Wicked Problems Untamed by Attacking Sociology in Higher Education: (Re)Entrenching Sociologies to Prevent Environmental Crises

• In Event: Saturday Roundtable Session 9:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Critical Pedagogy and the Challenges of Contemporaneity (Table 27)

Abstract

Deprioritizing and delegitimizing sociologies through global neoliberalization of higher education (HE) diminishes societies’ ability to tame wicked problems by removing a discipline that untangles the inherent messiness between anti-environmental acts and social injustice. Attacks include perverting sociology into neoliberal, (neo)colonial tools that at best ignore and, at worst, justify hegemony, socio-historical oppressions (e.g., racism, patriarchy, heteronormativity), injustices, inequalities, planetary unsustainability, and anthropocentricism. A vital role of HE in the public spheres is teaching students for praxis to solve wicked environmental problems in which transformative sociologies are essential. The conundrums of how teaching sociologies diversify reflexivity for effective problem-solving is also the reason why the discipline is being attacked – as pedagogical enemies of hegemonies grounded upon neoliberalism – will be unpacked.

Author

• Greg William Misiaszek, Beijing Normal University