Hello all.
While there seems to be a lull in the action, I'd like to slip in a
question I've been struggling with over the past couple of months
concerning the distinction between critical or liberatory pedagogies that
seek for broader social transformation and what I call "learning
pedagogies" that seek for outcomes of individual learning. This
distinction, according to Burbules & Berk (1999) is rooted in the
perspective of critical pedagogy that individual learning as dependent upon
social emancipation:
For critical pedagogy ... self-emancipation is contingent upon social
emancipation. It is not only a difference between an emphasis on the
individual and an emphasis on society as a whole (Missimer 1989/1994;
Hostetler 1991/1994). It is rather that, for critical pedagogy,
individual criticality is intimately linked to social criticality,
joining, in Giroux’s phrase, “the conditions for social, and hence,
self-emancipation” (Giroux 1988, 110). (Burbules & Berk, 1999, p. 55)
Thus critical pedagogy is based on a need for conscientizacao, ( “learning
to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions, and to take
action against the oppressive elements of reality,” Freire, 1970/1995, p.
17, quoted in Gruenewald, 2003, p. 5) that is not a part of the usual
agenda of the learning pedagogies.
What is clear from this is that critical pedagogy is directed primarily
toward the oppressed classes. My question is what guidance, if any, does
critical/liberatory pedagogy offer us that is relevant to the educational
project conceived more generally than at the level of a particular class,
for instance that would be applicable for teaching students who are not
part of an oppressed class?
Thanks in advance for your thoughts on this.
David Kirshner
Burbules, N., & Berk, R. (1999). Critical thinking and critical pedagogy:
Relations, differences, and limits. In T. Popkewitz & L. Fendler
(Eds.), Critical theories in education. New York: Routledge.
Gruenewald, D. A. (2003). The best of both worlds: A critical pedagogy of
place. Educational Researcher, 32(4), 3-12.
_____________________
David Kirshner
Department of Curriculum & Instruction
Louisiana State University
Baton Rouge LA 70803-4728
(225) 578-2332 (225) 578-9135 (fax)
dkirsh@lsu.edu
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