How Critical Theory Has Affected Modern Education

Reframing Education to Dismantle Tradition and to Serve Revolution

Antonio Gramsci (1891–1937) was an Italian Marxist philosopher. While not necessarily a “member” of the school of the early critical theory, he was certainly a fellow traveler of the critical theorists. The last eleven years or so of his life he served in prison (1926–1937). He founded, and for a while led, the Italian Communist Party. In his Prison Notebooks, he spoke at length about the place of “intellectuals” in the society as a whole. The Prison Notebooks begins with a section titled “Intellectuals,” followed by the section “On Education.”¹ One of Gramsci’s key points is that each socioeconomic class produces its own set of intellectuals.² So every group of intellectuals is essentially class specific. Gramsci was trying to work out what is the role of education. He desired a change from the older “Jesuitical school” of Italy, but in some ways Gramsci was strikingly traditional. He advocated hard work, traditional (in a sense) philosophy, the importance of logic, and other related ideas. He almost advocated what is often today called “classical education.” But he was in fact wanting to see a change from the traditional understanding of schooling: “It was right to struggle against the old school.”³ But then Gramsci wrote, “Reforming it was not so simple as it seemed.”⁴ While somewhat muted in his two reflections on education in Prison Notebooks, his ultimate goal gradually became clear: The revolutionary movement must produce its own “intellectuals” if it is going to be successful.⁵

What Is Critical Theory?

Bradley G. Green

In this book, Bradley G. Green offers a thoughtful Christian analysis of critical theory, its key philosophers, and their views regarding creation and reality; sin and the human dilemma; and redemption, history, and eschatology.

Gramsci saw the need for a revised educational model—one that assumed centralized power. His Marxist commitments emerge in his outline of what a newer model of education might look like:

[It] ought in particular to deal with an aspect of education that is now neglected—that is, with “rights and duties,” with the first notions of the State and society as primordial elements of a new conception of the world which challenges the conceptions that are imparted by the various traditional social environments, i.e., those conceptions which can be termed folkloristic.⁶

In short, education—under the control of the government—should see “the State and society” as “primordial elements of a new conception of the world.” Education should be put in the service of revolutionary activity. And this new model of education should strive to challenge various “traditional social environments”—assuredly the traditional family and the traditional church, which are purveyors of “folkloristic” understandings.

Though one might hear the phrase “the long march through the institutions” attributed to Gramsci, this phrase was actually uttered by Rudi Dutschke (1940–1979).⁷ The concept, however, is certainly consistent with the thought of Gramsci. Dutschke was a German activist who uttered this classic slogan in the late 1960s. Interestingly, the critical theorist Herbert Marcuse wrote to Dutschke a number of times, affirming this notion of the “long march.” Marcuse wrote, “I regard your notion of the ‘long march through the institutions’ as the only effective way, now more than ever.”⁸ The importance of marching through institutions—including educational institutions—developed naturally within the wake of critical theory, and again, the influence of Marcuse is particularly clear. In trying to determine the best way to fight capitalism and the oppression that is (ostensibly) endemic to capitalism, Marcuse pointed especially to education. Marcuse wrote that key to the fight against capitalist oppression—that is, fascism—

is still political education—countereducation—in theory and practice: the slow painful process of making people aware of the fact that the repressions required for maintaining the established society are no longer necessary, that they can be abolished without being replaced by another system of indoctrination.⁹

The Telos of Education

Perhaps no author has more thoroughly applied a generally (Marxist-inspired) oppressor-oppressed vision of the world to education than Paulo Freire (1921–1997), especially in his work Pedagogy of the Oppressed.¹⁰ Freire began this key book by talking about “humanization,” which is the goal over against “dehumani­zation”—and this “dehumanization” is brought by the oppressor against the oppressed.¹¹ Freire stated plainly the goal of the oppressed: “This, then, is the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves and their oppressors as well.”¹² Indeed, “the oppressed must not, in seeking to regain their humanity (which is a way to create it), become in turn oppressors of the oppressors, but rather restorers of the humanity of both.”¹³ Freedom, as Freire saw it, is “the indispensable condition for the quest for human completion [i.e., ‘humanization’].”¹⁴

Education is about understanding God’s world on God’s terms and having wisdom and knowledge rooted in who God is and what he has spoken.

For Freire, the oppressed are caught in a bind. They fear freedom, for this is an unknown and uncertain reality, and the quest for freedom might land the oppressed in a deeper oppression. So the purpose of education is to speak to the oppressed who are in such a bind: “This [i.e., this bind the oppressed are in] is the tragic dilemma of the oppressed which their education must take into account.”¹⁵ Freire summarized his understanding of pedagogy as follows: “The pedagogy of the oppressed is an instrument for their critical discovery that both they and their oppressors are manifestations of dehumanization.”¹⁶

Freire made this intriguing comment in Pedagogy of the Oppressed: “I am certain that Christians and Marxists, though they may disagree with me in part or in whole, will continue reading to the end.”¹⁷ The Christian, like Freire, sees a telos (Gk. “end,” “goal”) at the center of education. Freire, working essentially in Marxist categories of oppressor and oppressed, saw education as being devoted to changing the world—especially in terms of overcoming oppression.

Christians have—at our best—also had a telos at the heart of our thinking about education. Education is to shape and train people to love God and neighbor (Matt. 22:37–40). Education is about understanding before it is about changing. Education is about understanding God’s world on God’s terms and having wisdom and knowledge rooted in who God is and what he has spoken (Prov. 2). Christians are also no fans of oppression, even if the most fundamental grid in understanding the nature of education is not necessarily the oppressor-oppressed schema. Christians are justice people too. Ironically, Christians would respond to people like Freire by pointing to the deeper biblical teaching on justice—a justice that we should seek in the present, even while recognizing that absolute and final justice is organically and inextricably related to the lordship of Jesus, who will “execute justice and righteousness in the land” (Jer. 33:15).

The Critical Theory Behind Public Education Unions

As we move to our most current situation, it is clear that at least public education—or public-education unions like the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT)—are fully committed to a particularly radical and progressive agenda. To this end, they are conceptually occupying the same intellectual universe as the early critical theorists. On the “Mission, Vision, and Values” page of the NEA’s website, the first three entries under “Do More” are as follows:

1. “NEA LGBTQ+ Resources”
2. “Supporting Transgender, Non-binary, and Gender Non-conforming Students”
3. “Making the Case: Communication Strategies on LGBTQ+ Issues”¹⁸

The 2024–2025 “resolutions” of the National Education Association are straight down the line committed to virtually each and every radical or progressive political, moral, and social issue. Race-based admissions preferences might be necessary “to achieve or maintain racial diversity.”¹⁹ And the organization explicitly resolves to fully affirm homosexual, bisexual, and transgender sexual activity and identification.²⁰ It is not an overstatement to note that the Marcusian vision (echoed by Dutschke) of “marching” through the institutions has been very successful in the current state of organizations like the National Education Association.

This article is adapted from What Is Critical Theory?: A Concise Christian Analysis by Bradley G. Green.

Bradley G. Green (PhD, Baylor University) is professor of Philosophy and Christian Theology at the Southern Baptist Theoloical Seminary and cofounder of Augustine School, a Christian liberal arts school in Jackson, Tennessee. He is the author of The Gospel and the Mind and What Is Critical Theory? 

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