Peter McLaren is internationally recognized as one of the leading architects of critical pedagogy worldwide. McLaren is currently Professor of Education, Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles.

Born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, in 1948, and raised in both Toronto and Winnipeg, Manitoba, he earned a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature at Waterloo University in 1973 (he specialized in Elizabethan drama), attended Toronto Teachers College and went on to earn a Bachelor of Education at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Education, a Masters of Education at Brock University's College of Education, and a Ph.D. at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto.

Professor McLaren's most recent books include Pedagogy and Praxis in the Age of Empire (with Nathalia Jaramillo, Sense Publishers, 2007), Capitalists and Conquerors (Rowman and Littlefield, 2005), Teaching Against Global Capitalism and the New Imperialism (with Ramin Farahmandpur, Rowman and Littlefield, 2005), Red Seminars: Radical Excursions into Educational Theory, Cultural Politics, and Pedagogy (Hampton Press, 2005), Marxism Against Postmodernism in Educational Theory (with Dave Hill, Mike Cole, and Glenn Rikowski, Lexington Books), Che Guevara, Paulo Freire, and the Pedagogy of Revolution (Rowman and Littlefield, 2000), Revolutionary Multiculturalism:
Pedagogies of Dissent for the New Millenium, Westview Press, 1997; Counternarratives,(with Henry Giroux, Colin Lankshear and Mike Peters, Routledge, 1997), and 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).

Professor McLaren has presented distinguished lectures at a number of North American, European and Latin American universities and continues to speak and write from a transdisciplinary perspective in four areas for which he has become well-known internationally: critical pedagogy, multicultural education, critical ethnography, and critical theory. He lectures regularly throughout Latin America and Europe. His works have been translated into twenty languages.

McLaren's book, "Life in Schools: An Introduction to Critical Pedagogy in the Foundations of Education" (Allyn & Bacon), has been named one of the 12 most significant writings by foreign authors in the field of educational theory, policy and practice by the Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences; the list includes Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire and Deschooling Society by Ivan Illich. See:newsroom.ucla.edu

Professor McLaren is the inaugural recipient of the Paulo Freire Social Justice Award presented by Chapman University, California, April 2002. He also received the Amigo Honorifica de la Comunidad Universitaria de esta Institucion by La Universidad Pedagogica Nacional, Unidad 141, Guadalajara, Mexico. In the summer of 2007 he was the featured speaker for the Culture of Peace Distinguished Speaker Series at the Culture of Peace Resource Center, Santa Monica, California, where he was presented with the Liberty Medal by Soka Gakkai International-USA, a Buddhist organization with 12 million members worldwide. He was a recipient of a "Lilly Scholarship" at Miami University of Ohio, guest-lectured at the University of British Columbia, Canada, as a "Noted Scholar", presented the Eminent Scholar Lecture at The Ohio State University, delivered the Claude A. Eggerston Lecture at the Annual Meeting of the Comparative and International Education Society, presented the Harold Wolpe Memorial Lecture at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa. Four of his books have been winners of the American Education Studies Association Critics Choice Awards for outstanding books in education. He was recently made Chair of the Advisory Board of the International Association of Educators, and Director of its Education and Politics Division. He has recently become the inaugural recipient of the International Activist Scholar Award for the Advancement of Marxist Theory and Practice, awarded by the Institute for Education Policy Studies, June, 2006.

In 2005, a group of Mexican scholars and activists estabished La Fundacion McLaren to promote the development of critical pedagogy in Latin America. A special Peter McLaren Chair (Catedra Peter McLaren) was established at La Universidad Bolivariana de Venezuela in Caracas on September 15, 2006. He serves in the capacity of Cooperantes Internacionales for Centro Internacional Miranda, Venezuela. He is a member of the Industrial Workers of the World.

Peter McLaren's papers are housed and on permanent exhibit at the Paulo and Nita Freire Center for International Critical Pedagogy, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.