Discomforting Dialogues Across Difference and Critical Hope in South Africa

• In Event: 31.060 - Critical Hope and Social Justice

Abstract

The purpose of this presentation is to share what a pedagogy of critical hope might look like in practice, via a study implemented in two South African higher education institutions in different sociocultural settings. We explore the possible avenues through which critical hope may be achieved, and what the strengths and limitations are of these avenues. The study draws on the notion of a ‘pedagogy of discomfort’ developed by Boler and Zembylas (2003) which we argue is a useful framework for understanding, teaching and learning about difference. Central to the pedagogy of discomfort is the concept of emotions, which are relational and political (Zembylas 2007, 2008,) rather than individualized or psychologized. The study also draws upon Fraser’s (2009) trivalent view of social justice, which foregrounds three different dimensions: the economic, cultural and political. The study, which was a form of action based research, took the form of a module that was offered to psychology, social work and occupational therapy students in their fourth years at the Universities of the Western Cape and Stellenbosch. The module, which focused on the concepts “community”, “self” and “identity”, engaged students on an affective as well as cognitive level, was offered three times. Each time the convenors collected students’ drawings, on-line communication, assignments, evaluation forms and debriefing focus group interviews. Feedback was also collected with a number of students once they had graduated and entered the world of work. The module convenors collected data about their own collaborative research and curriculum design process, and about the learning that they experienced.

The data shows that all students learnt something about difference, with many, however, becoming defensive or essentialising, and many maintaining a superficial approach. A number became discomforted and were earnestly seeking further understanding. A minority reached a position where they had integrated the learning within their social life and professional practice. It would seem that the route towards a critical hope is an ongoing and cyclical process of dialogue leading to disruption, reflexivity and possible reconfigurations of previously held assumptions. Educational work towards social justice may easily lead students, and indeed educators, towards despair. Vigilance and careful planning is required, for the process to lead towards critical hopefulness. This study is significant for its foregrounding of the complexity of the development of critical hope through engaging in discomforting dialogues. It is unusual in the symmetry of the teaching and learning process, where the educators, who were concomitantly the researchers, engaged in similar processes of discomforting dialogues as the students.

References

Boler, M. and Zembylas, M. (2003). ‘Discomforting truths: the emotional terrain of understanding different’. In: Trifonas (ed.) Pedagogies of difference: rethinking education for social change. New York: Routledge-Farmer.
Fraser, N. (2009). Scales of justice: reimagining political space in a globalizing world. New York: Columbia University Press.
Zembylas, M. (2007). Five pedagogies, a thousand possibilities: struggling for hope and transformation in education. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
Zembylas, M. (2008). The politics of trauma in education. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.

Authors

• Vivienne Grace Bozalek, University of the Western Cape

• Ronelle L. Carolissen, Stellenbosch University

• Brenda Lana Leibowitz, University Of Johannesburg