Schooling as a Ritual Performance: Towards a Political Economy of Educational Symbols and Gestures(Culture and Education Series)

One of the most compelling ethnographies of school ever written, "Schooling as a Ritual Performance" has for over a decade made its mark among educators, sociologists, and those seeking to understand the cultural meaning of classroom practices. Written by one of the major world figures on the educational left, "Schooling as a Ritual Performance" is a pioneering study of the partnership between capitalism and religion and the educational offspring it produces. Not since Paul Willis' "Learning to Labor" has an educational ethnography about schooling so pushed the limits of current social theory. Now, in a new edition to this classic text, McLaren engages with some of the latest anthropological thinking and presents readers with a powerful manifesto for critical ethnography in the coming millennium.

Table of Contents:
Chapter 1 Introduction to the Third Edition: Ethnographic Research as the Practice of Possibility: Towards a Revolutionary Ethnography Chapter 2 Education as a Cultural System Chapter 3 The Setting Chapter 4 The Structure of Conformity Chapter 5 The Antistructure of Resistance Chapter 6 Making Catholics Chapter 7 Summary, Recommendations, and Reflections Chapter 8 Coda Chapter 9 Afterword

About the Author :
Peter McLaren is one of the foremost social theorists in North America and a leading international figure on the educational left. He is known throughout the world for his political criticism and his passionate commitment to social justice. McLaren teaches in the Division of Urban Schooling at the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. His most recent book is Revolutionary Multiculturalism: Pedagogies of Dissent for the New Millennium (Westview Press, 1997). His work has been published in eleven languages.

Review :
Those who have been waiting for a successor to Jonathon Kozol may find in this book an alternative source of anthropological criticism of schooling. As a writer, (McLaren) combines the rare gifts of the astute theoretician with that of the storyteller in the manner celebrated by Walter Benjamin. . . . An impressive and original contribution to critical educational theory and practice. . . a startling insight. McLaren's study. . . stands at the pinnacle of ethnographic works. Where (Paul) Willis draws his interpretation from culturalist Marxist work, McLaren incorporates some of these interpretations within a framework of analysis taken from the anthropological work of Victor Turner and others who stress the importance of symbol and ritual in the organization of institutions and culture. . . . McLaren is the first to apply these insights in such a thorough and detailed manner to the ordinary working of the school. The results are always illuminating. . . . He helps us to see more clearly the nature of our lostness and the barely visible sparks of liberation. Groundbreaking. . . brilliant. . .a tour de force. McLaren's pioneering discussions of the physicality of oppression moves beyond his predecessors. A serious and important contribution to classroom ethnography. Schooling as Ritual Performance is an important book, not because it shows us once again how schools work to reproduce the present social arrangements, but because it illustrates the subtle way in which universes of symbolic meaning are realigned and then imposed on the consciousness of students through the medium of ritual. Since 1983, Peter McLaren has released a torrent of books, articles, and rejoinders that have altered the landscape of educational discourse. . .his writing contains dizzying examples of raids made into fields previously untried and untested in educational analyses. . . .The Coda is vintage McLareniana. There is simply nothing in the educational literature that invites sustained comparison to Schooling as a Ritual Performance.