Toward a Critical Theory Of Education

Douglas Kellner
Toward a Critical Theory of Education

As the new millennium unfolds, the human species is undergoing one of the most dramatic technological revolutions in history, one that is changing everything from the ways that people work to the ways that they communicate with each other and spend their leisure time. The technological revolution centers on computer, information, communication, and multimedia technologies, is often interpreted as the beginnings of an “information society,” and ascribes education a central role in every aspect of life……..

Critical theory adopts a Hegelian concept of theory by developing holistic theories that attempt to conceptualize the totality of a given field, but that importantly make connections and articulate contradictions, overcoming idealist or reductive theories of the whole. …..

In their 1848 “Communist Manifesto,” Marx and Engels made liberation of the working class from bourgeois education and expanded public education for the working class one of their major demands, offering as a key measure to constructing socialism: “Public education of all children free of charge. Elimination of children’s factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with material production, etc. etc.” (Marx
and Engels 1978: 490)..