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Critical theory, a social scientific (including sociological) perspective, focuses on domination (oppression) and on emancipation (liberation or freedom from oppression). It is sometimes referred to as critical social theory, which may help to distinguish it from the critical theory (also known as literary criticism and literary theory) that began separately within the humanities.

These two critical theories, from the social sciences and the humanities, are now frequently placed under the banner of a larger critical theory. However, our interest here is in critical social theory, a framework which started, at least from one standpoint, in 1930, the year Max Horkheimer became director of Frankfurtʼs Institut für Sozialforschung (Institute for Social Research). As a result, the group of German scholars who developed critical theory, including Horkheimer, is frequently called the Frankfurt School.

While not intended to include each and every possibility, critical (social) theory, in the twenty-first century, can be approached from a wide variety of Western Marxist (term coined by Maurice Merleau-Ponty) or neo-Marxist (those which use some of Marxʼs ideas but may then combine them non-Marxist ones), as well as non-Marxist, positions and approaches. I would point out, however, that these positions should not necessarily be regarded as mutually exclusive:

1. New critical theory, a Marxian framework also known as postmodern critical theory, is a very recent, and an increasingly popular, view which combines critical theory with postmodernism and related ideas. It is somewhat similar to critical postmodernism and post-Marxism.
2. Radical history develops oneʼs activism around an understanding of the past.
3. Critical development is a Marxian approach to social and economic development.
4. Critical pragmatism combines critical theory with the philosophy of pragmatism (that the value of an idea or a proposition is based on its practical consequences).
5. Critical geography is an application of various critical theoretical approaches (Marxist, poststructuralist, feminist, etc.) to geography.
6. Critical criminology refers to a number of approaches, mostly neo-Marxist, which view crime as a product of various categories of oppression.
7. Critical dramaturgy applies critical theory to Erving Goffmanʼs dramaturgical analysis.
8. Critical pedagogy may be defined as an approach to education, grounded in critical social theory, which encourages students, first, to become conscious of the social oppressions or dominations around them (racism, sexism, etc.) and, second, to reflect on the actions which may be required to become free (emancipated) from those oppressions or dominations.
9. Critical psychology is defined by Donna Haraway in this way: "The aim of critical psychology is to analyse - and if possible to change - the conditions in which humans are - spoken with Marx - 'downtrodden beings'. The main question is why humans perpetuate a world in which people dominate other people, oppress them, exploit them, humiliate them, and kill them, instead of realising their potentials and create a real 'paradise'." A similar viewpoint is expressed by Royal Alsup as liberation psychology.
10. Critical ethnography "begins with an ethical responsibility to address processes of unfairness or injustice within a particular lived domain. By 'ethical responsibility,' I mean a compelling sense of duty and commitment based on moral principles of human freedom and well–being, and hence a compassion for the suffering of living beings. The conditions for existence within a particular context are not as they could be for specific subjects; as a result, the researcher feels a moral obligation to make a contribution toward changing those conditions toward greater freedom and equity. The critical ethnographer also takes us beneath surface appearances, disrupts the status quo, and unsettles both neutrality and taken-for-granted assumptions by bringing to light underlying and obscure operations of power and control." (Introduction to Critical Ethnography: Theory and Method)
11. Critical management is a neo-Marxist approach to mangement. It is influenced by the Frankfurt school, poststructuralism (Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, etc.), anarchism, and other approaches. In addition, through the Tamara Journal, critical organization, a related perspective, "draws on Critical Management Theory and Postmodern Organization Science and is based in story/narrative and other qualitative study. It combines critical theory as well as postmodern theory and postcolonial theory and critical pedagogy with praxis. And one that seeks a higher ethics of global production and consumption."
12. Critical education theory examines the processes by which education, and educational systems, enforce dominant power structures. “Critical Education Theory evolves from the wider discipline of Critical (Social) Theory, and looks at the ways in which political ideology shapes Education as a way of maintaining existing regimes of privilege and social control.” (Critical Education Theory)
13. Critical architecture has been explained in this fashion: "At this moment there is an international debate going on between architects that hold on to the critical theory, and architects that think that the critical project is exhausted and has to be replaced by a projective practice. Opposed to a critical architecture that resists consumer society, Robert Somol and Sarah Whiting position a projective architecture that looks for opportunities within the capitalist society and exploits these."
14. Critical nursing, based on critical social theory, focuses on avoiding nursing as power domination and on empowering patients.
15. Critical neuroscience "aspires to engage neuroscience research with approaches from anthropology, history of science, philosophy, sociology, and transcultural psychiatry."