Critical Pedagogy, Cultural Politics and the Discourse of Experience

This article examines the way in which various educational discourses develop forms of pedagogical practice through the construction and legitimation of teacher and student experience. Specifically, the article analyzes how traditional and liberal discourses treat the intersection of culture, power, and knowledge in fashioning a view of teaching and learning. The author argues that both of these traditions fail as modes of critical pedagogy and that it is necessary to develop a critical discourse that embraces pedagogy as a form of cultural politics. The article concludes by drawing from some recent critical work on theories of production, textual analysis, and lived cultures and attempting to illustrate the relevance of these traditions for a critical pedagogy.