Critical Pedagogy and Deep Engagement With Settler Colonial Studies

• In Event: 46.065 - Critical Examining and Reinvigorating Critical Pedagogy Through a Self-Reflexive Symposium of Leading Critical Pedagogues

Abstract

As the settler state metastasizes via the forces of neoliberalism, critical pedagogy becomes even more relevant to examinations of the colonialist foundations of schooling and education. Yet, the discipline remains at risk for becoming a mere “blip” in the broader landscape of educational interventions. Historically, critical pedagogy has been perceived as patriarchal (Ellsworth, 1989; Lather, 1995), anthropocentric (Bowers, 1991, 2003), inaccessible (Hinchey, 2011), and overall too theoretical – meaning that it provides an abundance of critique without sufficient direction. The field, in varying degrees of success, has responded to many of these critiques.

From my vantage point, however, the primary critique of the field that has gone unanswered. That is, its retention of “democracy” as the central struggle concept and horizon of social justice. Some forms of critical pedagogy offer cogent critiques of capitalism and the liberal paradigm, which go a long way to complicate and otherwise over-simplified notion of “democracy” that circulates in educational discourses. However, there has not been sustained examination of the ways in which Western formations of democracy serve as a transit of not only “empire” but also settler colonialism. If critical pedagogy is to have staying power and broad legitimacy, I argue that it needs to undertake deep engagement with settler colonial studies, taking account for the ways in which the “democratic” promise rests upon past and present “non-promises” to Indigenous and other colonized peoples.

Author

• Sandy M. Grande, Connecticut College