Critical Theory: From Michael Apple’s Perspective (Review)

Abstract

W e have to confess the initial thoughts we had when we started to read the book Educa-tion and power written by Michel Apple. We definitely were expecting an optimistic discourse on how education could lead minorities to gain control and power over their circumstances, and therefore mobilize them from precarious contexts to a better social economic status. However, when reading it, we realized that this was not the author's intention. Far from being optimistic or pessimistic, Apple based this book on a critical and thoughtful understand-ing of education and its relationship with society at large. He refused to accept the simplistic view of educational criticism and the " almighty " power of the hidden curriculum in a context where the school is a passive mirror of society, which simply reproduces unequal societies without any process of resistance. Methodically, he focused his analysis on the way that the State and the producers of educational mate-rial have transformed the organization of the school and the main role of teachers and students. In this review, we will emphasize on three central aspects stressed by Apple in his book. It is important to keep in mind that during his discourse he considered multiple and contradictory aspects of society and education while avoiding an attempt to create a grand narrative. For him, it is unrealistic to talk about education without understanding its interconnec-tion with three systems: culture, government and economy. He, as a critical teaching specialist, recognized the redefinition that educational policy suffered after World War ii, and how education is no longer seen as a system that provides educational opportunities to minorities in order to equalize and increase mobility. Furthermore, his discourse reflects his contempla-tion of the strategies used by policy makers to blame schools for social crises such as the loss of economic competitiveness and the decline of values and stan-dards in family, culture and education.