Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to clarify the following argument by H.A. Giroux, a leading critic who represents critical pedagogy developing in the United States since the 1980's. First, the problematic of literacy contains not merely the ability of reading and writing and the appropriate usage, but also the politics of culture. Second, in literacy as a form of cultural politics, it is important to confirm both a politics of differences which acknowledge the presence and its value of the differences between people, as well as a politics of solidarity between diverse people or groups. Finally, the importance of the politics of solidarity should especially be respected in schooling from the perspective of the public. Giroux points out that literacy can never be politically neutral, and it is impossible to separate it from ideological interests which it is inscribed in. He is extremely critical of cultural literacy which is offered by E.D. Hirsch and which represents what Hirsch thinks every American needs to be taught in elementary school. Giroux is critical of it not because it is ideological. He criticize it because it pretends to be politically neutral, and more importantly, the dominant ideology included in it maintains and legitimates unequal social structures which oppresses social and cultural minorities. Giroux's critical literacy shows not only the importance of critical analysis of the dominant ideology, but also the necessity of developing the possibility of transforming the existing society. As Freire and Macedo have pointed out, literacy should be analyzed according to whether it serves to reproduce existing social formation or serves as a set of cultural practices that promotes democratic and emancipatory social changes. Giroux finds the moment of resisting and transforming the dominant ideology in conflicts and struggles between students' own experiences and voices they bring to schools and the dominant ideology in school. In this meaning critical literacy should be treated as a political project that enables to recognize critically the dominant ideology working in people's daily life and to transform it, thus should be treated as a form of cultural politics. In critical literacy as a form of cultural politics it is important to recognize presence and dignity of diverse differences between people and groups in a society. Giroux tries to understand the diverse difference in the complex intersection of social, cultural, economical, racial, and sexual differences. So that Giroux comes to express the problem of differences with his original notion of "border" and stress the significance of crossing these borders. He calls it the politics of difference. The politics of difference, however, needs a politics of solidarity in which issues of diverse differences can be addressed as the public issue. What Giroux aims for is building the politics of solidarity, simultaneously highly sophisticating the politics of difference. From the perspective that public schools should not be geared for soecific students or groups, the latter becomes more important in that it should be a public sphere to empower any kind of student.
