Recent scholarship has persuasively shown that the roots of the Western Marxist theoretical tradition were in the workers’ education movement of the interwar period. Yet how was this theory translated into the classroom? This presentation will focus on the pedagogies of the workers’ education movement in the United States, showing that practitioners adapted John Dewey’s pragmatism for working-class organization, mobilization, and emancipation, and that they, like their contemporary Antonio Gramsci, viewed their educational programs as a counter-hegemonic project. Their innovations laid the groundwork for the resurgence of the labor movement in the 1930s. This research highlights largely unknown historical antecedents to critical pedagogy, associated with figures like Paolo Freire, Henry Giroux, and bell hooks. One hundred years ago, labor unionists and intellectuals similarly developed an approach to workers’ education that was student centered, problem based, dialogic and action-oriented, and which aimed for a socialist alternative to capitalism, though they were less libertarian than contemporary critical theorists. Most practitioners of critical pedagogy today are unaware of this history because the meaning and practice of workers’ education narrowed considerably in the post-World War II era, as unions became more conservative and inward looking and as university extension programs coopted labor education. There are signs of change, however. As the labor movement has become more inclusive, internationalist, and social movement oriented, workers’ education has experienced a revival. My hope is that circling back to the ideas and spirit of the earlier movement may inspire fresh approaches to working-class formation, mobilization, and aspiration today.

Authors:
Leilah Danielson, Northern Arizona University, United States

About the Presenter(s)
Dr. Leilah Danielson is chair and professor of history at Northern Arizona University, where she is currently researching the history of the workers' education movement in the United States from 1919 through the 1947.

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