Dismantling Human Capital Logic Through Critical CTE: A Building and Construction Pathway Study

This study addresses the critical pedagogy gap in Career and Technical Education (CTE), where a neoliberal logic tracks marginalized students into workforce pipelines with no space for critical thinking. By merging constructivist and critical pedagogies into a new framework—Critical CTE—students engaged in justice-oriented research, community-based projects, and dialogue with industry and academic partners that earned them a professional certification in Virtual Design and Construction from a prestigious University and recognized in the industry. Findings suggest that Critical CTE disrupted dominant narratives of “human capital,” increased student engagement, and deepened critical consciousness, enabling students to interrogate systemic inequities and reimagine CTE as a site of democratic learning and collective transformation.