Critical Place-Based Inquiry and the Democratizing Local History Project

• In Event: Critical Inquiry in Social Studies Education: Clarifying Directions for Research and Practice

Abstract

Purpose: The Democratizing Local History Project (DLHP) is a pedagogical ecosystem developed in collaboration between educators, social studies scholars, and community and university-based historians. It aims to transform history and civics instruction in area classrooms towards critical inquiry into the stories and contributions of communities of color, Indigenous communities, and queer communities. In addition, DLHP centers young people as civic agents and as meaning makers. In this presentation, we demonstrate how the DLHP embodies the central dimensions of critical inquiry in the social studies: critical inquiry as a way of being in and relating to the world, as cycles of praxis confronting injustice and cultivating justice, as the collective work of sustaining communities, and as the (re)imagining of just futures. We use examples from the project as an iterative way of exploring what critical inquiry is, both in theory and in practice.

Perspectives: In addition to the theoretical framework outlined in the symposium overview, our framing of critical, place-based pedagogy is rooted in several theoretical approaches. Most obvious is Sobel’s (2004) work on place-based education, which frames the physical community as an extension of the classroom. While Sobel’s framing is helpful for naming the emotional connection to a physical place and its role in learning, it is anemic in that it lacks a critical lens on how we conceive of place and community. Therefore, we root our understanding of place-based education in Freirian (2000) critical pedagogy—the call to read the word and the world, to engage in problem-posing pedagogies, to nurture students’ critical consciousness, and to elevate the perspectives of the marginalized. To do that within a place-based approach, we turn to pedagogies of student voice (Stickney & Ventura, 2024), such as YPAR (Cammarota & Fine, 2008); culturally relevant and sustaining pedagogies (Ladson-Billings, 1995; Paris & Alim, 2017); and pedagogies of counternarration (Author) to articulate the tenets of a critical place-based approach.

Methods & Data Sources: This qualitative case study draws on curricular documents, teacher and student survey data, and classroom observations.

Results: We will draw on four pedagogical moments, each demonstrating the four tenets of critical inquiry—how they are enacted in K12 spaces and how that enactment embodies the way in which critical inquiry is an iterative process of meaning making towards justice and community.

Significance: Frameworks of critical historical inquiry, such as King’s (2020) framework for Black historical consciousness, and critical civic pedagogies (Ginwright & Cammarota, 2007; Mirra & Garcia, 2023; Parkhouse, 2017) challenge social studies educators to engage their students in the critical engagement with our social world. Yet this work remains challenging for teachers. The DLHP concretizes the work of critical inquiry and demonstrates how critical inquiry affords a path towards a radical civic imagination, in ways accessible to even traditional K12 classrooms and that can transcend fears about “indoctrination” and disagreement through robust disciplinary and place-based inquiry.

Authors

• Melissa L. Gibson, Marquette University

• Veronica Mancheno, Marquette University