Peter McLaren (born August 2, 1948) is a Professor in the Division of Urban Schooling, the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles (United States).[1] He is the author and editor of forty-five books and hundreds of scholarly articles and chapters. His writings have been translated into 20 languages.
He is known as one of the leading architects of critical pedagogy and for his scholarly writings on critical literacy, the sociology of education, cultural studies, critical ethnography, and Marxist theory. He has developed a reputation for his uncompromising political analysis influenced by a Marxist humanist philosophy and a unique literary style of expression. His scholarship and political activism have taken him throughout Latin America, the Caribbean, Europe, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia.
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Born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and raised in both Toronto and Winnipeg, Manitoba, he earned a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature at University of Waterloo in 1973 (specializing in Elizabethan drama), attended Toronto Teachers College and went on to earn a Bachelor of Education at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Education, a Masters of Education at Brock University’s College of Education, and a Ph.D. at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto (where he worked with the late Richard Courtney, a leading international authority in children's drama).
McLaren taught elementary and middle school from 1974-1979. Most of that time was spent teaching in Canada’s largest public housing complex located in Toronto’s Jane-Finch Corridor. Cries from the Corridor, McLaren's book about his teaching experiences, made the Canadian bestseller list and was one of top ten bestselling books in Canada in 1980 (Maclean's Magazine, The Toronto Star), initiating a country-wide debate on inner-city schools. (Later McLaren would harshly criticize this book and go on to transform it into the highly acclaimed pedagogical text, Life in Schools).
After earning his doctorate in 1983, he served as Special Lecturer in Education at Brock University where, as a one year sabbatical replacement, he specialized in inner city education and language arts. After the Dean did not follow through on his promised extension of McLaren's contract, McLaren decided to pursue an academic appointment in the United States. However, he remains on good terms with faculty at Brock University, with whom he remains in a relationship of solidarity and friendship.
McLaren left Canada in 1985 to teach at Miami University's School of Education and Allied Professions where he spent eight years working with colleague Henry Giroux during a time when the epistemology known as critical pedagogy was gaining traction in North American schools of education. McLaren also served as Director of the Center for Education and Cultural Studies, and held the title of Renowned Scholar-in-Residence at Miami University before being recruited by the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, in 1993.
McLaren is the author, co-author, editor, and co-editor of approximately forty books and monographs. Several hundred of his articles, chapters, interviews, reviews, commentaries, and columns have appeared in dozens of scholarly journals and professional magazines worldwide.
His most recent books include:
He is also author of Life in Schools: An Introduction to Critical Pedagogy in the Foundations of Education (Allyn & Bacon) which is now in its fifth edition (2006). Life in Schools has been named one of the 12 most significant writings worldwide in the field of educational theory, policy and practice] by an international panel of experts assembled by the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences; other writers named by the panel include Paulo Freire, Ivan Illich, and Pierre Bourdieu.[4] In 2011, Instituto Peter McLaren was established in Ensenada, Mexico.[5]
McLaren's works has been embraced in Teaching Peter McLaren. Paths of Dissent (2005) edited by Marc Pruyn and Luis Huerta-Charles, and it has also been published in Spanish as De la pedagogía crítica a la pedagogía revolucionaria. Ensayos para comprender a Peter Mclaren (2007).
McLaren has also recently debuted as a poet with his poem "The Despoiling of the American Mind" in MRZine.[6]
McLaren lectures worldwide on the politics of education. Locations of his speaking engagements have included China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Germany, Cuba, Australia, Finland, England, Greece, North Korea, Spain, Portugal, Venezuela, Brazil, Costa Rica, Iran, Mexico, Argentina, Poland, Israel, Palestine, Malaysia, and Pakistan.
McLaren is the inaugural recipient of the Paulo Freire Social Justice Award presented by Chapman University in 2002. He was awarded an honorary doctorate by the University of Lapland, Finland in 2004 and by Universidad del Salvador, Buenos Aires, Argentina in 2010. He also received the Amigo Honorifica de la Comunidad Universitaria de esta Institucion by La Universidad Pedagogica Nacional, Unidad 141, Guadalajara, Mexico. Four of his books have been winners of the American Education Studies Association Critics Choice Awards for outstanding books in education.
In 2005, a group of scholars and activists in Northern Mexico established La Fundacion McLaren de Pedagogía Critica to develop a knowledge of McLaren's work throughout Mexico and to promote projects in critical pedagogy and popular education.[7] On September 15, 2006 the Catedra Peter McLaren was inaugurated at the Bolivarian University of Venezuela.
On November 21, 2007 Peter McLaren gave an Opening Lecture in Paulo Freire Research Center–Finland [8] Inauguration.
Journal articles by Peter McLaren