Radical Pedagogy Identity, Generativity, and Social Transformation

Radical Pedagogy argues that longstanding pedagogical aims and practices are ineffective in promoting learning and social change and proposes a new strategy for achieving these ends. Drawing on recent research in psychoanalysis, social psychology, and cognitive science, Mark Bracher argues that the most effective way to solve social problems such as violence, prejudice, and substance abuse on a mass scale, as well as impediments to learning and personal well being, is through a pedagogy that addresses their common root cause: identity vulnerability. To this end, Bracher formulates psychoanalytically based practices to develop more resilient, secure, and prosocial identities for both teachers and students.

Mark Bracher is Professor of English and Director of the Center for Literature and Psychoanalysis at Kent State University. He is Founding Editor of the journal Psychoanalysis, Culture and Society, and the author of Lacan, Discourse, and Social Change: A Psychoanalytic Cultural Criticism and The Writing Cure: Psychoanalysis, Composition, and the Aims of Education.

“Bold, sophisticated, and provocative, Radical Pedagogy: Identity, Generativity, and Social Transformation weds a strong commitment to political and social justice to a theory and pedagogy of identity formation. Mark Bracher argues that teachers who understand the dynamic of identity will not only be able to facilitate deeper learning, they will also be able to position students to become more sensitive to questions of social justice. This is a must read for anyone committed to education, civic engagement, and social change.”--Lynn Worsham, Professor of English, Illinois State University “Radical Pedagogy is a chef d’oeuvre that provides sensible alternatives to the constraining normativities of an increasingly corporatized academy. Moreover, it grounds the questioning of such norms in a compelling theory of human development, arguing that an identity-centered approach is necessary in order to reconceptualize pedagogy in the American University.”--David A Brenner, reviewer for Pedagogy