Search results

1 – 10 of over 134000
Book part
Publication date: 4 February 2019

Steven Tolman

In pursuit of democracy, John Dewey argued that public education should be the driving force. As educators strive to address issues of social justice and create inclusive academic…

Abstract

In pursuit of democracy, John Dewey argued that public education should be the driving force. As educators strive to address issues of social justice and create inclusive academic environments, they must address the inequalities that are perpetuated in our educational system. Higher education (HE) plays a pivotal role, as it has the potential to shape those who will go on to become future educators, lawmakers, and politicians. Recognizing the importance of HE, we have the responsibility to address inclusivity in and out of the classroom. This chapter examines how critical pedagogy can be used as a tool to promote social justice in HE. In doing so, it will challenge educators to begin to address socially constructed ideas that are agents of oppression. Utilizing critical pedagogy, faculty and students can learn together and critically challenge these educational and social injustices. This will have a rippling impact on our educational system and society as a whole. Successfully implementing this pedagogical approach can lead to diverse and inclusive classrooms that foster learning for all students.

Details

Strategies for Fostering Inclusive Classrooms in Higher Education: International Perspectives on Equity and Inclusion
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78756-061-1

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 8 March 2022

Christina Marouli

Contemporary societies face serious environmental and social challenges that require decisive action. In the 1970s, Environmental Education (EE) was conceived as an important…

Abstract

Contemporary societies face serious environmental and social challenges that require decisive action. In the 1970s, Environmental Education (EE) was conceived as an important method for raising awareness and bringing about the needed changes in social practices that can lead to environmental protection and more recently sustainable development (transforming EE to Education for Sustainability (EfS)). Since then, many EE/EfS programmes have been implemented and some change has been observed despite the persisting problems. EE/EfS – especially when aiming to change behaviours – has been akin to critical pedagogy which aims to prepare independent and critical thinkers and empowered citizens that can effectively address social problems. What pedagogical approaches and educational methods are more effective in bringing about changes in attitudes and social practices? What instructional design and practices facilitate this transformation? What are the challenges? These are questions that have troubled environmental educators and are worth reflecting on in the present context of knowledge societies and Higher Education that is significantly impacted by a neoliberal ideology.

This chapter aims to contribute to the ongoing discussions around these questions, via a dialogue between theory and practice. A discussion of critical theory and pedagogy and of EE/EfS is counterposed with theoretical reflections and insights from the author's more than three decades of teaching experience (primarily in Greece). A discussion of the instructor's key pedagogical influences and the evolution of her (my) instructional practices follows, with the aim to identify instructional practices that have a transformative potential, within the context of the challenges and the facilitating parameters of contemporary societies and educational contexts. The instructor's self-reflections and students' qualitative comments are used in a variety of research methods: a self-study research approach drawing on the author's self-reflections as instructor and an analysis of students' qualitative comments in course evaluations and other informal evaluative situations.

Article
Publication date: 5 February 2018

Marty Martinson and John P. Elia

The purpose of this paper is to critically examine school health education in the USA and present alternative approaches for more critical and comprehensive health education.

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to critically examine school health education in the USA and present alternative approaches for more critical and comprehensive health education.

Design/methodology/approach

An ecological model framework is used to identify the limitations and opportunities for improvement in school health education in the USA. An argument is made for school health education that embraces ecological approaches, political economy theory, and critical pedagogies.

Findings

US schools have been tasked with providing health education that is primarily rooted in individualistic approaches. Often missing from this education is recognition of the social and structural determinants of health that greatly influence one’s ability to practice the health behaviors promoted in schools. This raises pedagogical and ethical concerns, which can be addressed by teaching health education that is grounded in ecological and political economy understandings of health and in critical pedagogies that allow students to more comprehensively and accurately understand health, how their worlds influence health, and their agency within those worlds.

Practical implications

This paper offers justification for a critical model of school health education and for the professional preparation of school health educators that is grounded in critical pedagogy and ecological approaches.

Originality/value

This work complements other research on critical health education by adding explicit integration of the ecological model and the political economy theory within critical pedagogies.

Details

Health Education, vol. 118 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0965-4283

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 4 September 2019

Timothy G. Cashman

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.

Details

International Journal of Comparative Education and Development, vol. 22 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2396-7404

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 19 April 2013

Ming Lim and Peter Svensson

The role of the university as a site of social, cultural and political critique appears to be in terminal decline with the inexorable “commodification” of the university in the UK…

Abstract

Purpose

The role of the university as a site of social, cultural and political critique appears to be in terminal decline with the inexorable “commodification” of the university in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. Yet, although scholars have identified the dangers of such a scenario, few attempts have been made to offer a pragmatic solution to preserve, or even rejuvenate, the university as an agent of critique. This paper proposes that a critical marketing education can take over this role in the academy where traditional critical agents like the arts and humanities are widely acknowledged to have failed.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper uses a historical‐critical approach, and conceives of “critique” as a heterogeneous, multidimensional amalgam of both business and the humanities.

Findings

The paper shows how a critical marketing education offers a pragmatic means of preparing university students to become active and critical voices of society.

Originality/value

Few attempts have been made to offer a pragmatic solution to preserve, or even rejuvenate, the university as an agent of critique. This paper proposes that a critical marketing education can take over this role in the academy.

Details

Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, vol. 5 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2050-7003

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 17 August 2020

Andrew Preater

This chapter theorizes academic libraries and library workers as partners in social justice work in higher education, linking the core concerns of critical librarianship (or…

Abstract

This chapter theorizes academic libraries and library workers as partners in social justice work in higher education, linking the core concerns of critical librarianship (or Critlib) to library leadership practices that can enable and facilitate widening participation as a political project. 1 Widening participation, as a policy imperative and higher education practice, attempts to improve access to higher education among underrepresented groups. However, rooted in the logic of marketized, neoliberal higher education, liberal approaches to widening participation are instrumentalist and contribute to a cultural discourse which reproduces inequity and unequal educational outcomes.

Drawing on Nancy Fraser's model of social justice and critical sociology of education, particularly the work of Penny Jane Burke and Diane Reay, this chapter develops a critical theory of library leadership which radically reframes widening participation practice as a project of recognition and inclusion. In connecting the rich scholarship of Critlib movement, particularly critical information literacy and library pedagogies, to shared commitments to social justice between library and other education workers, this chapter deepens our theoretical understanding of libraries' contributions to widening participation.

Book part
Publication date: 14 December 2023

Patient Rambe

Literature has recognised entrepreneurship education as the main conduit through which entrepreneurial behaviours, attitudes and actions can be built, enacted and delivered. Since…

Abstract

Literature has recognised entrepreneurship education as the main conduit through which entrepreneurial behaviours, attitudes and actions can be built, enacted and delivered. Since the founding of new ventures is largely a resourceful founder-driven enterprise, entrepreneurship education has largely centred on galvanising and shifting the mindsets and cognition of the entrepreneur. Yet, despite over 60 years of delivering entrepreneurship education programmes, hard evidence of the generation of high-growth-oriented and sustainable ventures has been scarce as student entrepreneurship intentions do not always translate into successful venture creation. This is largely because of the complexities of the practicality of entrepreneurial education particularly, the dissonance between acquired education in business schools and the knowledge and competencies needed in the entrepreneurial field. Such dissonance can be attributed to the lack of clarity on the pedagogical approach that most resonates with entrepreneurial action, the diversity in assessment methods and the scholarly illusion pertaining to how pedagogical approaches can be channelled to the generation of growth-oriented ventures. Drawing on Girox's concepts of transformative critical pedagogy (including pedagogy of repression), Socratic dialogue, Hegelian dialectic and Yrjö Engeström's transformative expansive agency, I demonstrate how a flipped transformative critical pedagogy can be harnessed in digitally enhanced learning environments to create new entrepreneurial possibilities for facilitating critical inquiry, complex problem-solving, innovation for the market and fostering tolerance for failure in ambiguous entrepreneurial contexts.

Article
Publication date: 24 June 2004

Barry Down

The state of citizenship education in Australia continues to attract media attention as evidenced by two recent newspaper headlines, Students take apathetic view of democracy and…

Abstract

The state of citizenship education in Australia continues to attract media attention as evidenced by two recent newspaper headlines, Students take apathetic view of democracy and Teach young about democracy. These headlines were reporting on the latest findings of the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) on school students understanding of democracy. As a part of a 28‐nation civics survey, the ACER found half of Australian students had no grasp of democracy (ranking them behind countries like Poland, Cyprus and the Slovak Republic); lacked clarity about the Constitution, elections, voting systems or the role of groups like trade unions; were unwilling to engage in politics; and believed politics was relatively unimportant

Details

History of Education Review, vol. 33 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0819-8691

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 May 2016

Cathy Howlett, Jo-Anne Ferreira and Jessica Blomfield

This paper aims to argue that substantive changes are required in both curricula and pedagogical practice in higher education institutions to challenge dominant epistemologies and…

3764

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to argue that substantive changes are required in both curricula and pedagogical practice in higher education institutions to challenge dominant epistemologies and discourses and to unsettle current ways of thinking about, and acting in relation to, the environment. Central to such a shift, it is argued, is the need for higher education curricula to be interdisciplinary and for pedagogical practices to work to build capacities in students for critical and reflective thinking.

Design/methodology/approach

In this paper, a case study of our reflections is offered on a subject designed to promote capacities in students for critical and reflective thinking via an interdisciplinary approach. The paper uses data from student reflective essays and student course evaluations to make an argument for the success of this approach.

Findings

Genuine transformative learning can occur within a constructivist informed pedagogical approach to teaching for sustainability.

Research limitations/implications

Research implications are that genuine transformation can occur in students’ thinking processes (which the paper argues is critical for effective education in sustainability) with appropriately designed courses in higher education.

Practical implications

More effective environmental actors and thinkers, who can critically engage with the complexity of environmental problems.

Social implications

Social implications include a more effective and socially just higher education for sustainability

Originality/value

The authors know of no other narrative that addresses attempts to educate for sustainability using this approach.

Details

International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, vol. 17 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1467-6370

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 3 July 2023

Salvador Baena-Morales, Gladys Merma-Molina and Alberto Ferriz-Valero

The aim of this personal vision research is to analyse the characteristics of physical education subject to contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through the…

Abstract

Purpose

The aim of this personal vision research is to analyse the characteristics of physical education subject to contribute to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through the development of competences in university students. The objective is to reflect on how critical and systemic thinking could be mobilised through the contents and methodologies in physical education to promote the SDGs.

Design/methodology/approach

A conceptual article is proposed in which an active investigation of how physical education could foster critical and systemic thinking has been carried out. For this purpose, articles were selected that have analysed the potential of physical education for sustainability. Databases such as Web of Science, Scopus or Google Scholar have been reviewed through keywords such as “physical education”, “sustainability”, “critical thinking” or “systems thinking”.

Findings

Strategies are presented to enable university students to understand the scope of the subject beyond the physical dimension. This study discusses that it is only through such a change of view of the subject that meaningful learning and learning situations that encourage enquiry and active participation can be introduced. Thus, this paper argues that physical education is a unique area of knowledge for mobilising critical and systemic thinking in the context of sustainable development (SD). Consequently, concrete actions are presented for application in physical education teaching that shows direct connections to specific targets of the SDGs.

Practical implications

This study presents practical implications for higher education leaders and educational policy designers at the national level, as it would help improve initial and ongoing training programs for physical education teachers, focusing on the development of key competencies for sustainability.

Social implications

Physical education has the potential to contribute to the development of vulnerable schools and communities, especially to the health and well-being of children and young people and does not require large financial budgets. Therefore, the recommendations presented in this study can have a positive impact on the well-being of these groups.

Originality/value

This document invites reflection on how, through different teaching strategies, we can produce significant learning that contributes to the sustainability of the planet. All this, trying to mobilise critical and systemic thinking and consequently improving awareness for SD.

Details

International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education, vol. 24 no. 8
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1467-6370

Keywords

1 – 10 of over 134000