Critical Pedagogy Studies Research Articles

Access and equity for students with disabilities in Colombian higher education

Efforts to increase access to higher education in Colombia have resulted in increased enrollment across the country and an expansion of the postsecondary education sector. National legislation such as the 1994 Ley 115 guarantees individuals with disabilities the right to an inclusive public education, and in 2011, Colombia also adopted and ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Many sociopolitical and pedagogical obstacles remain, however, that make it difficult for students with disabilities to access higher education. In Colombia, only 1.7% of students with disabilities graduate from a university setting (Fundación Saldarriaga-Concha, 2018). This article draws from data collected for a larger mixed methods study exploring the influence of different social identities on students' experiences at a private university system in Colombia; here we focus specifically on the experiences of students with disabilities. We were guided by critical disabilities studies in education (DSE) as a theoretical framework for conceptualizing disability in educational settings and explored how the experiences of dis/abled students at Dosantos University reflect institutional policy commitments. Data from first-person narratives illustrate that students with disabilities face discrimination inside educational spaces that reflect broader limited societal understandings of dis/ability, but that students still persisted. Participants documented the strategies they use to successfully access postsecondary opportunity, and an analysis of their experiences illuminates ways that universities can reduce obstacles in this process.

‘A thousand tiny feminisms’: An interview about writing retreats for academic women and feminist praxis in academia

This is an interview with Dr. Barbara Grant, Associate Professor in the School of Critical Studies in Education at the University of Auckland. The idea behind this interview originates from my own research interest in the ways academic women live the existing norms of academia, how they submissively or unconsciously accept, or push, or even ‘transgress’ these norms by the daily possibilities of change. What does it mean to be a feminist academic and to practice feminism in universities today? Barbara Grant’s research field is higher education and she has researched and published in a wide range of higher education areas, including postgraduate research supervision, researcher identity, student subjectivity, and academic writing. She has been running residential writing retreats for women academics twice (and now thrice) a year since 1997. The retreats have attracted women from different countries, institutions, disciplines, and stages in their career paths. Writing for publication is crucial in the research productivity-rewarding milieu of higher education, and writing retreats are a form of academic development, as Barbara argues. Given Barbara’s experience of writing retreats, and her notion of ‘a thousand tiny universities’ (Grant, 2019), I interviewed Barbara on March 30, 2021, focusing on feminist praxis in higher education to explore further the possibilities of becoming a woman academic.

White imagination, Black reality: recentering critical race theory in critical whiteness studies

This essay uses the concept of the white imaginary to reflect on Critical Whiteness Studies (CWS) in education. It examines the field’s value but also its limitations, specifically its preoccupation with converting white people as the solution to systemic racism. The conversion approach ignores the fuller structural nature of whiteness and often privileges the needs and wants of white people over people of color. The essay argues that to better serve Black students and educators, CWS must stay connected to the central tenets of Critical Race Theory and aligned with approaches rooted in the racial knowledge of people of color, such as work on Black genius.

Towards a Closer Look at the Pipes and Joints of Educational Data Infrastructures

More recently, scholars in the field Critical Data Studies have turned attention to the infrastructures by means of which educational data is produced, processed, circulated, and consumed. While respective studies have rightly emphasized the social, cultural, political, and economic factors that are shaping these infrastructures, the technical dimension of these developments has remained largely unexplored. As a consequence, analyses are easily deemed irrelevant by technologists and designers engaged in educational datamining and learning analytics. This paper therefore aims to broaden the analytic scope of Critical Data Studies in education and to engage more closely with the technical dimension of the emerging educational data infrastructures. Towards this end, the paper outlines a technogenetic account of (digital) infrastructures and standards, and provides a case-study to illustrate how this account can be leveraged to unravel assumptions and perspectives implied in an educational technology standard such as the Experience API. The results of the case study indicate that while the Experience API is highly abstract and generic nature, it lends itself to a rather restricted idea of learning and education.

Teachers and teaching: (re)thinking professionalism, subjectivity and critical inquiry

ABSTRACT The collection of papers presented in this issue of Critical Studies in Education adds to the expansive body of work on teachers and teaching. Collectively, the papers draw our attention to new ways the field is problematising the emerging and evolving conditions that shape the work, lives and identities of teachers. With this editorial introduction to the issue, I not only summarise the various themes of the collection, but also offer a provocation that I hope will inspire new questions moving forward. As critical researchers, we have an obligation to challenge taken-for-granted assumptions – not only by looking outwards at the policymakers, edu-businesses, and intergovernmental agencies (e.g., the Organisation for Economic and Co-operation Development [OECD]), but also by looking inwards and challenging our own assumptions about power, discourse and subjectivity. The authors in the special issue take up both challenges in their geographically diverse accounts of ‘the teacher’ and ‘teaching’, demonstrating what it means to do critical research well.

The Historical Blind Spot: Guidelines for Creating Educational Leadership Culture as Old Wine in Recycled, Upscale, and Expanded Bottles

The purpose of this contribution is to investigate the Standards and Accountability Movement, as it relates to the roles of administrators and the creation of school culture, against a broader neoliberal, historical context using a combination of historical evidence and critical theory. Employing a critical, comparative-historical analysis, this investigation analyzes the recently revised Professional Standards for Educational Leaders (PSEL) against the standards for educational leadership outlined in Worth McClure’s Master’s thesis from the early 20th century. As a critical educational studies piece, this analysis traces lines between these two historical documents underscoring that such ideas thus do indeed transcend temporal limitations which is cause for concern for educational leaders and those being trained in leadership programs in the United States which use the PSEL standards. Further, it highlights a historical blind spot that centers on a power imbalance linked to a century-old tradition of selling old ideas as solutions to newer, current, complex challenges facing schools, merely representing logical old wine in recycled, upscale, and expanded bottles. This work concludes with implications for administrators and discussions related to the stagnation of policy in terms of modern democracy building.

Global citizenship education as bounded self-formation in contemporary higher education internationalisation projects

ABSTRACT This paper explores the progressive possibilities of global citizenship education (GCE) and higher education internationalisation in the current milieu that is defined by the interwoven dominance of globalisation, neoliberalism, and English. Since current trends augur shifts in higher education internationalisation growth to nonWestern and nonAnglophone countries, the study focuses on a university in Japan where both GCE and internationalisation are explicitly promoted. Taking an approach based in critical educational studies and guided by scholarship on contemporary citizen formation, it investigates the complex interplay of agency and structure through student self-narratives regarding their own global citizen identity development. The paper argues that over time these students (re)constructed meanings and identities around the concept of global citizenship through myriad pathways in a multidirectional feedback loop that interconnected their self-identity, feelings, aspirations/desires, imaginations, actions, and experiences. After revealing specific factors that limited and facilitated this process of self-formation, and highlighting the paramount role of imagination, the paper concludes by asserting the viability of realizing global community and global citizenship through strategically targeted educational initiatives. This work provides both pragmatic guidance and reasoned optimism for scholars, policymakers, and practitioners who champion the projects of critical global citizenship education and critical higher education internationalisation.

Invoking the political in socioscientific issues: A study of Indian students' discussions on commercial surrogacy

AbstractThe political nature of socioscientific controversies becomes starkly apparent in countries of the Global South where science and technology are embedded in societies characterized by pervasive structural inequalities which, in part, were created by the Global North. This article presents empirical work from the standpoint of a critical science educator, which attempts to highlight the political nature of socioscientific controversies, in‐line with criticisms of the dominant paradigm of research on socioscientific issues (SSIs) that foregrounds moral over political considerations, and the logico‐scientific over narrative modes of expression. The study highlights these aspects using the SSI of commercial surrogacy, involving data collected from 39 Indian students through interviews as well as group discussions—as they negotiated a SSI of commercial surrogacy. The data were analyzed in three parts and involved a discussion of: (1) the ethico‐political considerations that were raised; (2) the nature of standpoints that the students adopted; and (3) the nature of disagreements that were raised in discussions. The results reveal that the students in the study adopted a wide variety of ethico‐political positions on the issue, which were mostly supportive of, but occasionally challenged structural inequalities related to caste, class, and gender. The study examines these positions using a theoretical framework that draws on scholarship within the critical studies of science education.

(Un)doing Spatially Fixed Inequality: Critical Reflections on Urban School District-Community Partnerships

Utilizing critical geography, critical history, and critical educational studies as guideposts, this article examines community organizing and school district partnerships as relevant to improving urban public education reform efforts and schooling practices within the United States. Proceeding in four parts, part one discusses the kinds of external multi-sector entities working with school districts in a continued era of accountability-driven educational reform. Understanding community activism as a lever to address urban geospatial obstacles to equity-oriented educational practices, this is followed by a historical overview of community-based organizations (CBOs) as tied to sociopolitical, economic, and schooling transformation throughout the U.S. Part three helps to illustrate this position through discussion of the Buffalo-Niagara Region and the case of one urban school district context—Buffalo Public Schools (BPS). Specifically, it considers how regional history, demographic shifts, urban development, racial spatialization, and CBOs affect district practices. It concludes with a discussion of the significance of CBO partnerships with urban schools toward the end of improving educational opportunities for traditionally underserved, low income, and minoritized student populations.

Hebcrit: a new dimension of critical race theory

ABSTRACT I believe that it is essential to identify a new facet of Critical Race Theory that specifically addresses the needs of the Jewish people. Often overlooked and ignored in multicultural, diversity, and ethnic studies, Jews continue to face specific concerns and obstacles in the both the United States and around the world. In this article, I outline the foundational structure of this new critical theory that investigates issues affecting Jewish people in American society. HebCrit (pronounced ‘heeb’) is rooted in Critical Race Theory, History, Social Psychology, Education, and Jewish Studies. This new theoretical framework provides a way to address the complicated positionality that many American Jews navigate on a daily basis.

Fundamentals of Qur'anic Education Concept: A Critical Conceptualization with Special Reference to Al-Kilȃni’s Thought

There is a firm correlation between the decline of Muslims in the stage of history and Islamic education system’s lack of productivity in generating excellent outputs. This fact originates from Islamic education’s weakness in avoiding the paradox of “historical determinism” tendency and “practical realism”. This fact also has its roots in the dearth of critical Islamic education studies due to intellectual elites paying little attention to eminent investigations. Such problems had troubled al-Kîlânî, as a thinker and a practitioner of Islamic education, and prompted him to critically reflect how he could contribute and participate in solving crucial problems of Islamic education based on Quranic exegesis. Unfortunately, his critical reflection is still less ppreciated by readers of Islamic education because his thoughts have yet to be broadly recognized. In his criticism, al-Kîlânî introduced the “triadic concept”. He had painstakingly carried out an endeavor to link up a spiritual-transcendental vision with an anthropo-cosmological consciousness, which has in most part been dismissed from the viewpoint of modern science.

Neoliberal multiculturalism and productive inclusion: beyond the politics of fulfillment in education

ABSTRACT While political theorists have elaborated on the phenomenon of neoliberal multiculturalism, many progressive educational scholars have yet to adequately theorize this nexus. Neoliberalism either remains unproblematized or, in some instances, it is imagined as a tendency that is antithetical to and incompatible with multiculturalism. This essay contributes to a critical inclusion studies of education and calls attention to the ways in which mobilizations of neoliberalism have appropriated, accommodated, and put to use the discourses of multiculturalism, diversity, and inclusion. By charting the parameters of neoliberal multiculturalism, the author demonstrates how a logic of extractive schooling operates through inclusion discourses, and particularly a technology of productive inclusion that governs and manages permissible forms of subjectivity, knowledge, affect, and action. Arguing that strategies of inclusion are unable to subvert capitalism, settler colonialism, white supremacy, heteropatriarchy, or ableism, the author concludes with a call for the revitalization of an antagonistic politics and education of transfiguration in order to challenge the dominant reign of a politics of fulfillment in education policy, theory, and practice.

Critical Ethnic Studies in Education: Revisiting Colonialism, Genocide, and US Imperialism–An Introduction

ABSTRACTA critical ethnic studies in education is a way to extend or push notions of equity and justice in education. It is necessary given the deleterious impact of neoliberal policies and practices that support an ahistorical, apolitical, and non-materialist understanding of history. The four articles in this symposium offer a critical comparative studies in education and provide a basis of analysis around themes like genocide, colonialism, and imperialism.

Styling writing and being styled in university literacy practices

ABSTRACTTaking as its premise the ethical responsibility of the educator towards diversity, both in students and the materiality of their knowledge production practices, this paper examines four surfaces of emergence of academic writing governmentality. These are characterised as different ‘styles’ of knowledge production: Style 1 (canonic, Western rationalist governmentality); Style 2 (bureaucratic, product-control governmentality); Style 3 (transformative, academic literacy governmentality); and Style 4 (poststructural and deconstructive governmentality). Drawing on Foucault’s genealogical approach ([1984] 1991. ‘What is Enlightenment?’ In The Foucault Reader, edited by Paul Rabinow, 32–50. London: Penguin), I examine ways these complementary and competing disciplinary technologies orient us and our students differently in the ‘constitution of ourselves as autonomous subjects’ (Foucault [1984] 1991, 43), in both our educational and writing practices. The findings of the study are intended to make more explicit the hegemonic rhetorical landscapes, which call us all to order in our everyday practices within the university’s ‘matrix of calculabilities’ (Ball, Stephen, and Antonio Olmedo. [2012]. ‘Care of the Self, Resistance and Subjectivity Under Neoliberal Governmentalities’. Critical Studies in Education 54 (1): 85–96, 103).

Pedagogik, institution och kunskapsobjekt

This essay, Educational science, institution, and epistemic objects, includes comments on two themes: “Educational science from university discipline to field of knowledge”, and “Searching for the epistemic objects of educational science”. The approach is partly autobiographic. Taking 1968 as starting point, the institutional conditions and transformations of educational science as a university discipline in Sweden are outlined, primarily using one of the larger departments of education as a case. The analysis highlights the substantial expansion and differentiation that characterize the development and places it within a university reform context. The second theme goes further back in time and highlights the historical roots of education as a university discipline. Epistemic objects of the Herbartian tradition are discussed, as well as of the expanding experimental psychology at the time of the first chair of educational science in Sweden. The great expectations after the Second World War for a new school are outlined together with growing research traditions, highlighting classroom language and the teaching process. In the diversified research landscape of the last decades, studies of curriculum theory, education policy, and history of education are emphasized and a plea is made for critical studies of history and education based on broad theoretical perspectives.

The Geopolitics of Environmental Education

This article analyzes the geopolitical imaginations promoted via environmental education in the school textbooks of five states in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. In doing so, it builds bridges between critical studies of education and political ecology. It shows that, when addressing environmental problems, the textbooks examined depoliticize environmental problems and sustain political and economic power structures. They do so by individualizing responsibility for environmental problems, legitimizing political and economic elites, associating environmental protection with wider societal goals, and externalizing environmental problems.

PERIFERIAS URBANAS E EFEITO DO TERRITÓRIO: CONTRIBUIÇÕES CONCEITUAIS PARA ANÁLISES DE PROCESSOS CURRICULARES E DO TRABALHO ESCOLAR

Este artigo tem como objetivo examinar as contribuições que a incorporação dos conceitos de periferia urbana e efeito do território têm na análise de processos educacionais e curriculares em escolas localizadas em regiões de extrema pobreza. A especificidade e a complexidade do trabalho escolar em escolas da periferia, bem como as dificuldades verificadas nas práticas curriculares, motivaram a realização de duas pesquisas de doutorado que tiveram como campo empírico a Rede Municipal de Ensino de Porto Alegre – RS. As concepções de periferia e hiperperiferia (ROSA, 2009, TORRES; et. al., 2003) e efeito do território (MAURIN, 2004; BRUNO; MENDES, 2014) foram centrais para os estudos realizados, desenvolvidos a partir da perspectiva da etnografia crítica e alicerçados nos pressupostos da Sociologia da Educação e dos Estudos Educacionais Críticos na compreensão da instituição escolar. Este artigo aborda, portanto, a utilização desses conceitos trazendo algumas conclusões das investigações realizadas com o objetivo de argumentar que essas ferramentas conceituais podem ser profícuas para a complexificação da análise de processos educacionais.

Psycho-politicising educational subjectivity: A posthumanist consideration of Rancière and Lacan

Drawing on the aesthetic theory of Jacques Rancière and the Lacanian conception of lack, this paper offers an intervention into the notion of subjectivity which can be applied in critical studies of education. Critiquing the progressive and knowledge-oriented ideology of neoliberal systems, Rancière depicts a world in which politics turns out to delimit the subject’s perceptual experience and in this way, argues that what remains out of this ideological demarcation is susceptible to a challenge of the social order on which an ideology is based. While Rancière presents a meticulous reading of current pedagogic institutions, Lacan provides us with a definition of subject having the capacity to challenge the delimiting social order. The latter is achieved by theorising a subject inflicted by a double lack, realised both at the subjective and objective levels. This double negativity gives rise to the emergence of desire in the subject which in Lacan is the source of emancipation as it makes the subject not be satisfied by a given achievement, hence replacing one desire after another.

Exploring the Role of Ideology in Interdisciplinary Science Education Policy

Despite its popularity in education studies literature, interdisciplinary science education is mostly considered outside the multitude of social forces that drive education reform. This has contributed to a mythologizing of interdisciplinary science education and lead to assumptions about the necessity of its intervention into science education practice. This research constructs a critical analysis of interdisciplinary science education by exploring a philosophical understanding of the relations between scientific disciplines, investigating discourse about interdisciplinarity in science education policy literature, and provides socioeconomic context for this reform movement. In particular, Louis Althusser's theory of ideology as material force, his conception of the spontaneous philosophy of scientists, and his theses on the ideological nature of interdisciplinary science are foundational to this critique. Althusser's contributions allow for critical reflection on interdisciplinarity and the effects of promoting it throughout scientific enterprise. Viewing interdisciplinary science education through this critical lens allows for demarcating the ideological narratives of reformist discourse from the intended outcomes of reform. This investigation elucidates the intervention of interdisciplinarity as an ideological force governing the reproduction of scientific labor, with intended downstream socioeconomic effects, such as shifting science labor from the public sector to private industry to accommodate for austerity. The conclusions of this analysis advocate for historical materialist methodologies in science education research and critical education studies, while emphasizing the role of ideology in socioeconomic reproduction.

Educating Silicon Valley: Corporate education reform and the reproduction of the techno-economic revolution

Critical cultural and sociological studies of education have been concerned for the last half-century with how the knowledge, interests, and culture of powerful social actors are reproduced through...