The schools of critical pedagogy can be divided into the Anglo-American school with innovative style and the German school with conservative style. It came into being in 1970s and is considered as the most dynamic competitor in the field of education. The schools of critical pedagogy are complex. Based on different ideological foundations and social backgrounds, different schools have different characteristics.

However, different schools pursue criticism and "liberation" of traditional education, emphasizing the use of critical theory and conducting educational research and analysis through critical research methods, which is the common feature of all schools of critical pedagogy. In a sense, the criticism of critical pedagogy is a position, an attitude, a rational pursuit and a methodology.

Schools of critical pedagogy: Anglo-American School;

1. Representative figures: Bowles, Quintis, april and Jim in the United States, BouAudoul in France and freire in Brazil.

2. Background: In 1960s and 1970s, economic recession and social unrest occurred in western countries to varying degrees. The development of education in western countries, including the United States, has rapidly fallen from the "golden age" to the "ice age", and a large number of educational investments have failed to see benefits, and various educational reforms have failed to work.

Educational reform has not brought people the expected personal development and social equality. In this context, Bowles, Gintis, April, Jim and others have deeply analyzed and criticized the education of capitalist society by using Marxist dialectics and class struggle theory, and formed the basic schools of reproduction theory and resistance theory.