Abstract

A purposefully slippery and ambiguous definition of modern globalization is defining our epoch, rendering the perception of global citizens as powerless to affect it. In an attempt to unravel and understand globalization processes, a literature review of critical pedagogy was conducted in order to acquire the tools to investigate globalization critically. I examine processes of globalization and their effects on Western education, namely Canada and the U.S., and explore how critical pedagogy can be used as a tool to address some of the negative forces of globalization by acting as a vehicle for globalization from below. The investigation into critical pedagogy researches the foundations of critical pedagogy and its key concepts, as well as today's most prominent critical pedagogues, and some critiques. Most importantly, it attempts to link the economic, political, and cultural forces of globalization to the dominant ideology and hegemony driving them. This thesis hopes to contribute to the research in critical pedagogy's effectiveness by examining to what extent critical pedagogy is compatible with our modern epoch of globalization, and also to what degree the learner, I, was able to become critically conscious on the subject and thus in everyday life