Critical pedagogy has gone through three stages of development since it came into being. Its basic understanding is "education should be politicized", its basic position is to stand on the side of the disadvantaged groups, and its basic method is class analysis. Critical pedagogy understands practice as a standardized political activity under the premise of the legitimacy of democratic authorization.
Bowles and Quentin pointed out that in the eyes of American liberal education theorists, as long as school education is free and universal, the process of economic development is not only consistent with taking education as a tool to promote personal development and social equality, but also economic development will inevitably strengthen the ability of education to promote personal development and social equality. Therefore, education has three social functions:
The first is the integration function, that is, the school will integrate the trained labor force with certain knowledge and skills into the social and economic structure. This is the most important function of education.
The second is the equalization function, that is, the school itself is an equalization machine with the function of pursuing equal opportunities or equality.
Third, development function, that is, education is an important tool to promote personal psychological and moral development.
These three functions of education are unified. In addition, people who hold the view that "technology determines the best ability" also believe that the inequality of income, power and status basically reflects the unequal distribution of intellectual skills, physical skills and other skills.