Peter McLaren is Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies and Co-Director and International Ambassador for Global Ethics and Social Justice, The Paulo Freire Democratic Project, Donna Ford Attallah College of Educational Studies, Chapman University. He is Emeritus Professor at UCLA and served as Chair Professor (the highest rank given to foreign professors) at Northeast Normal University in Changchun, China. Professor McLaren is the author and editor of over 50 books and hundreds of journal articles and book chapters. His writings have been translated into 25 languages. Professor McLaren is one of the original architects of what has come to be known as critical pedagogy. Professor McLaren serves on numerous editorial and advisory boards, including the International Advisory Board of The International Marxist-Humanist, journal of the International Marxist-Humanist Organization, and Philosophy of Education (Ukraine). He has been ranked by Research.com among the top 15% of the world's leading social science and humanities scientists.

One of the most compelling ethnographies of school ever written, 'Schooling as a Ritual Performance' has for over a decade made its mark among educators, sociologists, and those seeking to understand the cultural meaning of classroom practices. Written by one of the major world figures on the educational left, 'Schooling as a Ritual Performance' is a pioneering study of the partnership between capitalism and religion and the educational offspring it produces. Not since Paul Willis' 'Learning to Labor' has an educational ethnography about schooling so pushed the limits of current social theory. Now, in a new edition to this classic text, McLaren engages with some of the latest anthropological thinking and presents readers with a powerful manifesto for critical ethnography in the coming millennium.