Place-Based Pedagogy for the Arts and Humanities

Abstract

I can recall here my own frustrated efforts to educate young working-class girls by introducing them to literature that I thought would foster a kind of young version of class consciousness. Literature about girls like them — girls with decaying teeth, with fathers who sometimes drank too much with the pressure of being out of work — spoke more to my preconceived notions of “equity” and “empowerment” than the cultural and symbolic worlds of the girls themselves. It wasn’t until I learned to open my pedagogical imagination to the girls’ literary worlds, which for them hinged around popular fiction (notably horror films and related series paperbacks) that I stood even the smallest chance of creating an educational experience. — Deborah Hicks, “Labor Histories”