Awakening Critical Consciousness: Youth Participatory Action Research as a Pedagogy of Possibilities

• In Event: F*ck da System: Womyn of Color Engaging in Critical Praxis

Abstract

Continuation schools are usually seen as places where students go because they have engaged in a behavior that is unacceptable in their previous schools. Looking at critical consciousness (Freire, 1970) as a bridge to agency, this inquiry challenges the dominant narrative of continuation schools by demonstrating that students do not continue to be their previous versions of themselves, as they are able to discover their agency to create social change in their schooling and in their communities. In this inquiry, I share the experiences of 16-24 year-old students at an alternative school who participated in Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR), a methodology that allows students to identify, research, and respond to community issues (Cammarota & Fine, 2008). As students recognized their individual and collective agency, they engaged in the 4 Cornerstones of Purposeful Learning and Meaningful Engagement, which encompass historically relevant and responsive pedagogy (Daus-Magbual, 2015), reading the word (Freire & Macedo, 1987), solidarity, and ownership and autonomy.

This study introduces the 4 Cornerstones of Purposeful Learning and Meaningful Engagement, which represent pieces of the foundation of social justice education that critically motivates students to engage in their own agency. To prompt students’ agency, historically relevant and responsive pedagogy (Daus-Magbual, 2015) allowed for students to become exposed to a relevant historical context of the 1960’s student-led movements: Black Panther Party, Third World Liberation Front (TWLF), and East Los Angeles Blowouts. This then led students to read the word (Freire & Macedo, 1987) in solidarity with their peers, essentially representing ownership and autonomy of their education. These cornerstones suggest that educators create and sustain learning spaces with students to allow for the awakening of critical consciousness (Weffort, 1967) to engage in agency, which represents their self-efficacy and self-motivation (Deci & Ryan, 2000).

In hopes of facilitating a process in a United States History class to awaken students’ critical consciousness and disrupt their fear of freedom (Freire, 1970), this inquiry focuses on Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR), a critical epistemology (Torre & Fine et al., 2008) in which students negotiate and renegotiate knowledge and meaning of their school and communities (Darder, 2012). Students worked collaboratively in small groups to identify, research, and respond to community issues. Engaging as a participant with students, I relied on ethnographic conversations and written reflections to critically reflect on how students can meaningfully engage in their education and how YPAR can motivate students to become transformative agents in their school and communities.

Freire (1970) shares how the banking method hinders students from critically analyzing the oppression they go through, resulting in the absence of critical consciousness and drawing upon epistemologies, which leads to “narration sickness.” This inquiry addresses the importance of allowing students to purposefully and meaningfully engage in a narrative of their school and community experiences. Through the 4 Cornerstones, students recognized the possibilities of facilitating their own teaching and learning, which speaks to the dire need of disrupting the hegemonic system of traditional schooling to promote social justice education.

Author

• Lauren Arzaga Daus, San Francisco Unified School District