The decolonization of education necessarily involves a critique of dominant ideologies, pedagogies, and the current organization of education, to be replaced by what, in 1970, Paulo Freire called "the pedagogy of the oppressed." Critical Theory and Pedagogy presents a theory for decolonizing, democratizing, and reconstructing education in order to meet the challenges of a global and technological society. A democratic and intersectional reconstruction of education must build on and synthesize perspectives of classical philosophy of education, Deweyean radical pragmatism, Freirean critical pedagogy, poststructuralism, and critical theories of gender, race, class, sexuality, ethnicity, disability, indigeneity, and more, while criticizing obsolete idealist, elitist, and antidemocratic aspects of traditional concepts of education.
Articulating a metatheory for the philosophy of education, while providing a historical genealogy and grounding of key themes, Critical Theory and Pedagogy argues for a democratic reconstruction of education that overcomes traditional, limiting, and oppressive aspects—what Marx and Engels saw as "the ruling ideas of the ruling class" and bell hooks reminds us includes the colonization of subjects into White, Patriarchal Capitalism—and embraces alternative pedagogies and principles suitable for the present age. This project includes developing multiple critical literacies as a response to digital technologies and developing critical pedagogies to meet the challenges of globalization, multiculturalism, and institutionalized racism, classism, and sexism, while promoting radical democratization to counter the trend toward the imposition of a neo-liberal business model of education.