Study On Giroux’s Philosophy Thoughts Of Critical Education

Giroux, one of the representative persons for Western Marxism Educational Theories, is called as the father of Critical Pedagogy by America media. In recent years, his thoughts have appealed more and more attention in the field of educational theory. Giroux is committed to explore some important issues such as the relationship among education, politics and culture by learning the new social theories critically and breaking inherent ideas towards education being held by the conservatives. Based on the Classical Marxism, Western Marxism, Postmodernism and some other thoughts, Giroux has formed the original ideas about the essence of school and education, has made the historic contribution to the development of critical education theory, and has provided the important foundation of discourse and research for the development of critical educational theory with his thoughts of educational philosophy.Based on the general introduction about Giroux’s developing course of educational philosophy thoughts, this paper has done a systematical literature review both domestically and internationally, analyzing its researching status and insufficiency, and then established the purpose, significance, research contents and methods for this study at the very beginning. Specifically speaking, this paper has studied Giroux’s philosophy thoughts of critical education systematically, including several aspects as follows:Firstly, the paper has traced the theoretical foundation of Giroux’s philosophy thoughts of critical education. From two dimensions of time and space, focusing on several key words such as critical theory, ideology, power, knowledge, subject, culture, education, democracy and so on, surrounding the Classical Marxism, Frankfurt School, Postmodernism, Dewey’s Philosophy of Democratic Education, and Freire’s Philosophy of Liberation Education, this paper has explored the successive relationship between Giroux’s philosophy thoughts and other existing theories, and has investigated the theoretical foundation and source of Giroux’s philosophy thoughts, and has finally revealed its relationship with era background, social environment, the related research results and so on.Secondly, the paper has found the basic point of Giroux’s philosophy thoughts of critical education. Giroux’s Resistance Theory is derived from the Critical Theory, and draws lessons from the Reproduction Theory critically. Reproduction theory, in his opinion, provides the support for the hegemonic logic, but his Resistance Theory focuses on the contradiction between school education and social resistance and thinks that the subordinate and nondominant class has the ability to resist and self-create. Resistance Theory provides an important theoretical perspective for Giroux to analyze the relationship between school and society, forms the basic problem domain and analysis framework to analyze the educational activities, and widens the research field and vision for him as well. Giroux regards school as an institution for struggle and resistance, in order to be against the traditional educational viewpoint and to promote the formation of new democratic status, organization form and struggle mode, highlighting the political and cultural dimensions to examine education.Thirdly, the paper analyzes the standpoint of Giroux’s philosophy thoughts of critical education, namely refusal to value neutrality. Education, as a special political activity, can not only be explored in the pure science way, but also be inquired with the usage of critical thinking, to explain the complex interest relationships and power struggles behind the phenomenon of education. Giroux directly expresses his philosophy position of critical educational philosophy-refusal to value neutrality. He fully draws lessons from postmodernism’s emphasis on diversity, and emphasizes the importance of marginal discourse and different viewpoints. He quite agrees with the view of postmodern critical theory, namely that the production of significance overweighs the production of labor in the process of human being’s development. Thus, Giroux clarifies his understanding towards critical educational philosophy from the perspective of philosophy, advocates the subjectivity and identity politics to build the difference pedagogy. In this way, he forms the challenge to the existing borders by knowledge and power, and finally highlights the main aim of border pedagogy.Fourthly, the paper finds that radical education theory is the aim of Giroux’s philosophy thoughts of critical education. If it is said that Giroux constructs the border pedagogy by emphasizing the difference pedagogy as the basis, which results in that Giroux forms his own point of view in the numerous critical education, his critical education will command the development of both difference pedagogy and border pedagogy. During the organic combination of difference pedagogy and border pedagogy, criticism remains its dominant position among them above. Giroux states a critical analysis towards the developing methods of American schools and various values in educational practice, both historically and ideologically, and gives a new interpretation on education and school in the level of ontology, which is that education is a form of cultural production and school is a critical democratic institution and public space, thus forming his radical education theory.Fifthly, the paper introduces the general situation about the practice of Giroux’s philosophy thoughts of critical education. Giroux doesn’t only explore the fundamental issues in educational field, and, more importantly than that, his thoughts point to the specific education practice. He thinks that the role of teacher can not only be regarded from the single perspective and narrow language as the professional development, which should be taken into an even broader social practice and public struggle. Thus, Giroux points out that teacher should liberate memory, revolt text, form a new kind of student-teacher relationship with the nature of dialogism and then reassess the dualistic tension between theory and practice. Meanwhile, we should try hard to realize the cultural politic turn of teacher’s education, and promote the construction of critical curriculum by using the language being combined with the criticism and possibility.Sixthly, the paper questions the significance of Giroux’s philosophy thoughts of critical education. To practice the theory means to develop theory itself profoundly. Giroux proposes a great deal of critical problems about the development of education from different angles, which can not only make the educational theory remain vigorous, more importantly, which shows us that how to build a better world in the future through education. That is, we can not build a more just and democratic society without the teacher’s mission and responsibility as public intellectual, without the cultivation of citizen with social responsibility and the development of empowerment of students.Finally, the complementary argumentation analyzes the enlightenment towards Chinese educational philosophy and Chinese social subject. Giroux puts the argumentation about the significance and essence of education into an even broader background, including critical citizens, politics and the fate of human life. For education, the most dangerous matter is not the imperfect teaching, but the widespread disregard for students’feeling to the world and themselves, which needs us to think seriously about how educational philosophy influence the development of social subjects. For this question, Giroux’s abundant and profound thoughts will enlighten us greatly.Giroux’s concern for educational problem shows strong pertinence, he reassesses the purpose and the significance of education, and regards education as the profound practice of citizens, politics, and morality. He thinks that personal ability, knowledge, technology and social relationship can only develop through education and ends up as the agent for politics and society. Only when people grasp the theme of the Time, they can step into the reality as a participant rather than a spectator and get rid of the blind area of education in a permanent critical attitude. Giroux points out that education needs both to feet on the ground and to look up at the starry sky, by using the theoretical way of combining criticism and possibility, which embodies the ideal of Utopia. Giroux regards school as a democratic public area from beginning to end, which goes through the whole academic course. In his eyes, the hope is also a kind of political teaching practice. Only with the move and inspire of hope, the personal empowerment and social change can get fully combined and become an important force to promote democracy society finally.