Problematizing Critical Pedagogy Through a Postcritical Lens and With Multicultural Teaching Practices

• In Event: Paper Session 2

Abstract

Moving into the time of growing stress on democracy in the world, many scholars commit responsibility for shifting education toward social justice. Critical pedagogy is at the front of this shift. In this paper, I complicate the assumptions undergird critical pedagogy by examining them through the lens of post-criticality and illustrated by the practices of two critical pedagogues whose multicultural teaching involved numerous undesired effects. I argue the undesired effects occurred due to the limitations inherent in the critical pedagogy itself. Three lines of limitations were identified, concerning critical pedagogy (a) orients students toward a suspicious affective line in classroom discussion; (b) positions students in the vacillation between multicultural diversity and colorblindness; and (c) binds students to pre-identified social problems.

Author

• Vy Dao, University of Social Sciences and Humanities-Vietnam National University HCM