Dare We Incorporate "Community" Into the Educational Experience? Community-Based Educational Spaces and Critical Learning

• In Event: 46.086 - Roundtable Session 16
  In Roundtable Session: 46.086-11 - Dare the School Alone Work Toward Social Justice? (Re)Imagining Community-Based Spaces as Sites for Critical Education

Abstract

Objectives:
This presentation will illustrate the unique potential of Community-Based Educational Spaces (CBES's) to (re)imagine and restore holistic environments which facilitate students as they develop critical, social justice frameworks. Utilizing a “model of interconnected analysis” the presenter will describe how teaching, learning, and perceived space (Schmidt, 2011) are constrained by educational policies/reforms within traditional academic settings, and will attempt to demonstrate how CBES’s have been, and can be, developed to educate youth holistically by utilizing a critical, social justice framework.

Perspectives or Theoretical Framework:
Guided by an intersection of Cultural Reproduction Theories (Apple, 2013; Bourdieu, 1984), Critical Education (Baldridge, 2014; Lipman, 2013), Neo-institutional Theory (Booher-Jennings, 2005; Yankoski, 2003), and Place Theory (Schmidt, 2011), this paper is situated within, and builds upon, a framework the presenter has named an “interconnected model of analysis” that seeks to critically analyze the potential of CBES’s as sites of critical, social justice learning.

Methods, Techniques, or Modes of Inquiry:
The presenter will share his preliminary findings on the potential of CBES’s as sites of critical, social justice learning through a qualitative literature review and theoretical framework.

Data sources, Evidences, or Objects, or Materials:
Through an analysis of relevant literature and historical events, the presenter has located how external systemic influences constrain both teaching practices and learning in traditional academic settings.

Results/Substantiated Conclusions or Warrants for Arguments/Points of View:
Informed by preliminary findings from the literature review, the presenter believes the language utilized in education policies/reforms and the manner in which they are implemented in traditional academic settings has narrowly-redefined “education” and warrants a closer look at CBES’s as academic settings and their potential as sites of critical learning. In response, he argues that CBES’s can serve as potential sites for critical, social justice oriented education.

Scientific or Scholarly Significance:
Research concerning the effects of neoliberal inspired federal policies on schools, curriculum and teaching practices is plentiful (Apple, 2013, 2006; Bartlett, Frederick, Gulbrandsen, & Murillo, 2002; Booher-Jennings, 2005; Swalwell, 2013). These policies assist in the normalization of the “achievement ideology” by redefining education in a narrow-sense, producing detrimental effects on student development in traditional academic settings and limiting the possibility for critical, social-justice education to occur. Contrastingly, limited research exists that explores the role of community-based educational spaces in these neoliberal times and the possibilities within these spaces (Anderson, 1988; Baldridge, 2014; Baldridge, Hill, & Davis, 2011; Lipman, 2013; MacLeod, 1995). Community-based educational spaces are in a unique position in which to counteract the negative influence of neoliberal policies and the “achievement ideology” (MacLeod, 1995) and to holistically help students utilize a critical, social justice framework.

Author

• Juan Carlos Medina, University of Wisconsin - Madison