ABSTRACT
Amid the countless academic texts recently published which focus on a pedagogy of multiculturalism, Henry Giroux has produced a substantial work as the first volume in the series Counterpoints: Studies in the Postmodern Theory of Education from Peter Lang Publishing and edited by Joe L.Kincheloe and Shirley R.Steinberg. Giroux’s Living Dangerously: Multiculturalism and the Politics of Difference explores current educational theory from a progressive-perhaps a radical-point of view. Drawing from some of his previous work, Giroux offers an engaging mixed bag of political theory, pedagogy and classroom strategies that leaves the reader recharged for re-entry into her own classroom. Giroux remains true to his previous work in Bordercrossings by engaging in theoretical discourse from an unapologetically moral and political standpoint. Wresting the term ‘democracy’ from the far right, where it has been appropriated as a deflective tool, he illustrates clearly how the insistence upon schools operating within the logic of the marketplace is in direct opposition to what Giroux sees as the project of democracy. Such a project can only be realized by rethinking our notions of identity and race in a postmodern world. Giroux paints a vivid picture of what he describes as the ‘retreat from democracy’ found in America today, to the point of political dysfunction. The language of leadership has become the discourse of the marketplace, and notions of freedom and equality are excluded in any real sense from public life-including the classroom. Giroux seeks to redefine and revive ‘democracy’:
Democracy is not simply a lifeless tradition or disciplinary subject that is merely passed on from one generation to the next. Neither is democracy an empty set of regulations and procedures that can be subsumed in the language of proficiency, efficiency, and accountability. Nor is it an outmoded moral and political referent that simply makes governing more difficult in the light of the rise of new rights and entitlements demanded by emerging social movements and grounds. Put simply, democracy is both a discourse and a practice that produces particular narratives and identities in-the-making informed by the principles of freedom, equality, and social justice. It is expressed not in moral platitudes but in concrete struggles and practices that find expression in classroom social relations, everyday life, and memories of resistance and struggle. When wedded to its most emancipatory possibilities, democracy
encourages all citizens to actively construct and share power over those institutions that govern their lives.
