79.021 - Grief as Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy: Reclaiming a Humanizing Praxis for Ourselves and the Students We Serve

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This symposium explores the ways grief informs and impacts our understanding of self, others, and the world. Given that recurring grief and trauma are a manifestation and symptom of structural violence that disproportionately impacts marginalized communities, we argue that to ignore these fissures is to ignore the full humanity of ourselves and our students. Yet, little educational research addresses grief. In this session, we aim to address this gap by exploring the way our own complex grief, and that of our students, is worthy of intellectual interrogation and deserves space in our pedagogy. Together, we share and model the different multimodal pedagogical practices we have used to center and navigate grief in our own lives, classrooms and community spaces.

Sub Unit

• Division G - Social Context of Education / Division G - Section 5: Inquiry and Transformations

Chair

• Antonia Darder, Loyola Marymount University

Papers

• Literacy, Grieving, and Healing: Weeping as an Act of Literacy - Sharim Hannegan-Martinez, University of Kentucky

• Intimate Inquiry in an English Classroom: Being in Right Relationship to Sorrow - Stephanie Cariaga, California State University - Dominguez Hills

• Centering Grief as a Catalyst for Transformative Collective Care Among Critical Educators of Color - Farima Patricia Pour-Khorshid, University of San Francisco

Discussant

• H. Samy Alim, University of California - Los Angeles