Emancipatory Education Research Articles

Southern exposure: levelling the Northern tilt in global medical and medical humanities education.

Global medical education is dominated by a Northern tilt. Global universities' faculty and students dominate research, scholarship and teaching about what is termed global education. This tilt has been fixed in global biomedical education with some acknowledgement from the Global South of the comparative benefits of global exchange. Student exchange is predominantly North to South. Students from the Global South are less likely to visit the North on global medical education visits. Global indigenous and traditional ways of knowing rooted may be suppressed, hidden or misappropriated and repackaged for consumption in the Global South with Global North ways of knowing as a reference point. A global history of colonization has shaped this trend influencing postcolonial theorists and decolonial activists to question the legitimacy and depose the influence of dominant Global North ideas. This is evident in how communication skills, reflective practice and narratives are presented and taught. Global North students must be introduced to Global South ways of knowing before visiting the Global South from a position of critical consciousness. Emancipatory education is best led by transformative Global North-South dialogue.

Wychowawcze implikacje czarownicy - niezwykłej kobiety - w świetle założeń pedagogiki emancypacyjnej

<p>Rozważania nad czarownicą-kobietą, wpisujące się w myśl założeń pedagogiki emancypacyjnej, mają ukazać modyfikację jej dotychczasowego wizerunku, otworzyć nową możliwość badawczą, która pozwoli na szersze spojrzenie na czarownicę – jako tłumaczkę kultury, niewpisującą się w główny, centralistyczny nurt myślenia o świecie. Zatem czy postać czarownicy-kobiety, widziana w podstawowych, stereotypowych konstrukcjach myślowych człowieka, jako postać destrukcyjna i złośliwa, która zawsze reprezentuje przeciwieństwo wszystkich pozytywnych wartości, może być postacią pozytywną? Czy „działa dwojako, będąc mitem, jest zarazem prawdą i złudzeniem” (Rella 2003, s. 295)? Czy obraz czarownicy zmienia się wraz z wiekiem dorastającego człowieka? Wartością dodaną artykułu są wyniki badań przeprowadzonych wśród młodzieży liceum ogólnokształcącego w Toruniu. Dzięki zastosowaniu badania wyjaśniającego powstał inwentarz cech definiujących czarownicę. Badaniem objęto 26 osób (13 z klasy o profilu humanistycznym i 13 z klasy o profilu matematyczno-informatycznym), aby określić różnice w zakresie werbalizowanych wartości między dwiema grupami profilowymi.</p>

Justiça social e educação: A pertinência da pedagogia crítica de Paulo Freire

The purpose of this paper is to establish a clear relation between social justice and education, recognizing the present relevance of Paulo Freire’s critical pedagogy, especially considering the challenges the modern world’s inequalities present us with. Examining Freire’s pedagogy fundamental concepts of conscientization, banking education, emancipatory education and education perceived as the practice of freedom, we acknowledge education’s intrinsic political trait and the urgency of educating subjects as socially engaged citizens committed to building a more just and more democratic society, in which everyone is given the same opportunities. By rejecting the idea of neutrality associated with education, we emphasize the importance of the ethical commitment it entails, as well as the practice of critical thinking of which Freire’s pedagogy is an undeniable example.

Tessituras sobre a educação do campo e a educação ambiental para valorizar o espaço camponês

Neste ensaio procuramos contribuir com a discussão a respeito da educação do campo, com a devida identificação deste como um espaço político onde se realizam determinadas relações sociais. Para tanto, apresentamos uma reflexão sobre a necessidade de um tratamento público da educação do campo, de modo a viabilizá-la dentro de um projeto de educação emancipatória que coopere na formação de sujeitos conscientes de seu lugar no mundo e de seus direitos. Na mesma vertente, de cunho mobilizador e político se encontra a luta pela educação ambiental que se instaura como processo de conscientização crítica do mundo e de garantia de direitos dessa e das futuras gerações. Nesse sentido, o artigo aborda, ainda, a educação ambiental na educação do campo por defendê-la como caminho a ser seguido para valorizar a terra. Neste sentido, entendemos que a educação ambiental no campo ajudará no reconhecimento do campo, ensinando a cuidar, a proteger e a defender o campo.

Engaging in Popular Communal Imagination and the Holy Week Culture in Malta: Emancipatory Thinking and the Holy Land/Jerusalem Narrative

This paper derives its impetus from a project of community learning centring on a Holy Land narrative that captures the imagination in many parts of Southern Europe, including the community and country in question. The focus is the series of activities surrounding Holy Week in the Roman Catholic calendar and the country in question is Malta. This article sheds light on the politics of the event or, more accurately, the relationship of Holy Week and politics primarily in Malta but also in several parts of Southern Europe, most notably Spain, well known for its Semana Santa activities. Reference will be made to Malta, Italy, Egypt and Spain in pursuit of an emancipatory reading of the Jerusalem/Palestine narrative, drawing inspiration from Liberation Theology, Postcolonial theory and Emancipatory Pedagogy.

Emancipatory pedagogies: fostering political engagement through action

ABSTRACT Every electoral cycle, thousands of canvassers knock on doors to encourage strangers to vote. Many volunteers come from communities with low levels of participation. Scholars have yet to explore how community organizations recruit and sustain their canvassing teams. This article explores that process using an in-depth study of canvasser training and administration by two grassroots community organizations in California in November 2014. We argue that these trainings and collective interactions should be conceptualized as educational spaces utilizing pedagogies that are designed to enhance canvassers’ sense of political efficacy and empowerment. Consistent with the critical pedagogy literature, we find that an effective pedagogy within these contexts must be tailored to the canvasser population and need to help canvassers establish and maintain a sense of collective purpose over time and provide the scaffolding for both. We contend this direct action is a form of emancipatory learning that allows participating canvassers to relearn their position of power vis-à-vis the polity and gain a more profound sense of political purpose and empowerment. We highlight an area of civic engagement not often seen as a learning environment and offer two avenues for future research in this novel context.

Learning from San Juan: Emancipatory Education and the Prefigurative Politics of Art History

Learning from San Juan: Emancipatory Education and the Prefigurative Politics of Art History

O GLOBAL E O LOCAL NA CONSTRUÇÃO DE UMA EDUCAÇÃO EMANCIPATÓRIA PARA O ENSINO DA HISTÓRIA E CULTURA AFRICANA E AFRO-BRASILEIRA

O objetivo deste artigo é refletir sobre possibilidades da formação de professores em uma perspectiva de educação crítica e emancipatória. Parte-se de práticas de pesquisa realizadas pela Licenciatura e pelo Núcleo Interdisciplinar de Estudos Africanos e Afro-Brasileiros da Universidade Federal do Maranhão, que se voltam ao continente africano, especialmente Moçambique, na África Austral;e a intervenções junto à Educação Básica em escolas públicas da capital maranhense. O fio condutor é o debate da relação entre escalas global e local na produção de conhecimento e formas de intervenção no mundo, na qual são constituídos espaços subalternos de poder, saber e modos de fazer, característico do atual momento de globalização contemporânea. Nessa perspectiva, reflete-se sobre a inserção do conhecimento local nos currículos de Moçambique e suas possíveis contribuições para a implementação da Lei nº 10.639/2003 no Brasil, uma vez que partem da mesma necessidade de romper com a lógica do currículo único e eurocêntrico.

Surviving Being Dark: A Pedagogy of the Sacred for Survival in a Divided Society

Historically, Blacks have out of necessity prioritized survival in educating their younger generations for existence in the racially hostile and divided context of the U.S. This education and religious education has occurred formally and informally in homes, schools, community organizations, and in congregations. This paper examines three aspects of survival: survival and emancipatory education, survival and justice, and survival with emerging Black generations. Three examples will be offered that highlight each aspect of survival. The examples will demonstrate how education generally and religious education in particular have undergirded pedagogies of the sacred for the survival of Black life.

Is the 2019 Water Revolution a lesson of emancipatory education? A Rancièrean invitation

This paper starts with an apparently provocative question – can we call the 2019 Water Revolution in Hong Kong a lesson of emancipatory education which awakens students’ critical consciousness and brings the postcolonial regime into democratic renewal? The mass social unrest, which was initially triggered by a controversial extradition legislation, has prompted local journalism and political discourse to speak of ‘the failure of education’: an outmoded form of citizenship education, lack of Chinese History as a core subject, radicalisation in school, regression in science and technology education, to name just few examples of crisis talk. Our discussion explores this question through the philosophical lens of Jacques Rancière. In Rancière’s understanding, ‘emancipation’ occurs in the ephemeral moments of subjectification in which individuals resist existing identity positions in the ‘police’ order, but speak on their own terms through ‘dissensual’ responses, under the supposition of ‘equality’ of ‘intelligence’. Episodes of the movement may look defiant but are not the rare moments of ‘dissensus’ in which people are unshackled from the prevalent distribution of the sensible. An example from this movement that borders on what Rancière means by ‘emancipation’ is the redistribution of chemistry knowledge about tear gas on a social media platform, which is initiated and crowdfunded by a group of anonymous postgraduate science students and circulated by a chemistry tutor from a private tuition school.

Medical Education Empowered by Theater (MEET).

The medical education community acknowledges the importance of including the humanities in general, and the liberal arts in particular, in the education of health professionals. Among the liberal arts, theater is especially helpful for educators wanting to bring experiences that are both real and challenging to the learning encounter in an interactive, engaging, and reflective way. In this Perspective, the authors share what they have learned after working together with a company of actors for 8 years (2012-2019) in different obligatory and elective curricular activities. Influenced by Freire's Pedagogy of the Oppressed and the ideas of Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed, Medical Education Empowered by Theater (MEET) embraces social accountability and applies the concept of sensible cognition to empower medical students as the protagonists of their learning and professional development to become agents of change-both in patients' lives and in health care systems. The MEET theoretical framework builds on the concepts of liberation, emancipatory education, critical pedagogy, and participatory theater to offer medical students and teachers an opportunity to problematize, criticize, and hopefully reform the hierarchical and often oppressive structures of medical education and practice. MEET sessions include activating previous knowledge and experiences, warm-up exercises, different improvisational exercises, debriefing, and synthesis. Vital to the praxis of MEET is applying theater-teaching traditions to develop capacities important in medicine: presence, empathy, improvisation, communication (verbal and nonverbal), and scenic intelligence (i.e., the capacity to self-assess one's performance while performing). The authors believe that theater offers a venue to integrate both the personal and professional development of students into a process of reflection and action, targeting the transformation of the medical culture toward social justice.

Percepção do processo ensino aprendizagem na educação escolar indígena: múltiplos olhares na Aldeia Morro Brancos no município de Grajaú/Maranhão

Esta pesquisa discorre sobre a problemática do processo de ensino aprendizagem nos Anos Iniciais do Ensino Fundamental na Aldeia Morro Branco, escola indígena, situada no município de Grajaú- MA. Seu objetivo central é entender como ocorre o processo ensino aprendizagem nas aldeias, a partir da percepção dos professores. A Educação Indígena é uma ação político educacional fundamental para a manutenção da cultura indígena brasileira, constituindo-se um processo de transmissão dos conhecimentos ancestrais, construídos pelas populações indígenas. A Educação Escolar Indígena diz respeito a ações educativas formais, através de um processo educacional pautado pela interculturalidade e pelo bilinguismo. Do ponto de vista metodológico, a investigação se fundamentou como uma pesquisa qualitativa. Constatou-se que ainda há muito a ser feito para que o processo de uma educação emancipadora na Aldeia Morro Branco, o qual retrata a realidade de muitas aldeias do país, alcance os princípios fundamentais para uma Educação Indígena capaz de atender às necessidades de valorização e preservação dos povos e da cultura indígena.

Environmental social work

PurposeEnvironmental social work (ESW) is an approach and a perspective in social work focusing on ecological and environmental sustainability and justice within the context of sustainable development (SD). This study aims to analyse students’ reflective tasks on challenges for ESW education and practice from a critical theory perspective. The purpose of this study is to discuss the implications of the findings for accelerating the implementation of SD in social work curricula.Design/methodology/approachThe research participants comprised 49 master level students from four different cohorts studying the course “Social Work and Sustainable Development” at the University of Gävle, Sweden. The sample comprised only those students who had completed at least one of the three non-mandatory reflective tasks that were set within the course. The reflective tasks of the research participants were gathered as data for this study. A qualitative methodological approach with the help of ATLAS-ti V8.4 was used to analyse the gathered data.FindingsThis study discusses three primary results, which are categorised as “Being Boxed”, “Safe and Saviour Sweden” and “Politics and Power”. Based on the results, this study argues for a transformative and emancipatory pedagogy (TEP) in the teaching and learning of ESW to accelerate the implementation of holistic SD within the social work curriculum.Research limitations/implicationsThis study is mainly based on the analysis of “problematic” discourses of some of the students. The majority of the students and their respective discourses are not considered. Moreover, it would have been interesting, and probably enlightening to explore the background of the students (such as gender, ethnicity and religion) and any concomitant beliefs or prejudices (whether consciously held or otherwise) that would need to be addressed for an effective social work outcome. For ethical reasons, the background of the students was not recorded and analysed in this study.Practical implicationsBased on the results, this study argues for TEP in catalysing environmentalism within the social work curricula.Social implicationsSocial workers have a political mandate from their professional ethics to work for the protection of the planet and for the well-being of all – including non-humans. This study therefore argues for ESW education within social work curricula in promoting SD through social work practice.Originality/valueWithin the context of SD, there is a global call for social work education to shift from an anthropocentric to an eco-centric paradigm. However, ESW education is still in its infancy stage and very few universities are focusing in this particular area. This study therefore brings an important and well-needed layer of empirical evidence in considering the implications for catalysing environmentalism within the social work curricula.

“Starting from a higher place”: linking Habermas to teaching and learning clinical reasoning in the emergency medicine context

Teaching clinical reasoning in emergency medicine requires educators to foster diagnostic accuracy and judicious decision-making amidst chaotic ambient factors including clinician fatigue, high cognitive load, and diverse patient expectations. The current study applies the early work of Jurgen Habermas and his knowledge-constitutive interests as a lens to explore an educational approach where physician-educators were asked to make their expert reasoning visible to emergency medicine trainees, to more deliberately make visible and accessible the context-specific thinking that emergency physicians routinely use. An action research methodology was used. The 'making thinking visible' teaching approach was introduced to five emergency medicine educators working in large public hospital emergency departments. Participants were asked to trial this teaching method and document its impact on student learning over two reporting cycles. Based on written reports of trialing the teaching approach, participants identified a need to change from: (1) introducing thinking structures to cultivating enquiry; and, (2) providing explanations based on cognitive thinking routines towards encouraging the learner to see the relevance of the clinical context. Educators described how they developed a more diagnostic and reflexive approach to learners, recognized the need to cultivate independent thinking, and valued the opportunity to reflect on their usual teaching. Teaching clinical reasoning using the 'making thinking visible' approach prompted educators to decrease the emphasis on providing technical information to assisting learners to understand the purposes and meanings behind clinical reasoning in emergency medicine. The knowledge-constitutive interests work of Jurgen Habermas was found to provide a robust framework supporting this emancipatory teaching approach.

Fostering soft and hard skills for innovation among informatics engineering students

Informatics engineers are currently in the spotlight of innovation. It is, therefore, relevant to analyse and reflect on how higher education can, and should, prepare future engineers to innovate as expected in this ever-changing world. This paper aims to further research and foster scholarly debate regarding the requirements and implications of teaching innovation. For that purpose, we examine an exploratory case study on interdisciplinary cooperation between two higher education courses, designed to promote students’ active learning of innovation through the progressive development of their soft and hard skills. Both courses engaged in an emancipatory pedagogical approach, mostly grounded in project-based work, active learning, and formative assessment.
 To obtain feedback on this interdisciplinary cooperation, questionnaires were devised to ascertain the students’ perceptions about this pedagogical approach. Individual responses were collected from both courses and data was analysed through simple statistical procedures. Articulating a priori soft skills development with a posteriori hard skills learning process is perceived by students as beneficial in gradually, yet successfully, understanding the subject of innovation. Also, there were even some external success indicators which showed the recognition of successful innovation skills development in informatics engineering students. Thus, according to students’ perceptions of their experience with an emancipatory pedagogy that connected soft with hard skills development, we conclude that such approach encouraged students to create new knowledge and allowed them to develop the necessary skills to innovate.

A relação teoria e prática na formação docente: condição essencial para o trabalho pedagógico

Teacher training presents itself as one of the challenges in the contemporaneity. The purpose of this study is to discuss the relationship between theory and practice in education as an essential element for the development of pedagogical work. From this we aim to analyze how the dichotomy or the unit theory and practice can influence the formation of the teacher. It is a qualitative research, subsidized by the critical-dialectic approach based on the presuppositions of emancipatory education, in which it sees formation as an aspect of education for the humanization and emancipation of the subject. We choose for the bibliographic review with the purpose of compiling its theoretical basis. The perspectives pointed out are justified by the need to reflect the educator's training processes, in order to allow a differentiated vision that contributes to educational actions in the current social context, aiming human development beyond the utilitarian demands of the market. According to the tendencies studied in the scope of this analysis it is evaluated that in teacher training courses it is necessary to overcome the dissociation between content and form, theory and practice, elements that constitute one of the dilemmas of the training programs. With this, it is intended to help professor, teachers and future teachers to rethink the formation of critical subjects in which the purpose is to think about training in a continuous way.

Spatial enactments in emancipatory higher education pedagogies

The focus on the role of space in social sciences provides new perspectives on the possibilities for emancipatory pedagogies in higher education.  The posthumanist insight into heterogeneous agency draws attention to the agential roles of spaces. The implications of spatial agency are investigated through a superimposition of a spatial typology on Rancière’s emancipatory pedagogy. A spatial typology from the social studies of science distinguishes between regional, network, fluid and fire spaces. Whereas banking education could be associated with regional spaces, progressive and critical pedagogies are closer to fluid spaces. In contrast, it is shown how the emancipatory pedagogy of R. is made possible through the interference of regional and fire spaces. The spatial analysis draws on the powerful effects of interferences (or diffractions). The significant finding of this investigation is that the possibility for emancipation is not ascribed to the spaces as such, but to the interference of regional-and fire spaces. Powerful effects are possible when regional spaces enable an awareness of the equality of intelligence and fire spaces the transformation of the world

Technology of Story: Documenting Culturally Sustaining Anti-Racist Teaching

Our education system, an extension of our society, has created a monster of historical sociocultural and linguistic inequities, traumas, structural racism, and oppressions. Culturally responsive and sustaining pedagogy honor students’ funds of knowledge as their authentic power and voice. The oral family stories became vehicles to navigate and facilitate educational partnerships in becoming more culturally responsive for these teacher candidates. Oral stories, as documents, became the content within the context of the writing workshop process. These documented stories became the technological bridge that supported students’ home experiences with academic language and content to meet curricular goals. During the writing process, storytelling coaches validated their mentees’ voices, experiences, and identities. For coaches, the stories were the beginning of seeing students differently; challenging their own biases and recognizing embedded structural oppression and racial inequality. These stories provided opportunities for building trusting and meaningful relationships more representative of humanistic and emancipatory pedagogy.

Medical Students in a Talking Circle: the Popular Extension Dialogues with Potiguara Indigenous People

Abstract: Introduction: University extension projects with socially excluded populations can be a strategy for the training of professionals in the cultural and social diversity of the Brazilian population. The practice of Popular Health Education (PHE) through university extension is one of the possibilities to foster dialogic interactions between teaching and the community and has been a space for the development of health education with social commitment. The Îandé Gûatá Extension Project was created in Paraíba in 2013, based on the principles of PHE and Popular Extension, focusing on the meeting between Potiguara indigenous people and Medical students. This study aimed to evaluate the learning built by this project students’ for their medical education. Method: Therefore, a qualitative approach research was developed through the analysis of discursive practices, using the talking circle technique at the end of the project cycle. To analyze the material, linguistic repertoires were identified from the subjects’ speech and three sets of meanings were built: extension university as a counter-hegemonic space of medical education; building skills for the future doctor; relations between health and culture in care. The linguistic repertoires were discussed based on theoretical references, such as popular health education, indigenous health and competences in medical education. Results: According to the students, this project allowed them gains in the attributes of: knowledge, as it allowed reflections, identification of gaps and greater understanding about the health-disease process in the context of the indigenous population; allowed gains in the ability of making and receiving criticism, teamwork and dialogue between different cultures; and allowed gains in attitudes, broadening the attitude of professionalism, the comprehension and performance on ethical issues and the construction of social commitment. Conclusion: Therefore, they highlight both the development of general competences for the future doctor, but also more specific ones, such as cultural competence. Moreover, the challenge of dialoguing in the polarity: aiming to reduce the distances within the same institutional space; cultural conflicts; and understanding and acting in an emancipatory education. This group of students wished, with the indigenous community, that these distances would be lessened, in a collective commitment aimed at producing change and social transformation.

Learning Unbounded: Emancipatory Education in Daniel José Older's Shadowshaper Fantasy Series

Learning Unbounded: Emancipatory Education in Daniel José Older's Shadowshaper Fantasy Series