After earning his doctorate in 1983, he served as Special Lecturer in Education at Brock University where he specialized in inner city education and language arts.
McLaren left Canada in 1985 to teach at Miami University's School of Education and Allied Professions where he spent eight years working with colleague Henry Giroux during a time when the epistemology known as critical pedagogy was gaining traction in North American schools of education. McLaren also served as Director of the Center for Education and Cultural Studies, and held the title of Renowned Scholar-in-Residence at Miami University before being recruited by the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, in 1993.
Bibliography
McLaren is the author, co-author, editor, and co-editor of approximately forty books and monographs. Several hundred of his articles, chapters, interviews, reviews, commentaries, and columns have appeared in dozens of scholarly journals and professional magazines worldwide.
His most recent books include:
- McLaren, P., Macrine, S., and Hill, D, (Eds). (2010). Revolutionizing Pedagogy: Educating for Social Justice Within and Beyond Global Neo-liberalism. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
- Nocella, A., Best, S., & McLaren, P. (Eds.) (2010). Academic Repression: Reflections from the Academic Industrial Complex. San Francisco: AK Press.
- Martin, G., Houston, D., McLaren, P. & Suoranta, J. (Eds.) (2010) Havoc of Capitalism. Educating for Social and Environmental Justice. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
- Sandlin, J.A. & McLaren, P. (Eds.). (2009). Critical Pedagogies of Consumption: Living and Learning in the Shadow of the "Shopocalypse”. New York and London: Routledge.
- McLaren, P. & Jaramillo, N. (2007). Pedagogy and Praxis. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers. (Review )
- McLaren, P. (2006). Rage + Hope. New York: Peter Lang. (Review )
- McLaren, P. (2005). Capitalists and Conquerors. Boulder: Rowman and Littlefield.
- McLaren, P. & Farahmandpur,'R. (2005) Teaching Against Global Capitalism and the New Imperialism. Boulder: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005)
- McLaren, P. (2005). Red Seminars: Radical Excursions into Educational Theory, Cultural Politics, and Pedagogy. Hampton Press.
- 'Marxism Against Postmodernism in Educational Theory (with Dave Hill, Mike Cole, and Glenn Rikowski)
- Che Guevara, Paulo Freire, and the Pedagogy of Revolution (Rowman and Littlefield, 2000)
- Revolutionary Multiculturalism: Pedagogies of Dissent for the New Millennium, (Westview Press, 1997)
- Counternarratives, (with Henry Giroux, Colin Lankshear and Mike Peters, Routledge, 1997)
- Critical Pedagogy and Predatory Culture, (Routledge, 1995)
He is also author of
Life in Schools: An Introduction to Critical Pedagogy in the Foundations of Education (Allyn & Bacon) which is now in its fifth edition (2006).
Life in Schools has been named one of the 12 most significant writings worldwide in the field of educational theory, policy and practice] by an international panel of experts assembled by the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences; other writers named by the panel include Paulo Freire, Ivan Illich, and Pierre Bourdieu.
McLaren's works has been embraced in
Teaching Peter McLaren. Paths of Dissent (2005) edited by Marc Pruyn and Luis Huerta-Charles, and it has also been published in Spanish as
De la pedagogía crítica a la pedagogía revolucionaria. Ensayos para comprender a Peter Mclaren (2007).
McLaren has also recently debuted as a poet with his poem "The Despoiling of the American Mind" in
MRZine.
Lectures
McLaren lectures worldwide on the politics of education. Locations of his speaking engagements have included China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, Germany, Cuba, Australia, Finland, England, Greece, North Korea, Spain, Portugal, Venezuela, Brazil, Costa Rica, Iran, Mexico, Argentina, Poland, Israel, Palestine, Malaysia, and Pakistan.