Constructing Critical Consciousness

Since its inception, public education in the United States has contributed to the reproduction of a socio-economic and political hierarchy with ingrained inequities and inequalities. The primary goals of public education have included socializing young people to become docile, patriotic citizens serving the nation-state, thus preparing them to fit into a corporate global economy. This hegemonic process requires us to come to see dominant cultural ideas, values, and beliefs as «normal» or «common sense». ‘Constructing Critical Consciousness’ unmasks the everyday colonizing operations of hegemonic power, often under the guise of progressive language. Through critical multicultural research and critical race, class, and gender narratives, the book exposes some of the barriers encountered in challenging hegemony and offers ideas for interrupting hegemony in teacher and K–12 education. Its features include research and narratives that identify how power operates in the field of education through micro-aggressions and oppressions to construct consciousness and reproduce the status quo; a collection of short, invited narratives by educators who have been working to expose and transform hegemony; and practical ideas for interrupting the hegemonic processes described in the narratives.