Vygotsky is a central figure in the development of a critical psychology, a critical learning theory that can be employed in a critical pedagogy. Born to a middle-class Jewish family in Orsha, Belorussia, Vygotsky contracted tuberculosis from his mother. His life was cut short by the disease; he died at the age of thirty-eight. Always upset with the decontextualized individualistic focus of mainstream psychology, Vygotsky called for a sociocultural psychological approach that accounted for the way individual cognition is socially and culturally mediated. By social and cultural mediation, Vygotsky meant that individual behavior cannot be removed from the context in which it takes place. Thus, psychology should always be studied in a cultural-historical context, he maintained.
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W. E. B. Du Bois was not a critical theorist and was not influenced by the Frankfurt School. Indeed, a significant portion of his scholarly work was produced before the development of critical theory. Nevertheless, Du Bois is one of the earliest figures promoting many of the same ideas that animate both critical theory and critical pedagogy. On many topics his ideas are still profoundly relevant and instructive for those seeking to develop an evolving critical pedagogy and a racially sensitive critical pedagogy in the twenty-first century. For these reasons we include him as an indispensable figure in the pantheon of scholars contributing to critical scholarship and action. His history of the slave trade written while he was a doctoral student in the 1890s is still viewed as one of the smartest and most comprehensive studies of the topic.
Antonio Gramsci was a political activist in Italy who worked for left-wing causes and worker movements in the second and third decades of the twentieth century. Despite his election to the Italian Parliament, Gramsci was arrested by the new fascist government in Italy and sentenced to twenty years in prison. He died in prison in 1937 before finishing his time. During his decade in prison, Gramsci wrote profusely, producing what came to be known as his prison notebooks. In these writings Gramsci provided an in-depth study of Italian fascism and strategies for defeating it. These are very important ideas in the twenty-first century as we see the emergence of fascist-like movements in the United States and around the industrialized world. The notebooks were not published in Italy until the late 1940s and not translated into English until the late 1950s.