Developing Critical Consciousness Toward Collective Action

• In Event: Is Emancipatory Action Research in Schools Possible? Continuing the Conversation

Abstract

This paper takes as a jumping off point Kinsler’s (2010) assertion that action research that advances the academic achievement and passing rates on “gate keeping” tests for those historically marginalized in schools is a form of emancipatory action research. I argue instead that while these gains are important they are not sufficient and instead represent only the first step toward what could be considered emancipatory work. I argue that the work of supporting students toward success on these performance indicators needs to be coupled with a concerted effort toward problematizing the conditions that contributed to their original lack of success. Emancipatory work is seen as pushing beyond individualistic explanations of failure and supports to succeed. I suggest that cultivating a critical consciousness with students resulting in collective action is an important coupling to the work of supporting individuals toward success.

I offer a reanalysis of earlier work (Author, 2007) that reported on action research conducted with highly capable students of color who nonetheless were experiencing school failure. Meeting regularly as a group over a period of three years, the students initially offered support to one another as to their experience of being students of color in a predominately white school environment. But over time the group developed a critical consciousness and began to work for school-wide change as a result of identifying institutional structures that were disenfranchising to students of color in the school. Although as their teacher I saw working on day-to-day school success with the students as a necessary part of our efforts, my goal also included moving beyond individualistic explanations for school failure to a more systemic analysis of institutional racism in the school. In this case teachers and students were able to collaboratively work toward changing the school environment via curricular change as well as what I describe as a parallel informal curriculum created by the students to address the gaps in the formal curriculum of the school.

In the paper I suggest that without a subsequent move toward creating a critical consciousness with students as well as collective activity, our efforts to help them pass critical gate keeping milestones fall short in terms of creating authentic opportunities in our society. For action research to genuinely move beyond the technical toward the emancipatory I suggest that it has to include a more systemic analysis of conditions creating failure in the first place and actions created with those who have the most at stake, the students themselves. Otherwise we risk simply “rescuing” students from imminent failure or valorizing a chosen few who manage to succeed despite the obstacles created via inequitable schooling conditions. In broadening our efforts to include systemic school change, we work toward a practice of visionary dreaming that lays a foundation for active citizenry.

Author

• Kathryn G. Herr, Montclair State University