Biography:Peter McLaren

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Short description: Canadian scholar (born 1948)
For the Australian footballer, see Peter McLaren (footballer). For the Canadian politician, see Peter McLaren (politician).
Peter McLaren
Peter McLaren.jpg
McLaren in 2015
Born (1948-08-02) August 2, 1948 (age 75)
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Spouse(s)Yan Wang
Academic background
Alma mater
ThesisEducation as Ritual Performance (1984)
Doctoral advisorRichard Courtney[1]
Influences
Academic work
DisciplinePedagogy
School or tradition
Institutions

Peter McLaren (born 1948) is a Canadian-American scholar and Emeritus Professor of Urban Education at the University of California, Los Angeles , having taught at UCLA from 1993 until 2013. Prior to that, he taught at Miami University of Ohio (1985-1993). Most recently, he served as a Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies at Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University (2013-2023) until his retirement, where he was Co-Director of the Paulo Freire Democratic Project and International Ambassador for Global Ethics and Social Justice.[6] He is the Honorary Director of the Center for Critical Studies in Education at Northeast Normal University, Changchun, China . According to Stanford University's database, McLaren belongs to the top 2% of the world’s most influential scientists.[7]

McLaren is the author and editor of over forty-five books and hundreds of scholarly articles and chapters. His writings have been translated into over 20 languages.[8] He is married to Yan Wang from Northeast China. They currently live in Orange, California . He has a son and daughter from previous marriages.

McLaren is known as one of the leading architects of critical pedagogy,[9] and for his scholarly writings on critical literacy, the sociology of education, cultural studies, critical ethnography, and Marxist theory. Paulo Freire, a founding figure of critical pedagogy, stated: "Peter McLaren is one among the many outstanding 'intellectual relatives' I 'discovered' and by whom I, in turn, was 'discovered.' I read Peter McLaren long before I ever came to know him personally. ... Once I finished reading the first texts by McLaren that were made available to me, I was almost certain that we belonged to an identical 'intellectual family'."[10]

During a keynote address at Chapman University on October 25, 2014, Nita Freire, eminent educational scholar and widow of Paulo Freire, remarked: "It is ... a huge thrill for me to see Peter McLaren and Donaldo Macedo, who ever since through discussions and dialogue became old friends of work and friendship, partners of ideological and theoretical ideas of Paulo. They along with Henry Giroux formulated the critical pedagogy as we know of today." McLaren is also the recipient of the 2023 Paulo Freire SIG Legacy Award.

McLaren has met with Abahlali baseMjondolo, in South Africa ; the landless workers' movement, Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra – MST, in Brasil, the Zapatistas in Mexico, and members of the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela,[11] and with the left education workers union in Turkey where amid a demonstration he was teargassed and hurled to the ground by a police's riot shield.[12]

McLaren is a faculty member at the Institute of Critical Pedagogy at The Global Center for Advanced Studies and lectures worldwide on education's politics. In Finland, he gave an Opening Lecture at Paulo Freire Center–Finland on November 20, 2007.[13] La Escuela Normal Superior de Neiva in Colombia has named one of its buildings after Peter McLaren.[14]

(As of 2022), McLaren is ranked in the top 15 percent of all social science and humanities scholars in the world, based on his D-index (Discipline H-index); he is ranked 217 in the United States and 428 in the world.[15]

Life

Paulo Freire and Peter McLaren 1996

Peter McLaren was born in Toronto, Ontario, on August 2, 1948, and raised in Toronto and also, for four years, in Winnipeg, Manitoba. He is the only child of Frances Teresa Bernadette McLaren and Lawrence Omand McLaren, from Canada. McLaren's early family life was working-class until his father, a Second World War war veteran with the Royal Canadian Engineers, returned from battle in Europe and began work as a television salesman, eventually rising to the rank of General Manager of Phillips Electronics, Eastern Canada. McLaren's mother was a homemaker before working as a telephone operator.[16]

McLaren used to read voraciously in literature, philosophy, poetry, social theory, and literary and art criticism, was making creative 35 mm movies at 16, and dreamt of being an artist or film director. McLaren's father had one sister, Bonnie, who married Terry Goddard, a Second World War Royal Navy pilot credited with helping sink the German battleship Bismark. McLaren's mother had four sisters and two brothers. McLaren compensated for being an only child by spending time with his many cousins and engaging in creative writing. McLaren's first writing award was during middle school, where he won top writing honours by producing a science fiction story.[17]

At 19, McLaren hitchhiked throughout the US, met with Black Panthers in Oakland, lived in San Francisco and Los Angeles, where he participated in anti–Vietnam War protests, met with Timothy Leary and Allen Ginsberg and began writing poetry and short stories. His first commercial publication was about his great Aunt, Irma Wright, who won the world's fastest typist competition in 1928.({{{1}}}, {{{2}}})[18]

He earned a Bachelor of Arts in English literature at University of Waterloo in 1973 (specializing in Elizabethan drama), attended Toronto Teachers College, and went on to earn a Bachelor of Education at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Education, a Masters of Education at Brock University's College of Education, and a Ph.D. at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, the University of Toronto (where he worked with the late Richard Courtney, a leading international authority in children's drama).

Peter McLaren practising Kung Fu 1974

McLaren taught elementary and middle school from 1974-1979. Most of that time was spent teaching in Canada's largest public housing complex in Toronto's Jane-Finch Corridor. Cries from the Corridor, McLaren's book about his teaching experiences, made the Canadian bestseller list and was one of the top ten bestselling books in Canada in 1980 (Maclean's magazine, the Toronto Star), initiating a country-wide debate on inner-city schools. (Later, McLaren would harshly criticize this book and go on to transform it into the highly acclaimed pedagogical text, Life in Schools.)[16][19]

After earning his doctorate in 1983, he served as a Special Lecturer in Education at Brock University, where, as a one-year sabbatical replacement, he specialized in inner-city education and language arts. After the Dean did not follow through on his promised extension of McLaren's contract, McLaren decided to pursue an academic appointment in the United States. However, he remains on good terms with the faculty at Brock University, with whom he remains in a relationship of solidarity and friendship.

McLaren left Canada in 1985 to teach at Miami University's School of Education and Allied Professions, where he spent eight years working with colleague Henry Giroux during a time when the epistemology known as critical pedagogy was gaining traction in North American schools of education. McLaren also served as Director of the Center for Education and Cultural Studies and held the title of Renowned Scholar-in-Residence at Miami University before being recruited by the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, in 1993.({{{1}}}, {{{2}}})

In 2013, McLaren was appointed Distinguished Fellow in Critical Studies at Chapman University, Orange, California .

In 2019, The Griffith Journal of Law and Human Dignity, affiliated with the top-ranked law school in Australia, published an extensive interview with McLaren.[20] And the same year the OC Weekly featured commentary on two articles featured by McLaren on the fight against fascism in the United States,[21] and McLaren published a graphic novel of his life with an artist Miles Wilson.

Career

First phase, 1980–1993

The theoretical orientations of the first ten years of McLaren's research and writing can be traced to his early undergraduate work in Elizabethan drama and theater arts and his graduate studies in symbolic anthropology, critical ethnography, and social semiotics. As a young man, McLaren had always admired the life and work of William Morris, author, poet, artist and craftsman, printer and calligrapher, formidable socialist and activist, businessman, and private individual. At the time that he enrolled in doctoral studies at the University of Toronto's Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (Institut d'Etudes Pedagogiques de L'Ontario), Victor Turner, the world-renowned symbolic anthropologist, was conducting path-breaking transdisciplinary work at the University of Virginia, bringing dramaturgical theory and anthropology into close collaboration, particularly as this applied to the study of ritual. McLaren soon became a scholar of Turner's work. After auditing a course at the Toronto Semiotics Institute taught by philosopher Michel Foucault and another by Umberto Eco, McLaren began to develop a transdisciplinary approach to the study of ritual. He found a rich transdisciplinary milieu in which to conduct his studies at Massey College, University of Toronto. Modeled after Balliol College, Oxford University, England, Massey College facilitates interdisciplinary collaboration among high-achieving graduate students from various departments on campus. Looking back at his educational experiences at Massey, it is not surprising that the work of performance theorists, political economists, anthropologists, dramaturgical theorists, literary critics, and symbolic interactionists informed the theoretical basis of his first major scholarly publication, Schooling as a Ritual Performance Towards a Political Economy of Educational Symbols and Gestures (first edition, Routledge, 1986; revised editions, 1994, 1997) which was based on his Ph.D. dissertation. [22]

McLaren's early work from 1984 to 1994 spanned diverse intellectual and empirical terrains. He remained steadfast in his interest in the contemporary themes of the Frankfurt School: social psychology in the context of a lack of revolutionary social protest in Europe and the United States; a critique of positivism and science, developing a critical theory of art and representation; an interrogation of the mass media and mass culture; investigating the production of desire and identity; and the globalization of capitalism and forms of integration in neoliberal societies. In other words, when viewed against the major themes of the Frankfurt School, there was a fundamental coherence to his work as a whole.[22]

Further, each of McLaren's scholarly projects attempted to explore the construction of identity in school contexts within a neo-liberal society. This meant engaging in numerous critical projects: exploring the debilitating effects of logical positivism in the social sciences and the assault on critical theory and critical ethnography; exploring the increasing colonization of the lifeworld by the mass media and developing a critical pedagogy of media literacy and political aesthetics of pedagogical experience; analyzing the decline of critical rationality in postmodern societies and the development of critical literacies; advancing in specific pedagogical terms the struggle to redefine the meaning of liberation and empowerment in an age of despair and cynicism; investigating the politics of post-liberal societies with specific reference to the practices of cultural racism and sexism, and developing an analysis of the production, distribution, consumption, and exchange of cultural objects in schools and larger social sites with an emphasis on the social construction of subjectivity.[22]

In this early period, McLaren's research emphasized the development of a critical emancipatory consciousness, self-conscious reason, and the centrality of nonidentity thinking towards a non-essentialist view of revolutionary consciousness grounded in a theory of intersubjective understanding through language. Practically, his work attempted to create an oppositional cultural politics that enabled teachers and students to analyze how the dominant and negotiated meanings that inform classroom texts were produced and to uncover the ideological and political meanings that circulated within them. McLaren attempted through critical reading strategies to illuminate the dominant pedagogical codes of teachers as well as the normative codes within classroom cultures of students. His purpose was to create alternative readings as well as new pedagogical practices. In this sense, as McLaren was formulating it, critical pedagogy attempted to reengage a social world that operates under the assumption of its collective autonomy and remains resistant to human intervention.

In his early work, McLaren engaged four main strands in educational theory and studies: critical ethnography, critical pedagogy, curriculum studies and critical multiculturalism.

Second phase, 1994–present

Peter McLaren 2004

McLaren's work during the past several decades is not so much a break from his early work as an extension of it. A discernible shift occurred in the sense that he now focuses more on a critique of political economy. But his early work also included a critique of capitalism, except during that time McLaren operated from primarily a Weberian understanding of class and was concerned at that time with the politics of consumption and lifestyle/identity. McLaren's new turn saw him focus on the social relations of production and its relation to the production of subjectivity and protagonist agency. Between 1994 up to the present, McLaren's work is less directed at the classroom per se, and more focused on issues such as a critique of political economy, cultural contact and racial identity, anti-racist/multicultural education, the politics of white supremacy, resistance and popular culture; the formation of subjectivity, the coloniality of power and decolonial education; revolutionary critical pedagogy informed by a Marxist humanist analysis and liberation theology.[23]

During this time McLaren began spending time in Latin America – working with Chavistas in Venezuela and with labor and union leaders in Mexico and Colombia and becoming more interested in Marxist critique of political economy. McLaren came to believe that postmodern theory could be quite a reactionary approach in so far as it failed to challenge with the verve and sustained effort that is demanded of the times the social relations of capitalist production and reproduction. While McLaren adopted the term, critical postmodernism, or resistance postmodernism, to describe his work up until the late 1990s, he recognized that he needed to engage the work of Karl Marx and Marxist thinkers.[23]

The more McLaren began engaging in the work of Marx, and meeting social activists driven by Marxist anti-imperialist projects throughout the Americas, he no longer believed that the work on "radical democracy" convincingly demonstrated that it was superior to the Marxist problematic. It appeared to McLaren that, in the main, such work had despairingly capitulated to the inevitability of the rule of capital and the regime of the commodity. That work, along with much of the work in post-colonialist criticism, appeared to McLaren as too detached from historical specificities and basic determinations. McLaren believed that Marxist critique more adequately addressed the differentiated totalities of contemporary society and their historical imbrications in the world system of global capitalism. Rather than employ the term critical pedagogy, McLaren now uses the term that the British educator Paula Allman has christened revolutionary critical pedagogy. McLaren describes his current work as Marxist humanist, a term developed by Raya Dunayevskaya, who once served as Trotsky's secretary in Mexico and who developed the tradition of Marxist humanism in the US. McLaren's work constitutes counterpoint to the way social justice is used in progressive education by inviting students to examine critically the epistemological and axiological dimensions of democracy in the light of a Marxist critique of political economy and the coloniality of power (a term developed by Anibal Quijano). McLaren's work today comprises poetry, reflections on his activist work in Venezuela, Mexico, and other countries, contributions to critical theory, and Marxist analysis as applied to current educational policy and reform initiatives.[23]

Although McLaren's theoretical work has developed in these stages, the preface to the most recent compilation of his oeuvre argues that these phases aren't distinguished by theoretical breaks but by political "maturation." This latest interpretation argues that there are two continuities throughout his phases. The first is his effort to create new temporalities, spatialities, subjectivities, and modes of production that don't entail exploitation and oppression. The second is that this pursuit has always been "rooted not in the transcendence of the ideal, but in the immanence of corporeal reality."[24]

McLaren's Critical Pedagogy

McLaren's work has broken new ground in education. He is considered one of the architects of critical pedagogy, having been influenced early in his career by Paulo Freire and Henry Giroux. He also has been credited with laying the groundwork for performance studies in education by publishing his book, Schooling as a Ritual Performance. The Peter McLaren Upstander Lecture was announced as part of the Annual International Critical Research in Applied Theater Symposium in Auckland, New Zealand. The lecture will be presented each year by a graduate student in education from the School of Critical Studies in Education at the University of Auckland.

McLaren is known as one of the leading exponents of revolutionary critical pedagogy, an approach to everyday life influenced by Marxist humanist philosophy, also known as a "philosophy of praxis." McLaren's work is controversial for its uncompromising politics of class struggle. McLaren is also a gifted orator and social activist, and his academic writing has been both praised and criticized for its unique blend of poetry and literary tropes and cutting-edge theoretical analysis. At least one documentary is in the planning about McLaren's life. David Geoffrey Smith has described McLaren's critical pedagogy as follows: "As a former theologian, I judge Peter McLaren to be a prophet, and prophets are seldom recognized in their own countries except when they tear away the veils of hypocrisy, and then ...?"[25]

McLaren approaches critical pedagogy as a praxiological effort to develop a politics of everyday life in a number of ways. First, it situates its critical analyses within the realms of popular culture. Secondly, it pays close theoretical attention to how everyday discourses and social practices constitute and reinforce relations of power and serve as sites for struggle, resistance, and transformation. Thirdly, as developed by McLaren, critical pedagogy attempts to seize opportunities to make links between new social movements and the networks of power associated with "school life." It attempts to link the micropolitical (everyday lives of teachers and students) with the macropolitical (larger economic, cultural, social, and institutional structures).

The school building (in La Escuela Normal Superior de Neiva) named after Peter McLaren in Neiva, Colombia

As McLaren develops it, critical pedagogy seeks to analyze the possibilities for the resistance and transformation of social life, both individual and collective, personal and macropolitical. It engages in such an analysis by attempting to understand how wider relations of power are played out in the agential spaces of classroom and community life but also by attempting to investigate how broader structures of mediation at the level of the economy are able to "take root" in the everyday lives of students and teachers who operate at the level of common sense actions. This means constantly reflecting on the cultural construction of teachers, students, and researchers' identities and connecting such critical reflection to a broader terrain of political action and class struggle. McLaren takes critical pedagogy beyond discursive politics, which sees politics as merely a text to be deconstructed and interpreted. Instead, McLaren approaches cultural politics as a terrain that operationalizes the textuality of political life by linking textuality to materiality. That is, McLaren seeks to make connections between the texts that we read (cultural artifacts) and those that read us (the realm of language and discursive structures in general) in light of current modes and social relations of production and the political consequences that these connections bring about in our pedagogies, curricula, and policies.

Since 1994, McLaren revised and extended some of his earlier insights in Schooling as a Ritual Performance, Life in Schools, and other works by engaging with Marx and leading Marxist philosophers and theorists.

While anti-capitalist struggle and Marxist analysis have an indistinct and relatively undigested place in the field of educational theory, there is some movement towards Marx in the social sciences here in North America. Marx is being revisited by social scientists of all disciplinary shapes and sizes – even, and perhaps most especially and urgently today, when capitalism is in a state of severe crisis. While hardly on their way to becoming entrenched and pervasive, Marx's ideas are taking their significance most strikingly from the particular and varied contexts in which his ideas are being engaged. Marx's ideas are gaining traction in education thanks to McLaren's work.

In McLaren's post-1994 phase, Marxist theory has provided McLaren with a fundamentally necessary approach to praxis to contextualize changes in the socio-political and economic sphere related to education. Through McLaren's current re-engagement with Marx and the tradition of historical materialism, McLaren supports the work of colleagues who pave the way for new generations of educationalists to encounter Marx. Marx is being reevaluated on numerous fronts today: sociology, political science, philosophy, economics, ethics, history, and the like.[26][27][28][29]

Highlighting the dialogical nature of McLaren's critical pedagogy, he and Nobel Prize-winning economist Vernon Smith, known for his transformative work on trust and trade, engaged in a profound and respectful dialogue at Chapman University in 2017. Despite their apparent ideological differences – McLaren, a Marxist humanist, and Smith, a libertarian – the exchange revealed common ground. The scholars from working-class backgrounds explored topics from early careers to influences like liberation theology and economic necessity. Their six-day, 12,000-word email exchange showcased that differences need not hinder meaningful dialogue.[30]

Pedagogía crítica revolucionaria

Professor McLaren is a member of the Knights of the Immaculata and its outreach, the Knights at the Foot of the Cross, devoted to the Virgin Mary and inspired by St. Maximilian Kolbe, who volunteered to be executed in the place of another prisoner while in captivity in Auschwitz concentration camp.

McLaren converted from his Anglican roots to Roman Catholicism when he was 35 and completing his dissertation. Subsequently, McLaren became interested in Catholic social justice teaching and liberation theology.[31] Since then, McLaren’s work has been expressly Catholic, and his eschatological position is that the eschaton has already arrived and that humanity is called to respond to the injunction by Christ to love our neighbor and bring justice to the world. McLaren's work is critical of Christians who postpone the eschaton, thus failing to heed Christ's call to social justice In the here and now. Those theologies that do not accept the eschaton as having arrived are tools deliberately used by the masters of this world to prevent Christ's message from revolutionizing the world and bringing about the messianic kingdom on earth.[32]

McLaren Versus the Far-Right

Pedagogía crítica revolucionaria (fragmento)

McLaren’s work is popular among progressive and leftist constituencies in North and South America. His North American critics often focus only on the first of his over forty-five books, which was on the life and teachings of Che Guevara and Paulo Freire, the latter of whom was a friend and mentor of McLaren. Furthermore, his critics often fail to engage his work on Catholic social teaching and liberation theology. McLaren’s work has been greatly influenced by Mexican Christian communist militant and Jesuit theologian José Porfirio Miranda, who believed that the eschaton, or the Last Judgement, had already arrived. McLaren believes the same, and his work is best understood in this context. Right-wing Catholic Christopher Rufo, a leading critic of Critical Race Theory, who is closely aligned to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, has accused McLaren of “the ruthless application of politics to the most intimate recesses of the human spirit” in his book, America's Cultural Revolution: How the Radical Left Conquered Everything.[33]

McLaren has responded to Rufo in two ripostes accusing him of pseudo-intellectualism, a failure to understand the fundamentals of critical theory and critical pedagogy and attempting to create moral panic around critical pedagogy that resembles the “Red Scare” tactics of the 1950s.[34] McLaren has also described Rufo’s attacks on critical race theory as embedded in “a hermeneutics of evil.”[35] Professor John Baldacchino has described McLaren as “a Mannerist—equally Catholic, yet unlike Illich, he is shy of any sense of liberal Protestantism by which grace could be mistaken for being simply predestined and one’s behavior justified. If I were to place McLaren’s depiction, I would say that it claims its humanist origin in the Late Renaissance, by which it then acclaims the radicalism of a Caravaggio and Tintoretto, loudly claiming redemption by means of its stark realism.”[36]

McLaren has also been compared to Francis of Assisi.[37] In another instance, it has been stated that McLaren work is "a testimony to an examined life in the service of humanity" and he follows Jesus, who chose the path of non-violence. McLaren pointed out that ”all acts of violence generate forms of evil” and through evil and violence there can not be the Kingdom of God.[38]

Bibliography

McLaren is the author, co-author, editor, and co-editor of approximately forty books and monographs. Several hundred of his articles, chapters, interviews, reviews, commentaries, and columns have appeared in dozens of scholarly journals and professional magazines worldwide.

His most recent books include:

  • McLaren, P. (2022). The War in Ukraine and America. DIO Press.
  • McLaren, P. (2021). Critical Pedagogy Manifesto. Teachers of the World Unite. DIO Press.
  • McLaren, P. (2020). He Walks Among Us: Christian Fascism Ushering in the End of Days. DIO Press.
  • McLaren, P. & Jandric, P. (2020). Postdigital Dialogues on Critical Pedagogy, Liberation Theology and Information Technology. Bloomsbury Academic.
  • McLaren, P. & Wilson, M. (2019). Breaking Free: The Life and Times of Peter McLaren, Radical Educator. Myers Education Press.
  • McLaren, P. (2016). Pedagogy of Insurrection: From Resurrection to Revolution. Peter Lang.
  • McLaren, P., Macrine, S., and Hill, D, (Eds). (2010). Revolutionizing Pedagogy: Educating for Social Justice Within and Beyond Global Neo-liberalism. Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Nocella, A., Best, S., & McLaren, P. (Eds.) (2010). Academic Repression: Reflections from the Academic Industrial Complex. AK Press.
  • Martin, G., Houston, D., McLaren, P. & Suoranta, J. (Eds.) (2010) Havoc of Capitalism. Educating for Social and Environmental Justice. Sense Publishers.
  • Sandlin, J.A. & McLaren, P. (Eds.). (2009). Critical Pedagogies of Consumption: Living and Learning in the Shadow of the "Shopocalypse". Routledge.
  • McLaren, P. & Jaramillo, N. (2007). Pedagogy and Praxis in the Age of Empire. Sense Publishers.
  • McLaren, P. (2006). Rage + Hope. Peter Lang.
  • McLaren, P. (2005). Capitalists and Conquerors. Rowman and Littlefield.
  • McLaren, P. & Farahmandpur,'R. (2005) Teaching Against Global Capitalism and the New Imperialism. Rowman and Littlefield.
  • McLaren, P. (2005). Red Seminars: Radical Excursions into Educational Theory, Cultural Politics, and Pedagogy. Hampton Press.
  • McLaren, P., D. Hill, M. Cole, & G. Rikowski (2002). Marxism Against Postmodernism in Educational Theory. Lexington Books.
  • McLaren, P. (2000). Che Guevara, Paulo Freire, and the Pedagogy of Revolution. Rowman and Littlefield.
  • McLaren, P. (1997). Revolutionary Multiculturalism: Pedagogies of Dissent for the New Millennium. Westview Press.
  • McLaren, P., H. Giroux, C. Lankshear & M. Peters (1997). Counternarratives. Routledge.
  • McLaren, P. (1995). Critical Pedagogy and Predatory Culture. Routledge.

He is also author of Life in Schools: An Introduction to Critical Pedagogy in the Foundations of Education (Allyn & Bacon) which is in its fifth edition (2006). Life in Schools has been named one of the 12 most significant writings worldwide in the field of educational theory, policy and practice] by an international panel of experts assembled by the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences; other writers named by the panel include Paulo Freire, Ivan Illich, and Pierre Bourdieu.[39] In 2011, Instituto Peter McLaren was established in Ensenada, Mexico.[40] Peter McLaren's book, Pedagogy of Insurrection, has been honored by the international academic publisher, Peter Lang, who has added McLaren's book to its list of "classic" works to be reissued to academics around the globe.[41]

McLaren's work has been the subject of three recent books: Teaching Peter McLaren: Paths of Dissent, edited by Marc Pruyn and Luis M. Huerta-Charles (Peter Lang, 2005) [translated into Spanish as De La Pedagogia Critica a la pedagogia de la Revolucion: Ensayos Para Comprender a Peter McLaren, Mexico City, Siglo Veintiuno Editores], Peter McLaren, Education, and the Struggle for Liberation, edited by Mustafa Eryaman (Hampton Press, 2008), and Crisis of Commonwealth: Marcuse, Marx, McLaren, edited by Charles Reitz (Lexington Books, 2013).

McLaren has also recently debuted as a poet with his poem "The Despoiling of the American Mind" in MRZine.[42] His works have been praised, among others, by Slavoj Žižek and Paula Allman. Žižek comments McLaren's book Che Guevara, Paulo Freire and the Pedagogy of Revolution as follows: "Che Guevara is usually perceived as a Romantic model whom we should admire, while pursuing our daily business as usual – the most perverse defense against what Che stood for. What McLaren's fascinating book demonstrates is that, on the contrary, Che is a model for our times, a figure we should imitate in our struggle against neoliberal global capitalism." Allman notes that the book is "brilliant blend of passion, commitment, and critical analysis and insight. ... It is also one of the most important books on critical education, and thus also education and social justice, to have been written in the twentieth century."[43]

Recent developments

Honorary doctorates

Peter McLaren was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Lapland, Finland , in 2004, by Universidad del Salvador, Buenos Aires, Argentina , in 2010, by the Universidad Nacional de Chilecito in La Rioja, Argentina, and the Centro de Estudios Latinoamericanos de Educación Inclusiva (CELEI), Chile, in 2021.[44][45] He also received the Amigo Honorifica de la Comunidad Universitaria de esta Institucion by La Universidad Pedagogica Nacional, Unidad 141, Guadalajara, Mexico.

La Fundacion McLaren de Pedagogía Critica

Sergio Quiroz and Peter McLaren in Chiapas Mexico 2014

In 2005, Professor Sergio Quiroz Miranda established La Fundacion McLaren de Pedagogía Critica along with Peter McLaren to develop a knowledge of critical pedagogy throughout Mexico and to promote projects in critical pedagogy and popular education throughout Latin America and the Caribbean.[46] On September 15, 2006 the Catedra Peter McLaren was inaugurated at the Bolivarian University of Venezuela.

Awards

Peter McLaren has received numerous awards in his career among them the following: a Lifetime Achievement Award presented by the Pedagogy and Theater of the Oppressed, Inc. and Miami University of Ohio, The Central New York Peace Studies Consortium Lifetime Achievement Award in Peace Studies, the 2013 Award of Achievement in Critical Studies by the Critical Studies Association (Athens, Greece), the First Annual Social Justice and Upstander Ethics in Education Award presented by the Department of Education, Antioch University, Los Angeles, the inaugural Social and Economic Justice in Public Education Award presented by the Marxian Analysis of Society, Schools and Education, a special interest group of the American Education Research Association, the Paulo Freire International Social Justice Award presented by the Paulo Freire Research Center, Finland, and The Ann-Kristine Pearson Award in Education and Economy presented by The University of Toronto’s Center for the Study of Education and Work, the Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar Award presented by The American Education Research Association, the International Award in Critical Pedagogy presented by the government of Venezuela’s Ministry of Education, the First International Award for Social Justice and Equity through Education award, presented by the Instituto Universitario Internacional de Toluca (Mexico), the National Conference on Equity and Social Justice in Education award presented by the founding members of the conference, the “Friend in Solidarity with the Struggle of Mexican Teachers” award presented by the National Union of Educational Workers (Michoacan), and the “Distinción Académica Educación, Debates e Imaginario Social” from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México. In addition, the Higher Council of Community Government, the Council for Civil Affairs, and the Education Commission of Cheran, Michoacan, presented McLaren with the Defence of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Award commemorating the second anniversary of the defense of the forests. Professor McLaren was awarded Westchester University’s First Annual Excellence in Anti-Global-Capitalist and Activism Award by the conference founders of Critical Theories in the 21st Century: A Conference of Transformative Pedagogies. Most recently, Professor McLaren received the 2013 “Academia Honor Award” from the Education and Science Workers’ Union for his work in social sciences and his struggle in labor and democracy at Ankara University Turkey, and the “Award of Honor in Critical Pedagogy” from the Department of Adult Education and Lifelong Learning, Ankara University, Turkey. He also received the Outstanding Educator of America Award for 2013 from the Association of Educators of Latin America and the Caribbean. In 2014, he received the title Honorary Global Ambassador of Critical Pedagogy and Global Ethics from the Instituto de Ciencias de la Educación. Universidad Autónoma “Benito Juárez” de Oaxaca. Oaxaca, México.[47]

See also


References

Footnotes

  1. ↑ "Early Years | Peter McLaren, PHD". https://sites.chapman.edu/mclaren/2018/05/09/early-years/. 
  2. ↑ Cruz 2013, p. 8.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Borg, Mayo & Sultana 1994, p. 2.
  4. ↑ Cummings 2015, p. 358.
  5. ↑ M. D. Smith & Rodriguez 2013, p. 101.
  6. ↑ "Faculty Profile". http://www.chapman.edu/our-faculty/peter-mclaren. 
  7. ↑ "20+ Chapman Faculty Make Top 2% List | Chapman Newsroom". News.chapman.edu. 3 November 2022. https://news.chapman.edu/2022/11/02/20-chapman-faculty-make-top-2-list/#:~:text=More%20than%2020%20Chapman%20University,database%20compiled%20by%20Stanford%20University. Retrieved 2023-02-28. 
  8. ↑ "Chapman democracy activist offers a radical critique of capitalism". The Orange Country Register. 16 August 2015. https://www.ocregister.com/2015/08/16/chapman-democracy-activist-offers-a-radical-critique-of-capitalism/. 
  9. ↑ "Foreword to Peter McLaren's pedagogy of insurrection". 9 January 2016. https://philcsc.wordpress.com/2016/01/09/foreword-to-peter-mclarens-pedagogy-of-insurrection/. 
  10. ↑ McLaren 1995, pp. ix–xi.
  11. ↑ https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/articulo?codigo=8602282
  12. ↑ Gezi Park and Taksim Square reflections and reactions Socialist Resistance, September 29, 2013
  13. ↑ "Paulo Freire Finland – This WordPress.com site is the bee's knees". https://paulofreirefinland.wordpress.com/. 
  14. ↑ "Foro "Escuela de Vida y Debida" en la Escuela Normal Superior de Neiva". http://www.contagioradio.com/foro-escuela-de-vida-y-debida-en-la-escuela-normal-superior-de-neiva-articulo-45090/. 
  15. ↑ "World's Top Social Sciences and Humanities Scientists: H-Index Social Sciences and Humanities Science Ranking". https://research.com/scientists-rankings/social-sciences-and-humanities. 
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 McLaren 2015.
  17. ↑ Kennedy 2014.
  18. ↑ Davis, Creston (March 8, 2015). "An Interview with a Revolutionary, Professor Peter McLaren". https://www.huffingtonpost.com/creston-davis/an-interview-with-a-revol_b_6825766.html. 
  19. ↑ Peter McLaren, revolutionary activist and professors of critical pedagogy
  20. ↑ McLaren, Peter (27 September 2019). "Teaching Against the Grain: A Conversation between the Editors of the Griffith Journal of Law & Human Dignity and Peter McLaren on the Importance of Critical Pedagogy in Law School". Griffith Journal of Law & Human Dignity 7 (1). https://griffithlawjournal.org/index.php/gjlhd/article/view/1173/1035. 
  21. ↑ Take a wild ride into Chapman Professor Peter McLaren's mind The Orange County Register (subscription required)
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 22.2 Eryaman 2009.
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 23.2 Pruyn & Huerta-Charles 2007, pp. xvii–xxxix.
  24. ↑ Ford, Derek R.; Alexander, Rebecca (2020). "Preface: A collection of raw materials for re-imaginings". in Pruyn, Marc. Tracks to Infinity: The Long Road to Justice: The Peter McLaren Reader (Volume II). Charlotte: Information Age Publishing. pp. xvi. ISBN 978-1-64113-662-4. 
  25. ↑ Geoffrey, David (2009), Interchange, 40(1), 93–117. DOI: 10.1007/s10780-008-9082-z
  26. ↑ Career section is based on the following sources: Eryaman 2009; Macrine 2016b; Pruyn & Huerta-Charles 2005; Reitz 2013; D. G. Smith 2009.
  27. ↑ McLaren, Peter (February 19, 2009). "Being, Becoming and Breaking-Free: Peter McLaren and the Pedagogy of Liberation". http://radicalnotes.com/2009/02/19/being-becoming-and-breaking-free-peter-mclaren-and-the-pedagogy-of-liberation/. 
  28. ↑ Pozo, Michael (2003). "Toward a Critical Revolutionary Pedagogy: An Interview with Peter McLaren". St. John's University Humanities Review 2 (1). http://facpub.stjohns.edu/~ganterg/sjureview/vol2-1/mclaren.html. Retrieved October 1, 2020. 
  29. ↑ McLaren, Peter (2013). "Education as Class Warfare: An Interview with Scholar/Author Peter McLaren". Praxis 17 (2): 90–101. ISSN 2313-934X. https://digitalcommons.chapman.edu/education_articles/220/. Retrieved October 1, 2020. 
  30. ↑ https://news.chapman.edu/2017/03/15/what-unites-us/
  31. ↑ https://doi.org/10.1177/002205748616800206
  32. ↑ https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1478210317705742
  33. ↑ [1]
  34. ↑ [2]
  35. ↑ [3]
  36. ↑ [4]
  37. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0IjWH44hsM
  38. ↑ [5]
  39. ↑ UCLA Education Professor Peter McLaren's 'Life in Schools' Ranked in Top 12 Significant Writings of Foreign Authors
  40. ↑ "Instituto Mc Laren de Pedagogia Critica". http://www.fundacionmclaren.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=228:instituto-mc-laren-de-pedagogia-critica&catid=34:fundacion&Itemid=27. 
  41. ↑ Pedagogy of Insurrection. 18 February 2016. https://www.peterlang.com/document/1051641. 
  42. ↑ McLaren, Peter (March 16, 2007). "The Despoiling of the American Mind". MRZine. http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/mclaren160307.html. 
  43. ↑ "Communism". 27 November 2014. https://awestruckwanderer.wordpress.com/category/communism/. 
  44. ↑ "UNdeC: El filósofo Peter Mclaren recibió el título de Doctor Honoris Causa". 22 October 2019. http://www.elindependiente.com.ar/pagina.php?id=100525. 
  45. ↑ "Ceremonia de Investidura a Peter McLaren como Doctor Honoris Causa de CELEI". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdgSNtxFNRM. , https://www.ulapland.fi/news/Lapin-yliopistoon-14-uutta-kunniatohtoria/i5psmaft/b72292e4-1e76-492c-8ee6-596bc7d6b674
  46. ↑ "La Fundacion McLaren de Pedagogía Critica". http://fundacionmclaren.org/. 
  47. ↑ https://www.peterlang.com/peter-mclaren-honored-with-two-lifetime-achievement-awards/, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-35469-4_34-1, http://www.politicsofevidence.ca/dr-peter-mclaren/, https://seis.ucla.edu/faculty-and-research/faculty-directory/peter-mclaren

Works cited

  • Borg, Carmel; Mayo, Peter; Sultana, Ronald (1994). "Revolution and Reality: An Interview with Peter McLaren". Education 5 (2): 2–12. https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/53175. Retrieved 1 October 2020. 
  • Cruz, Ana L. (2013). "Paulo and Nita: Sharing Life, Love and Intellect – An Introduction". International Journal of Critical Pedagogy 5 (1): 5–10. ISSN 2157-1074. http://libjournal.uncg.edu/ijcp/article/view/770. Retrieved September 18, 2020. 
  • Cummings, Jordy (2015). "The Abode of Educational Production: An Interview with Peter McLaren". Alternate Routes 26: 354–375. ISSN 1923-7081. http://www.alternateroutes.ca/index.php/ar/article/view/22326. Retrieved 1 October 2020. 
  • Eryaman, Mustafa Yunus, ed (2009). Peter McLaren, Education, and the Struggle for Liberation. New York: Hampton Press. 
  • Kennedy, Lynda (2014). "Peter McLaren: Intellectual Instigator". in Totten, Samuel; Pedersen, Jon E.. Educating About Social Issues in the 20th and 21st Centuries: An Annotated Bibliography. Volume 4: Critical Pedagogues and Their Pedagogical Theories. Charlotte, North Carolina: Information Age Publishers. pp. 237–256. 
  • McLaren, Peter (2016a). "Foreword". in Pruyn, Marc; Huerta-Charles, Luis M.. This Fist Called My Heart: The Peter McLaren Reader. 1. Charlotte, North Carolina: Information Age Publishers. 
  • McLaren, Peter (2016b). "Introduction". in Pruyn, Marc; Huerta-Charles, Luis M.. This Fist Called My Heart: The Peter McLaren Reader. 1. Charlotte, North Carolina: Information Age Publishers. 
  • McLaren, Peter (2016). "The Dialectics of This Fist: A Preface". in Pruyn, Marc; Huerta-Charles, Luis M.. This Fist Called My Heart: The Peter McLaren Reader. 1. Charlotte, North Carolina: Information Age Publishers. pp. xxiii–xxiv. 
  • McLaren, Peter (1995). Critical Pedagogy and Predatory Culture. London: Routledge. 
  • McLaren, Peter (2015). "Self and Social Formation and the Political Project of Teaching: Some Reflections". in Porfilio, Brad J.; Ford, Derek R.. Leaders in Critical Pedagogy: Narratives for Understanding and Solidarity. Leaders in Educational Studies. 8. Rotterdam, Netherlands: Sense Publishers. pp. 127–139. doi:10.1007/978-94-6300-166-3_10. ISBN 978-94-6300-166-3. 
  • Pruyn, Marc; Huerta-Charles, Luis M., eds (2005). Teaching Peter McLaren: Paths of Dissent. New York: Peter Lang Publications. 
  • Pruyn, Marc; Huerta-Charles, Luis M. (2007). "Introduction: Teaching Peter McLaren; The Scholar and This Volume". in Pruyn, Marc; Huerta-Charles, Luis M.. Teaching Peter McLaren: Paths of Dissent. New York: Peter Lang Publications. 
  • Reitz, Charles (2013). Crisis of Commonwealth: Marcuse, Marx, McLaren. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books. 
  • Smith, David Geoffrey (2009). "Engaging Peter McLaren and the New Marxism in Education". Interchange 40 (1): 93–117. doi:10.1007/s10780-008-9082-z. ISSN 1573-1790. 
  • Smith, Matthew David; Rodriguez, Arturo (2013). "Peter McLaren". in Kirylo, James D.. A Critical Pedagogy of Resistance: 34 Pedagogues We Need to Know. Transgressions. Rotterdam, Netherlands: Sense Publishers. pp. 101–104. doi:10.1007/978-94-6209-374-4_26. ISBN 978-94-6209-374-4. 

External links

Peter McLaren's webpages and CV


Peter McLaren's text

Texts on Peter McLaren

Interviews



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