PETER MCLAREN: BIOGRAPHY AND CONTRIBUTIONS TO EDUCATION - CULTURE VOCABULARY - 2024

Peter McLaren (1948 – present) is a teacher, considered one of the most influential in the world of education, thanks to the foundations he laid in this area. He held important positions as a teacher at various universities in the United States and Canada. He has also worked in China, in the educational area.

Brock University, the University of Miami, the Center for Education and Cultural Studies and the University of California, Los Angeles, are some of the most important institutions in which he has worked.

By Juha Suoranta, from Wikimedia Commons

He is considered one of the founders of critical pedagogy. His academic writings have been recognized for their importance to education; He wrote and edited more than 45 books, as well as hundreds of articles and academic chapters.

Biography

Early years

McLaren was born on August 2, 1948 and was the fruit of the relationship between Frances Teresa McLaren and Lawrence McLaren, a veteran of World War II; they were both Canadian. The first years of her childhood she lived in Toronto, Canada.

His family belonged to the working class until his father returned from battle and began selling televisions, a job that eventually allowed him to become the head of Phillips Electronics.

During his youth, Peter McLaren was an avid reader of philosophy, poetry, general literature, and social theories. He dreamed of working in the world of audiovisual arts. In addition, he felt admiration for the poet and artist William Morris.

During his educational years, he developed creative texts, an activity for which he received his first award when he was in school, after creating a science fiction story.

Before he was 20 years old, McLaren traveled the United States asking drivers on the roads to take him with him. He came to live in San Francisco and Los Angeles, cities where he participated in numerous protests and social movements.

After meeting influential people in the world of writing, he began to write poems and short stories.

University studies

In 1973 he graduated from the University of Waterloo, located in Canada, after studying English Literature.

Additionally, he earned a Bachelor of Education degree after studying at the University of Toronto College of Education. She received a master's degree in education from Brock University and a doctorate from the Institute for Education Studies at the University of Toronto, located in Ontario.

In this last institution, he developed a deep knowledge of the work of the anthropologist Victor Turner, who carried out a work that brought the theory of dramaturgy and anthropology closer.

Teaching career

For five years he taught in a primary and secondary school. The experience helped him to write one of his most famous books and for which he obtained the first positions in the list of best sellers in Canada: Cries from the Corridor.

Four years after teaching early childhood classes, McLaren began working at Brock University, where he taught as a Special Education teacher, specializing in urban education and language arts.

After his contract was not renewed at that school, he decided to move to the United States. Once in the new country, he began teaching at the University of Miami; She remained there for eight years, during which time she met the academic Henry Giroux.

On the other hand, McLaren worked as director of the Center for Education and Cultural Studies, where he obtained academic recognition at the University of Miami. Later, the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), asked him to work at the institution in 1993.

He has also been Emeritus Professor of Urban Education at UCLA and of Leadership for Education at the University of Miami.

Contributions to education

First jobs

McLaren's early work focused on both intellectual and empirical issues. In his projects, he tried to investigate identity formation in the schools of a neoliberal society. For this he needed to get involved in numerous critical projects.

His work, in this first instance, was to develop an analysis by teachers and students about how the meanings transmitted by school texts are produced, as well as discovering the political and ideological meanings that were in them.

Among its purposes was also the creation of an alternative reading and new pedagogical practices.

Change

During a stage of his life, McLaren focused on making a critique of political economy, capitalism, cultural contact, racial identity, among others. As of 1994, her work was a bit detached from the educational issue.

This change of interests led him to work in Latin America, with the Venezuelan government and union leaders from both Mexico and Colombia, creating a special interest in the Marxist critique of political economy.

Critical pedagogy

McLaren was recognized for being one of those responsible for the formulation of a critical pedagogy, which is approached by him as an effort to develop, in various ways, a politics about everyday life.

The critical pedagogy that he developed tried to make a link between the daily lives of both teachers and students, with economic, cultural, social and institutional structures.

In addition, McLaren developed this philosophy to try to analyze the possibility of a transformation of the life of society, both individually and personally. With this, she tried to understand the development of power relations in the classroom and in the community.

Other contributions

McLaren has also been considered an important figure for the educational field thanks to his texts on critical literacy, the sociology of education, cultural studies, critical ethnography and Marxist theory.

Their contributions allowed the discovery of new ways of approaching the educational process. His book Schooling as a Ritual Performance became one of his most important publications.

In addition, he is recognized today as one of the most recognized exponents of revolutionary critical pedagogy. His work has generated some controversy due to the influence of a class struggle policy.

More than 45 books are known, as well as hundreds of articles and academic chapters, of which he was the author and editor; the writings have been translated into several languages. The contribution he made to education was such that the Escuela Normal Superior de Neiva in Colombia named one of its buildings after Peter McLaren.

Cries from the Corridor, one of the texts in which he reflected his teaching experiences, became one of the 10 best-selling books in Canada in 1980. This work started a debate in the country about some educational institutions and their principles..

References

1. Peter McLaren, Portal Chapman University, (nd). Taken from chapman.edu
2. Peter McLaren, Educhatter, (nd). Taken from educhatter.com
3. Peter McLaren's Critical Pedagogy, Marxist Website, (2003). Taken from marxists.org
4. Peter McLaren, Wikipedia in English, (nd). Taken from en.wikipedia.org
5. Peter McLaren, Spanish Wikipedia, (nd). Taken from wikipedia.org