Biography
Grant Banfield is currently an academic worker at the Flinders University of South Australia. He researches and writes on the application of Marxian social theory to educational praxis and intellectual work. He is an editorial advisor of the Journal of Critical Education Policy Studies and founding convenor of the Australian Sociological Association’s thematic group, Social Activism.
Meticulously researched and cogently argued, Critical Realism for Marxist Sociology of Education is an outstanding work of scholarship that makes a powerful case for the centrality of Bhaskar's work in the field of critical education by advancing a critical realist Marxist method and revolutionary Marxism. This is one of the most important contributions to Marxist education in years and will stand as a classic work for years to come.
Peter McLaren, Author of Capitalists and Conquerors and Pedagogy of Insurrection
Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies, Chapman University
Critical Realism for a Marxist Sociology of Education has a significant and timely intention. It aims to clarify the condition of theoretical, research and praxis effort among those of us in the field of critical sociology of education. It assists us pursue deeper and clearer understandings of social-structural inequalities that transect schools and society, and the ways in which we and other living actors have agency to transform those inequalities. This book is very carefully wrought to make difficult concepts and philosophical argumentations accessible. It is to be read slowly and carefully, matching the slow care of the author’s thought work. But the labour of reading is so greatly rewarded. The writing makes it possible, without priori versification in the literatures, to grasp the argument and indeed the literatures. I feel seriously educated by this book.
Dr Lew Zipin, Victoria University, Melbourne, Australia
Banfield’s Critical Realism for a Marxist Sociology of Education takes a unique approach building a project on an educational reading of Marx drawing on Bhaskar’s Critical Realism, not to replace Marx, but rather, to offer a conceptual ground clearing. As Critical Realism is a philosophy only, it winds up working as a laborer for a Marxist revolutionary educational p
