Radical Pedagogy

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.