallenged relationship among industrializa
t ion,_~at1o~alism, and historical progress provide the major referents
mobrlrzed ,_n the name of cultural literacy. The logic underlying Hirsch’s
argument Is that cultural literacy is the precondition for industrial
growth, and that with industrial growth comes the standardization of
~an~uag~; _culture, and learning. The equation is somewhat baffling in
rts_s1mpl1_c1ty, and H_irsch act~all~ devotes whole chapters to developing
thrs particular version of historical determinism. The outcome of his
Hegel ian rendering of history and literacy is a view of Western culture
that is both egalitarian and homogeneous.8 Hirsch dismisses the no
tion tha~ ~ulture has any determinate relation to the practices of power
and polit1~s, or that it i~ largely defined as a part of an ongoing struggle
t? n~me history, experience, knowledge, and the meaning of everyday
lrfe m one’s own terms. Culture for Hirsch is a network of information
shro~ded in innocence and goodwill. This is in part reflected in his
reading of the relationship between culture and what he describes as
nation building:
1111K”, 111,.,, 11111 d 111111 111, ,11111 lll’llorknl ltgends all apparently
11,1..111 11111,d’I to i l l’Hl n ,1 nrlturc upon which the life of the
lhlllon c:rn ,ost. (ID)
with tlw concept of democratic pluralism and political difference. In
l,tt t, where difference is introduced by Hirsch, as in reference to mul
tlc 1rlluralism or bilingualism, it appears to vacillate between the cate-
11rnfos o f a disrupting discourse and a threat to the vitality and strength
o f Iha Western cult ural tradition . Hirsch’s defense of a unified version
o f Western tradition ideologically marks his defin ition of cultural liter
,u y as more t han a simplistic call for a common language and canon of
•,hared information. Hirsch’s argument is that to be culturally literate is
1110 possess the basic information needed to thrive in the modern
world,” and that mastering the standard literate language will make us
“masters of communication, thereby enabling us to give and receive
complex information orally and in writing over time” (3) . This argu
ment is not merely a prescription for a particular form of literacy and
schooling. It is part of a hegemonic discourse that is symptomatic of
the crisis in history currently facing this nation, and is a threat to de
mocracy itself.
fense of h is notion of cu ltural literacy. In doing so we will not restrict
our analysis to the defining ideas that Hirsch develops, but w ill also ana
lyze the significant gaps in Hirsch’s view of _history, literacy, culture,
and schooling. We hope to show that Hirsch’s argument is more than a
popular and politically innocent treatise on educational reform, but
rather serves at best as a veiled apology for a highly dogmatic and re
actionary view of literacy and schooling. At worst, Hirsch’s model of
cultural literacy threatens the very democracy he claims to be preserv-
ing. ·
is the decline of student achievement as measured by the SAT and sim
ilar tests. Hirsch and other conservatives presume that t_he test scores
accurately measure academic proficiency, and that progress in educa
tional reform can be accurately inferred from an upturn in SAT scores.
In recent times this wisdom has been highly disputed. Not only is the
val idity of the SAT and other national measurement schemes being
questioned despite the alleged objectivity of such tests, but it is also
being strongly argued that the reliance on test scores as a measure of
ti 1111 111111111 111 11111(, I
to improving the quality of s~ho~I 11/ ,’ o ‘:KYI”” I hlffhl\ ii, 1111111•111,I
ical learning.9 c.
ture of the p roblems p bl” h sue sco res to ,ll h1fy✓c the ”-‘
theoretically impoverishued’::~ poo~l:ic~~rrent~y f~ce in t~is co_u_ntry Is
nores the wider com I . Y v,s,on ess. Th,s pos1t1on lg
fluence the way scho~l:x of social and
political forces that deeply in-
nence as a valid basis for knowl , en,a o_ stu ent expe
on racial, sexist, and class intedge, a~? s~h’?ol practices predicated
Nothing in Hirsch’s position speae:::ts h ,scnminate against students.
of high school students in inne – ·t o t e 50 to 80 percent dropout rate
cities l ike Chicago, schools wi;hc~~:~hools, or to the fact that i~ major
enrollment mana e to reta·n a 50 percent black and Hispanic
that cannot be accounted for or e g ,g t a number of problems
so-called aptitude tests. Hirsch’s r:~~ ~nderstood through an~lysis of
~echnical _rationalit~ i~t~i~ ~e;:it~~~r~:t~~d’~~o;~:
t::tt
reading and writing, have be:ne ;;ores, especially in the _areas of
form movement tied t . p a -~uch broader educational re-
around a variety of accountabi lity schemes As Li~~ Dearl~1ng
Hammond reports th I h . a ar mg-‘ e resu ts ave had very little to do w ·th .
reform and a great deal to d . h . 1 genuine
despair : o wit teacher d1sempowerment and
produ~tion of educatio n, policym~r~~a~da:orkers in the mass
education, to improve it by “teach f sou~ht to change
y sc emes that go by acronyms l ike MBO
budgeting sy t ) CB ‘ pe ormance-based
and MCT ( _s ems ‘ E (competency-based education)
teachers that in response to pol’ . h · · · w~ earned from
practices and outcomes they sp1~~eJ lte at tr:rescnbe teaching
subi·e t h ‘ ss ,me on untested
gear assignments to the format of st J cd~ssrJoms in order to
resort to lectures rather than classr an ar_ ize _test~; they
cover the prescribed behavioral b?On:1 d1sc~ss1on m order to
c-Ism that he suppo rts frame his own agenda for reform in a way that is
,11 odds with an ethical and substantive vision o f what schools might be
w ith respect to their potential for empowering both students and
teachers as active and critical citizens . Hirsch’s rel iance on narrow
models of psycholinguistic research forces him to use absolute catego
ries, that is, categories that appear to transcend historical, cultural, and
political contingencies. By ignoring a wide range of sociological, cul
tural, and historical research on schooling, Hirsch wrongly names the
nature of the crisis he attempts to address. He completely ignores
those theories of schooling that in recent years have illustrated how
completely ignores existing critical research that points to how work
ing-class and minority children are discriminated against through vari
ous approaches to reading;14 he exhibits no theoretical awareness of
how schools frequently silence or discriminate against students; and
he completely ignores the research that points out ways in which the
state and other social, economic, and political interests bear down on
and shape the daily practices of school organization and classroom
life.16 Consequently, Hirsch’s analysis and prescriptions are both sim
plistic and incorrect. The crisis in education is not about the back
ground information that young people allegedly lack, or the inability of
students to communicate in o rder to adapt more readily to the dictates
of the dominant culture. Rather, it is a crisis framed in the intersections
of c itizenship, historical consciousness, and inequality, one that speaks
to a breakdown at t he heart of democratic public life.
the research he selects to define the problem, but also in the factors he
points to as causes of the crisis in literacy and schooling. Among the
chief h istorical villains in Hirsch’s script are the progressive principles
embodied in the work of John Dewey. Hirsch holds Dewey respo nsib le
for promoting a formalism in which t he issues of experience and pro-
ations of educators to take critical thinking seriously, as opposed 10
learning the·virtues o f having students accumulate information for the
purpose of shoring up the status quo.
Dewey’s The Child and the Curriculum and The Schoof and Society
reveals a blatant re fusal to accept any division between content and
process or between knowledge and thinking. Rather than support this
bifurcation, Dewey argued that the attempt to impart information with
out the benefit of self-reflection and context generally resulted in
methods of teaching in which knowledge was cut off from its organic
connection to the student’s experiences and the wider society. Dewey
was not against facts, as Hirsch argues; he was against the mere collec
tion of facts both uninformed by a working hypothesis and unenlight
ened by critical reflection. He was against the categorization of knowl
edge into steri le and so-called finished forms. We are certainly not
suggesting that Hirsch’s misreading of Dewey represents an act of in
tellectual dishonesty; more probably, since Dewey’s views are so much
at odds with Hirsch’s theory of learning and schooling, it was easier for
him to misread Dewey than to engage his ideas direct ly on specific is
sues. For example, Hirsch’s claim that memorization is a noble method
o f learning, his refusal to situate schooling in broader historical, social,
and political contexts, and his belief that public culture is historically
defined through the progressive accumulation of info rmation repre
sent major ideas that Dewey spent a lifetime refuting as educationally
unsound and politically reactionary. But Hirsch refuses to argue with
Dewey on these issues; instead, he cavalierly attributes to Dewey a
series of one-dimensional ideas that Dewey never advocated. This is
not merely a distortion of Dewey’s work; it also represents a view of
history and causality t hat is, as we explain below, deeply flawed. More
over, Hirsch reproduces in this view of educational history and practice
a slightly different version of Bloom’s profoundly antidemocratic
tirade.
American education is a notion of history that is reductionist and the
oretically flawed. It is reductionist because i t assumes that ideas are t·he
determining factor in shaping history, somehow unfolding in linear
fashion from one generation to the next. There is no sense of how
these ideas are worked out and mediated through the ideological and
1111 , l11tt1Hh•H 111111, •111 111 , 11111111111111 ,111011, lt•chnology, langu_a~c con
flli 1, -.1111Hgh•-. 1>..iw,•1•11 clillt•rt•11t ‘>Oc.icll groups, and the sh1ftrn~ _pa-
1.11,wl”‘” ol -.1,,tl• pow1•1. 11,,.,ch\ history lacks any concrete poltt1_cal
,1111 1.,111 1,,1rdurl’lll !>, I1~ t:ausal relations are construed through a stnng
11111,cl hb torical context. While ideas are important i~ shaping history,
1I 11 ,y <.urnot be considered so powerful as to alter history beyond the
di •n-.lty of i ts material and social contexts. Ideas are not_so powerful
11!,,1 th<.iy exist , as Hirsch believes, in an autonomous real, independent
111 human activity. 17
lt1tt as a form of repression. It is history stripped of the d1scours~ of
power, injustice, and conflict. For instance, the struggle over_ curricu
lum in the United States emerged in the first half of the twentieth cen
lury amid an intense war of ideological positi_ons, each atte~pting to
, tamp its public philosophy and view of lea_rning on the ~umculum of
1hc public schools. As Herbert Kliebard points out, cumculu~ repre
•wnted a terrain of struggle among different groups over questions re
garding the purpose of schooling, how c~ildren _learn, whose kn~w~;
.pdge was to be legitimated, and what socia l relations would prevail..
1 he contend ing groups included social efficiency a_dvocates whose ~n
orities were based on the interests of corporate id eology, humantsts
who were advocates of the revered traditions of Western cultural heri
tage, developmentalists who wanted to reform ~he curric~lum a~o~nd
the scientific study of child development, and fi nally, social meltonsts
who wanted to shape the curriculum in the interests of social reform.
Kliebard not only provides a complex and dense history of the struggle
for control of the curriculum in the public schools, he also argues that
the most important force in shaping curriculum i~ the _u_nited States
came not from the progressives but from the social effrc1ency move
ment. Given the history of public schooling since the rise of the Cold
War and the launching of Sputnik, there can be little doubt that the ef
ficiency and accountability models for curriculum ~a_ve ca rried the d~y.
1t Is a museum of in
sacred goods designed to be received rather than interro~at_ed by stu
dents. We have stressed Hirsch’s view of history, because It influences
every category he relies upon to dev_elop his ~aj~r arguments. _w_e be
gan our criticism of his work by argu111g that his discourse on cr~s1~ and
cultural restoration missed the point. We want to return to this issue
and argue that the real crisis in American schooling can be better un-
rationality as a major ideological force in the 19201,; tlu• 1t1111w,l11g l rn
pingement of state policy on the shaping of school cur ti< 111,1 ; 1111 anti
communism of the 1950s; the increasing influence of industrial psy
chology in defining the purpose of schooling; the rise of individualism
and consumerism through the growth of the cultu re industry, in which
the logic of standard ization, repetit ion, and rationalization defines and
shapes the culture of consumption; the gendered nature of teaching
as manifested in the educational labor force and in the construction of
school admin istration and curriculum; the racism, sexism, and cfass
discrimination that have been reinforced through increasing use of
tracking and testing; and the failure of teachers to gain sufficient con
trol over the conditions of their labor. While this is not the place to dis
cuss these issues, they need to be included in any analysis of the prob
lems that public schools are now facing. Moreover, these issues point
to a much broader crisis in the schools and the wider society than
Hirsch is willing to recognize. 20 It is a crisis that has given rise to cyni
cism about the promise of democracy, to a vast and unequal distribu
tion of ideological and material resources both in the schools and in
the wider society, and to the repression of those aspects of our history
that carry the voices and social memories of groups who have been
marginalized in the struggle for democratic life.
lationship between culture and literacy that warrants close theoretical
scrutiny. For Hirsch, culture, which is the central structuring category
in h is approach to literacy and learning, appears as a mythic category
t hat exists beyond the realm of politics and struggle. It is systematically
reduced to a canon of information that constitutes not only a fund of
background knowledge but also a vehicle for social and economic
mobility:
and economic exchange in our democracy, and the only
avail~ble t ic~et to full citizenship. Getting one’s membership
card 1s not tied to class or race. Membership is automatic if one
learns that background information and the linguistic
conventions that are needed to read, write, and speak
effectively. (22)
that suggests that while it is possible to distinguish between main
stream and what he calls ethnic culture, the concept of culture itself
has nothing to do with struggle and power. Culture is seen as the to-
“”‘”” Ir.., II 1111 ,1 11 to p,11 tl1 lp,1h• In Its language and conventions.
11111 1.,1 11•gul.itlo11 Im,< rlbos it self in the language of culture. He makes
1111 ,1ltt1111pt to intorrogatc culture as the shared and lived principles of
11 11• characteristic of different groups and classes as these emerge
within unequal relations of power and struggle. Not unlike Bloom's po-
11l tlon1 Hirsch's view of culture expresses a single, durable history and
vision, one at odds with the notion of difference, and maintains an omi
nous ideological silence - an ideological amnesia of sorts-regard ing
the validity and importance of the experiences of women, b lacks, and
other groups excluded from the narrative of mainstream history and
r ulture. Thus there emerges no sense of culture as a field of struggle,
or as a domain of competing interests in which dominant and subordi
nate groups live out and make sense of their given circumstances and
conditions of life. This is an essentialist reading of culture. It deeply
underestimates the central feature of cultural relations in the twentieth
century. That is, by failing to acknowledge the multilayered relations
between cu lture and power, Hirsch ignores how the ideological and
structural weight of different cultural practices operates as a form of
cultural politics. In this case, he not only ignores how domination
works in the cultural sphere, he also refuses to acknowledge the dia
lectic of cultural struggle between different groups over competing or
ders of meaning, experience, and history.
of public schools. He provides little, if any, understanding of the forms
of struggle that take place in schools over different forms of knowledge
and social relations. This is best exemplified in the research on cultu re
and schooling that has emerged within the last twenty years both in the
United States and abroad. Theorists such as Pierre Bourdieu, Basil
Bernstein, Paulo Freire, Michael Apple, and others have investigated
the relationship between power and cu lture, arguing that the culture
transmitted by the school is related to the various cultures that make
up the wider society, in that it confirms and sustains the culture of
dominant groups while marginalizing and silencing the cultures of sub
o rdinate groups of students.21 This is evident in the way in which dif
ferent forms of l inguistic and cultural competency, whether they are
manifested in a specific way of talking, dressing, acting, thinking, or
presenting oneself, are accorded a privileged status in schools. For ex
ample, Ray Rist, Jean Anyan, and Hugh Mehan have demonstrated that
white middle-class linguist ic forms, modes of style, and values repre
sent honored forms of cultural capital and are accorded a greater ex-
meaning of success in public sd1ools.n S1ud1•111~ w t11, 1, •111 11111•111 , 111
tural forms that rely o n restricted linguistic cod(•~, wn1l-lt1H , 1,,.,:-. 01 op
positional modes of dress (long hair, earrings, bizarre pull1•111/, of cloth
ing), who downplay the ethos of individualism (and who may actwilly
share their work and t ime), who espouse a form of solidarity, or who
reject forms of academic knowledge that embody versions of history,
social science, and success that are at odds with their own cultural ex
periences and values, find themselves at a decided academic, social,
and ideological disadvantage in most schools.
and schooling would start with a definition of culture as a set of activ
ities by which different groups produce collective memories, knowl
edge, social relations, and values w ithin historically constituted rela
tions of power. Culture is about the productio n and legitimation of
particular ways of li fe, and schools often transmit a culture that is spe
cific to class, gender, and race. By depoliticizing the issue of culture,
Hirsch is unable to develop a view of either literacy o r pedagogy that
acknowledges the complex workings of power as they are produced
and mediated through the cultural processes that structure school life.
Thus Hirsch ends up with a view of l iteracy cleansed of its own com
plicity in furthering cultural practices and ideologies that reproduce
the worst dimensions of schooling.
clothesline-of-information approach to l iteracy that ignores its func
tion as a technology of social control, as a feature of cultural organiza
tion that reproduces rather than critically engages the dominant social
order. When the power of literacy is framed around a unifying logic
consistent with the imperatives of the dominant culture, those groups
outside the dominant tradition are often silenced because their voices
and experiences are not recognized as legitimate. Hirsch’s view of lit
eracy decontextualizes learners, both from the culture and mode of
literacy that give their voices meaning, and from that which is legiti
mated as knowledge in the name of the dominant version of literacy.
Literacy for Hirsch is treated as a universal discourse and process that
exists outside “the social and political relations, ideological practices,
and symbolic meaning structures in which it is embedded.” 23 Not only
is the notion of multiple literacies (the concept of cultural difference)
ignored in this formulation, but those who are considered “illiterate”
bear the burden of forms of moral and social regulation that often deny
their histories, voices, and sufferings. To argue for a recognition of the
dialectical quality of literacy-that is, its power either to limit or en-
1 ,~,… 11 ,1 1 d11,,ply pnllll• 111 1 ..•,11t•. It t111•,ms recognizing that there are
dllft•11111I vult 11<;
l,1111111,1111•.,, histo ries, and ways of viewing and expe~1-
‘”‘ 111111•11 Is ,\ necessary and important precond1t1on for extending the
pn’l•ilhllllltis of democratic life. June Jord~n has captured ~he impor
tiuu p of th is issue in her comments regarding the problems in a demo
t 1,111< state:
lturt·le, fly, curse, and sing, in all the common ~~er_ican n~mes,
all the undeniable and representative and part1c1patmg voices
of everybody here. We would not tolerate the language of the
powerful and, thereby, lose all respect for words, per se. We
would make our language conform to the truth of our many
selves and we would make our la~guage lead us into the
equality of power that a democratic state must represent.
should all be given equal weight. On the contrary, it_ is to argue that
their differences are to be weighed against the capacity they have for
enabling people to locate themselves in their own historie_s while si
multaneously establishing the conditions for them to fu~ct,on as pa~t
of a wider democratic culture. This represents a form of l iteracy that 1s
not merely epistemological but also deeply political and emine~tly
pedagogical. It is political because literacy r~presents a set of practices
that can provide the conditions through which peopl_e can be empo:v•
ered or disempowered. l t is pedagogical because literacy al~~ys in
a particular view of the world, and privilege, a specific rendering of
knowledge.25
the language and ideology of Hirsch and Bloom. The refusa_l to b~ l it
erate in their terms means that one has refused to appropriate either
the canon of the Great Books or the canon of information that charac
terizes the tradition of Western culture. In this view, refusal is not re
sistance o r criticism; it is judged as ignorance or failure. This view of
culture and l iteracy is also implicated in the theories of pedago?y put
forth by Bloom and Hirsch. Both subscribe to _a pedagogy_ t~at is pr_o
foundly reactionary and can be summed up tn the terms t ransmis
sion” and “imposition.” Both authors refuse to analyze how p~dago_gy,
as a deliberate and critical attempt to influence the ways in which
knowledge and identities are produced within and among particu lar
imagination in the service of human freedom. 1lw I al ◄ •l{111 l1•-. nl 11w,111
i ng that students bring to the classroom and that provld1• llwrn with ,I
basis for producing and interpreting knowledge are simply denied by
Bloom and Hirsch as viabl e categories of learning. Pedagogy, for both
Bloom and Hirsch, is an afterthought. It is something one does to im•
plement a preconstituted body of knowledge. The notion that peda
gogy represents a method or technique for transmitting information,
as well as an essential dynamic in the productio n and exchange of
knowledge, necessitates that educators attend to the categories of
meaning that students bring to the classroom as well as to the funda
mental question of why they should want to learn anything in the first
place. Th is is an especially important consideration for those students
in the public schools who know that the truth of their lives and expe
riences is omitted from the curriculum. A pedagogy that takes their
lives seriously would have to begin with a quest ion that June Jordan
has suggested such students constantly pose to teachers through their
absences and overt forms of school resistance: “lf you don’t know and
don’t care about who I am then why should I give a damn about what
you say you do know about.”26 To legitimate or address a question o f
this sort would constitute for Bloom and Hirsch not merely bad teach
ing, but a dangerous social practice.
p erspectives advanced by both Bloom and Hirsch reflect those of the
critic who fears the indeterminacy of the future and who, in an attempt
to escape the messy web of everyday life, purges the past of its cont ra
dictions, its paradoxes, and ultimately, of its injustices. Hirsch and
Bloom sidestep the disquieting, disrupting, interrupting problems of
sexism, racism, class exploitation, and other social issues that bear
down so heavily on the present. This is a form of textual authority and
discourse produced by pedagogues who are afraid of the future, who
are strangled by the past, and who refuse to address the complexity,
terror, and possibilities of the present. Most important, it is a public
philosophy informed by a crippl ing ethnocentri sm27 and a contempt
for the language and social relations fundamental to the ideals of a
democratic society. It is, in the end, a desperate move by thinkers who
would rather cli ng to a tradition forged by myth than work toward a
collective future built on democratic possibilities . There is no sense in
Bloom and Hirsch of a not io n of textual authority that recognizes the
need to engage in a living dialogue with diverse traditions that because
of their partiality and h istorical limits need to be reread and recreated
as part of an ongoing struggle for democratic public life. In the end,
d111 , ,,. t, Ith 111 t 111,.,11, 11111 p111vldl’:-. llw foundation for pedagogy in
with ti 1111• c111ullllnt1’I o! l11,11nl11g become possib le for the vast majority
, ,t cl lvrn ~t• pooplt•1, who llw In this society. What we are left with is the
phlln-.oplly nnd pedagogy of hegemonic intellectuals cloaked in the
11111111 11• o f academic enlightenment and literacy.
orRoporl on Humanities in Higher Education,” Chronide of Higher Education, Novem-
111,, 28, 1964, ’16—21; Diane Ravitch and Chester Finn, Jr., What Do Our 17-Year-Olds
l
IN as follows: Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind (New York: Simon &
Know (Boston: Houghton M ifflin, 1987).
In the Democratic State (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1985).
prising and ironic that when a reporter asked him if he had anticipated t he popular suc
cess of The Closing of the American Mind, he responded wi th, “Sometimes I can’t be
fleve it. , . . It’s like being declared Cary Grant, or a rock star. All this energy passing
through you.” Maybe Bloom has missed the contradiction here, but it appears that his
newfound energy undermines both his own critique of the affective value of popular cul
ture, and h is own need to interrogate the underlying d ichotomy he constructs between
pleasure and learning. He may be surprised to find that the terrain of pleasure may be
more complex and contradictory than he first imagined. See Henry A. Giroux and Roger
I. Simon, ” Popular Culture and Critical Pedagogy,” Cultural Studies 2 (1988), 294-320.
Bloom’s comment is taken from James Atlas, “Chicago’s Grumpy Guru: Best-Selling Pro
fessor Allan Bloom and the Chicago Intellectuals,” New York Times Magazine, January 3,
1988, 25.
ed., 11/uminations (New York: Schocken Books, 1963), 253-64.
vember 5, 1987,·22.
erson and M ichael Holquist (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1981).
underlying the d ifferences and commonalities that characterize the Bloom and Hirsch
books:
about th ings is more important than knowing things. Bloom, on the
other hand, lhinks that the only thing that can save us is a return to
really knowing and experiencing the great books, especially the great
works of political and social philosophy that follow in the t rain of Plato’s
Republic. Hirsch concerns himself w ith what every American student
should know, whereas Bloom is concerned only about a tiny el ite.
respects them, while Bloom will sec to It that iln (11111, 1,111 111 • d1’11t11•cl hy
actually knowing these classics. In this way, the masses wlll lu,
sufficiently educated to respect the superior knowledge o f tht•li l>t’tlc rs,
who have studied in a few major universities. Both Hirsch and Bloom
emphasize certain kinds of traditional learning, but it is important to
recognize that the attitude they take toward this learning is very
different. for Bloom nothing less than a prolonged, serious engagement
with the great books themselves can save the souls of our students. For
Hirsch, just knowing the names of the great books and authors w ill
suffice. Both Hirsch and Bloom share, however, a nostalgia for a not very
closely examined past in which things were better. (Robert Scho les,
“Three Views of Education: Nostalgia, History, and Voodoo,” College
English, 50 (1988], 323-24)
view of Western culture are analyzed and deconst ructed in James Clifford, The Predica
ment of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature and Art (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, ·t988) .
ETS: The Corporation That Makes Up Minds (Washington, D.C. : Ralph Nader, 1980);
David Owen, None of the Above: Behind the Myth of Scholastic Aptitude (Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1985); Peter Schrag, “What the Test Scores Really M ean,” The Nation,
October 4, 1986, 311-14; Peter Schrag, “Who Wants Good Teachers?” The Nation, Octo
ber 11, 1986, 332-45.
Coalition of Advocates for Students, Barriers to Excellence: Our Children at Risk (Boston:
Author, 1985).
Relations in Education (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986).
ers College Record, 87 (1985), 210.
cation (South Hadley, Mass.: Bergin & Garvey Press, 1985).
American Elementary Schools,” Reading Research Quarterly, 19 (1983), 68-85; Patrick
Shannon, “Reading Instruction and Social Class,” Language Arts, 62 (1985), 604–11; Ken
neth S. Goodman, “Basal Readers: A Call for Action,” Language Arts, 63 (1986), 358–63.
(1987), 157-74; Henry A. Giroux, Schooling and the Struggle for Public Life (Minneapolis;
University of M innesota Press, 1988).
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1985); Ira Katznelson and Margaret Weir, Schooling
for Ali: Class, Race, and the Decline of the Democratic Ideal (New York : Basic Books,
1985); Stanley Aronowitz and Henry A. Giroux, Education under Siege (South Hadley,
Mass.: Bergin & Garvey Press, 1985).
conception of h istorical causation, in w hich one speaks ” in historical claims w ithout
studying or interpreting any range of historical evidence or [presumes] the universality
, 1,1111 ••• “‘ , “‘•- •·•111• 111, , ll111 v1 y J 1,i.111 1 “A 1{11vl11w of the Closlny of the American
A//111/ l/11w IIIH/11•1 I i/111 ,11/,111 /1,111 l ,1//m/ Uomocmcy and Impoverished the Souls of To
,/ 11 , •.irn/1111 />i,” ,~rn /11ty II (Nov11111hor/Dcccmbor, 1907), 101. 1
\111~ l(1111tl11clH” & K(igan 1’,1ul, 191.16).
11 , Iii• 11 111 Rm lnlm a Legacy.” In this view, as Harvey J. Kaye has pointed out, history is not
, 111tvnyml .,~ a “sense of the conflicts between social and polit ical groups over ideas, val
‘””• 1111d social relations. Nor does it posit the necessity of examining the distance be
two”n ‘Ideal’ and ‘experience’ in Western Civilization and world h istory.” In Harvey J.
~ ,1yo, ” I ho Use and Abuse of the Past: The New Right and the Crisis of History,” in Ralph
Mlllh,111d, Leo Panitch, and John Saville, eds., Socialist Register 1987 (London: Merlin
l’111s~, 1987), 354.
1111th In its social and economic possibil ities and a refusal to take seriously how a peda
lll’ISY might be constructed that is consistent with the aims of this particular form of lit-
111 ,1c-y. In the first instance, Hirsch argues that literacy is an essential preconditi~n for
1,llmlnating just about every social and economic evil that plagues contemporary indus
t, lal societies. In this view, l iteracy becomes an independent variable that operates as
,mt of a simple cause and effect relationship to produce particular outcomes. The issue 1
logical and social p ractice; more important, Hirsch presents an argument for literacy that
hoth ignores and mystifies the role that w ider cultural, historical, and social forces play
111 defining both the different forms of literacy and in supporting particular political and
(•Conomic inequities. Hirsch’s view of literacy is one that is si lent about the wider prob
lems and inequities that plague American society, problems that are rooted in configu
rations of power and structural relations that call into question not simply the dominant
forms of literacy but the political, economic, and social fabric of the society itself. This
issue is discussed in Harvey Graff, The Literacy Myth: Literacy and Social Structure in the
Nineteenth-Century City (New York: Academic Press, 1979); see also Colin Lankshear
with Moira Lawler, Literacy, Schooling and Revolution (New York: Falmer Press, 1987).
But Hirsch does more than mystify the nature and effects of l iteracy, he also completely
ignores the issue of what makes students want to learn, to be interested, or to listen to
pedagogues such as himself. As we point out in the latter section of this essay, pedagogy
for Hirsch is an unproblematic and uncritical construct, a technique to be employed after
one has decided on the content to be taught. Given the wide gap between what Hirsch
expects from his view of literacy and the simplistic and reactionary view of pedagogy he
employs, it is not surprising that he ends up with what Scholes has called “voodoo edu
cation.” (See Scholes, “Three Views of Education,” 327.)
tion .
beling Theory,” in J. Karabel and A. H. Halsey, eds., Power and Ideology (New York: Ox
ford University Press, ·1977); Jean Anyon, “Social Class and the Hidden Curriculum of
Work,” in Henry A. Giroux, Anthony Penna, and William Pinar, eds., Curriculum and In
struction (Berkeley: Mccutchan, 1981); Hugh Mehan, Learning Lessons (Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1979).
ofSociology of Education, 8 (1987), 158.
A uthor(s): W illiam F. P inar and C. A. Bowers
Source: R ev iew o f Research in Education, Vol. 18 (1992), pp.
Published by: A m erican Educational Research Association
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Significance of Critical Perspectives
Louisiana State University
University of Oregon
educational process to support social reform could be said to exhibit a
“ critical perspective.” John Dewey (1916), George Counts (1932), and
Harold Rugg (1929-1932), as well as recent conservative critics such as
Alan Bloom and William J. Bennett, have argued for educational reforms
that presumably would foster students’ capacity to think in more critical
and informed ways about the issues of the day. While progressives, social
reconstructionists, and conservatives would understand the social goals
and consequences of such critical thinking from quite different ideological
points of view, all could be said to advocate “ critical perspectives.” (In
deed, President Bush, in his January 1991 State of the Union address,
used the term empowerment, long a favorite of left-wing theorists in edu
cation.) In the field of education, particularly in the field of curriculum,
the concept of “ critical perspectives” has been appropriated by a group
whose intellectual roots can be traced, variously, to the Frankfurt School
of Critical Theory and to Marxist and neo-Marxist theoreticians as varied
as Antonio Gramsci, Raymond Williams, and, in education proper, Paulo
Freire.
tified its agenda with the concept of “ critical pedagogy,” and the most
visible of its spokesmen include Henry Giroux, Peter M cLaren, and Ira
Shor (1987a). Another group is more allied with concepts of critical schol
arship and the politics of curriculum, the most visible being Michael W.
Apple and his many students. Philip Wexler may represent the vanguard
of a third group that both condemns the work of the first two and suggests
the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Boston, April 1990.
monious— to understand curriculum as a political text represents the larg
est body of contemporary scholarship in the field. Especially due to the
efforts of Michael W. Apple and Henry A. Giroux, political scholarship
functioned to reconceptualize the curriculum field from its moribund,
atheoretical state Schwab decried in 1970 to its dynamic and complex
configuration today.
on its conceptual development (i.e., reproduction and resistance theory).
In the second section, controversies both within this discourse and from
outside will be reviewed. In a third section, we shall conclude with a
discussion of our concerns with this body of work.
Reproduction Theory
involved the concept of reproduction or correspondence. In their widely
read Schooling in Capitalist America, Bowles and Gintis (1976) regarded
schools as functioning in the stratum of superstructure, a stratum deter
mined by society’s economic base. Strike (1989, p. 26) portrays this re
lationship as follows:
ments in the base are used to account for elements in the superstructure
(Strike, 1989, p. 26). In classic Marxian terms, the base determines the
superstructure. Bowles and Gintis argued that schools prepare students
to enter the current economic system via a correspondence between
school structure and the structure of production.
to the discipline of the workplace but develops the types of personal
demeanor, modes of self-presentation, self-image, and social class iden
tifications that are the crucial ingredients of job adequacy. Specifically,
istrators and teachers, teachers and students, students and students, and
students and their work— replicate the hierarchical divisions of labor.
Hierarchical relations are reflected in the vertical authority lines from
administrators to teachers to students. Alienated labor is reflected in the
student’s lack of control over his or her education, the alienation of the
student from the curriculum content, and the motivation of school work
through a system of grades and other external rewards rather than the
student’s integration with the process (learning) or the outcome (knowl
edge) of the educational “ production process” (Bowles & Gintis, 1976,
p. 131).
(1981a) argued that schools functioned to reproduce the class structure
of the workplace (Liston, 1986). Although originating outside the curric
ulum field, the principle of correspondence was an important first step in
understanding curriculum as a political text.
curriculum scholars to advance their argument. Louis A lthusser’s (1971)
understanding of ideology provided another major concept in curriculum
scholarship. M cLaren (1989) explains:
viewing the world, a complex of ideas, various types of social practices, rituals and rep
resentations that we tend to accept as natural and as common sense. It is the result of the
intersection of meaning and power in the social world. Customs, rituals, beliefs and values
often produce within individuals distorted conceptions of their place in the sociocultural
order and thereby serve to reconcile them to that place and to disguise the inequitable
relations of power and privilege; this is sometimes referred to as “ ideological hegemony.”
(p. 176)
sociology of education and curriculum. Rejecting what some character
ized as more “ vulgar” interpretations of the base/superstructure rela
tionships in Marxian theory, Althusser argued that the relation of the
economic base to the institutions of society cannot be reduced to any
linear cause/effect determinism (Giroux, 1983a, p. 79). Institutions were
termed “ ideological state apparatuses” by Althusser (1971), who claimed
that institutions functioned to subjugate the working class. Giroux (1983a)
interpreted the Althusserian conception of ideology for curricularists:
structure the day-to-day workings of schools. . . . Second, ideology neither produces con
sciousness nor a willing passive compliance. Instead it functions as a system of represen
tations, carrying meanings and ideas that structure the unconsciousness of students, (p. 81)
as political text. Curriculum itself became conceptualized as an ideolog
ical mystification (Apple, 1990a; Giroux, 1981a, 1981b, 1981c). Both
Apple and Giroux described how the content and form of the curriculum
were ideological in nature (Apple, 1990a; Giroux, 1981c). Generally, the
ideas and culture associated with the dominant class were argued to be
the ideas and content of schooling. Dominant culture was described as
those “ social practices and representations that affirm the central values,
interests, and concerns of the social class in control of the material and
symbolic wealth of society” (McLaren, 1989, p. 172).
respondence) was being criticized by many of the same scholars who had
embraced it in the 1970s. Now reproduction theory was characterized as
deterministic and simplistic (Giroux, cited in Olson, 1981), as lacking a
cultural analysis (Apple, 1979, 1980), as lacking an adequate theory of
agency (Strike, 1989), and as basically mechanistic (Giroux, 1983a). In
an essay titled “ Contradiction and Reproduction in Educational T heory,”
Bowles and Gintis (1980) themselves criticized their earlier work:
link between education and the economy and by its character as an inherently harmonious
link between the two, the correspondence principle forced us to adopt a narrow and in
adequate appreciation of the contradictions involved in the articulation of the educational
system within the social totality, (p. 53)
essential aspects of reproduction. As Liston notes (1986), they specify
notions of sites and practices as crucial in understanding reproduction.
They suggest that society be regarded as “ an ensemble of structurally
articulated sites of social practice,” the primary three of which are state,
family, and school (Bowles & Gintis, 1980, p. 55). Social practices rep
resent “ fundamental and irreducible elements of social dynamics”
(Bowles & Gintis, 1980, p. 56).
which is social transformation. The first is the appropriative, the goal of
which is the creation of useful projects. The second is the political, the
goal of which is the transformation of social relations. The third is termed
the cultural, which is said to transform the tools of discourse. The fourth
is the distributive, which functions to alter the distribution of power and
income (Bowles & Gintis, 1980; see also Liston, 1988). Sites and practices
“ add up” to what Bowles and Gintis term a “ contradictory totality”
(Bowles & Gintis, 1980, p. 56).
that have distinct consequences: reproductive and “ contradictory” (and
that their earlier work (1976) failed to account for this fundamentally con
tradictory character of social relations. Schools are said to exhibit these
contradictory tendencies. The stage is set for “ resistance theory .”
used to establish the view of education as a site for reproduction” (1987,
p. 40). Among those associated with the Frankfurt School are Theodor
Adorno, W alter Benjamin, Jurgen Habermas, Max Horkheimer, and H er
bert Marcuse, all of whom are cited by politically oriented curriculum
scholars, especially by Giroux and Wexler. What was the intent of the
Frankfurt School? Broadly speaking, the Frankfurt School departed from
the major Marxisms of the 1930s, namely Stalinist Marxism. Frankfurt
School scholars deemphasized the economic foundations of Marxism and
its theory of the historical inevitability of class conflict, including the close
identification of the Communist Party with the “ dictatorship of the pro
letariat.” Frankfurt School scholars tended to emphasize culture rather
than economics— culture in its anthropological as well as aesthetic sense.
They might be said to typify the “ early M arx” rather than the scientism
characteristic of the “ late M arx” (Miller, 1979). More specifically,
social consciousness able to penetrate existing ideology, sustain independent judgment and
be capable, as Adorno put it, of maintaining its freedom to think that things might be different.
(Held, 1980, p. 38)
derstanding curriculum as a political text (i.e., as expressing a political
meaning):
from the work of the Frankfurt School and the more recent literature on the hidden curric
ulum. Whereas the Frankfurt School provides a discourse and mode of critique for deepening
our understanding of the nature and the function of schooling, critiques of the hidden cur
riculum have provided modes of analysis that uncover the ideologies and interests embedded
in the message systems, codes and routines that characterize daily classroom life. (p. 72)
another important conceptual tool for politically oriented curriculum
scholars. The concept refers to those unintended but quite real outcomes
and features of the schooling process (Apple, 1975, 1990a; Giroux & Pur-
pel, 1983; M cLaren, 1989). The hidden curriculum is to be distinguished
from the “ overt” curriculum, or the planned curriculum, including ob
jectives. M cLaren (1989) defines the concept:
constructed, outside the usual course materials and formally scheduled lessons. It is part
students are induced to comply with the dominant ideologies and social practices related to
authority, behavior and morality, (pp. 183-184)
the 1970s, defined the hidden curriculum in a way that pointed to the
concept of hegemony, another important conceptual tool for politically
oriented curriculum scholars.
conflict and its uses. It posits a network of assumptions that, when internalized by students,
establishes the boundaries of legitimacy. This process is accomplished not so much by
explicit instances showing the negative value of conflict, but by nearly the total absence of
instances showing the importance of intellectual and normative conflict in subject areas.
The fact is that these assumptions are obligatory for the students, since at no time are the
assumptions articulated or questioned. (Apple, 1975, p. 99)
became taken-for-granted curriculum knowledge, widely cited by those
who insisted that the curriculum functioned to maintain social stratifi
cation as well as other stratifications, especially those of class, race, and
gender (Apple, 1982b, 1990a; Aronowitz & Giroux, 1985; Beyer & Apple,
1988; Giroux, 1981a, 1983a, 1988b; Giroux, Penna, & Pinar, 1981; Giroux
& Purpel, 1983; Oakes, 1985; Shapiro, 1981, 1983a; Sharp, 1980; Shor,
1986; Weis, 1988).
litical text was hegemony, borrowed from the Italian Marxist Antonio
Gramsci (1971/1972), who borrowed the term from Marx and Engels
(1974). Gramsci emphasized “ the role of the superstructure in perpetu
ating class and preventing the development of class consciousness” (Car-
noy, cited in Apple, 1982a, p. 86). He employed hegemony in two senses.
First, hegemony referred to a process of domination whereby the ruling
class is said to exercise political control through its intellectual and moral
leadership over allied classes (Gramsci, 1985). (This is the sense in which
Marx and Engels used the term.) Second, hegemony referred as well to
the use of force and ideology in the reproduction of class relations (Aron
owitz & Giroux, 1985, p. 88). Thus, hegemony is understood to occur via
the use of force and via the shaping of human consciousness.
basic “ base/superstructure” model of reproduction that had been ac
cepted during the 1970s. Relying on Raymond Williams (1976), Apple
declared that the concept of hegemony captures the complexity of pro
cesses of “ saturation.” In particular, Apple draws upon Williams’s con
cept of “ selective tradition” to point to the ways in which curriculum
(Williams, cited in Apple, 1990a, pp. 5-6). Other politically oriented schol
ars rely on this concept in their analysis of cultural reproduction (Apple,
1982b, 1986, 1990a; Giroux, 1980, 1981a, 1983a, 1988b; M cLaren, 1989;
Sharp, 1980).
duction risks a “ discourse of despair.” If reproduction occurred as in
contestably as Bowles and Gintis and the critical scholars of the 1970s
insisted that it did, there was little hope for significant change aside from
alterations in the economic base. The concept of ideology portrayed
teachers and students as accomplices in the reproduction of the ruling
class. Hegemony seemed to suggest that no escape was possible, as con
sciousness itself was saturated, “ forged into the cognitive chains which
bind the minds of the working class” (Strike, 1989, p. 137). In a word,
reproduction theory lacked a concept of agency. Almost overnight, re
production theory would give way to resistance theory.
In his widely read Learning to Labour, Paul Willis (1981) introduced
duction theory. Willis observed that the working class boys he studied
resisted both the official and hidden curriculum of their English secondary
school. The roots of this resistance, he wrote, “ are in the shop-floor
cultures occupied by their family members and other members of their
class” (Giroux, 1983b, p. 283). Willis’s concept of resistance allowed
politically oriented scholars to view the process of reproduction as con
testable, thereby correcting the nondialecticism of the Bowles and Gintis
(1976) thesis.
ticularly during the period 1980-1984, many scholars discussed and de
veloped resistance in terms of curriculum (e.g., see Anyon, 1979, 1988;
Apple, cited in Olson, 1981; Apple, 1982a, 1982b; Apple & Weis, 1983;
Giroux, 1981a, 1983a, 1983b). Giroux cited resistance theory as important
insofar as it corrected the failure of both conservative and radical cur
riculum theory. Conservatives, he alleged, tended to view oppositional
behavior via psychological categories such as deviate, disruptive, and
inferior. Radical theorists had overemphasized economic and cultural de
terminants. Put differently, in radical curriculum theory there had been
an “ underemphasis on how human agency accommodates, mediates and
resists the logic of capital and its dominating social practices,” including
school curriculum and instruction (Giroux, 1983b, p. 282). As noted
above, Giroux characterized the reproduction theory of the 1970s as a
human thought and enlightened action.
Schooling (1981a), Stanley Aronowitz advocated resistance as a positive
step for radical educators. Radical educators should begin to concentrate
on the “ cracks and disjunctions created by oppositional forces” (Aron
owitz, cited in Giroux, 1981a, p. 31). Doing so would permit the contes
tation of power in the schools. Giroux asserted that struggles can be waged
over administrative and curricular issues. Reproduction failed to inspire
struggle; it was, in G iroux’s words, a “ myth of total domination” (Giroux,
1981a, p. 99).
1981, illustrated the rapid shift from reproduction to resistance theory. A
collection of papers from a conference held at the Ontario Institute for
Studies in Education in Toronto, the issue was titled “ Rethinking Social
Reproduction.” In his introduction, Olson (1981) noted that “ social con
structivists” wished to integrate knowledge of hegemony with strategies
design to counter it. In his essay titled “ Reproduction, Contestation, and
Curriculum: An Essay in Self-Criticism,” Michael Apple notes that his
previous work lacked analysis that “ focused on contradictions, conflicts,
mediations and especially resistance— as well as reproduction” (Apple,
1981, p. 35). He cautions his audience, however, that it is not enough to
conduct research into resistance; one must actually resist, in practice.
Reform,” the outline of his scholarly agenda for the decade is evident.
Discussing the assets and liabilities of reproduction theory, he praises
resistance theories, which “ perform a theoretical service” (Giroux,
1981b, p. 13). These theories demand analyses of those social practices
that constitute the class-based experiences of day-to-day existence in
schools. He calls for the development of a notion of radical pedagogy
based on the pioneering work of Paulo Freire (1970/1971). “ At the core
of radical pedagogy,” Giroux insists, “ must be the aim of empowering
people to work for change in the social, political, and economic structure
that constitutes the ultimate source of class-based power and domination
(Giroux, 1981b, p. 24). (Curiously, the concept of empowerment— used
by relatively few radical curriculum theorists in 1981— would become
educational cliche by the 1990s.) For Giroux, however, resistance theory
quickly becomes a transitional concept to pedagogy.
production and resistance. In his introduction to Cultural and Economic
Reproduction in Education , Apple distinguishes between two forms of
reproduction theory, that which focuses on economic or macrostructural
issues and that which concentrates on cultural or microstructural matters.
Acknowledging difficulties with “ pure” reproduction theory, Apple sug
gests that resistance and reproduction theory are intertwined, that studies
inspired by this synthetical view would point to struggles in specific
places. He alludes to issues of race, class, and gender, foreshadowing his
own scholarly agenda for the decade.
Control,” Apple (1982a) outlines the pervasiveness of resistance. He al
ludes to developments such as the so-called poststructuralism, which he
depicts favorably, an attitude toward that work that would change. Con
cluding the essay is a discussion of resistances, especially those curricular
sites of resistance. Despite increasing state control, Apple declares, there
are moments of individual resistance. Teachers’ resistance is said to be
never “ far from the surface” (Apple, 1982a, p. 269). The question be
comes, What is the status of these resistances? Are they, in fact, coun-
terhegemonic? Or do they function to reproduce the status quo? Willis
notes, for instance, that the resistance of his “ lads” functioned repro
duce vely: Their resistance to mental labor functioned to reproduce their
entrapment in the working class.
theory and, in particular, the possible reproductive consequences of re
sistance. Apple worries that even the terrain of resistance can be viewed
as determined by the interests of capital, not by those resisting (Apple,
1982b). Despite resistance, Apple concludes, reproduction proceeds. In
fact, he continues, reproduction will continue “ as long as the penetrations
into the nature of work and control generated by working-class youths
and their parents are unorganized and unpoliticized” (Apple, 1982b, p.
108). Only a few years after its introduction, then, resistance itself seemed
to be in danger of being swallowed by reproduction.
appeared in 1983: Henry A. Giroux’s Theory and Resistance in Education:
A Pedagogy for the Opposition and Michael W. Apple and Lois W eis’s
Ideology and Practice in Schooling. In both books, one discerns move
ments away from resistance theory. For Giroux, resistance points to pos
sibilities of oppositional pedagogy (1983a). He calls for a reformulation
of the relations among ideology, culture, and hegemony, one that would
“ make clear the ways in which these categories can enhance our under
standing of resistance as well as how such concepts can form the theo
retical basis for a radical pedagogy that takes human agency seriously”
(Giroux, 1983a, p. 111).
duction theory, stating that “ hegemony is not and cannot be fully secure”
(p. 28). Their view that the cultural sphere is relatively autonomous leads
intervention in the schools. However, they caution that this action must
be a kind of praxis and that the connections between the schools and the
larger society must be made.
of curriculum, but after 1985 it seemed to be a point of departure rather
than arrival. For instance, Geoff Whitty calls for a movement away from
reproduction theory and academic critique generally to radical interven
tion. He warns against romanticizing the resistances of the working class,
even those that are reproductive. What is important now, he argues, is
the elaboration of intervention strategies.
of education are ultimately reproductive or transformative in their effects is essentially a
political question concerning how they are to be worked upon pedagogically and politically,
and how they become articulated with other struggles in and beyond the school. (Whitty,
1985, p. 90)
By 1985, scholarly efforts to understand curriculum politically had
of political and pedagogical practice. This shift away from resistance the
ory is evident, for example, in the work of Henry A. Giroux, which,
beginning in 1985, moved to questions of literacy, liberal arts, and trans
formative pedagogy. In his 1985 book Education Under Siege (coauthored
with Stanley Aronowitz), Giroux discusses reproduction and resistance
insofar as they lead to radical action. In the field of curriculum, what is
necessary is a “ language of possibility” (Aronowitz & Giroux, 1985).
Educators must become transformative intellectuals rather than “ skillful
technicians” (Aronowitz & Giroux, 1985). What is now necessary is to
“ link emancipatory possibilities to critical forms of leadership by rethink
ing and restructuring the role of curriculum workers” (Aronowitz & Gi
roux, 1985, p. 142).
articles (1985a, 1985b, 1987, 1988c, 1989), emphasizing always the im
portance of transformative struggle, both in school and in society gen
erally. His most recent books, Schooling and the Struggle for Public Life:
Critical Pedagogy in the Modern Age (1988a), Teachers as Intellectuals:
Toward a Critical Pedagogy o f Learning (1988b), and Critical Pedagogy ,
the State and Cultural Struggle (1989, coauthored with Peter McLaren),
emphasize critical or transformative pedagogy.
and early 1970s, reemerged as central to the effort to understand curric
o f Education (1985), A Pedagogy for Liberation: Dialogues on Trans
forming Education (Freire & Shor, 1987), and Freire for the Classroom:
A Sourcebook for Liberatory Teaching (Shor, 1987b), Freire elucidated
the significance of critical pedagogy. Among those Freire influenced was
George Wood, v hose interest in transformation (Wood, 1988) led to the
establishment of the Institute for Democracy in Education at Ohio Uni
versity. (By mid-decade Giroux had established the Center for Cultural
Studies at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.) Peter M cLaren’s Schooling
as a Ritual Performance (1986) makes Freirían suggestions to teachers
attempting to foster resistance in their own schools. In Life in Schools
(1989), M cLaren provides examples of critical educators, among whom
are John Dewey, Michael Apple, and Henry Giroux.
resistance to pedagogy and politics, especially as these are understood
in terms of race, class, and gender. Apple’s scholarship during this time
emphasizes political and pedagogical struggle (Apple, 1987a, 1987b, 1988;
Apple & Ladwig, 1989; Apple & Teitelbaum, 1986). In Teachers and
Texts: A Political Economy o f Class and Gender Relations in Education ,
Apple (1986) examines the textbook industry, particularly as it perpetu
ates the “ selective tradition.” He calls for political and pedagogical action
by critical scholars, teachers, students, and parents. Apple argues that
the effort to democratize the curriculum must be a collective one involving
interested parties in addition to educational professionals.
and to those teachers and curriculum workers who are now struggling so hard in very difficult
circumstances to defend from rightist attacks the gains that have been made in democratizing
education and to make certain that our schools and the curricular and teaching practices
within them are responsive in race, gender and class terms. After all, teaching is a two-way
street and academics can use some political education as well. (Apple, 1986, p. 204)
as a political text. In “ Race, Class and Gender in American Education:
Toward a Nonsynchronous Parallelist Position,” Cameron McCarthy and
Apple call for theoretical work that demonstrates how race, class, and
gender interconnect, and how economic, political, and cultural power
expresses itself in education (McCarthy & Apple, 1988). (A description
of scholarly efforts to understand curriculum as a racial text requires a
separate essay.) As well, they point to a shift in strategies for fundamental
change in curricular content, pedagogical practices, and social structures
(McCarthy & Apple, 1988). Landon Beyer and Apple’s “ The Curriculum:
Problems, Politics and Possibilities” (1988) concentrates on issues of po
litical and pedagogical agency. Fundamental to these issues is the concept
action, but thought and action combined and by a sense of power and
politics. It involves both conscious understanding of and action in schools
on solving our daily problem s” (Beyer & Apple, 1988, p. 4).
ideological conditions that cause the problems we are facing as educators
in the first place” (Beyer & Apple, 1988, p. 4). In “ The Politics of Pe
dagogy and the Building of Community” (1990b), Apple continues this
emphasis on collective and concrete action, narrating episodes from his
“ Friday Sem inar.” He reminds his students and himself that educational
politics are inseparable from national politics: “ I am constantly reminded
of how important it is that we participate in those larger struggles as well”
(Apple, 1990).
an exclusive focus on reproduction of the status quo to resistance to it,
then again to resistance/reproduction as a dialectical process, then
again— in the mid-1980s— to a focus on daily educational practice, es
pecially pedagogical and political issues of race, class, and gender. The
major players in this effort have continued to be Apple and Giroux—
Apple through his voluminous scholarship and that of his many students
(Schubert, Schubert, Herzog, Posner, & Kridel, 1988, pp. 173-174) and
Giroux through his prodigious scholarly production. Clearly, serious stu
dents of curriculum understand, as never before, the complexities and
significance of curriculum’s political dimensions.
without criticism, however. The “ sociology of curriculum” has been cri
tiqued from within its ranks as well as outside them. It is accurate to say
that this work was generally ignored by the mainstream field during the
1970s. As it became too important to be ignored, it became criticized.
A major critique appeared in 1988. In Capitalist Schools: Explanation
merous weaknesses in Marxian analysis of schooling. Specifically, Liston
criticizes the purposes and methods of explanation, justification, and em
pirical validation in radical scholarship. After analyzing the work of
Bowles and Gintis (1976, 1980), Giroux (1981a, 1983b), Apple and Weis
(1983), Apple (1980, 1982), and Wexler (cited in Barton, Meigham, &
Walker, 1980), Liston criticizes what he terms the “ facile functionalist”
assertions found throughout these works. The fundamental base/super
structure model is assumed, not explained. Additionally, there is no em
pirical evidence presented in these works to support the model. Liston
(1988) states: “ Marxist explanations of public schools, while critical of
ignore rigorous empirical assessments of these claims” (p. 101).
the effort to understand curriculum politically. He notes that 4‘freedom
was and still remains the central ethical standard” in radical thought (Lis
ton, 1988, p. 143). However, the major scholars seem to be unaware that
Marx himself viewed concepts of justice and equality as problematical.
Liston argues that “ Marx viewed (and a consistent Marxist tradition
would construe) justice as a deficient standard. Marx criticized capitalism
morally but his standard was freedom (not justice), a standard embedded
in the naturalist ethic” (Liston, 1988, p. 168). M arx’s primary concern
was freedom.
the status quo on notions of justice. “ Marxist educators claim that the
structure of the larger socioeconomic system is unjust and that the schools
contribute to the reproduction of the unjust system ” (Liston, 1988, p.
123). If Marxist criticism of the status quo cannot be based on a concept
of injustice, upon what can it be based? “ What is the basis of condem
nation? The basis exists, I believe, in M arx’s notion of freedom ” (Liston,
1988, p. 136). Liston asserts that those Marxists who currently employ
standards of justice in their arguments “ must at least recognize and ap
praise the merits of M arx’s own critique of these standards” (Liston, 1988,
p. 143). Furtherm ore, he advises radical scholars to “ revise the basis of
their critiques or argue against M arx’s position” (Liston, 1988, p. 143).
Liston makes clear that his critique is a “ friendly” one: “ Without en
hanced explanatory claims or moral justification it does not seem likely
the radical tradition will convince reasonable skeptics. I hope it does.
Without convincing these skeptics it will inevitably fail. I hope it does
not” (p. 174).
by one major theoretician. Peter M cLaren portrays Liston’s effort as
having resurrected “ an old and theoretically threadbare Marxian ortho
doxy” (M cLaren, 1990, p. 1). In his view, Liston’s call for empirical
validation represents a return to an epistemological position radical schol
ars long ago rejected, that is, a “ stance of objectivity and . . . the scientific
goal of T ruth” (M cLaren, 1990, p. 8). L iston’s logic is characterized as
“ reductionist” (M cLaren, 1990, p. 4). Recent debates regarding post
structuralism make it “ difficult to remain sympathetic to Liston’s pen
chant for causal mechanism and his reduction of ideology to flow charts
and empirically based formulae” (McLaren, 1990, p. 5). Furthermore,
M cLaren characterizes L iston’s treatment of G iroux’s scholarship as
“ monumental in its speciousness” (M cLaren, 1990, p. 7). Liston’s anal
ysis can be likened to “ what Sartre called ‘bad faith,’ a kind of ritualistic
eousness that is damaging to the books’ intent and purpose” (McLaren,
1990, p. 7).
Marxist scholars have abandoned Marx. More specifically, Bowers and
Strike regard radical scholars as moving away from Marxism toward lib
eralism. “ Marxism has been decisively rejected. It appears that no al
ternative hard core is on the horizon, unless it is some variety of liber
alism” (Strike, 1989, p. 166). Among those whose work Strike discusses
include Apple, Bowles and Gintis, Giroux, Willis, Levin and Carnoy,
McLaren, and Dale. Strike meticulously describes the movement of these
efforts to understand the curriculum as a political text, a movement that
increasingly exhibits “ idealist and indeed liberal term s” (Strike, 1989, p.
160). The emphasis on cultural autonomy characteristic of radical schol
arship after 1985 represents, for Strike, an “ abandonment of the core of
the Marxist program ” (Strike, 1989, p. 155). M arx’s labor to substitute
materialism for idealism has been forgotten, apparently, by those who
claim the heritage. The consequence is the absence of a coherent research
program. Strike (1989) concludes:
have lapsed into liberal construction is at least a piece of evidence that allows us to see
Marxism as a degenerative research program. It suggests that the problems generated by a
Marxist research program cannot be solved without abandoning the program’s central as
sumption. (p. 167)
tiques the work of Paulo Freire, upon which much of the transformative
or critical pedagogy literature rests. That work shares four basic as
sumptions with liberalism, according to Bowers: (a) Change is inherently
progressive; (b) the individual is the basic social unit “ within which we
locate the source of freedom and rationality” (Bowers, 1987, p. 2); (c)
human nature is basically good or at least changeable via environmental
manipulation; and (d) rationality is “ the real basis of authority for reg
ulating the affairs of everyday life” (Bowers, 1987, p. 2). Bowers argues
that Freire’s version of Marxism is more appropriately characterized “ as
a form of democratic humanism, an ideology which would be scorned as
a form of revisionist liberalism in those countries that rely upon a more
scientific Marxism as a basis of their social organization” (Bowers, p.
1987, p. 37).
curriculum is Philip Wexler, himself an “ insider” to debates regarding
base/superstructure, ideology, hegemony, and so forth (Wexler, 1976). In
Social Analysis o f Education: After the New Sociology (1987), Wexler
analysis is the linkage of academic work to social movements outside the
academy. He points out, for instance, that the “ new sociology” arose in
the aftermath of the radical student and civil rights movements of the
1960s. Wexler suggests that radical critics romanticized those movements.
Politically oriented scholarship amounted to “ a displaced imitation of it
[the student movements of the 1960s], an attempt culturally to recapitulate
the practical historical course of the movement, in theory ” (Wexler, 1987,
p. 26). Radical scholarship suggested a rediscovered but unfortunately
idealized interest in educational change (Wexler, 1987). However, such
change would occur within institutions and within professional roles.
Wexler (1987) states:
politics: it is part of a po5t-“ movement” effort to create a meaningful professionalism that
is consonant with the ideal of a defeated social movement, (p. 27)
professional advancement, which they mistake for political activitism (see
also Pinar, 1981b, p. 440). Their activism constitutes the “ cultural for
mation of an identifiable social group which is engaged in sociocultural
action on its own b e h a lf’ (p. 4). Consequently, “ left professional middle
class institutional intellectuals became a socially residual remnant, rather
than the institutional vanguard of an ascendant social class segment”
(Wexler, 1987, p. 123).
derstand curriculum politically— reproduction and resistance— repre
sented a “ combination of functionalist structuralism and romantic indi
vidualism” (Wexler, 1987, pp. 16, 42). In consequence, “ the new
sociology of education is historically backward-looking and ideologically
reactionary, although its ideals combine the values of the New Left and
traditional socialism” (Wexler, 1987, p. 127). The history of the effort to
understand curriculum as a political text can be located in the social path
of its producers (i.e., the so-called “ new sociologists” of curriculum).
That path leads from
tural capital; and then from idealized and socially displaced individual cultural resistance
to the dissonant bifurcation between idealized social mobilization and an unconscious politics
of internally exiled speech. (Wexler, 1987, p. 45)
liberal paradigm, but Wexler allows for the possibility of escape. Certain
strands of feminist thought and the so-called poststructuralism point to
Particularly, literary 4 ‘textualism ” is “ potentially transformative, . . .th e
starting point for a counter-practice” (Wexler, 1987, p. 180). Additionally,
poststructuralism might free political scholars from “ a socially inauthentic
identification with ‘the working class’ or with the triadic oppressed groups
of ‘class, race and gender’ ” (Wexler, 1987, p. 181). Reaction to this
claimed political potential of poststructuralism has begun to appear in
print (McCarthy, 1988, p. 8). A feminist critique of critical pedagogy ap
peared late in 1989 (Ellsworth, 1989). (Understanding curriculum as a
gender text intersects, of course, with understanding curriculum as a po
litical text. The former, because of its significance, requires reporting in
a separate essay, however.)
ference, Elizabeth Ellsworth’s (1989) ‘‘Why Doesn’t This Feel Empow
ering? Working Through the Repressive Myths of Critical Pedagogy”
critiques both the conceptual structure and daily practice of critical pe
dagogy. Critical pedagogy should not be confused, Ellsworth insists, with
feminist pedagogy, which ‘‘constitutes a separate body of literature with
its goals and assum ptions” (Ellsworth, 1989, p. 298). The key terms of
critical pedagogy— ‘‘em powerm ent,” ‘‘student voice,” ‘‘dialogue” —
represent ‘‘code w ords” and a ‘‘posture of invisibility” (p. 301). Relying
upon a decontextualized and universalistic conception of reason, critical
pedagogy leads to ‘‘repressive myths that perpetuate relations of domi
nation” (pp. 298, 304). Critical pedagogy, she continues, leaves the struc
ture of domination and authoritarianism in place. In Ellsworth’s (1989)
words, ‘‘[critical pedagogy] fails to challenge any identifiable social or
political position, institution or group” (p. 307). The ‘‘utopian goals” of
critical pedagogy are unattainable.
607 (C & I 607), Ellsworth (1989) conceives of her role as interrupting
institutionally imposed limits on ‘‘how much time and energy students
. . . could spend on elaborating their positions and playing them out to
the point where internal contradictions and effects on the positions of
other social groups could become evident and subject to self-analysis”
(p. 305).
(1989) views as enforcing rational deliberation (p. 305). Furthermore, she
alleges that critical pedagogy— here she quotes Freire, Shor, and Gi
roux— fails to question its own stance of superiority of teachers’ under
standing over students’ (p. 307). Ellsworth is skeptical of critical peda
gogy’s claim of ‘‘emancipatory authority,” judging that the goals for
which such authority is used remain ‘‘ahistorical and depoliticized” (p.
307). ‘‘Em powerm ent,” she insists, is defined so broadly that it fails to
resents critical educators’ inability to confront the paternalism of tradi
tional education (p. 307). Ellsworth goes on to criticize the concept of
“ student voice,” as it is discussed in the critical pedagogy literature,
relying on her experience in C & I 607 to suggest its flaws. From a gender
perspective, for instance, she notes: “ The desire by the mostly White,
middle-class men who write the literature on critical pedagogy to elicit
Tull expression’ of student voices . . . becomes voyeuristic when the
voice of the pedagogue himself goes unexamined” (p. 312). Concluding,
Ellsworth notes that as long as critical pedagogy fails to understand issues
of trust, risk, fear, and desire, especially as these are expressed through
issues of identity and politics in the classroom, its “ rationalistic tools will
continue to fail to loosen deep-seated, self-interested investments in un
just relations of, for example, gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation”
(pp. 313, 314). After critiquing critical pedagogy’s ahistorical use of “ dia
logue” and “ dem ocracy,” Ellsworth suggests a “ pedagogy of the un
knowable” (p. 318), in which knowledge is understood as “ contradictory,
partial and irreducible” (p. 321). Reflecting on her own teaching, Ell
sworth (1989) writes:
oppressive formations and power relations that refused to be theorized away or fully tran
scended in a utopian resolution— and to enter into encounter in a way that owned up to my
own implication in those formations and was capable of changing my own relation to and
investments in those formations, (p. 308)
and poststructuralism (p. 304) in which none of us is permitted to be “ off
the hook.” Ellsworth’s criticism has provoked considerable controversy,
as suggested by letters published in the August 1990 issue of the Harvard
Educational Review. It is too early to judge to what extent this contro
versy will lead to a new stage of formulation of key terms in the effort
to understand curriculum as a political text.
A systematic effort to understand the curriculum as a political text
riculum development, evaluation, and so forth could be conducted in a
politically neutral fashion quickly became one conceptual casualty of this
effort, as was the taken-for-granted assumption that schools functioned
as avenues of upward social and economic mobility. The rejection of these
mainstream and taken-for-granted ideas of the curriculum field was ac
companied by the building of a relatively elaborate conceptual edifice,
ideology, and hegemony. As the effort grew more voluminous and com
plex, so did the range of its interests, incorporating notions of critical
pedagogy and literacy as well as issues of race, class, and gender. Ten
sions have developed within the movement, as have criticisms from out
side it. These, we think, are testimonies to its power and importance as
well as to its internal flaws. What has become indisputable is that to
understand the curriculum, one must understand it, at least in part, as a
political text.
are tendencies in critical scholarship to ignore those efforts that attempt
to understand curriculum in other ways, as if curriculum were only a
political text. It is, for instance, also a phenomenological text. There is
a large literature on understanding curriculum and pedagogy as a phe
nomenological text (Pinar & Reynolds, 1992), a sector of the field gen
erally ignored by the critical scholars. Likewise, literatures reflecting ef
forts to understand curriculum as autobiographic and biographic texts are
passed over. The contextualization of political discourse in “ place” seems
largely ignored (Kincheloe & Pinar, 1991). There is a tendency here that
goes beyond focusing on those subjects that interest one or are germane
to one’s specialization within a field. There is here an orthodoxy, a refusal
to even acknowledge the existence of work outside the current boundaries
of radical research. Politically oriented scholars are hardly alone in this,
of course. During the 1970s, traditionalists refused to acknowledge their
presence. It is also true that phenomenologists tend to look the other way
when political issues are raised (there are exceptions; see Carson, in
press). What we are worrying over here is a problem with the field at
large (Pinar, 1990) that goes beyond the literature we have described
herein. It is what we might loosely term conceptual isolationism, with
attendant “ nationalism” and “ militarism.” There are what we might
term— tongue in cheek— high tariff barriers (a skeptical outsider might
term them “jargon taxes” ) that work against “ trade” (i.e., the exchange
of ideas). Phenomenological curriculum theory could benefit, in our judg
ment, from judicious employment of the knowledge the politicists have
constructed and collected, and vice versa. Clearly, the political work does
engage other traditions, sometimes appreciatively, as in the case of fem
inist theory (although there are thorny issues here; cf. Ellsworth), some
times ambivalently, as in the case of poststructuralism (cf. McCarthy,
Wexler). At other times, it simply refuses to engage other segments of
the field. One might expect such smug self-involvement from conserva
tives, but from those who espouse “ dialogue,” “ voice,” “ dem ocracy,”
and the like, this is a disheartening state of affairs. If the major players
in this sector would engage other traditions of scholarship in an open and
perhaps their internal disputes would be less vitriolic. It is almost as if,
locked up behind ideological walls, these individuals seem to become a
bit stir crazy, and what should be amicable differences of opinion as well
as serious efforts to educate each other have tended to become cold-war
confrontations.
community. That this work will exert significant influence on classroom
practice in the United States is doubtful. This prognosis is based partially
upon the failure of leading theorists such as Michael Apple, Henry Giroux,
Ira Shor, and Peter M cLaren to respond constructively to critics outside
the critical tradition and, most recently, to critics who, like Elizabeth
Ellsworth, address issues in the politics of curriculum but who do not
wish to be identified with the more messianic tendencies in critical ped
agogy and critical perspectives. More significant, our view that this work
will fail to enlist widespread support among school personnel is based on
the failure of critical perspectives to address major cultural shifts currently
under way. First, this work has inadequately addressed issues of multi-
culturalism and racism. Second, it has failed to address the intensifying
ecological crisis.
or critical curriculum scholarship to address adequately the concept of
race. Critical scholarship was largely silent regarding race during its first
and more significant phase— reproduction theory— and when mentioned,
race tended to be subsumed under class or assumed to be of equal ex
planatory weight (McCarthy, 1990b). Relatedly, the very rhetoric of
emancipatory or critical pedagogy resides in a European-American dis
course (Ellsworth, 1989). Consider the following assumptions of critical
pedagogy: (a) individual emancipation and empowerment are to be
achieved through a process of critical reflection that demystifies histor
ically and socially constituted forms of authority, (b) The goal of the
educational process is emancipation; it must be viewed as a social process
furthered through dialogue. For instance: “ In the process of knowing the
reality which we transform, we communicate and know socially even
though the process of communicating, knowing, changing has an individ
ual dimension” (Shor & Freire, 1987, p. 14). (c) The historical process
of change (i.e., progress) is facilitated as individuals pursue social and
individual emancipation. Put another way, the continual process of au
thorizing ideas and values through critical reflection (a process experi
mental in nature when viewed within the longer time frame of a cultural
group) displaces other forms of knowing, (d) The educational process of
transmitting culture is preeminently political. The goal of critical work
involves “ making the pedagogical more political and the political more
every member evidently experiences the same freedom and equality in
all aspects of public life, represents the only legitimate form of political
organization, (f) Finally, reality can be grasped in binary terms. For in
stance: “ Liberatory dialogue is a democratic communication which dis-
confirms domination and illuminates while affirming the freedom of the
participants to re-make their culture. Traditional discourse confirms the
dominant mass culture and the inherited, official shape of knowledge”
(Shor & Freire, 1987, p. 13).
generally incorporate the ideals of the W estern Enlightenment. As well,
they incorporate the silences, misconceptions, and hubris of this tradition.
Applied to education, this tradition reproduces modes of reasoning Alvin
Gouldner identified as distinctive to the “ culture of critical discourse”
(i.e., intellectuals whose own position is strengthened by forcing others
to adhere to the rules of discourse they themselves have created and now
represent as universally applicable to all culture). The highly abstract
concepts characteristic of political scholarship (reproduction, resistance,
emancipation, liberation, etc.) are, in principle, disconnected from the
lived beliefs, values, and practices of specific cultural groups. Members
of cultural groups who attempt to retain or recover their identities by
repudiating the homogenization associated with mainstream consumer
culture would take exception to many of these assumptions. Cameron
McCarthy (1988) notes, in this regard:
the subjective and omniscient speaking positions are reserved for white new middle class
male intellectuals. Much of radical education theory is there part of the enabling linguistic
competence of a peculiarly unreflexive community. In these frameworks, third world people
are constituted as the objects of radical forms of intellectual tourism (Roman, 1987). (p. 8)
spectives themselves, would be willing to live continuously in the state
of liminality that would accompany an ongoing and thorough process of
demystification (which, in this work, requires politicizing) of “ the his
torically and socially constructed forms by which they live” (Giroux,
1988c, p. 177). Such utopian language threatens to sweep away not only
blocks to genuine progress, but sacred and life affirmative traditions as
well. Additionally, the uncritical embrace of dialogue as the sole means
of education discloses a lack of understanding of how group identity and
traditions are maintained over time (e.g., Hopi and Jewish traditions, to
name just two). For many cultural groups, it is doubtful that progress
would be viewed as achievable through the critical pedagogy ideal of
continual doubt: “ to doubt everything, and to try to identify those forms
p. 233).
on) and the limited suggestions offered by advocates to inspire classroom
practice must be viewed as problematical because of the anthropological
and linguistic poverty of their fundamental assumptions. As well, there
are gender and racial blind spots that underline the fact that the leading
advocates are European-American men. It may be that critical scholarship
is self-referential scholarship and that, because these men insist on the
primacy of their concepts and methods, their work functions in politically
conservative, even reactionary ways. This divergence between rhetoric
and political consequence has been noted at least twice (Pinar, 1981b;
Wexler, 1987).
garding the ecological crisis, a silence that could be linked with the cultural
provincialism of this work. While the crisis merits book-length treatment,
suffice it to say here that the accumulation of “ greenhouse gases,” cou
pled with massive disruptions in the ecosystem caused by deforestation,
topsoil loss, and toxic waste dumping (to cite only a few aspects of the
crisis), has led to an increasing awareness regarding the interdependence
of human and natural systems. Evidence of the diverging trend line, with
human population and consumer demands on the sustaining capacities of
natural systems moving upward at a rapid rate while there is a corre
sponding decline in toxic-free ecosystems, has prompted many to question
whether the most basic assumptions upon which modern (Western) con
sciousness rests may be exacerbating the crisis. Aldo Leopold was among
those to first recognize that modern consciousness is based on an an-
thropocentric view of the universe and that long-term survival of the spe
cies depends on the emergence of new modes of cognition that represent
the community of all life forms. Others, among them Gary Snyder, Wes
Jackson, Wendell Berry, and Gregory Bateson, have begun to question
the adequacy of W estern contemporary cultural assumptions for long
term species survival. How we understand freedom and knowledge,
among other fundamental constructs, must be linked with these consid
erations, not with a narrower— and historically discredited— Marxist
agenda of class conflict and social change.
discourses of postmodernism and feminism into their more recent ex
positions, critical scholarship as a whole remains located within a mode
of reasoning that is unresponsive to the urgent, overwhelming character
of the ecological crisis. Because space is limited, we limit this discussion
to two essential issues: (a) how the ecological crisis leads to a different
way of thinking about human freedom, and (b) the forms of knowledge
First, the recognition that humans are part of a biotic community leads
to a view of human freedom different from that of the anthropocentric
formulation of critical scholarship. Interdependence with the biotic com
munity requires a concept of freedom as self-limitation for the sake of
others, for the sake of species survival. According to Leopold, “ a thing
is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of
the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherw ise” (Leopold,
1966, p. 262). In providing an ecological model of cognitive processes
that overcomes the human/nature dichotomy, Bateson challenges an an
thropocentric concept of human freedom: “ In no system which shows
mental characteristics can any part have unilateral control over the whole.
In other words, the mental characteristics o f the system are immanent,
not in some part, but in the system as a whole” (Bateson, 1972, p. 316).
Bateson also challenges the W estern bias that understands the human and
natural worlds as separate because of the rational capabilities of human
beings:
and “decides” is a system whose boundaries do not at all coincide with the boundaries
either of the body or what is popularly called the “ s e l f ’ or “ consciousness.” (Bateson,
1972, p. 319)
of freedom and progress, cannot survive independent of their habitat; that
is, “ the unit o f evolutionary survival turns out to be identical with the
unit o f mind” (1972, p. 483).
profoundly different view of “ hum an” freedom than that implied in crit
ical scholarship. In that work, the past seems to represent domination
and the future an ever-expanding realm of possibility, each succeeding
generation demystifying the forms of domination presumably perpetuated
by the previous generation. This sense of ever-expanding human free
dom— material, political, intellectual— does not incorporate a vision of
human freedom as contingent and interwoven with the larger biotic com
munity of which we are part. Their anthropocentric view of freedom re
produces the W estern myth of perpetual progress (Lasch, 1991), a myth
that has led to the current crisis, and is silent upon this, the most fateful
issue of the present time.
of knowledge differently. Recent and sympathetic studies of primal cul
tures that have evolved in ecologically sustainable ways (Hughes, 1983;
Nelson, 1983) point to how these low status cultures (as viewed by main
ecologically wedded ways of knowing must not be interpreted as senti
mentalized calls for earlier, premodern forms of social living, but rather
as suggestive of knowledge forms unreflected in critical scholarship. Wes
Jackson uses the rural farm to illustrate knowledge that is accumulated
over generations, tested in the context of family and community sur
vival— knowledge that has sustained, variously, the Koyukon hunter, the
Hopi, and even certain European-American groups. In Altars o f Unhewn
Stone, Jackson writes:
formation due to the depopulation of our rural areas is far greater than all the information
accumulated by science and technology in the same period. Farm families who practice the
traditions associated with planting, tending, harvesting, and storing the produce of the ag
ricultural landscape, gathered information, much of it unconsciously, from the time they
were infants: in the farm household, in the farm community, and in the barns and fields.
They heard and told stories about relatives and community members who did something
funny or were caught in some kind of tragedy. From these stories they learned basic lessons
of agronomy. But there was more. There was information carried by a farmer who looked
to the sky and then to the blowing trees or grasses and made a quick decision as to whether
or not to make two more rounds before quitting to do chores. Much of that information has
already disappeared and continues to disappear as farmers leave the land. It is the kind of
information that has been hard won over the millennia, from the time agriculture began. It
is valuable because much of it is tuned to the harvest of contemporary sunlight, the kind
of information we need now and in the future on the land. (Jackson, 1987, pp. 11-12)
can or should be accepted uncritically as guides to social practice. Jack
son’s statement reminds us that the rationalistic and experimental forms
of knowledge embedded in the work of the critical group, forms that can
be traced back through Descartes to Plato, may not always represent the
highest forms of knowledge, nor may they be suited for living in ecological
balance.
unacknowledged by critical scholars. Required are forms of authentically
radical thinking that enable us to articulate and provisionally answer fun
damental questions hinted at by the following:
mitted via school curricula are ecologically affirmative, and which are
rooted in assumptions formed in earlier historical periods when the natural
environment was regarded as an exploitable resource?
in those language patterns that are employed in classrooms and that teach
ers tend to take for granted?
quences of anthropocentric biases, as well as prejudices against learning
from ecologically sustainable cultures that have, in the main, been labeled
pejoratively as “ primitive” ?
that have evolved in harmony with the bioregion are pertinent to the crisis
today, and how might these forms be incorporated into the curriculum?
painting, music, and narrative that primal peoples used as a means of
encoding the moral templates for living in ecologically sustainable rela
tionships, and for providing members of the community the experience
of transforming the ordinary into an extraordinary, transformative sense
of reality?
cultural and technical responses, the scholarly forms of understanding
curriculum as a political text will shift. W exler’s insistence that critical
scholarship functions in politically reactionary ways— an allegation our
summary of the ecological crisis supports and expands— will be acknowl
edged generally, and this judgment will then produce epistemological as
well as thematic revisions in the effort to understand curriculum as a
political text. The preoccupation with reproduction, resistance, and crit
ical pedagogy will disappear or be revised dramatically. An ecologically
informed agenda will occupy a central place in future political scholarship.
The time for such change is past due.
Fundamental problems plague the contemporary effort to study the
and culture; they are embedded in the modes of cognition as well as the
themes and slogans of critical scholarship. Additionally, the political prac
tices of critical scholars themselves seem self-involved, walled-in, and at
times even militaristic. Finally, critical scholarship tends to omit what
must be regarded as one of the political issues, if not the central issue,
of the day— the ecological crisis. These are staggering problems, and, if
unsolved, they threaten to undermine the most voluminous body of schol
arship in the field.
as a political text must be regarded as one of the great achievements of
the curriculum field since the 1970s. At that time, the curriculum field,
many readers will recall, was judged as moribund, dead, and arrested by
Joseph Schwab (1970), Dwayne Huebner (1976), and William Pinar (1978),
respectively. Concerns and questions notwithstanding, no commentator
would regard the present field in these terms. Indeed, the volume and
Without doubt, the apolitical blindspot of the traditional field has been
corrected. Now we understand, to an extent few could have fathomed 20
years ago, the complex of ways in which curriculum is a political text.
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