<p>"Lankshear and McLaren have put together a volume that includes some of the best work presently being done in the area of literacy studies. It is a book that confronts the challenge of literacy in ways that take into account some of the most demanding and urgent debates of our time. It essentially redefines the project of literacy by bringing to light new possibilities for liberation struggles both in and outside of schools. It is a project that undermines the deceit of democracy as many people in Latin America and the West have known it, and charts out the beginnings of a new, radical form of democratic social life." — Paulo Freire</p><p>"Lankshear and McLaren ask the readers of this book to engage with the text in a way that launches them into questioning, into judgement, and into a kind of collective interpretation. The encounter that lies ahead is not intended to be precious, purely private, or hermetically 'intellectual.' It can be —it ought to be— the kind of encounter that makes readers curious, uneasy, and in some manner hopeful." — Maxine Greene, Columbia University</p><p>"This volume offers a challenge that cuts to the very core of our present social system, uncovering ways in which literacy serves to either silence or liberate. It brings to the forefront ideas and analyses from a new wave of literacy theorists and practitioners whose work signals a rupture in the way literacy is presently understood and defined." — Donaldo Macedo, University of Massachusetts, Boston</p>
A provocative collection that redefines literacy as a political and transformative practice, challenging readers to see reading and writing as tools for questioning power and advancing social change.
What does it mean to be literate in a world shaped by power, culture, and contestation? Critical Literacy brings together some of the most influential voices in literacy studies to confront this urgent question head-on.
Edited by Colin Lankshear and Peter L. McLaren, Critical Literacy reimagines literacy not as a neutral skill, but as a deeply political practice—one that can either reproduce systems of domination or become a powerful tool for liberation. Bridging theory and practice, the contributors explore how literacy operates across diverse contexts: from classrooms and communities to media, gender, culture, and revolutionary movements.
Engaging with postmodern perspectives and critical pedagogy, the essays challenge readers to interrogate taken-for-granted assumptions about knowledge, language, and democracy. From ethnographic insights and feminist critiques to analyses of media and popular education, this collection opens new pathways for understanding literacy as a site of struggle and possibility.
Provocative, timely, and transformative, this book invites educators, researchers, and activists alike to rethink literacy as a dynamic force in shaping more just and democratic futures.
Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1 Critical literacy as political intervention: Three variations on a theme
Kevin Harris
2 Informing critical literacy with ethnography
Gary L. Anderson and Patricia Irvine
3 Critical literacy and the politics of gender
Barbara Bee
4 The challenge of popular education in the Grenada revolution
Didacus Jules
5 Words to a life-land: Literacy, the imagination, and Palestine
CHRIS SEARLE
6 Between moral regulation and democracy: The cultural contradictions of the text
Michael W. Apple
7 Literacy and urban school reform: Beyond vulgar pragmatism
Dennis Carlson
8 Literacy, pedagogy, and English studies: Postmodern connections
James A. Berlin
9 Postmodernism and literacies
James Paul Gee
10 Reading and writing the media: Critical media literacy and postmodernism
David Sholle and Stan Denski
11 Feminist literacies: Toward emancipatory possibilities of solidarity
Jeanne Brady and Adriana Hernandez
12 (Dis)connecting literacy and sexuality: Speaking the unspeakable in the classroom
Kathleen Rockhill
13 Literacy and the politics of difference
Henry Giroux
14 Critical literacy and the postmodern turn
Peter L. McLaren and Colin Lankshear
Postscript to "Critical literacy and the postmodern turn"
Contributors
Author Index
Subject Index
A provocative collection that redefines literacy as a political and transformative practice, challenging readers to see reading and writing as tools for questioning power and advancing social change.
Product details
Biographical note
Colin Lankshear , formerly Senior Lecturer in Education at Auckland University in New Zealand, is an educational consultant and writer. He is the author of several books, including, Freedom and Education, Education and Rights (with Ivan Snook), Going for Gold (with Allan Levett), and Literacy, Schooling, and Revolution. Peter McLaren is Professor and Renowned Scholar in Residence in the School of Education and Allied Professions at Miami University, and co-director of the Center for Education and Cultural Studies. He is the author of numerous books in education, including Life in Schools and Schooling as a Ritual Performance, and editor with Henry Giroux of Critical Pedagogy, the State, and Cultural Struggle, also published by SUNY Press.