Kincheloe's work drew from a number of theoretical traditions, and his analyzes focused on the social, cultural, political, economic, and cognitive dynamics that contextualize teaching and learning.
Kincheloe founded The Paulo and Nita Freire International Project for Critical Pedagogy with Shirley R. Steinberg at the Faculty of Education, McGill University.
Postformalism posits that mainstream psychology has historically dismissed the cognitive abilities of those who fall outside of whiteness, the middle and upper socio-economic classes, dominant colonizing cultures, and patriarchy.
In his work over the last few years Kincheloe has focused much attention on the politics of knowledge and epistemology and the diverse ways they operate to shape human consciousness and socio-political and educational activities.
As educational scholar, Rucheeta Kulkarni (2008) writes: "With an authorial voice that blends conversational simplicity with visionary philosophy, Joe Kincheloe [outlines] the deepening crises of this nation's actions at home and abroad—including preemptive wars against imagined enemies, scripted curricula for deprofessionalized teachers, privatization of public schools, and corporate ownership of the news media—he tells the reader not to despair but to hope...For any reader who aspires to do meaningful and transformative knowledge work, it is hard to refuse Kincheloe's invitation into the ideas of critical pedagogy.
In Smagorinsky's opinion, Kincheloe's work is misleading and dangerous for those legitimate scholars who would seek to engage in scholarship that produces assured answers to specific questions.