Webb, D. orcid.org/0000-0001-9435-8676 (2025) Rethinking schools: transformative hope and utopian possibility. Educational Theory, 75 (1). pp. 27-50. ISSN 0013-2004
Abstract
This article explores the work of Rethinking Schools (RS). RS is at one and the same time a grassroots movement of teacher-activists, a quarterly journal, and a publishing house. For almost four decades the movement has sought to enact Freirean-inspired curricular/pedagogical initiatives within US public schooling. What makes the work of RS significant is the way it connects critical pedagogy to specific examples of concrete practice. It thus provides an invaluable corrective to the abstruseness and high levels of theoretical abstraction one finds in critical pedagogy as an academic field. Of particular interest is the explicitly utopian dimension to the work of the movement. Underpinning all the curriculum materials, resources, lesson plans, reading lists, and pedagogical strategies is a desire to provide children and young people with an opportunity to flex their utopian imaginations. Drawing on Freirean theory to reflect on the practice of the movement, Webb highlights the ways in which RS finds utopian possibility blooming in that most unpromising of grounds — public schooling. While the context for utopian praxis feels unpropitious to say the least, Rethinking Schools offers a corrective to doom-laden assessments of the scope for radical pedagogical initiatives within public schooling, not only in the US but more widely.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: | |
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2025 The Author(s). Educational Theory published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Board of Trustees, University of Illinois. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | Rethinking Schools; Paulo Freire; critical pedagogy; utopia; hope |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > School of Education (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 26 Mar 2024 16:59 |
Last Modified: | 14 Mar 2025 15:25 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/edth.12677 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:210545 |