Education Commons^™

A Critical Inquiry Exploring The Relationship Between Critical Consciousness And Community Engagement Educators, Carol Difalco

Counseling and Psychology Dissertations

Community engagement programs are shaped by the educators who facilitate them. Due to a curtailed critical consciousness, such programs are not always sensitive to the negative implications for the communities they are attempting to support. Guided by critical ethnographic and interpretive phenomenological analysis, this study examines how educators perceive their relationship with critical consciousness, its impact on their community engagement initiatives, and what we can learn from educators using community engagement to work towards social justice issues. As expected, results from the participants revealed varying awareness and understanding of how structural power and institutional oppression impact community engagement initiatives. Some …

A Paradox Of Fact And Fiction: Cultivating The 'Literary Imagination' Through Quiet Rebellion, Eden A. Evans

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The dissertation explores the problems that patterned and processed teaching and learning poses for implementing principles of critical pedagogy in English Literature courses. I apply multiple theoretical frameworks including literary theory, critical theory and post-humanism to place my own experiences amidst the on-going conversations about standardization and democracy. I draw upon the work of educational theorists such as Maxine Greene, Martha Nussbaum, Louise Rosenblatt, and Mary Aswell Doll to explore the ways that literature can enrich students’ lives and society, and Geneva Gay and Lisa Delpit to explore how cultural bias regarding linguistics can function when teaching literature and language …

Finding Motivation And Connectedness For Learning With Special Education Students Qualifying Under Emotional Disturbance, Nikole Denton

Education | Master's Theses

The purpose of this research seeks to understand the conditions for motivation among disengaged high school students in special education who qualify under emotional disturbance (ED) and support them in rediscovering their desire for learning while also determining how educators can be supportive in cultivating academic engagement and agency. The theoretical framework looks toward co-created curriculum through an understanding of intrinsic motivation (Ryan et al., 2021), self-Determination theory (Niemiec & Ryan, 2009), and critical pedagogy (Shih, 2018). Currently, there is a lack of empirical research on the effectiveness of pedagogical approaches in determining what works in engaging special education students …

Radicalizing First Year Composition: A Novice Educator’S Venture Into Revolutionary Teaching, Xochilt Trujillo Flores

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

­­This project is based on my experiences and reflections as a novice instructor on implementing educational practices which center a critical, feminist, anti-racist pedagogical approach in a first year composition course. Using my own experiences of teaching FYC as a central focus, this project will collect data through teacher-reflective journals. Those journals will be focused on how radical pedagogy shapes my approaches to teaching and how I experience/implement that approach in my day-to-day practices. In doing so, this project aims to address the persistent gap between theory and practice, particularly in the context of novice educators’ experiences in a …

Social Justice And The Us Food System: A Critical Course On The Human Dimensions Of Food, Ali Brooks

Food Systems Master's Project Reports

Our world is made up of overlapping political, environmental, and economic spheres that engender social injustice and inequality. Though separate societal issues can seem divergent and unconnected, they are all linked together by one universal necessity: food. Because everyone eats, everyone is connected to—and dependent on—food and the systems that govern it. However, the impacts of our industrial food system are not felt equally among people who hold different positions of power within it.

Today’s industrial food complex operates on the capitalist principle of profit accumulation through exploitation, commodification, and extraction. This set of relations is not defined by scale …

“In Our Very Flesh, (R)Evolution”: An Exploration Of Secondary Education Teachers, Otherness, And Embodiment, Ryan Ambuter

Doctoral Dissertations

In education, the proliferation of a mind/body dualism leaves the pedagogy of the body undertheorized, and its impact on education disregarded. While there is not an absence of research on the body within the field of education, what exists is limited in scope. Little has been written about the connections between teachers’ bodies, pedagogy, and politics at the level of secondary education. This research specifically focuses on teachers who are visibly other, critically conscious of their bodies, and find power in their difference. The purpose of this study is to make meaning of the stories, experiences, and potential of teachers …

Disrupting The Heteronormative Mindset In Teacher Preparation Through Inclusive Children's Literature, Denise I. Donahue

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Because of discrimination that presents itself through bullying based on identity, and the lack of positive LGBTQIA+ representation within classroom lessons, there is a need for a higher quality of preparation for teachers in order to create inclusive environments.

All teachers, particularly new teachers, need to know how to effectively work with diverse learners to meet their needs academically, emotionally and socially. This includes preparing teachers to instruct students and work with families who include LGBTQIA+ members. LGBTQIA+ students are often marginalized, discounted, harassed or invisible. (Kosciw, Greytak, Zongrone, Clark, & Truong, 2018). There is a need for a higher …

How Do Teachers Challenge Neoliberalism Through Critical Pedagogy Within And Outside Of The Classroom?, Rezvan Shahsavari-Googhari

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis uses the qualitative case study approach to investigate current strategies and skills four Ontario public secondary school teachers apply both within and outside of the classroom to enhance students’ critical consciousness. The focus is on teachers’ pedagogical work in the era of neoliberal restructuring in order to provide a rich account of how neoliberalism challenges and affects their teaching. Existing literature shows a crisis of identity and political agency among youth in many Western societies, characterized by individuals’ inability to think critically about social, political and economic issues, which is rooted in neoliberal education reforms. Adopting a critical …

Working Toward Transformation And Change: Exploring Non-Aboriginal Teachers’ Experiences In Facilitating And Strengthening Students’ Awareness Of Indigenous Knowledge And Aboriginal Perspectives, Sarah B. Burm

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study explores non-Aboriginal teachers’ accounts of ways in which they integrate Indigenous knowledge and perspectives into their teaching within the parameters set by the Ontario official curriculum. Ontario policy-makers and educational stakeholders have acknowledged the need to incorporate Aboriginal perspectives and content into curriculum and school communities, as reflected in documents such as the Ontario First Nation, Métis, and Inuit Education Policy Framework (2007). Nevertheless, non-Aboriginal educators continue to seek opportunities to advance professional growth and vocational clarity regarding their practice. Utilizing narrative inquiry within a case study approach, the study provides a space in which Aboriginal learners inform …

Teacher Candidates' Attitudes Toward Immigration And Teaching Learners Of English As A Second Language, Midena M. Sas

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

While in theory, democratic ideals promise the equal participation of all its citizens in the decisions that affect them, in practice some populations, i.e., those who do not possess membership to the dominant cultural group, often miss out on the privileges a democratic society is supposed to ensure. Critical theorists pointed out that "democracies like ours exhort equal opportunity but often ignore ways in which our schools operate unconsciously and unknowingly to guarantee that there will be no real equality" (McLaren, 2007, p. 176). In the education arena, inequitable treatment has received significant attention, perhaps due to the glaring repercussions …