Disrupting Oppressive Ideologies: Critical Hope in Liberatory Educators

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Friday 3:45 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Resistance, Activism And Liberatory Education

Abstract

Educational systems have long reflected oppressive ideologies that dehumanize and marginalize bodies that deviate from Eurocentric norms, creating multiple forms of exclusion. When confronting these realities, educators may respond with denial or despair, emotional reactions that undermine liberatory teaching. This conceptual paper explores critical hope as a foundational disposition that educators can develop. Grounded in Duncan-Andrade’s (2009) framework and informed by affect theory, critical hope enables educators to remain critical of systemic oppression while actively working towards justice. I argue that the cultivation of critical hope is essential for teachers and that affect theory offers insights into its development. In addition, I call for further research into how liberatory educators cultivate critical hope and enact it in their pedagogy.

Author

• Steven Colmus, Texas Tech University