Marcuse and Critical Education

Synonyms

Critical education; Critical pedagogy; Critical theory; Marcuse, Herbert

Introduction

Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979) was a twentieth century philosopher and critical theorist with a strong commitment to progressive education and pedagogy. He was one of the leading members of the Frankfurt School and its Institute for Social Research of critical theorists from Germany and, as an émigré scholar, became a leading figure of the New Left of the 1960s and 1970s. Along with Theodor W. Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Erich Fromm, Leo Löwenthal, Franz Neumann, Friedrich Pollock, and others, Marcuse and the Frankfurt School proposed the task of a critical theory of society, one in which education was grounded in culture, in the tradition of Bildung(education as culture) in German intellectual thought. As such, Marcuse incorporated the theme of education in his critical works during the portion of his academic career coming after the Second World War, and the theme itself became a major...