Rethinking Critical Pedagogy: Implications on Silence and Silent Bodies

Abstract

Many critical pedagogy scholars claim that agency and dialogue in the classroom can only be achieved through students’ engagement in verbal deliberation to “voice” against oppressive actions. As current discourses in the critical pedagogy literature tend to consider silence as a negative attribute in the classroom, I argue that they privilege a western construct and a very particular way of being and thinking. By using performative pedagogy as a theoretical framework, it is imperative to discuss the macro and micro implications of how discourses in the critical pedagogy literature affect how we understand silence theoretically and pedagogically.