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Book review-Pedagogy of resistance: against manufactured ignorance

Article  in  Educational Review · January 2023

DOI: 10.1080/00131911.2023.2167331

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Malba Barahona
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 Educational Review

ISSN: (Print) (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cedr20

Pedagogy of resistance: against manufactured

ignorance
by Henry A. Giroux, London, Bloomsbury Academic, 2022, 288 pp., £17.99
(Paperback), ISBN: 9781350269507

Malba Barahona

To cite this article: Malba Barahona (2023): Pedagogy of resistance: against manufactured
ignorance, Educational Review, DOI: 10.1080/00131911.2023.2167331

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EDUCATIONAL REVIEW

BOOK REVIEW

Pedagogy of resistance: against manufactured ignorance, by Henry A. Giroux,

London, Bloomsbury Academic, 2022, 288 pp., £17.99 (Paperback), ISBN:
9781350269507

Undoubtedly, the world has faced an unprecedented global health crisis that has exposed not
only the existing structural social inequalities, but also acted to aggravate them. In essence,
this disruption has laid bare the ubiquitous challenges of injustice in education in perpetuating
socioeconomic, ethnic and gender inequalities. It is within this context that Henry A. Giroux
offers a powerful critical analysis of the crucial role education performs in shaping politics
and society at a time when ignorance, mythologies and fake news have risen to prominence
in the public domain, strengthening authoritarian pressures on global educational systems.
Giroux not only problematises the origins of this crisis, but also advocates for a reconceptua-
lization of the fundamental social role of education to develop what he characterises as a peda-
gogy of resistance.
This book opens with a foreword by Brad Evans who highlights the value in exposing the
forces of fascism, and the related imperative to develop resistance and critical actions as a col-
lective force against its rise in education. The book itself is divided into three sections intro-
duced by Giroux, providing a guiding conceptual and contextual background analysis to
understand the purpose of the book, which he asserts is, “to rethink and relearn the role
that critical education and civic literacy have and can play in producing a collective anti-capi-
talist consciousness” (p. 18). The first section of the book, The Crisis of Democracy and the Deep
Roots of Racial Terror, analyses the bases of race-based discrimination in the United States,
exploring the emergence and strengthening of the white supremacy movement and the
associated rise of Trumpism and its afterlife. This analysis encourages the reader to critically
reflect on how democratic values have been progressively eroded and how the forces of
fascism have imposed its values, both in the United States, and beyond. This first component
of the text offers a meaningful recount of the Trump presidency and the pandemic, as well as
an analysis of how recent anti-democratic discourses and politics have developed. Giroux
argues that these forces are firmly anchored in historical and structural inequalities that
demand a collective resistance and the enactment of critical education based on the values
of “justice, equality and freedom” (p. 125).
The second element of the book, The Crisis of Pedagogy, analyses the ascribed role of edu-
cation as a “tool of domination”, presenting several compelling examples from the US context
where neoliberal policies have effectively sought to “dumb down” the population, while at the
same time demonising any attempts (such as through critical race theory) to make structural
inequalities more visible. Further developing this argument, Giroux suggests that what he
characterises as “gangster capitalism” is increasingly influential in determining educational tra-
jectories, with students being indoctrinated with an illusion of “freedom to choose”, which
merely serves to perpetuate inequality and false promises. Furthermore, Giroux explains
that an “apartheid pedagogy uses education as a disimagination machine to convince stu-
dents and others that racism does not exist” (p. 154). At this point, Giroux’s analysis could
be understood as inherently pessimistic, however, he instead advocates for the need for a
pedagogy of resistance – as an imperative to resist and re-envision collective social change
through education.
 2 BOOK REVIEW

In the final part of the book, Giroux expands on his pedagogy of resistance, drawing directly
on the seminal texts – Pedagogy of the Oppressed and Pedagogy of Hope by legendary Brazilian
scholar, Paulo Freire. Giroux legitimises the need to develop a resistance-based pedagogy as a
means of connecting despair to hope and to imagine a possible future in critical times. Giroux
draws extensively on the ideas of Freire, foregrounding the political function of pedagogy and
the relationship of learning with enacting social change. From this perspective, teachers
become public intellectuals, who enact pedagogical practices that engage students in “how
to make power visible” (p. 189). Furthermore, Giroux’s pedagogy of resistance elevates the
role of education in a democracy, contending that it functions not only to problematise and
make visible inequality, but also provides opportunities for people to “learn the capacities,
knowledge, and skills that enable them to speak, write and act from a position of agency
and empowerment” (p. 205). Giroux’s proposal is meaningful and powerful; however, his
notion of pedagogy of resistance could be more compelling if it was supported by more prac-
tical instances of how this pedagogy could be enacted, particularly in diverse educational
contexts.
This book offers a passionate and systematic polemic around the powerful negative effects
on education and democracy of “Trumpism” and the pandemic crisis with historical roots in
neoliberal policies. In addition, Giroux elevates the role of education as a potentially powerful
force in this ongoing struggle, offering a powerful and timely account that will resonate with
academics, intellectuals, teachers and policy makers who have experienced first-hand the
inequalities and recent disruptions he recounts.

Malba Barahona
Facultad de Educación, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
maria.barahona@uc.cl http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4587-5794 @MalbaBarahona
© 2023 Malba Barahona
https://doi.org/10.1080/00131911.2023.2167331

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