Freireian Dilemmas: Confronting Contradictions in the Practice of Critical Pedagogy and Participatory Action Research in Undergraduate Curriculum

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

This session brings together diverse disciplinary perspectives to engage the challenges, tensions, and contradictions associated with implementing critical pedagogy and Participatory Action Research (PAR) within institutions with established hierarchies and structures of power. It also provides empirical findings on the practice of Freireian methodology in affecting students’ agency, moral development, and racial ideologies at an elite public university. In so doing, this session examines the affordances and limitations of practicing critical pedagogy and PAR in undergraduate curriculum. We seek to advance the transformative potential of Freireian theory by examining the navigation of power relationships in classroom practices, given the larger social and cultural context.

Sub Unit

• Division G - Social Context of Education / Division G - Section 2: Education in Mulitcultural Contexts Within and Across Subject Areas

Chair

• Shirin Vossoughi, Northwestern University

Papers

• Dialogical Texts: Examining Literacy Practices in Participatory Action Research - Exequiel Sabino Ganding, University of California - Berkeley

• Teaching Racial Justice Through Critical Pedagogy: Navigating Teacher and Student Positionalities in the Democratic Classroom - Joanne Tien, University of California - Berkeley

• The Ideological Becoming of Moral Agency - Zinaida Besirevic, University of California - Berkeley

• Overcoming the Social Order: The Challenge of Liberatory Education - Christyna Serrano, University of California - Berkeley

Discussant

• Shirin Vossoughi, Northwestern University