Teachers engage in social transformation: the development of critical, feminist and anti-racist pedagogical practices through an in-service education policy

• In Event: Neocolonial, critical feminist and anti-racist perspectives on international cooperation, education policy, and higher education

Proposal

From a critical (APPLE; AU; GANDIN, 2011) and a feminist (hooks, 2019) perspective of educational studies, this paper analyzes a pedagogical practice developed through an in-service education policy for teachers. We draw on the “policy cycle” approach and out of the three contexts formulated by Stephen Ball and his collaborators (BOWE; BALL; GOLD, 1992; BALL, 1994), we chose to focus on the context of practice, in which policies start to be interpreted and recreated, based on the experiences, values, histories and purposes of each subject or institution that enacts it. In this sense, we have observed the “Saberes em Diálogo” policy being transformed by teachers into a space for feminist and anti-racist education.

“Saberes em Diálogo” [Knowledge in Dialogue] is a policy developed by the Municipal Department of Education in the Public School System of Canoas/Brazil, in partnership with the Graduate Program in Education at La Salle University (Unilasalle). This partnership aims to qualify K-12 education, bringing university and schools closer together and focusing on teaching, pedagogical practices and research in education. Through this non-mandatory policy, teachers are invited to produce knowledge through reflective analysis of their pedagogical practices. They are encouraged to carry out research in the school space, focusing on everyday issues. The goal is to generate a systematic work, which involves problematization, theoretical foundation and definition of a methodological path which allows 'experience reports' to be qualified and constitute the production of pedagogical knowledge. In this way, “Saberes em Diálogo” not only proposes to enhance pedagogical practices that are developed by teachers – and often to open possibilities for coping with emergent situations –, but also challenges them to be true producers of knowledge. Thus, knowledge produced in teaching, which is so often delegitimized, is valued and recognized.

Since one of the authors of this paper enacted the “Saberes em Diálogo” policy, we came across several examples of critical and transformative initiatives being developed by teachers in that context. Through the lenses of critical and feminist education studies, we analyze one of these initiatives and the policy itself as an stymulus for the development of collective and creative teaching practices (BALL, 1994). We also rely on the theoretical-methodological tool of Relational Analysis (APPLE; AU; GANDIN, 2011) to combine a coherent multiplicity of theories, value the contradictions inherent in social relations, and exercise the political and scientific commitment to making initiatives that have been successful in conducting a counter-hegemonic education more visible.

The practice we analyze here is entitled “Estrelas Além do Tempo” [Stars Beyond Time] and it is an interdisciplinary initiative of ninth grade teachers who identified a lack of hope in the educational system in their students as well as several situations of racism and sexism taking place in the school space. By screening the movie Hidden Figures to students, teachers began a series of debates and shared construction of knowledge about the unfair social hierarchy in contemporary society. The film presents the contribution of three black women to NASA and, in our analysis, we identified its potency as a cultural reference, one that helps to deconstruct stereotypes and images of control (COLLINS, 2019). As Patricia Hill Collins (2019) states, representativeness is part of a path for empowerment and self-definition.

The teachers also promoted dialogue in their classes, mobilizing the categories of race and gender, which denoted a rupture with the traditional and strongly androcentric segmented teaching (hooks, 2019). We interpret the practice as an exercise of transformative intellectual teaching, as proposed by Giroux (1988), and as a feminist exercise of intellectual authority, used to interrupt situations of inequality through education (hooks, 2019). Finishing with a rocket (built by the students) launched by the students, a moment they called "Playing NASA", the project was extremely successful, with high student engagement. As all feminist, anti-racist and critical education projects should be, the learning in this project was planned to be truly meaningful for students and teachers. By putting the concerns of the least advantaged in the center of the education process, teachers managed to promote an inversion of the hegemony (CONNELL, 1993), making it everyone’s concern. It also made learning intellectually superior since understanding the world through diverse lenses makes thinking more complex and rich. Finally, through collective and counter-hegemonic teaching work, we identify this initiative as a rejection of the neoliberal thinking that isolates teachers and preaches neutrality in education (APPLE; AU; GANDIN, 2011) - something that can also be read as a strength of the policy itself since it is based upon the creation of dialogue spaces for teachers.

Therefore, we understand the "Saberes em Diálogo" policy as a horizontal tool for creating educational alternatives. For Stephen Ball (1994), horizontality is crucial, since the policies organized in this way give space to creativity and interested engagement - it is about the freedom of reinterpretation of the policy by those who enact it. Even if this was not the initial purpose of the policy, feminist, anti-racist and critical initiatives emerged. We highlight the potential that analysis of in-service education policies have in local and international contexts and emphasize the importance of research that investigates the multiplicity of interpretations that policies can have when acted upon by educators motivated by social change. We share this analysis to inspire the emergence of others.

References

APPLE, M. W.; AU, W.; GANDIN, L. A. Educação Crítica: análise internacional. Porto Alegre: Artmed, 2011.

BALL, S.J. Educational Reform: a critical and post-structural approach. Buckingham: Open University Press, 1994.

BOWE, R.; BALL, S.; GOLD, A. Reforming Education & Changing Schools: case studies in policy sociology. London: Routledge, 1992.

CONNELL, R. Schools and Social Justice. Philadelphia: Temple University Press,1993.

GIROUX, H. Os Professores como Intelectuais: rumo a uma pedagogia crítica da aprendizagem. Porto Alegre: Artes Médicas, 1988.

COLLINS, P. H.. Pensamento Feminista Negro: conhecimento, consciência e a política do empoderamento. São Paulo: Boitempo, 2019.

hooks, b. Teoria Feminista: da margem ao centro. São Paulo: Perspectiva, 2019.

Authors

• Bruna Dalmaso-Junqueira, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul

• Rúbia Taís Johann