Teaching for Open‐Mindedness: A Justice‐Oriented Approach

Abstract

AbstractThis article explores the pedagogical virtue of open‐mindedness in practice and its relationship to epistemic justice through analysis of a fictional, narrative case. The case focuses on a young white woman who attempts to implement a pedagogy of open‐mindedness as she teaches a unit on the civil rights movement. After presenting the case scenario, Tadashi Dozono and Rebecca Taylor examine three tensions that arise for teachers as they seek to enact a pedagogy of open‐mindedness. First, what form of open‐mindedness should guide them? Second, how should they respond to limits in their own knowledge and understanding? And finally, how should teachers exercise authority within a pedagogy of open‐mindedness? Their analysis confronts the tension between the teacher's own open‐mindedness, on the one hand, and the teacher's subject position, on the other. Through this exploration of open‐mindedness, Dozono and Taylor argue that, in practice, teachers must counteract legacies of epistemic injustice as a necessary part of cultivating their own and their students' access to open‐mindedness.