Left behind: What possibility remains for a pedagogy of insurrection in the current Australian context

This article examines the capacity for resistance proffered by Critical Pedagogy (Giroux, 2014, McLaren, 2016) in the current Australian context. Now, more than a decade post 9/11, Australian schools are immersed in standardised testing, a national curriculum and an insidious pedagogy of surveillance. The article pointedly examines the promise of Critical Pedagogy and so questions what, if any, capacity exists for critical consciousness in Australian schools. Drawing on the findings of a ten-year doctoral study, completed in 2015, the argument put forward in the article examines dominant educational paradigms. Such paradigms implicitly valorise passivity under the banners of academic rigour (high stakes testing), common-sense myth legitimization (meritocracy) and the commodification of schooling (private/public). Against this backdrop, the article provides a mergence of political discourse analysis and qualitative interview data suggesting that critical consciousness is fragmented and decentralized by the unspoken priorities of Australian education. Symbolically, ideologically and practically, shadow manoeuvres operate to silence both teacher and student, and yet, the continued struggle within offers the return of hope.