Epistemic Openness and Heterogeneity as Relational and Ethical Practices Within Critical Pedagogy

• In Event: Dreaming and Living Emancipatory Educational Space: Studying Mediation and Learning in Freirean Pedagogy

Abstract

This session draws on micro-ethnographic analysis of two critical pedagogical settings to address a central tension within Freirean pedagogy. Working with young people to practice and develop critical consciousness (as a verb or process, rather than a noun or final destination) involves offering conceptual tools and lines of inquiry that support the questioning of dominant narratives and ideologies (white supremacy, patriarchy, etc.). Further, moving away from dogmatic or rigid approaches to “criticality” (where there is one right way to be critical) requires a kind of epistemic openness or safeguarding of the space for heterogeneity and dissent within radical spaces and social movements. However, where are the lines between such intentional openness and dialogicality and a laissez faire pedagogy (Freire & Macedo, 1995) that slips into liberalism (such as the idea that all opinions are equally valid)? How do educators navigate these tensions, and what forms of intentionality do they enact? How might deeper examinations of epistemic openness offer a window into the genesis of new social and intellectual relations?

To address these questions, we bring together key passages from Freire’s writings on critical consciousness and pedagogy with key ideas in socio-cultural theories of learning, specifically notions of “epistemic heterogeneity” (Roseberry, et. al., 2002) and “epistemic openness” (Talero, 2008). We define epistemic openness as the pedagogical practice of an intellectual generosity that privileges multiple sources of authority and meaning, and treats difference, tension, and dissent as resources for the development of more complex analyses.

Drawing on ethnographic data that focused in on the genetic or moment-to-moment processes of teaching and learning, we offer micro-interactional examples of “epistemic openness” from two critical pedagogical spaces: A summer academic and political program for high-school aged migrant students, and an after-school critical arts program serving predominantly Black students in a large urban area.

Looking closely at the ways educators worked to navigate the aforementioned tensions led to a number of key insights: 1) though epistemic openness may be typically located in the ways teachers respond to student comments, we also found a range of ways in which educators intentionally designed curriculum and instructional narratives to create the conditions for epistemic heterogeneity as a resource for developing dynamic forms of social analysis; 2) the felt need to explicitly trouble hegemonic ideologies may lead educators to overlook the complex ways students are often wrestling with and contesting dominant narratives even when they offer them up as their “opinion,” thereby delimiting the space for more patient and generative forms of mediation; and 3) responding to student meaning making with radical openness and curiosity is consequential to the deepening of social and ethical relations and the safeguarding of “intellectual breathing room,” a practice that can yield new possibilities for critical social analysis and solidarity further downstream. We conclude by considering the implications of these findings for pedagogy and research on learning in critical pedagogical spaces.

Authors

• Ava Jackson, Northwestern University School of Education and Social Policy Human Development and Social Policy

• Shirin Vossoughi, Northwestern University