Framework Of Critical Pedagogy Research Articles

Female Pre-Service Elementary Teachers’ Conceptualizations of Engineers and Engineering: A Critical Consciousness Perspective

ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to address issues of potential gender bias in pre-service elementary teachers’ conceptions of engineers and engineering using Freire’s (2018) Critical Consciousness perspective. By identifying the biasness as causal and structural attributions, the study also aimed to construct a critical pedagogy framework for future pre-service elementary teachers to reflect on and to radically reimagine and transform potential gender bias in their conceptions of engineers and engineering. Drawings of engineers and narratives of drawings from 115 pre-service elementary teachers served as data. The analysis comprised a two-step process: (1) identification of patterns through an inductive analysis of the data; and (2) analysis of patterns from the Critical Consciousness perspective to generate themes. Themes included: (1) depictions of male engineers being afforded privileges of having innate abilities to perform engineering from the standpoint of strong disciplinary backgrounds in mathematics and science while depictions of female engineers being afforded privileges of having innate abilities to perform engineering from the standpoint of computing, designing, and coding. (2) depictions of male engineers’ “work” of engineering being related to tangible outcomes like physical products, and (3) depictions of male engineers as authority figures and having the ability to lead the work of engineering. The critical pedagogical framework constructed is a step toward developing a tool for critically reflecting, and radically imagining, reimagining, and thus transforming inequities inherent in future pre-service elementary teachers’ conceptualizations of engineers and engineering.

Examining Village Institues’ Educational Practices Within The Critical Pedagogy Framework

Son yıllarda dikkat çeken eğitim yaklaşımlarından biri eleştirel pedagojidir. Türk eğitim sistemi incelendiğinde eleştirel pedagojinin izlerine en çok Köy Enstitüleri döneminde rastlandığı görülmektedir. Bu nedenle araştırmanın amacı, Köy Enstitüsü mezunlarının aldıkları eğitim neticesinde elde ettikleri kazanımların eleştirel pedagojik bağlamda yaşamlarına yansımalarının incelenmesidir. Çalışma nitel araştırmalardan olgubilim araştırması (fenomenoloji) olarak şekillenmiştir. Araştırmada elde edilen veriler uzman görüşü alınmış yarı yapılandırılmış bir görüşme formu ile toplanmıştır. Verilerin analizinde içerik analizi tekniğinden faydalanılmıştır. Çalışma grubunu, kartopu tekniği ile seçilmiş 9 Köy Enstitüsü mezunu oluşturmaktadır. Araştırma sonucunda, katılımcıların kültürel yeniden üretim, ekonomi, ideoloji/ politika ve eğitimin işlevselliği olarak dört başlık altında eleştirel pedagojiyi yansıtan deneyimleri ortaya konulmuştur. Katılımcıların hepsinin kültürel yeniden üretimin olumsuz döngüsünden çıktıkları, eğitimde fırsat eşitliğini benimsedikleri, Atatürkçü düşünce ile yaşamlarına şekil verdikleri, üretici eğitimi esas aldıkları ve bu temalar doğrultusunda çok çeşitli eylemlerde bulundukları sonuçları elde edilmiştir. Ayrıca; demokrasi, özgürlük, eleştirel eğitim, iş içinde eğitim, köyün kalkınması gibi kategorilere de katılımcıların sık sık değindiği elde edilen sonuçlar arasındadır.

Researching Language Teacher Identity Towards Critical Pedagogy

The landscape of teacher education has recently experienced a significant transformation, shifting away from conventional constructivist methodologies towards more socio-culturally grounded and critical pedagogical approaches. This shift underscores the growing importance of exploring language teacher identity and underscores the imperative for in-depth research into its construction within teacher education programs. This evolution is vital not only to enable language educators to gain deeper insights into their students' ideologies but also to facilitate their understanding and cultivation of their own professional identities. Within the framework of critical pedagogy, pivotal concepts such as power, identity, and agency empower language instructors with the tools necessary to actively shape their own identities and effectively challenge the language ideologies held by their students. Consequently, it is essential to investigate how socio-cultural and political contexts influence the identities of language educators and how these educators can proactively mold their identities to meet the diverse needs of their students. Throughout this study, critical pedagogy serves as a lens for evaluating teacher education programs, highlighting how their incorporation can enhance the educational landscape. In light of the dynamic nature of education, particularly in evolving contexts, a critical language pedagogy perspective necessitates further research into the identity of language teachers within the field. This aligns with the assertion made by Kubota (2017), emphasizing the imperative of additional research concerning the identity of language teachers within the realm of critical language pedagogy.

Using critical pedagogy in English education: Disjunctures between pre-service teachers' preparation and opportunities for implementation

In many universities offering qualifications in education, Paulo Freire's critical pedagogy features prominently in curricula for pre-service teachers of English. Student teachers are prepared with the knowledge and skills that enable them to use approaches from critical pedagogy to teach English effectively in their classrooms upon graduation. Critical pedagogy affords pre-service teachers of English training in teaching critical literacy, a pedagogy of self-empowerment, and tools for teaching critical thinking. However, student teachers may not easily exploit these affordances when they start to teach since many constraints in the school system may impede the effective implementation of critical pedagogy in the English classroom. These constraints include the inflexible Annual Teaching Plan, the practice of teaching for assessment, and contradictions in the Curriculum and Assessment Policy Statement (CAPS). As a result, there is a disparity between the vision of teaching English in critical ways on the one hand and opportunities to realise this vision within the structures of South African policy on the other. In this article, we explore this disparity and its implications for learning to teach English within a critical pedagogy framework.

Community-based theatre: Critical pedagogy for promoting social connectedness recovery in the post-pandemic era

The long-term impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has persisted for several years. After a period of prolonged social isolation, people may be especially vulnerable to developing issues, such as social withdrawal. Theatre has been utilised in some instances to inspire individuals to foster critical thinking and encourage them to lead a positive life. This study applies a community-based theatre test case to examine theatre practices within the framework of critical pedagogy to address emerging issues in the post-pandemic era. It aims to deliberate upon the ongoing process of the theatre workshop as well as the efficacy of theatrical approaches on an individual’s personal, interpersonal and sociological difficulties. This is meant to gain a better understanding of theatre practices that operate on the edge between critical pedagogy and sociocultural intervention. The findings suggest that community-based theatres effectively inspire participants to reflect on and take action to escape oppression. Therefore, it is an innovative strategy for promoting social connectedness while supporting post-pandemic responses. This study contributes to the theoretical, practical, and experiential development of critical pedagogy by providing support for individuals, groups, and the society.

Education-themed TED talks from the perspective of critical pedagogy

The purpose of the current study is to examine the discourses in the education-themed TED/TEDx presentations within the framework of critical pedagogy and neoliberal understanding. The study was designed as a case study in the qualitative research method. Data were collected by using the document analysis method and descriptive analysis was conducted on the collected data. Based on the findings, it was concluded that there were expressions in the talks that were both compatible and contradictory with the perspective of critical pedagogy. In the discourses of the speakers that overlap with the point of view of critical pedagogy, the following criticisms come to the fore: the dominant education systems suppress education, education is against the nature of the individual, it serves the purpose of training the type of person desired by neoliberal policies, there are inequalities in access to education, social justice and inclusiveness should be ensured, the student is passive in the current system and that the teacher is still a figure of authority in the classroom. On the other hand, it was observed that the speakers have expressions that can serve the purpose of training academic success-oriented and economically equipped personnel, encouraging entrepreneurship and having certificates and promoting global competition.

Situated and localised learning: examining the case of two English language teachers in multilingual settings in the Philippines during the COVID-19 pandemic

ABSTRACT This article describes the teaching practices of two K–12 English language teachers in the Philippines at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic. Data used in the study came from the interview of the two teachers, and a content analysis of some modules that they used. The study utilised Canagarajah’s critical pedagogy framework to describe the extent to which the teachers’ reported teaching practices, and the modules they used localised the teaching of English. Results revealed that teachers localised mostly in the level of content and strategies, but considered the language of the texts they used in the classroom to make sure that the meaning and form of the texts were accessible to their students. Moreover, localising was done only as ‘praxis’, and not as a ‘mode of inquiry’, so students were not made aware of their social positioning. Implications for curriculum design and teacher development programmes are discussed.

Developing a reading course model for pre-service English language teachers within the framework of critical pedagogy

Today’s global world brought significant changes to our learning and teaching habits, skills, and competencies we need to gain to deal with and make decisions on challenging global issues. One of these essential skills we need to improve is critical thinking skills. Enhancing critical thinking skills and developing an in-depth critical consciousness on challenging issues can be achieved through the improvement of two essential literacy skills, reading and writing. This paper presents a reading course model developed to improve pre-service English language teachers’ critical reading skills within the framework of critical pedagogy. Many English reading courses in higher education level are designed with traditional approaches that aim to improve the basic reading comprehension skills of second language (L2) readers. Unlike these courses, the course model reported in this paper aims to develop pre-service English language teachers’ critical reading skills as well as consciousness on critical global issues by creating a context they experience reading in English as a social act by having a deeper level of engagement with critical global issues such as social justice, gender equality, refugee problems, human rights, and environmental challenges. The paper first provides a detailed description of the theoretical framework behind the design of the course and then presents the course with a focus on learning objectives, course procedure, reading text selection and assessment of students’ works. The pedagogical considerations and implications are provided in the conclusion for instructors who are interested in implementing a reading course enriched with critical pedagogy.

Deconstructing ELT ideology and normalized discourses through critical discourse analysis: Collaborative autoethnography

English language teaching departments have been regarded as neutral and prestigious for more than a century. However, the colonial, neocolonial, postcolonial and neoliberal practices of these departments are forgotten. In this study, we aim to deconstruct this ideology and develop a critical perspective within the framework of critical pedagogy and critical discourse analysis. Both of these two approaches aim to analyze power, power relations, forms of knowledge and subjective experiences. This study is based on collaborative autoethnography that prioritizes researchers` beliefs, experiences, observations and stories. We asked 10 guiding questions that showed how we came to reject our current identity in ELT discipline that produced various forms of knowledge that constitute certain discursive practices. We aimed to show that ELT departments in Turkey are a continuation of this colonial and neoliberal mind, and therefore a new space should be created for other languages to take their place on social circles. We strongly recommend that ELT departments can incorporate lessons that reinforce criticality, critical pedagogy and critical discourse analysis so that the real historical conditions could be shown to the students and teacher candidates in these departments. Therefore, new discourses can be constituted and produced to allow novel subjective experiences and practices.

Teaching inequality in Brazil: A study abroad exploration of race, class, gender, sexuality, and geography

This paper presents and analyzes a case study of a five-week study abroad course called Inequality in Brazil: An exploration of race, class, gender, sexuality, and geography. The course was constructed to teach social inequality in the context of Brazil by using place-based and experiential learning within the framework of critical pedagogy (Freire, 1989). By examining inequality through the lens of culture and geography, students were empowered to become student-teachers in their explorations of race, class, gender, and sexuality as they linked theory to practice and lived experience. This paper provides an example of how study abroad can be used to teach about issues of inequality by partnering with community members to build learning environments where students and community members can all benefit.

‘Culture of Basic Goodness’ – examining factors that contribute to student success and sense of place in undergraduate dance major programs

ABSTRACT It may appear commonsensical that undergraduate dance majors, sharing a programmatic experience within a bounded space and time, might feel connected to others involved in that experience. However, the multi-faceted and dynamic considerations of who and what comprise this learning environment are often not holistically explored. To better identify and ascribe meaning to practices that might support student success and build community within an undergraduate dance program, the voices of students must be central. Therefore, the purpose of this case study research was to better understand how dance majors described their own experiences and relationships. The data surfaced student-identified and program-wide factors that contributed to their engagement and matriculation. Considered together, these factors empowered the students in this study to become contributing members of a healthy, productive, and engaged dance major program. Positioned through a critical pedagogy framework, the researcher crafted the term, ‘Culture of Basic Goodness,’ to better describe these collective practices. The existing variability in undergraduate dance programs can present a challenge if simply trying to replicate these practices. However, this research, which considered both the learner and the environment as central to education, provides valuable insight into the role of teaching and learning dance in higher education.

Ethnocentrism, Theoretical Awareness, and Intellectual Resistance in University Students’ Reading Behaviour

This paper discusses the insightful and illuminating findings of teaching critical reading within the theoretical framework of critical pedagogy. More specifically, this paper examines the impact of a critical-reading course on students’ reading skills and beliefs about discourse production and interpretation. The course was conducted according to the principles of transformative participatory action research and, thus, a corpus of 50 essays, written by a convenience sample of 25 post-graduate students in the pre-test and post-test phases, was analyzed to examine the effect of the course on students’ reading-habits and their representations of different discourses. Pretest findings showed that most students used to think that discourses are innocent and ideology-free and that reading a text consists in understanding its general idea, extracting its writer’s viewpoint, making sense of its vocabulary, and paraphrasing it. As far as text’s function is concerned, most students used to believe that a text’s basic function is delivering information. In addition, most of them were unaware of the fact that a text has ideological and socio-political functions. Post-test findings revealed that students’ discourse awareness and reading habits have become more critical and developed at two levels: the worldview level and the meta-language level. The t-test statistics suggest that there is a significant difference of p˂.001 between students’ reading scores before and after the intervention. Therefore, the null hypothesis which says that there is no significant difference between studying critical reading from a critical pedagogy perspective and studying it from a functional or conventional perspective is false.

Teaching (Cooperative) Business: The “Bluefield Experiment” and the Future of Black Business Schools

Teaching (Cooperative) Business: The “Bluefield Experiment” and the Future of Black Business Schools

Si no estás defendiendo tus alumnos, que estás haciendo en el salón? A Mexican Immigrant Teacher’s Journey to Critical Consciousness

ABSTRACT Currently, there is limited research examining the barriers that immigrant professionals experience when becoming a bilingual teacher in the United States. This study examines the trajectory of a Mexican national, trained as a teacher in his home country, who became a bilingual dual-language educator in a Central Texas school district. Drawing on a critical pedagogy framework and a series of narrative life history interviews, we explore how this teacher’s personal and professional experiences in Mexico and then in the United States—particularly in the professional communities of a master’s degree program and a language revitalization Saturday school—helped him (co)construct a strong cultural and linguistic identity. We track how these experiences further impacted his desire to expand his sphere of influence and work toward transformative change for fellow teachers. We conclude with implications for teaching, leadership, identity construction, and teacher preparation.

İngilizce öğretiminde eleştirel pedagoji ve eleştirel teknoloji kuramı

Studies on critical pedagogy and technology have been on the rise in recent decades. However, bringing critical pedagogy and critical theory of technology together has been hardly studied in English language teaching (ELT) and English as a second language (ESL). This study aims to enable the researcher and learners to compare two different technologies by using participatory action research (PAR). The participants (n=35) were given two data collection tools composed of a questionnaire and semi-structured interview form. The researcher and the learners collaborated with each other in each stage of the online syllabus preparation. The findings show that the learners developed negative attitudes towards the non-interactive Versant English Test (VET) and the online platform provided by the textbook publishers. However, the learners developed positive attitudes towards the use of the interactive online Google discussion platform where they were able to debate sociopolitical issues within the framework of critical pedagogy. In addition, the findings also imply that familiarizing learners with critical pedagogy and critical theory of technology can endorse authenticity, agency, reflection, action and praxis via online platforms.

Discourse, Critique and Subject in Vocational Language Education in Germany: An Outline of the Concept of Critical Foreign Language Didactics

The paper offers an attempt at including the critical-discursive perspective in the reflection on vocational language education in Germany; its aim is to outline a base for critical foreign language didactics drawing on the critical and post-Foucauldian discourse analysis. The first part of the paper forms a reconstruction of the enmeshment of vocational language education in a number of contexts (political, migrational, and integrative). Constituting a transformative variant of language didactics and examining vocational language education, critical foreign language didactics will be perceived as a research program pertaining to the reflection on education and pedagogical activity (under the framework of critical pedagogy), teaching and learning (from the standpoint of the critical trend in general didactics), and language education and its specificity within teaching and learning particular languages (in the context of foreign language didactics). The final part of the paper will present methodological implications by indicating potential directions for – and levels of – vocational language education analysis. It will also offer an attempt at their further clarification aimed at a critical analysis of subject formation and forms of subjectification.

The Time Is Now: Modeling the Tenets of Critical Pedagogy for Our Future Teachers at Hispanic Serving Institutions

At this historic moment, the quest to develop equitable and inclusive curriculum is even more imperative to support all students in the learning process. This urgency becomes even more relevant when our K-12 schools need teacher education programs to prepare future teachers from diverse backgrounds with necessary tools to engage and empower underrepresented groups in social justice practices. One of the best guides for this task is critical pedagogy. This study sought to determine if Education Preparation Programs (EPPs) at three Hispanic Serving Institutes (HSIs) in North Texas were devoting their curriculum to principles of critical pedagogy. The study was guided by a critical pedagogy framework developed by Giroux (2020). This framework was used to analyze the EPPs required courses’ syllabi. In our article, we discuss how the EPPs are supporting preservice teachers’ knowledge of critical pedagogy aspects and inconsistencies found among the HSIs in our region. Additionally, implications are shared for further use of the framework to assess EPP curriculum, guide program revisions, and encourage discourse among EPPs at HSIs on how to best serve our students.

O sucesso educativo de crianças em acolhimento residencial, um inédito viável?

Children in residential care are one of the groups most affected by school failure. The analysis of the school pathways of Portuguese students shows that the probabilities of educational success are crueler for these children. It also showed that the possibility of finishing a 12-year schooling is a reality that happens to very few. Since the situation of school failure and exclusion is especially serious, it is argued that the work of teachers, which is carried out not only from pedagogical practices and differentiated actions that can take into account the cultural and socio-economic differences thatoften characterize these children, must also take into account the serious psychological and affectiveproblems that mark them. Thus, and using a theoretical framework of critical pedagogy and with the support of Paulo Freire, we argue that, against all expectations, the future of some of these children is revealed as being an “untested feasibility”. Based upon fieldwork of participative observation developed over several years, in a theoretical-methodological framework in which education is associated with socio-anthropology, this text intends to give an account of some examples of these “untested” from the critical analysis of experiences lived by these children.

Informal Sex Education by Youth Practitioners

Youth practitioners are commonly acknowledged to play an important role in supporting the sexual health of young people. However, there is relatively little literature that documents, conceptualizes and theorizes the unique nature and potential of informal sex education provided by youth practitioners such as social workers and youth workers. Using the theoretical framework of critical pedagogy, this article seeks to conceptualize informal sex education practices by youth practitioners, from the practitioner’s point of view. Eight semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with youth practitioners, working in a variety of programmes and provisions for young people across Israel. The data were thematically analysed. The analysis identified three key concepts, drawn from critical pedagogy, which underscore the unique potential of informal sex education by youth practitioners: dialogue, the language of possibility and language of critique.

When inquiry is seen as resistance to change: expert teachers’ experiences with the implementation of portfolio-based language assessment (PBLA)

ABSTRACTExpert teachers’ experiences with the implementation of portfolio-based language assessment (PBLA) were analyzed through the conceptual framework of critical pedagogy. Serious practitioner concerns about mandatory PBLA implementation challenged the official narrative of PBLA as a progressive change. Through a close examination of three expert teachers’ experiences, this study illuminated the disconnect between the official interpretation of teachers’ “resistance to change,” and the critical inquiry-oriented stance of these practitioners. According to participants, PBLA policy and implementation rendered teachers voiceless in the top-down implementation process. The findings demonstrated that principles of critical language teacher education were neglected in PBLA design and implementation to the detriment of all stakeholders. The findings suggest that these principles may offer helpful guidance in designing and implementing productive educational change in language teaching and learning.