Anti-Oppressive Education and the Need for Contemplation Prior to Action

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Sunday 1:30 pm Four Seasons Ballroom 1
  In Roundtable Session: Empowering Community and Building Multicultural Future (Table 4)

Abstract

The following theoretical-conceptual paper investigates how uncritical applications of multicultural curricular and instructional tropes – dialogue, tolerance, and reflection – inadvertently may perpetuate and maintain inequities and marginalization within teaching and learning. Via intertextual engagement with critical perspectives on multicultural practices, including Burbules (2000), Ellsworth (1989), Žižek (2008), Marcuse (1969), Lacan (1970/2006), and Markham (1999), we advocate for deep rethinking (or pedagogical contemplation) of multicultural practices in a manner challenging hidden forms of inequity and marginalization in local classroom contexts. In conclusion, we will offer a series of contemplative relational-focused questions and strategies to further promote socially responsible and empathic uses of dialogue, tolerance, and reflection for anti-oppressive education.

Authors

• Pauli Badenhorst, University of Texas - Rio Grande Valley

• MinSoo Kim-Bossard, The College of New Jersey