Anti-oppressive Education Research Articles

Arts for Children, Cultural Diversity and the Production of Difference

This article investigates policies of cultural diversity and difference in the promotion of arts to school children. Based on historical examples from concert promotion for children in Norway the article examines how cultural difference has been produced and mobilized strategically in efforts aimed at strengthening diversity. It is argued that, on the one hand, constructions of difference play an important part in the development of cultural identity and visibility, while on the other hand, a focus on difference can be a basis for cultural categorizations, and potentially, for the formation of unfortunate stereotypes. The article is informed by debates and discussions on arts for children, with reference to theorizations of difference from anthropology and education studies. Questions raised concern how difference best can be addressed in the shaping of an inclusive, anti-oppressive education.

De/coloniality, disabled sexualities, and anti-oppressive education: a review of Southern African literature

This review seeks to establish the current body of knowledge on the intersection of de/coloniality and the sexuality of disabled individuals. It suggests that few studies problematise the lack of such intersections in Southern Africa. The review locates this dearth of knowledge within the recent rollout of comprehensive sexuality education in schools, which remains silent to intersections of de/coloniality, disability, and sexuality. This analysis builds on the recommendation of Kumashiro to consider marginalised and post-structural theories in developing anti-oppressive education for disabled groups in terms of their sexualities. This becomes relevant as the sexuality of disabled individuals has been subject to institutional oppression based on colonial ideologies of health, beauty, and sexuality, since socio-medical discourses portray disabled individuals as infertile, non-sexual, and degendered. Given the shortage of relevant studies, the review uses the available local and international literature to locate the complex, interconnected structures and actors that perpetuate repressive colonial systems such as ableism, compulsory able-bodiedness, and heteronormativity within sexuality education. It suggests alternative ways of looking at these intersections within the diverse scope of comprehensive sexuality education. It does not claim that decoloniality is the panacea to erase the consequences of coloniality towards disabled sexualities, but suggests that it is one of the modalities that can redress the complex, interconnected systems of post-colonial oppression. The review recommends that future authors consider other marginalised and post-structural theories in conceptualising anti-oppressive education, like Foucauldian theories.

Trailblazers, Reciprocity, and Doctoral Education: The Pursuit of Critical Race Praxis and Survivance among Doctoral Students of Color

ABSTRACT This study utilized a mixed-methods, survey research design to explore the experiences and motivations of Students of Color who pursue doctoral studies in colleges or departments of education and the agential decisions they make to carry out their motivations. Data collection included dissemination of a 61-item survey via Qualtrics inclusive of Likert-based and narrative items. Participants included 40 respondents who were either doctoral students, candidates, postdoctoral scholars or early career scholars within two years of obtaining their doctoral degrees. Critical Race Theory and Vizenor’s concept of survivance frame an understanding of how race and racism impacted the lives of doctoral Students of Color and how they enacted an active presence in their doctoral studies in spite of obstacles. Findings based on participants’ narratives revealed (a) high levels of interest in addressing educational inequities and the collective advancement of Communities of Color, and (b) recurring efforts to leverage their experiences to advance praxes based on equity and social justice within their teaching and research activities. Such findings reiterate the value of recruiting and retaining doctoral Students of Color who seek to engage in Critical Race Praxis due to their unwillingness to compromise commitments to their cultural communities or anti-oppressive education.

Cultural competence or deficit-based view? A qualitative approach to understanding middle school students\u2019 experience with culturally framed engineering

BackgroundRecent policies have given momentum to the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education in the USA and throughout the world. This has resulted in rapid growth in engineering and STEM curricula, many of which incorporate global contexts to frame student experiences; however, little research has been done on the effects of this contextualization. Thus, it is critical to explore the impact of these curricula on student learning and the development of STEM identities, especially those who have historically been marginalized in STEM fields. The purposes of this study are to critically examine how STEM curriculum helps shape students’ perceptions of the underlying cultural context and suggest ways that anti-oppressive education theory can be applied in middle school physical science classrooms. This study draws on classroom observational data and the curriculum text itself to understand how students perceive culture that they do not identify with.ResultsWe found that the curriculum provides very limited perspectives of the non-dominant culture in which the learning was situated. Our results also indicate three emerging themes showing students to be demonstrating an elitist viewpoint, having a narrow view of another culture, or being indifferent toward the embedded cultural context in the lessons. As a class, deficit-based views of the people and places presented in the lesson were created rather than the desired culturally competent views. These negative perceptions were imprinted and solidified through limited portrayal of the embedded culture in the curriculum.ConclusionsThis work highlights the importance of curriculum context in students’ learning. Beliefs about the people and places are created through global context presented in the curriculum. Portrayal of these people and places was not representative of the culture; thus, resulting in limited perceptions of the situated contexts. It is crucial that the teachers critically evaluate the curriculum prior to its implementation to make sure Others are represented appropriately by drawing upon the anti-oppressive education theory. Lastly, we also advocate for the incorporation of global culture in STEM curriculum by having students learn beyond what the written curriculum offers.

It Can Be Done: How One Charter School Combats the School-to-Prison Pipeline

The school-to-prison pipeline is a theoretical construct that explains how disproportionate discipline and exclusionary punishment of Black and Brown students ultimately pushes youth out of mainstream schools and into the criminal justice system (Basford and Lewis in From education to incarceration: dismantling the school to prison pipeline, Peter Lang Publishing, New York, 2018; Heitzeg in Forum Public Pol Online, 2009; Lewis and Basford in Six lenses for anti-oppressive education (counterpoints: studies in the postmodern theory of education), Peter Lang Publishing, New York, 2014; Morris and Perry in Soc Probl 63(1):68–86, 2016). While the research has documented the existence of the school-to-prison pipeline and its impact on families, less has been done to study schools that have worked to successfully interrupt the pipeline. The authors respond to this void in the literature by using Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (Motivation and personality, Harper, New York, 1987) and Noddings’ ethic of care (Caring: a feminine approach to ethics and moral education, University of California Press, Berkely, 2003) to interpret the successful efforts of one charter high school focused on dropout recovery, specifically targeting youth who have experienced or are at risk for the school-to-prison pipeline. Findings from this case study suggest that the school embodies what we call institutional plasticity through innovative programming, carefully selected and trained staff, a family-like atmosphere, wrap-around services, and flexible planning for intermittent attendance. Implications identify elements of institutional plasticity for consideration in other settings.

Dodgeball: Inadvertently teaching oppression in physical and health education

Though students can learn a great deal about ethics as they play sport, the authors of this article ask what, exactly, they learn from playing dodgeball. As they look beyond the usual arguments offered for and against the teaching of the game, they view it through three ethical lenses: the ethic of care, the ethic of anti-oppressive education, and the ethics of virtue. They conclude that in terms of modelling, confirming, and practising caring behaviours, or offering opportunities to discuss and process what might be considered fair, dodgeball can be considered miseducative. They further argue that the hidden curriculum of dodgeball reinforces the five faces of oppression defined by the feminist theorist Iris Young as marginalization, powerlessness, and the helplessness of those perceived as weaker individuals through the exercise of violence and dominance by those who are considered more powerful. They conclude that the playing of dodgeball habituates the practice of aggression and fails to contribute positively to an ethical education.

Power Relations, Knowledge Productions, and Teaching against Oppression in an Elementary Classroom on the Canadian Prairies: A Self-Study

ABSTRACT This article is inspired by my experience of aiming to teach against oppression on my return to an elementary school classroom after completing doctoral studies in education. The tensions that surfaced as I attempted to disrupt oppressive school knowledge in my second and third grade classrooms motivated me to engage in self-study. Locating my work within the context of the Canadian Prairies, I answer the question of how power relations both constrained and opened up possibilities for disrupting oppressive discourses circulating in everyday life at school by offering a power/knowledge analysis of three critical incidents. My analysis traces how power was always at play through competing discourses of Whiteness, femininity, and colour-blindness as I aimed to resist traditional norms around school discipline; work against the privileging of White, male students; and accept the discomfort of talking to my young students about race and racism. By demonstrating how anti-oppressive practices necessitate the disruption of cherished narratives of neutrality and innocence in education, the findings contribute to understandings about what makes anti-oppressive education both difficult and possible. I emphasize the potential within everyday moments at school for disrupting oppressive discourses and highlight the usefulness of self-study as a tool for learning to teach against oppression as a lifelong endeavour.

Writing in Jail: A Community-Engaged, Social Work Course Model

ABSTRACT This article introduces an innovative model of social work course development, teaching, and implementation. Using the principles of antioppressive education and community-engaged learning, the authors (a former student and faculty member) codeveloped and subsequently taught a course that explored writing, voice, social justice, and the intersecting issues contributing to mass incarceration in the United States. Research has demonstrated that community engagement increases student learning. This course was designed to provide social work students with the opportunity to learn from and interact with individuals who were incarcerated. University students first explored multiple intersecting systemic oppressions as they related to incarceration. They then explored trauma-informed practice, writing pedagogy, and power dynamics in group facilitation. The authors cotaught the course, using tools from popular education, modeling collaborative and transparent facilitation that is responsive to participant feedback. This article includes an overview of the process of creating and teaching the course, feedback from social work students and incarcerated participants, and a reflection on lessons learned. We conclude with a call for social work faculty to contribute to the development of similar course designs that engage community members and that model antioppressive education in course development and pedagogy.

Inside a Box: Using Objects To Collaboratively Narrate Educator Experiences of Transformation in Higher Education

This article is a reflection on the use of object memory in creating a collaborative arts-based narrative that explores educator experiences with transformation in higher education. The collaborative arts-based narrative that I present here emerged from my doctoral thesis in which I collaborated with participants to explore how our memories and experiences could help us understand and approach issues of social justice in education. In this article, I reflect on the way in which memory objects guided the creation of a collaborative arts-based narrative of educators' autobiographical experiences, educational encounters, and anti-oppressive education. Memory objects are used to explore educator identity, subjectivity, and experience in relation to issues of social change and social justice in higher education. Through this exploration, I hope to highlight the entanglement of context, experience, and the theoretical understandings of social justice and anti-oppressive education. The aim of this article is to reflect on how objects were used to make new connections and exciting discoveries through a collaborative narrative of memories and experiences of educators working towards social change in higher education.

‘I got to see the other side of the coin’: Teachers’ understandings of disability-focused oppressive and anti-oppressive pedagogies

This paper contains an exploration of teachers’ understandings of disability-focused oppressive and anti-oppressive pedagogies. The framework of the study draws from the literature on inclusive and anti-oppressive pedagogies. Analysis of teachers’ interviews before and after their engagement in a programme of professional development, and other sources (e.g., teachers’ lesson plans, handouts, reflective diaries, learners’ artefacts), shed light on how they understand oppressive and anti-oppressive pedagogies. At the same time, the data reveal some promising curricular and teaching approaches stemming from teachers’ interaction with ideas from disability studies and disability narratives and arts. The discussion focuses on how the identified key elements of disability-focused anti-oppressive pedagogies can add to existing work on anti-oppressive education.

What’s All the Fuss about Social Work Syllabi? Action Speaks Louder Than Words in Addressing the Silence of Whiteness in Social Work Curriculum: A Game Theory Perspective

What’s All the Fuss about Social Work Syllabi? Action Speaks Louder Than Words in Addressing the Silence of Whiteness in Social Work Curriculum: A Game Theory Perspective Sulaimon Giwa, PhD; Michael G. Mihalicz, MScM Abstract A cursory review of the mission statements of progressive Canadian schools of social work reveals that most have a commitment to anti-oppressive education. That is a commitment to social justice and the amelioration of multiple forms of oppression using a broad range of praxis-oriented approaches. In practice, questions remain regarding these schools‘ commitment to transformative education. To what extent do the pedagogical promises of a ―progressive‖ education match the actions of education administrators? Can a school or curriculum be progressive if devoid of a critical analysis of the operation of Whiteness at the root of social injustice? The first author‘s experience teaching an elective undergraduate course and the curriculum tension experienced by students over the lack of content on Whiteness in their core courses are examined. We analyze two different events experienced by them using solution concepts drawn from game theory, to answer the question: Is the non-disclosure of course syllabi evidence that a school has something to hide? Action-oriented efforts—and difficulties encountered—in raising consciousness about the students‘ need for curriculum change to address this issue are discussed. Pedagogical implications and recommendations are included for transformative practice that might support the integration of content on Whiteness in mandated social work courses. Full Text: PDF DOI: 10.15640/jssw.v7n2a6

Examining Noddings’ “Educational Malpractice” Assertion: Serious Considerations for Local-Global Issues in Social Studies Education

The article utilizes a decolonizing theoretical lens to advocate for the need to engage in a more nuanced approach to conceptualizing local/global aspect of social justice discussions within social studies education. The article engages with questions of social justice by utilizing Noddings’s (2006) argument that “educational malpractice” (p. 250) is a daily occurrence in US classrooms because students are expected to reproduce textbook answers, rather than generate their own questions and reasoned research and deliberation. Kumashiro’s (2004) writings on antioppressive education speak of how the repetition of mainstream narratives normalize what ought to be taught and learned in schools. We propose that educators cannot avoid questions of racism and Islamophobia as critically important issues within social studies classrooms. Therefore, through engaging in critical inquiry on the prevalence of racism and Islamophobia, educators can disrupt the continued educational malpractice within the social studies.

Teaching About the Other in Primary Level Social Studies: The Sami in Norwegian Textbooks

Purpose: The aim of this article is to discuss to what extent and in what ways the Sami people are included in national imaginary in textbooks. The article sheds critical light on important aspects of democracy, inclusion and multi-culturalism in education through the example of indigenous peoples in Norway. The article also explores what opportunities textbooks provide for promoting anti-oppressive education and pedagogical subjectification. Method: Social studies textbooks for primary school are analyzed based on critical discourse analysis (CDA) and elements from multi-modal analysis. The analysis focuses on the use of vocabulary and pronouns signaling inclusion and exclusion. Specific attention is paid to the hidden curriculum. Findings: The Sami are essentialized and actively constructed as the Other through the structure and content of narratives. This corresponds to the strategy described in anti-oppressive education as education for the Other. Externalization of the Sami from the story of the Norwegian national day and in particular, treatment of the discriminatory Norwegianization politics, reinforce the image of Norwegian exceptionalism. Practical implications: Potential for education that promotes social change and subjectification through disrupting hegemonic discourses are located. Extended knowledge on this implicates further research on the workings of discourse in educational practice.

Through laughter and through tears: emotional narratives to antiracist pedagogy

If as a collective society we desire to challenge oppression as it exists, we must individually commit to learning about race, in all its facets, and racism as an institution at an emotional level. Although there are many ways to accomplish these ends, antiracist pedagogy – as antioppressive education – is an effective method to do so through its focus on the intersections of race. This study shares how participants in a higher education classroom emotionally experienced studying race and racism. Using a narrative inquiry hybrid, results of this inquiry include how emotions are at the core of such learning, particularly because they can be racially segregated and relationally complex. The lack of research about the relationship between racism and emotions is felt acutely in higher education classrooms, so this study contributes to our understandings of antioppressive pedagogy in such classrooms. Since the overall goal of antiracist pedagogy is antiracist change and classroom emotions are an impending result, the dilemma of focusing on emotions persists. Subsequent implications for antiracist pedagogy specifically, and antioppressive pedagogies broadly, include explicitly addressing the emotionality of antiracism as an ongoing praxis.

“But I’m not a racist!” Phenomenology, racism, and the body schema in white, pre-service teacher education

In this article, I call for a phenomenological turn in educating white, pre-service teachers. As opposed to dominant pedagogical models which focus on changing one’s beliefs about race, phenomenology points toward the importance of pre-conceptual, pre-critical forms of racial embodiment. Here I draw upon recent work on the different between body image (beliefs about the body) and body schema (what the body can do). The worry is that existing forms of anti-oppressive education miss the centrality of the schema, and thus do not go far enough in uncovering the embodied, perceptual roots of racism.

Reflecting on privileges: Defensive strategies of privileged individuals in anti-oppressive education

Critical approaches to Whiteness, heteronormativity, masculinity, and educational privileges have contributed in recent years to a greater focus on structural privileges. Various studies have estab...

Sexuality education: implications for health, equity, and social justice in the United States

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine how school-based sexuality education has had a long and troubled history of exclusionary pedagogical practices that have negatively affected such populations as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer (LGBTQ) individuals, people of color, and the disabled. The social ecological model is introduced as a way of offering sexuality educators and school administrators a way of thinking more broadly about how to achieve sexual health through sexuality education efforts inside and outside of the school environment. Design/methodology/approach – This paper uses critical analysis of current and historical school-based sexuality education methods and curricula used in the USA. Authors use both academic journals and their own expertise/experience teaching sexuality education in the USA to analyze and critique the sources of sexuality education information and curricula used in schools. Findings – Historically, sexuality education in school settings in the USA has been biased and has generally not offered an educational experience fostering sexual health for all students. There are now welcome signs of reform and movement toward a more inclusive and progressive approach, but there is still some way to go. Sexuality education programs in schools need to be further and fundamentally reformed to do more to foster sexual health particularly for LGBTQ individuals, students of color, and people with disabilities. Practical implications – This paper offers sexuality educators ways of addressing structural issues within the sexuality education curriculum to better serve all students to increase the quality of their sexual health. Integrating critical pedagogy and anti-oppressive education can increase students’ sexual health along physical, social, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual dimensions. Originality/value – This paper provides historical analysis along with the identification of structural difficulties in the sexuality education curriculum and proposes both critical pedagogy and anti-oppressive education as ways of addressing sex and relationships education.

Anti-Oppressive Education and the Trap of 'Good' Intentions Lessons From an Interdisciplinary Workshop

This article is about the challenges of doing anti-oppressive education in a post-secondary context with a community of interdisciplinary colleagues. Critical examination of an anti-oppressive workshop, and subsequent focus group, reveals how good intentions can nevertheless reproduce the conditions we seek to challenge. To make sense of the challenges of doing this work, the authors offer three different analyses of the feedback received in the focus group. Drawing on literature from anti-oppressive education, feminist and critical theory, the authors focus on the role of engagement and recognition to highlight the power that underlies participation. By analyzing key insights from a focus group discussion, the authors seek to disrupt the relationship between identities rooted in goodness and efforts to do anti-oppressive work. Anti-oppressive work must grapple with the lived political, everyday realities we inhabit. This necessarily involves actively challenging the structural conditions that facilitate oppression.

Visual body pedagogies: how anti-oppressive education informs the teaching and learning of sporting bodies

In this article, the authors borrow from anti-oppressive education theory for its potential to disrupt how students visually conceive sporting bodies and to problematize the teaching and learning of these bodies within undergraduate physical education (PE) programs. Fourteen photo stories produced by students enrolled in PE programs at two universities were analysed using a semiotic approach to excavate the emergent themes of sporting bodies from the narratives. Relying on Kumashiro's anti-oppressive educational theoretical framework, the authors found that most of stories reified discursive practices that (re)produce gender oppression in sport. Despite these findings, the authors also discovered anti-oppressive pedagogies are useful for teaching against the body oppressions conveyed in the photo stories. How anti-oppressive education informs other areas of PE should be examined in the future.

Pedagogy of Ignorance

In this article I discuss how Jacques Rancière’s thought invites us to re-conceptualize the education–emancipation nexus. The primary goal of traditional approaches to emancipatory and anti-oppressive education has been to empower the oppressed so that the latter can (re)gain their voice and transform their situations. Building on Rancière’s ideas, I argue that the processes of empowering the oppressed imply that one has the power to empower the other, and thus start with an assumption of inequality. I conclude the article with a call for a pedagogy of ignorance. Grounded in Rancière’s thought, this pedagogy is ignorant of any division and hierarchy of intelligence.