Curriculum and Social Inquiry 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 …

Schools Are Where Trees And Children’S Livelihoods Go To Die: A Teacher’S Reflection On Revitalizing Land-Based Education, Tiffani Marie

Occasional Paper Series

Plainly said: schools are where trees and children’s livelihoods go to die; both cut down, gutted and their desecrated remains used for the maintenance and reproduction of the establishment. Through its critique of schooling—its ties to individualism, harmful social reproduction, colonial foundations, and centering of white supremacist ideologies, this paper makes the case for land-based education as a conduit toward healing, innovation and connection. It draws links between the irreconcilable nature of youth wellness and schooling, while centering pedagogical reverence for the natural world, particularly connection with tree spaces, as part of a critical educational trajectory toward symbiotic relationship with …

Against The Tide: Indigenous Knowledge And Education For Humanization, Arturo Rodriguez, Kevin Russel Magill

Journal of Multicultural Affairs

Power brokers and their market economies enforce education on a global level. According to the United Nations, the effects of global neoliberal capitalism cause human rights violations in all parts of the world, yet democratic countries scoff at these findings (Pogge, 2002 & 2005). People of the world continue to believe that tying minoritized students to existing structures and ensuring enculturation is the best possible outcome for all involved (Suárez-Orozco & Suárez-Orozco, 2015). That is, minoritized children are educated to ensure first-world countries produce a minimally educated and willing labor force. In this paper we argue the following: 1) power …

More Than Civil Engineering And Civic Reasoning: World-Building In Middle School Stem, Alejandra Frausto Aceves, Daniel Morales-Doyle

Occasional Paper Series

This narrative essay describes a project in an urban sixth grade science class that began as an effort to link civic engagement with disciplinary learning in chemistry. The ways in which students took up this project prompted the authors to see urban infrastructures as engineered sites of learning with world-making possibilities. By interrogating the ways in which science and engineering practices are imbued with values and happen in places, teachers can engage young learners in critical examinations of their built worlds. The authors argue that there is an opportunity in K-8 engineering education to avoid reproducing some of the pathologies …

Pushing Boundaries: Peter Mclaren On The Importance Of Critical Pedagogy Inside And Outside The Classroom, Peter Mclaren

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Peter McLaren is Distinguished Professor in Critical Studies and Co-Director and International Ambassador for Global Ethics and Social Justice of the Paulo Freire Democratic Project at Chapman University in the USA. Regarded as one of the leading architects of critical pedagogy, McLaren re-envisions the philosophy of Freire in the context of contemporary issues, including the struggle of the LGBTQ community, racism, and economic inequalities. Research Outreach spoke with McLaren about how critical pedagogy evolved and what he imagines its future to be.

Oer In University Language Courses, Jenny Ceciliano

World Languages and Literatures Faculty Publications and Presentations

Open Educational Resources (OER) offer incredible advantages in language teaching and learning. Implementing an OER curriculum can result in benefits that go far beyond controlling costs for students, which is itself a significant step toward improving equity. Drawing on your own experience and expertise as language educators, as well as the contributions of collaborators around the world, it is possible to build a curriculum customized for your unique student group. With thoughtful design, your program can help students achieve desired learning outcomes not just in language acquisition, but also in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). In this talk, I will …

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 …

Intervening In The School To Prison Pipeline For Students With Dis/Ability, Miruna Ouatu-Lascar

National Youth Advocacy and Resilience Conference

This workshop will explore the intersection of disability and ethnicity in order to assist workshop participants in analyzing the inequity present both within the construct of disability and race and how this intersectional inequity manifests within the special education system for students of color with disabilities and how such inequities contribute to the over representation of students of color with disabilities in the school to prison phenomenon. Furthermore, the workshop aims to give participants an understanding of Dis/Crit theory and how incorporating Dis/Crit pedagogy within the larger framework of Critical Pedagogy practice serves the needs of our most underserved students …

Examining Perspectives Of Immigrant Working Learners & Education Providers: Crt As Analytical Framework, Jen Vanek, Kathy Harris, Gloria E. Jacobs, Jill Castek

21CLEO Presentations and Publications

Research questions in this article include:

• What supports English learners’ participation and engagement in workplace learning?

• Who gets access to learning opportunities?

• Whose workplace learning leads to advancement?
• What do the perspectives of adult working learners reveal about their education and training when viewed through a CRT lens?

Book Review: Transformative Translanguaging Espacios: Latinx Students And Their Teachers Rompiendo Fronteras Sin Miedo, Katie Ward

Journal of Catholic Education

No abstract for a Book Review

Empowering Silenced Voices: Implementing Critical Pedagogy To Move Toward Decolonizing Music Education, Alexis Adams

West Chester University Master’s Theses

Throughout this thesis, I will delineate the historical and current issue of Eurocentrism and racism being perpetuated in K-12 music education and music teacher education programs. I will argue that music teacher education programs need to be decolonized and radically transformed so that music classrooms and curricula are anti-racist and counterhegemonic. Through utilizing theoretical frameworks, a historical review, and a literature review, I will further contextualize this problem. Lastly, I will propose a two-pronged intervention to address this over-arching issue: an undergraduate course entitled Critical Pedagogy in Music Education and a radically transformative professional development series for current music educators.

Who We Are: Focus On… Student Identity, Yarina Aguilar Becerra, Cecilia Diojuan, Jasmine Walker, Neera Malhotra, David Peterson Del Mar, Vicki Reitenauer

University Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

In short

• Increasingly, professionals in higher education are acknowledging the short- and long-term impacts on individuals and communities of institutional failures to create welcoming, inclusive, and caring environments for traditionally underrepresented students.
• Student voices, reflecting on their lived and felt experiences in college, have been less frequently present in the discussions about inclusion in higher education.
• Listening to students from underrepresented groups has the potential to redefine and renew how we understand education and ourselves, offering a template and a foundation for the dense network of relationships that a student-focused institution of higher education ought to aspire to and build …

Spirits In The Dark: Black Community Education And The Light It Bears, Sydoni A. Ellwood

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

“Spirits in the Dark” is a digital space dedicated to the efforts of Black community education. It memorializes the commitment and strategies of spirits, light bearers like Mary McLeod Bethune and Huey Newton – people who devoted their lives to the fortification of their communities via education. This project also presents a variety of answers to one specific question: What lessons can school leaders and educators incorporate from community-controlled education programs to make learning spaces affirming and engaging for Black students? In totality, the digital space contributes to conversations in urban education and sociology, specifically the ones being held around …

Whiteness 101: Racial Identity Work For White Educators To Advance Antiracist Pedagogy, Meghan W. Slan

Master's Projects and Capstones

Whiteness, White privilege, and racial inequality are pervasive in K-12 schools and universities. Recognizing that race is a human invented classification construct that has had and continues to have a direct causal effect on the historical and present inequality of the United States, White educators must reckon with their own racial identities as White people in a White supremacist society. White educators are complicit in reproducing White supremacist societal structures through K-12 schooling and in universities, thus bearing responsibility to disrupt, dismantle and rebuild a more just and equitable education system. This field project incorporates my experiences as facilitator of …

Capitalism, Migration, And Adult Education: Toward A Critical Project In The Second Language Learning Class, Alisha M.B. Heinemann, Lilia Monzó

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Migration has become both a consequence of and support structure for global racialised capitalism. A presumed source of support for the people who migrate is adult education, especially the second language learning class. However, as a state organized institution, the policies and practices that govern second-language courses serve to inculcate the ideologies and values that support a racialised capitalist system. We draw on two case examples – the U.S. and Germany – to demonstrate these entanglements. We engage Freire’s critical pedagogy wherein learning contexts encourage students to question the realities of their lives, and Foucault’s ideas regarding heterotopian places where …

Freedom For The (Distance Education) People! Ten Practical Ways To Bring Liberatory Pedagogy To Your Online Class, Jason Johnston

Pedagogicon Conference Proceedings

With the rapid growth and adoption of online programs in higher education comes a concern that education is becoming even more industrialized, reducing student liberty. This paper first critiques online learning with the concept of industrialized education. Then, it outlines and applies the revolutionary approaches of liberatory pedagogy. Finally, this paper explores and describes ten practical ways for teachers and instructional designers to apply liberatory pedagogy in online courses to empower students as partners in their own learning.

Latina And Latino Critical Legal Theory: Latcrit Theory, Praxis And Community, Marc Tizoc Gonzaléz, Sarudzayi M. Matambanadzo, Sheila I. Velez Martinez

Articles

LatCrit theory is a relatively recent genre of critical “outsider jurisprudence” – a category of contemporary scholarship including critical legal studies, feminist legal theory, critical race theory, critical race feminism, Asian American legal scholarship and queer theory. This paper overviews LatCrit’s foundational propositions, key contributions, and ongoing efforts to cultivate new generations of ethical advocates who can systemically analyze the sociolegal conditions that engender injustice and intervene strategically to help create enduring sociolegal, and cultural, change. The paper organizes this conversation highlighting Latcrit’s theory, community and praxis.

If I Knew Then What I Do Now: Fostering Pre-Service Teachers’ Capacity To Promote Expansive And Critical Conversations With Children’S Literature, Stephen Adam Crawley

Occasional Paper Series

In this article, I reflect on my practices as a teacher educator and respond to the following questions: How do I foster the capacity of pre-service teachers to use children’s literature to promote expansive and critical conversations in the classroom? How do pre-service teachers report their stances and sense of preparedness when reflecting on the course? To address these questions, I share two strategies I employed in my undergraduate course for elementary education majors: 1) emphasizing children's literature as windows and mirrors and 2) considering stakeholder responses. For each strategy, I include preservice teachers’ (PTs’) statements that reflect how the …

Critical Intellectuals In Postdigital Times, Petar Jandrić, Peter Mclaren

Education Faculty Articles and Research

This article starts with a brief analysis of what it means to be an intellectual within the US tradition of critical pedagogy. Pointing toward important socio-technological transformations which have taken place in the past few decades, the article situates the concept of the intellectual into the contemporary postdigital context. The article looks into two main areas of intellectual work which seem to have undergone significant transformations—automation and post-truth. It develops possible responses to recent challenges in these areas and shows that contemporary intellectuals working in the tradition of critical pedagogy need to take technology seriously. Heading toward the conclusion, the …

“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 …

Student Agency And Collective Bootstrapping In Integrated Career And Technical Education: A Photovoice Project, Panagiota Athinelis

Educational Studies Dissertations

Secondary Career and Technical Education (CTE) provides students with a full education in academic areas as well as a career area of interest, allowing students to apply their school-based learning in the real world through work-based learning. At the same time, urban CTE adolescents have historically been marginalized and placed in a deficit model. The purpose of this qualitative study was to uncover the ways in which student agency is co-created in an urban, transdisciplinary CTE high school program, as well as to identify the institutional systems and structures that support or hinder the development of student agency.

Eight students …

Performative Possibilities In The Development Of Protagonistic Agency Among Graduate Students In China, Yan Wang

Education (PhD) Dissertations

Educational drama is a term that has in recent years achieved a pride of place in the field of arts-based research. During previous centuries, however, drama was considered anathema to formal learning and theaters themselves were considered “sinks of uncleanliness” (Coggin, 1956, p. 38). Only in recent history has educational drama been considered a legitimate means of teaching and learning. While Dorothy Heathcote, Gavin Bolton, Richard Courtney and others have helped to legitimize the fecund role that drama plays in learning, there has, to date, been a dearth of studies utilizing interdisciplinary approaches such as playbuilding (a participatory arts-based research …

Popular Education In The Civil Rights Movement: Bridging Depth And Scale, Amanda Altman

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This thesis looks at the question of how the direct actions of the civil rights movement worked synergistically with grassroots educational projects like the Citizenship Schools. This thesis makes the case that the lesser-known history of the popular education work of the civil rights movement provides important clues as to why activists were able to organize mass mobilizations and formulate increasingly transformative strategies for change, like the rise of the Freedom Democratic Party. I look at the popular education work of the civil rights movement through an in-depth case study of the Citizenship Schools. The Citizenship Schools were a network …

Foreword: The Dispossessed Majority: Resisting The Second Redemption In América Posfascista (Postfascist America) With Latcrit Scholarship, Community, And Praxis Amidst The Global Pandemic, Sheila I. Velez Martinez

Articles

As LatCrit reaches its twenty-fifth anniversary, we aspire for this symposium Foreword to remind its readers of LatCrit’s foundational propositions and ongoing efforts to cultivate new generations of ethical advocates who can systemically analyze the sociolegal conditions that engender injustice and intervene strategically to help create enduring sociolegal, and cultural, change. Working for lasting social change from an antisubordination perspective enables us to see the myriad laws, regulations, policies, and practices that, by intent or effect, enforce the inferior social status of historically- and contemporarily-oppressed groups. In turn, working with a perspective and principle of antisubordination can inspire us to …

Portland State University: General Education And Equitable Assessment, Rowanna L. Carpenter, Vicki Reitenauer, Aimee Shattuck

Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

Portland State University is not only Portland, Oregon’s public research university, but a place of innovation and engagement. Portland State offers over 200 degree programs, and is very engaged in community development as it sits in the heart of downtown. Originally founded in 1946 to serve returning World War II veterans, Portland State has “grown into Oregon’s most diverse urban public research university with 26,000 students.” Of the students served, 25% are students with children, 37% are first-generation, 45% receive Pell grants, and 48% are students of color. Espoused values of the university include the promotion of access, inclusion, and …

Reflections On Critical Pedagogy In America Latina: La Lucha Continua, Peter Mclaren

Education Faculty Articles and Research

"When I speak in Mexico, I support efforts there to create a revolutionary critical pedagogy—one that has not been domesticated and depotentiated by neoliberal dogma. This means the inclusion of a decolonial pedagogy which challenges the “coloniality of power” (patron de poder colonial) that still resides at the heart of post-colonial societies. I would advise as a central, overarching goal of critical pedagogy the struggle for a socialist alternative to the “value form of labor” that exists in capitalist societies throughout North and South America, and that such efforts must be transnational in scope since capitalism is now transnational in …

Exploring Privilege With Young Adult Literature, Stefani Boutelier

Language Arts Journal of Michigan

It is imperative to utilize Young Adult (YA) literature themes to transfer deeper ideologies. This article layers I am Alfonso Jones, a YA graphic novel, by Tony Medina to frame the exploration of privilege during a literature unit in a secondary ELA classroom. Teachers can facilitate understanding of such an often overused, yet misunderstood phrase, through multiple means (e.g., conversation protocols, performance assessment). The topics examined in this article supports a praxis model of moving critical pedagogy and equity literacy theories to the forefront of one’s teaching by including student voice, incorporating relationship building, and building important conversation skills to …

God And Governance: Reflections On Living In The Belly Of The Beast, Peter Mclaren

Education Faculty Articles and Research

In this critical rage article, Peter McLaren unleashes his revolutionary critique aimed at capitalist injustice behind postdigital socio-technological developments, historical forms of injustice such as racism and colonialism, and recent political events and developments including but not limited to US interventions in Latin America and the presidency of Donald Trump. Rising from two important prongs of McLaren’s work—revolutionary critical pedagogy and liberation theology—the article connects myth, religion, science, politics, technology, and humanity. The article reveals McLaren’s most intimate thoughts and experiences and aligns them with sophisticated theory and philosophy. It dances between the individual and the collective, the realistic and …

'A Practice Of Freedom': Self-Grading For Liberatory Learning, Vicki L. Reitenauer

Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

This essay offers readers a model for self-grading as a mechanism to catalyze liberatory learning. Drawing inspiration from the feminist and participatory pedagogical approaches of Paulo Freire, bell hooks, and Adrienne Rich, the author grounds this discussion within her disciplinary field and professional role, identifies key elements of the model and the teaching practice that surrounds it, and addresses the changed learning environment that has resulted from the implementation of this approach.

Systems Thinking In A Second Grade Curriculum: Students Engaged To Address A Statewide Drought, Margaret Sauceda Curwen, Amy Ardell, Laurie Macgillivray, Rachel Lambert

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Faced with issues, such as drought and climate change, educators around the world acknowledge the need for developing students’ ability to solve problems within and across contexts. A systems thinking pedagogy, which recognizes interdependence and interconnected relationships among concrete elements and abstract concepts (Meadows, 2008; Senge et al., 2012), has potential to transform the classroom into a space of observing, theorizing, discovering, and analyzing, thus linking academic learning to the real world. In a qualitative case study in one school located in a major metropolitan area in California, USA teachers and their 7- and 8-year-old students used systems thinking in …