Theory and practice in critical education: the role of the counterhegemonic militant and intellectual. First part

Abstract

This article is a transcription of the seminar given by Dr. Michael Apple at the University of La Pampa. The first part is oriented toward a reflection on the tasks that the critical intellectual and activist should face in his educational practice. In opposition to hegemonic perspectives that consider school as detached from society, which would invalidate any action taken within the walls of a school, Apple states that academic work cannot be separated from militancy, since educating requires a politicalpositioning. The author suggests new tasks for the construction of a counterhegemonic educational practice. These tasks involve not only academic work on the denouncement of social relations of exploitation and dominance and the critical revitalization of counterhegemonic theoretical traditions, but also a praxis linked to the distribution of a knowldege useful to social transformation and the opening or building of democratic and egalitarian spaces. Finally, Apple emphasizes the fact that these tasks constitute a collective project that cannot be individually undertaken since its foundations lay on the abolition of social inequalities.