Critical Pedagogy Between Modern Commitments and Poststructuralist Challenges in Contemporary Education

Abstract This paper examines the evolving relationship between modernity, poststructuralism, and critical pedagogy through the lens of Henry Giroux's educational thought. The central aim is to reassess the epistemological foundations of critical pedagogy in the face of contemporary challenges such as cultural fragmentation, rising authoritarianism, and the erosion of democratic public institutions. Rejecting simplistic binaries between modernity and 'postmodernism', the article argues that Giroux's work articulates a form of pedagogy that is deeply rooted in the critical legacy of philosophical modernity while being responsive to the insights and critiques of poststructuralist thought. The first section reconstructs the modernist foundations of Giroux's pedagogy, shaped by Enlightenment ideals of critique, agency, and rationality, as well as by the Frankfurt School’s commitment to emancipation. The second section investigates how Giroux's later work engages with the challenges posed by poststructuralist theory. Without abandoning the normative commitments of critical pedagogy, Giroux integrates poststructuralist concerns with discourse, identity, and power. His concept of 'border pedagogy' exemplifies this synthesis, as it allows for a negotiation of difference while retaining the political imperative of emancipation. The third section examines the philosophical tension between Giroux and Jürgen Habermas regarding the nature of critique and the legacy of modernity. While both seek to defend democratic reason, Giroux challenges Habermas's procedural and communicative model by foregrounding the cultural, ideological, and material dimensions of power. The fourth section positions poststructuralism not as a rejection of modernity, but as a continuation of the Kantian project of the critique of reason and cognition. By reinterpreting critique through the lens of power, discourse, and historicity, poststructuralist thought provides critical pedagogy with epistemological tools that allow it to remain responsive to the conditions of late modernity wherein knowledge claims must be urgently scrutinized. The article argues that this engagement does not dismantle the Enlightenment tradition, but rearticulates it in education in ways that are ethically and politically necessary.