Critical Education in the New Information Age

by Manuel Castells (Contributor), Henry A. Giroux (Contributor), Donaldo Macedo (Contributor)

Essays by some of the world's leading educators provide a revolutionary portrait of new ideas and developments in education that can influence the possibility of social and political change. The authors take into account such diverse terrain as feminism, ecology, media, and individual liberty in their pursuit of new ideas that can inform the fundamental practice of education and promote a more humane civil society. The book consolidates recent thinking just as it reflects on emerging new lines of critical theory.

Genres: Education, Nonfiction

184 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Manuel Castells is Professor of Communication and the Wallis Annenberg Chair in Communication Technology and Society at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California, as well as Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Planning at the University of California, Berkeley, Research Professor at the Open University of Catalonia, and Marvin and Joanne Grossman Distinguished Visiting Professor of Technology and Society at MIT. He is the author of, among other books, the three-volume work The Information Age: Economy, Society, and Culture.

Reviews

[nhi]

We are all practical experts on mythologies now, on how to read the codes in cultural literacy, on how to take the broad hint when the advertisements’ inside and outside texts tell us that nothing is real. When there’s no one left who believes what they’re told, there’s no point in deconstruction. Realism subverts realism in the commodity relation.

[Zach]

Published in the late 90s, this book is incredibly prophetic of the information age's immediate future (our present), and it demonstrates an urgent need for more educators to engage in critical pedagogy. 


Beyond being prophetic, this book offers vital insight into the information age we live in. Macedo's exploration of the mechanisms of poisonous pedagogy could be seen as an antidote for those critical enough to engage. Macedo notes the some of the aims of poisonous pedagogy include requiring students to 1) willingly do as they are told 2) willingly refrain from doing what is forbidden 3) accept the rules for their sake. 


Other riches to explore include the communicative perspective (Flecha) and postmodern pedagogy (Giroux). 


Here's a favorite quote that I'll be keeping with me:


"Too often practices or theories are dismissed  because they are progressive and valued because they support the powerful." (Ramon Flecha).