Dangerous Thinking: Articulating and Enacting Epistemic Disobedience in Teacher Education

• In Event: 25.085 - Sheraton Roundtable One - Osgoode Ballroom
  In Roundtable Session: 25.085-6 - "Nice for What?" Disobedient Struggles in Anticolonial Times

Abstract

This paper interrogates the epistemological foundations of teacher education by analyzing student (preservice teacher) discourses. Despite affirming the value of diversity, findings reveal that students continue positioning Eurocentered conceptions of achievement as neutral and universal. In short, Eurocentered epistemologies linked to colonialism remain embedded in TEPs as the only “truth.” What stands out in this study is that after learning the language and concepts of epistemic disobedience, some students were able to begin problematizing the absence of different conceptions of achievement in their discourses. Finally, in this paper, I argue that a renewed commitment to the original spirit of insurgency in Culturally Relevant Pedagogy (CRP) is needed for articulating, enacting, and sustaining epistemic disobedience in TEPs.

Author

• Ramon Vasquez, SUNY - College at New Paltz