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21 – 30 of 102Lena Wånggren and Karin Sellberg
The paper aims to examine the potential feminist politics of teaching: is there a clear connection between feminism and teaching, and is there a particular feminist way of…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to examine the potential feminist politics of teaching: is there a clear connection between feminism and teaching, and is there a particular feminist way of teaching? Through notions of engaged political pedagogy (as developed by bell hooks Jacques Rancière), it proposes an intersectional and dissensual approach to teaching, as a primary way of practising feminist politics within academia.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper sets out to explore the possibility of a feminist pedagogy of teaching. Drawing on works by social and feminists theorists as well as by radical pedagogues, it negotiates these various standpoints, finding similarities and differences, in order to formulate ways in which we can more fruitfully conceive of teaching as politics.
Findings
The paper proposes that the classroom proves one of the most radical spaces for possibility within academia. Through an engaged, dissensual pedagogy, in which both students and teachers work together in mutual recognition of each other's knowledge, the feminist teacher can enthuse political change both within and outside of the classroom.
Originality/value
Teaching is often viewed as a less important part of academic work. This paper, in contrast, proposes the classroom as one of the spaces where we as feminist academics can have the most impact. Providing a theoretical methodology of a potential feminist teaching pedagogy, this paper adds a well‐needed exploration of the relation between teaching and feminism, and a defence of teaching as politics.
Michelle M. Falter and Shea N. Kerkhoff
The purpose of this paper is twofold: to explore how preservice teachers in a young adult literature course critically conceptualize discussions in school spaces about race and…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is twofold: to explore how preservice teachers in a young adult literature course critically conceptualize discussions in school spaces about race and police/community relations; and to understand the constraints and affordances of using the young adult (YA) novel, All American Boys, as a critical literacy tool for discussing race and police/community relations.
Design/methodology/approach
This qualitative exploratory case study (Stake, 1995) investigated 24 pre-service teachers in two university YA literature courses as they read and discussed All American Boys. Thematic analysis consisted of open coding through the theoretical lenses of critical literacy and critical race theory.
Findings
Pre-service English language arts teachers largely thought that while race and police relations was important and the YA book was powerful, it was too political. Their fears about what might happen lead to privileging the role of neutrality as the desired goal for teachers when tackling difficult conversations about racial injustice in America. Although students made some shifts in terms of moving from neutral to more critical stances, three sub-themes of neutrality were predominant: a need for both sides of the story, the view that all beliefs are valid and the belief that we are all humans therefore all lives matter equally.
Originality/value
A search at the time of this study yielded few research tackling racial injustice and community/police relations through YA literature in the classroom. This study is important as stories of police brutality and racism are all too common and adolescents are too often the victims.
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The purpose of this paper is to provide comparative perspectives on how educators teach issues that affect two countries with a history of governmental tensions. The investigation…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide comparative perspectives on how educators teach issues that affect two countries with a history of governmental tensions. The investigation examines how teachers in Cuban classrooms engage in discourses on the recent developments in Cuban and US relations, including the teaching of historical and territorial issues. This research considers border pedagogy, critical border dialogism and critical border praxis as approaches for those who educate on the effects of US international policies. Ultimately, pragmatic hope offers the possibilities for an emergent third space for Cuban and US relations, including educational exchanges.
Design/methodology/approach
The research took place in Cuba during an educational exchange to Cuban secondary and university educational sites. Cuban educators of pedagogy and social education engaged in dialogue and shared information on how they address US international policies during their classroom discussions. The researcher employed methodologies that followed Stake’s (2000) model for a substantive case study. Impressions, data, records and salient elements at the observed site were recorded. Transcriptions were documented for face-to-face interviews and hour-long focus group sessions. Participants also logged responses to written survey questions. The study focused on how Cuban educators taught, discussed and addressed the US international policies in classrooms.
Findings
Heteroglossia, meliorism, critical cosmopolitanism, nepantla, dialogic feminism and pragmatic hope were components of the data analysis. Heteroglossia was an essential consideration throughout the study as multiple interpretations of Cuban and US interconnectedness emerged. Meliorism factored into Cuban educators’ commitments to their professions. Critical cosmopolitanism developed as educators put forth different conceptualizations of human rights and democracy. Nepantla emerged as a key aspect as indigenous and self-determined viewpoints emerged. Dialogic feminism was preeminent as patriarchy continues to exist, despite a new awareness of gender roles and gender violence. Pragmatic hope offers possibilities for a transnational community of inquiry and collaboration.
Research limitations/implications
The most obvious limitation to this study is, as a case study, the limited scope of perception.
Practical implications
If future relations between Cuban and the US are deemed uncertain, critical border praxis has an essential role in addressing new sets of uncertainties. This study recommends that educational communities engage in discourses addressing ongoing issues facing the dynamic, fluid border environs. Critical border praxis provides conditions in which we, as educators and members of diverse communities of learners, become cross-borders and broaden the possibilities to achieve what had been considered the unattainable. Resources need to be prioritized and redirected toward educational efforts on national, state and local levels so critical border praxis becomes a reality.
Social implications
Through transnational and transborder engagements, such as educational exchanges, both US and Cuban educators are provided opportunities to reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of their own educational systems. The role of education, formal and informal, then serves to transform perceptions one-by-one, school-by-school, community-by-community and to influence policy makers to reconstruct education country-by-country as part of pragmatic hope for an enduring Pax Universalis. Pax Universalis serves as a third space where transborder students and educators alike are positioned as co-creators of knowledge and agents of change.
Originality/value
This study proposes a new emergent third space resulting from critical border dialogism that utilizes border pedagogy and critical pedagogies of place to seek new zones of mutual respect and cooperation among educators. Common educational understandings are the key starting point for a critical border praxis that facilitates ongoing dialogue between the two countries and offers pragmatic hope for the futures of both nations and opportunities to ameliorate relationships. An emergent third space is possible through sustained critical border praxis, a praxis that seeks to address points of contention and the bridges that need crossing between the two neighboring countries.
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Purpose: This chapter proposes narrative allyship across ability as a practice in which nondisabled researchers work with disabled nonresearchers to co-construct a process that…
Abstract
Purpose: This chapter proposes narrative allyship across ability as a practice in which nondisabled researchers work with disabled nonresearchers to co-construct a process that centers and acts on the knowledge contained in and expressed by the lived experience of the disabled nonresearchers. This chapter situates narrative allyship across ability in the landscape of other participatory research practices, with a particular focus on oral history as a social justice praxis.
Approach: In order to explore the potential of this practice, the author outlines and reflects on both the methodology of her oral history graduate thesis work, a narrative project with self-advocates with Down syndrome, and includes and analyzes reflections about narrative allyship from a self-advocate with Down syndrome.
Findings: The author proposes three guiding principles for research as narrative allyship across ability, namely that such research further the interests of narrators as the narrators define them, optimize the autonomy of narrators, and tell stories with, instead of about, narrators.
Implications: This chapter suggests the promise of research praxis as a form of allyship: redressing inequality by addressing power, acknowledging expertise in subjugated knowledges, and connecting research practices to desires for social change or political outcomes. The author models methods by which others might include in their research narrative work across ability and demonstrates the particular value of knowledge produced when researchers attend to the lived expertise of those with disabilities. The practice of narrative allyship across ability has the potential to bring a wide range of experiences and modes of expression into the domains of research, history, policy, and culture that would otherwise exclude them.
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Jennifer Valcke, Raman Preet, Michael Knipper and Karin Båge
Internationalisation of education is often regarded as preparing students to work in a globalised world. Our graduates are not only workers and consumers of the increasingly…
Abstract
Internationalisation of education is often regarded as preparing students to work in a globalised world. Our graduates are not only workers and consumers of the increasingly global labour market, but they are also people, friends, parents, colleagues, neighbours, partners, voters and (global) citizens. Attitudes towards oneself and other people, and the underlying values that these attitudes are based on, poses challenges to quality education. Education in the context of globalisation needs to be inclusive and equitable in order to be of quality (United Nations, 2015), but what does this look like in practice? What does it require of students, and for those responsible for designing education? Do students and teachers have the possibility to reflect on and conceptualise the realities they live in? Apart from knowledge and technical skills, what growth mindset do students and teachers need in order to navigate international and intercultural perspectives responsibly and ethically?
This chapter proposes to address these questions through the prism of four teachers in the field of global health education. The students they teach and interact with, as well as their needs as active citizens in a globalised world, will provide the backdrop for further reflection. The personal journeys of the authors between countries, disciplines, professions, learning and teaching will thus be conceptualised as experiences continuously being reconstructed and deconstructed in the classroom through processes of being, belonging and becoming. It is argued that these processes can be used as resources to create inclusive and equitable quality education.
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This chapter describes a course in recent U.S. history that uses a pedagogy of “praxis” to help students understand themselves as both products of and actors in history. The twin…
Abstract
This chapter describes a course in recent U.S. history that uses a pedagogy of “praxis” to help students understand themselves as both products of and actors in history. The twin centerpieces of the course are the students’ own personal histories in relation to five systems of domination, and a historically informed political action project that reflects the students’ values, assumptions, and goals in relation to one or more of the systems of domination. A key dissonance for students is between their expressed values and their relative positions within each system of domination.
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Kristine Mason O'Connor, Kenny Lynch and David Owen
The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of student‐community engagement in ensuring relevance of higher education to civil, social, economic and moral issues. It reviews…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the role of student‐community engagement in ensuring relevance of higher education to civil, social, economic and moral issues. It reviews the literature around three inter‐related themes: calls for higher education institutions to engage with their communities; the kinds of attributes university graduates should possess for employability and citizenship; and the pedagogies of experiential learning and reflection informing student and community engagement.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper evaluates and draws together international literature related to three areas: calls for universities to engage with their communities, attributes which students engaged in co‐generative community relations might develop, and pedagogies which inform and develop such engagement.
Findings
The paper draws a number of conclusions related to pedagogy, citizenship and the need to develop quality indicators of engagement and impact. The overarching conclusion is that student‐community engagement founded on principles of mutual reciprocity enhances student attributes and is an important aspect of the modern university. Higher education needs to both retrieve the traditional civic role of the university, and also look forward to creating new approaches, so that universities are “of” the community and developing graduates as citizens.
Practical implications
The paper includes policy implications for curriculum development in relation to fostering graduate attributes and citizenship.
Originality/value
Through an exploration and integration of literature related to themes of university community engagement, graduate attributes and pedagogies of experiential reflective learning the paper signposts an agenda of change for universities in the twenty‐first century.
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