Althusser and Education: Reassessing Critical Education: Radical Politics and Education David I. Backer Bloomsbury Academic

Althusser and Education

Reassessing Critical Education

Open Access

Althusser and Education

Reassessing Critical Education

Open Access

Description

Louis Althusser's thinking laid the groundwork for critical educational theory, yet it is often misunderstood in critical pedagogy, sociology of education, and related fields. In this open access book, David I. Backer reexamines Althusser's educational theory, specifically the claim that education is the most powerful ideological state apparatus in modern capitalist societies. He then presents this theory's flawed reception in critical educational research and draws out a lost tradition of educational thinking it inspired with important applications to race, gender, ideology, and the concept of social structure in education. Correcting the record about Althusser's thinking in the traditional narrative of critical educational research becomes an opportunity to revisit fundamental questions for thinking about school in its social context. For students and researchers of education, critical theory, sociology of education, and critical pedagogy, this book will be a resource for rethinking the social foundations of education, both as a field and as a set of theoretical frameworks for educational research.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com.

Introduction
Part I: Education as an Ideological State Apparatus: Eleven Rules
1. An Attempt to Interpret the Events of May
2. The Rule of Keys: Social Reproduction
3. The Rule of Hands: Relations of Production
4. The Competency Rule
5. The Rule of Special Thirds: Base and Superstructure
6. The System, Toe, and Anchor Rules: ISA Basics
7. The Causality Rule: Grey Cows and Green Cheese
8. The Struggle Rule: The Necessity of Contingency
9. The School Rule
10. The Go Rule
11. Conclusion
Part II: The Common Sense About Althusser: Foundations of Critical Education
12. The Three Critiques
13. Foundations of Critical Education: Apple and Giroux's Indecision
14. Roots of the Common Sense
15. Against Generality: Hirst
16. A Trotskyite Calling Stalin: Callinicos
17. The Eagle's Apostasy: E. P. Thompson
18. Ashes and Promiscuity: Willis and Connell
19. Conclusion
Part III: Structural Education: Towards an Althusserian Pedagogy
20. Developments in Structure, Reproduction, and the Relations of Production
21. The Structure of Race in Education: From Hall to Leonardo
22. Structural Analysis of Girls' Education: AnnMarie Wolpe
23. Gender, History, Duality: Barrett
24. Marxist Feminist Education Research: Arnot, Deem, and Vallis
25. Ideology in Struggle: Advances in Interpellation
Conclusion
Epilogue
References
Index

Product details

Published	Mar 21 2024
Format	Paperback
Edition	1st
Extent	228
ISBN	9781350226845
Imprint	Bloomsbury Academic
Dimensions	9 x 6 inches
Series	Radical Politics and Education
Publisher	Bloomsbury Publishing

In this significant contribution to critical educational studies, Backer rethinks common interpretations of Althusser as unable to recognize human agency and re-establishes Althusser's ideas in conversations about social and cultural reproduction. This is the most comprehensive and nuanced reading of Althusser's thinking about education available in the English language.

Isaac Gottesman, Lenore Tingle Howard '42 Associate Professor of Education and Chair of the Department of Education, Connecticut College, USA
Backer delivers a detailed critique of the ideologies pervading critical education studies today, and offers a much-needed route towards an Althusserian pedagogy. Backer shows us that pedagogy, much like philosophy, is a battleground. His original reading of Althusser introduces a decisive theoretical weapon onto this terrain.

Samuel J.R. Mercer, Lecturer in Social Policy, School of Social Sciences, Liverpool Hope University, UK