Critical Pedagogy Enacted in the Gay-Straight Alliance

• In Event: Roundtable Session 111
  In Roundtable Session: From Margins to Centers: Critical Pedagogies Across Contexts

Abstract

This paper examines two fundamental elements that promote the success of a Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) in one Midwestern high school: students’ engagement with critical pedagogy and adult partnership in meetings and activities. Both have broad implications for teachers and teacher educators. Informed by the tenets of critical multiculturalism, it draws on ethnographic fieldwork over the course of one school year and in-depth interviews with students and the GSA advisor. Data reveal that the advisor’s pedagogy is characterized by promotion of students’ knowledge, activism, and reflection, in combination with support from multiple adults at school. The author concludes that the critical pedagogy employed by the advisor creates an atmosphere where engaged student learning and promotion of social justice take place.

Author

• J. B. Mayo, University of Minnesota