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What Is Critical Research?

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Critical theory is a term that has been with us for nearly a century now. First coined by the philosophers of the Frankfurt School in the 1930s, critical theory challenged the biased nature of all knowledge, specifically knowledge that was transmitted via dominant institutions such as schools and the media. Proponents of critical theory such as Adorno (2002), Horkheimer (2002), and Marcuse (1964) argued that the culture industries of their time served to deceive the public and create a population that would readily accept the oppression of the masses for the benefits of the few. These ideas have been taken up variously by sociologists and theorists throughout the 20th century who have attempted to explain the reproduction of social, racial, gender, and educational inequality. They have also informed and been reshaped by other schools of thought such as feminism, Postcolonialism, and critical race theory, which analyze knowledge and power through the lenses of race, nation, and gender. These groups borrowed from the ideas of the Frankfurt School to explain current inequalities, but they also theorized agency and resistance through consciousness-raising and the development of a critical citizen who could use her knowledge to act against oppressive Merrell Shoes On Sale regimes in the struggle for her own freedom and humanity. Educators who have been taken with the ideas of critical theory have developed critical pedagogy. Paulo Freire (1970), Peter McLaren (2002), Antonia Darder (1991), bell hooks (1994), and Henry Giroux (1988) have ushered in a generation of scholars who have discussed the ways that educational institutions in the West have served the dominant interests and have outlined the theories of powerful teaching that help members of marginalized populations learn literacy and civic engagement skills that will allow them to more effectively navigate, resist, and ultimately transform institutions of power.

There are many in the field of literacy education with whom these ideas of critical theory and critical pedagogy resonate. However, identifying those successful, engaging practices in K--12 literacy educations require an approach to research that is theoretically consistent. Mainstream research methodologies limit our approaches to understanding the possible connections between critical pedagogy and literacy achievement by limiting the types of questions we ask, the participants in the research process, the conceptions of powerful literacy, and the desired outcomes of literacy education. If we are truly to understand, or even to develop these connections, we need to be involved in critical research.

Critical research is important because those most affected by the problem are involved in doing the actual research (Kincheloe & McLaren, 1998; Morrell, 2004, 2008). Rather than rely solely on the perspecives and analyses of trained university researchers, I contend that we need to have teachers and students centrally involved in data collection and analysis if we are truly to document and understand effective literacy praxis. As everyday participants in classroom life, teachers and students are able to provide insights and observations that complement and ultimately inform the perspectives of university trained researchers who are usually more removed from the life of the classrooms they study. Teachers and students are also key stakeholders in education and, as intellectuals; they deserve to play a role in addressing oppressive conditions and radical possibilities in classrooms and schools. Critical research is also important because, in the context of classroom research, it questions the ways classrooms are constructed depending on the position of those who are doing the research, as well as the ownership of knowledge. Critical research generally focuses on the rationale, the design, and the implementation of curricula and pedagogies that will produce excellence and empowerment for all students. This approach, I argue, represents an ideal future for literacy education research. In the critical and careful analysis of theoretically informed praxis with youth is an approach that is systematic and evidence-based, and yet locally initiated and intended to enact positive academic, identity, and social outcomes for students. By this I mean that it is possible to draw from critical theories and local knowledge to design innovative curricula and pedagogies that can be systematically analyzed by students, teachers, and university researchers.

Finally, critical research is important because it balances attention to academic literacy development with concern about literacy development for active and engaged citizenship in the multicultural, mul-tilinguistic, multimodal Merrell world of the 21st century. Critical research can help us to refine and expand our horizons as researchers as we look for outcomes in classrooms that may not be captured by traditional measures of achievement. I argue that in research that looks for literacy of engaged citizenship, we will still be able to identify the development of concrete literacy skills as we also identify the strategies that students are using to critique and act more powerfully upon their social world.

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