Critical Curiosity: A Qualitative Four-Year Investigation of Its Role in Youth Critical Consciousness Development

• In Event: 77.043 - Name the World: Teaching Students to Recognize and Resist Racial and Economic Inequity

Abstract

Objectives & Theoretical Framework: Critical consciousness—the ways in which an individual comes to understand and take actions against systems of oppression (Freire, 1970)—is associated with a variety of positive youth outcomes (Diemer & Li, 2011; Kirshner, 2015). Watts and Flanagan (2007) proposed a theoretical model of critical consciousness development contending that a bi-directional relationship exists between students’ critical reflection, agency, and action (Diemer et al., 2015). However, Paulo Freire (1970) also argued that one element necessary for critical consciousness development was critical curiosity, defined here as the desire to know more about and deeply understand issues of social justice and inequity (Engel, 2011; Shor, 1992). For Freire, critical curiosity served as a precursor to, and catalyst of, critical consciousness (Freire, 1970; Freire & Macedo, 1995).

Few discussions have considered the role of critical curiosity in students’ critical consciousness development; therefore, little is known of whether critical curiosity development aligns or diverges from critical consciousness development. The present qualitative study explored this question through investigating the elements of critical consciousness that students attending six urban charter high schools described as piquing their critical curiosity across four years of high school.

Methods: This study is part of a larger mixed-methods longitudinal investigation of critical consciousness development in adolescents at six northeastern urban charter high schools taking place during the 2013-2017 school years. For this study, 10-12 9th grade students were randomly-selected to participate in 40-60 minute qualitative interviews in spring 2014 for a total of 60 interviews. These students were re-interviewed during spring of their 10th, 11th, and 12th grade school years.
The semi-structured interview protocol was designed to elicit students’ perspectives on pedagogical practices they believed contributed to their critical consciousness development and included questions about students’ curiosity about the social justice curriculum. Analyses of the interviews drew on Braun and Clarke’s (2013) thematic analysis approach.

Results & Significance: Preliminary results found ninth grade students were curious about issues of critical reflection surrounding the historical or psychological roots of issues. One student noted: “Um, I’m really curious because… I really wanna see, like, where did the basis come from …” By junior year, students were vocal about their curiosity surrounding issues of critical action, particularly for personally relevant issues: “I’m very curious... I wanna dig deeper… if I’m part of that, I think I should know more. And I think I should, you know, try to learn more and apply that to my community…” Both a focus on critical reflection and action were seen in senior year; students expressed curiosity in understanding why contemporary events were occurring or how to deal with them. One student noted, “… we talk about like Donald Trump and like how things are going on now, and it’s kinda interesting to like find out how everybody is just coping … I have more interest in it than I used to.” These results shed further light on the role and development of critical curiosity and how educators can leverage this attribute to foster youth critical consciousness.

Author

• Shelby Clark, Harvard University