Beneath the Surface: Teacher Subjectivities and the Appropriation of Critical Pedagogies

Abstract

Little has been written about the complexity of educators' appropriation of critical pedagogies in the context of everyday life in schools. In this article, based on analyses of two teachers' practice drawn from a larger ethnographic study of an urban public middle school, I explore the emergence of classroom practice that on the surface seemed to reflect critical educational theory. Two social justice projects are introduced, and teacher networks are explored as discursive resources for these projects. In this discussion I focus on how the teachers' subjectivities provided important contexts for the appropriation of critical educational discourses. Following Gore (1998), I argue that although classroom practice may resemble critical pedagogy, the extent to which it is accompanied by practitioners' social critique is another empirical question altogether.