Peter McLaren’s ‘Life in Schools’ Ranked in Top 12 Significant Writings of Foreign Authors

Book honored by the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences

UCLA education Professor Peter McLaren’s book, “Life in Schools: An Introduction to Critical Pedagogy in the Foundations of Education� (Allyn and Bacon), has been named one of the 12 most significant writings by foreign authors in the field of educational theory, policy and practice by the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences.

In 2003 the Moscow school established an international panel of experts who generated an initial list of 300 publications and then selected the top 12. The chosen works will be translated into Russian by one of Russia’s top publishers.

“I am extremely honored to be included in such a prestigious list. In addition to being recognized by my peers, it is especially moving to me to be named alongside such great authors as Paulo Freire, Jerome Bruner, Pierre Bourdieu and Basil Bernstein,� McLaren said.

“Peter’s book, ‘Life in Schools,’ is both a classic and an ever-fresh challenge to educators. I am glad to see that the work of this internationally acclaimed educator, social theorist and pioneer of critical pedagogy will be made readily available to Russian readers,� said UCLA’s Graduate School of Education & Information Studies Dean Aimée Dorr.

The first edition of “Life in Schools� was published in 1989 as an expanded version of McLaren’s 1980 Canadian bestseller, “Cries From the Corridor,� a book that documented his years as an inner-city elementary school teacher. In “Life in Schools,� he criticized the pedagogy that he practiced as a classroom teacher and developed a new theoretical and political framework for teaching for social justice, which provided the foundation for what has come to be known as critical pedagogy.

McLaren taught elementary and middle school in Toronto, Canada, while earning a master’s of education degree at Brock University’s College of Education and a Ph.D. at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. After earning his doctorate in 1983, he left his native Canada to teach at Miami University of Ohio and was appointed renowned scholar-in-residence at Miami University’s School of Education and Allied Professions in 1990.

In 1993 he began teaching at UCLA and is currently a professor of education in the Division of Urban Schooling at the Graduate School of Education & Information Studies.

McLaren has written and edited approximately 40 books and monographs on critical pedagogy, the sociology of education, critical literacy, critical ethnography, cultural studies and social theory. His works have been translated into 11 languages.

McLaren became the inaugural recipient of the Paulo Freire Social Justice Award in 2003 from the School of Education at Chapman College in California and has also received a Lilly Scholarship at the Miami University of Ohio. He guest-lectured at the University of British Columbia as a noted scholar, presented the Eminent Scholar Lecture at Ohio State University and delivered the Claude A. Eggerston Lecture at the annual meeting of the Comparative and International Education Society.

Additionally, three of his books were winners of the American Education Studies Association Critics’ Choice Awards for outstanding books in education.

Recently, a group of educational scholars and activists in Mexico has established La Fundacion McLaren de Pedagogia Critica (The McLaren Foundation of Critical Pedagogy) to advance throughout Mexico and Latin America McLaren’s thinking and that of other critical pedagogues.