ABSTRACT
Within the profession of American education, there has been a movement towards embracing various notions of ‘critical pedagogy’ in the hopes of revitalizing fragile communities, especially in urban areas. Heartened by a possibly neo-progressive approach towards education, teachers, administrators, and especially academicians are exploring once again what it means to be an educated citizen in an increasingly heterogeneous democratic republic. Words such as ‘community’, crit?ical’, and ‘empowerment’, while at times ill-defined, abound in the professional literature. There appears to be growing professional consensus that public education should inculcate the values of tolerance, understanding, and an appreciation of difference: seemingly uncontroversial norms considered vital to the health of democracy.
