(Re)Assembling Anti-Oppressive Practice Teachings in Youth and Community Work through Collective Biography (2)

Rick Bowler,Liz Woolley,Christine Smith,Steph Green

doi:10.3390/educsci11090497

Rick Bowler, Liz Woolley + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/educsci11090497

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Journal: Education sciences	Publication Date: Sep 3, 2021
Citations: 2	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: University of Sunderland, University of Hull

Abstract

This article draws on research undertaken as part of a Collective Biography project generated by a group of activists and lecturers teaching and researching in youth and community work (YCW). Collective Biography (CB) is an approach to research in which participants work productively with memory and writing to generate collective action orientated analysis. The emphasis on collectivized approaches to CB work acts as a potential strategy to disrupt and resist the reproduction of power in academic knowledge-making practices and the impact of powerful policy discourses in practice. The article explores the current context and contemporary challenges for teaching anti-oppressive practice in UK based universities before briefly scoping out the methodology of CB. Extracts from a memory story are used as an example of the process of collective analysis generated through the process of CB in relation to racism, the role of anti-oppressive practice, and as the basis for YCW educators to think collectively about implications for teaching going forward. The article goes on to explore the role of concepts that were worked with as part of the CB process and considers the potential significance for teaching anti-oppressive practice in YCW. The article concludes by starting to scope out key considerations relating to the potential role of CB as a grass roots strategy to open spaces of possibility alongside young people and communities in reassembling the teaching of anti-oppressive practice in YCW.

Highlights

Teaching anti-oppressive practice in Youth and Community Work (YCW) in HigherEducation (HE) is a messy business
Since YCW became a degree profession in 2008, anti-oppressive practice continues to be both in the middle and increasingly on the margins of ethical and political struggles about how and to what extent teaching and practice should engage with broader societal concerns relating to social justice [7]
The levels of disadvantage and oppression experienced by young people and communities, exacerbated by COVID-19, across social divisions makes for compelling evidence of why ethical, values driven, critically reflective, and anti-oppressive practice continues to occupy an important space within the lexicon of YCW

Summary

Introduction

909) as a push back to increasingly overly colonized performative teaching spaces in HE [1] This requires a commitment to be proactive in developing collective ways of working as a community of practice and to work creatively with concepts in ways that disrupt the reproduction of academic knowledge-making practices and deficit-based policy discourses [5]. It is within these contexts that the article draws on a process of CB [6] incorporating memory work, writing, and analysis generated by a group of activists and lecturers teaching and researching in YCW across universities in the UK The process of CB was an endeavor to lean into the current challenges and tensions encountered within teaching practices and opening space to explore possibilities

Background

Methodology and Methods

Challenges and Limitations in Practice

Writing into the Process

Memory

Diffraction

Conclusions