ABSTRACT

In this chapter, the author draws on work in, and across, the fields of English teaching, media education, cultural studies and critical pedagogy to address issues more specifically of teaching and learning, curriculum and pedagogy. It reviews a slightly revised version of a paper originally published in 1998 within an edited book on radical pedagogy, popular culture and media education. David Buckingham sees both of these as falling short of their programmatic aims of social transformation and educational change, essentially, because neither offers or works with an adequate learning theory. Criticism of the critical pedagogy project has ranged across feminist, Marxist and liberal persuasions and orientations. Roger Simon's work on pedagogy is another key reference point for any account of critical pedagogy. Work such as that of Levine and Buckingham represents different perspectives on, and elaborations of, the work of the London tradition as a distinctive historical and institutional position in educational theory and practice.