Critical Pedagogy in a Southeast Asian Community-Based Program

• In Event: Destabilizing the Ideal Neoliberal Subject: An Examination of Educational Institutions, White Supremacy, and Meritocracy

Abstract

Purpose

Through a close examination of critical pedagogy approaches and practices in an after-school youth organizing program, this paper explores how a community-based program, which I call RYOT (Refugee Youth Organizing Training), aims to teach Southeast Asian high school youth to negotiate and challenge the effects of neoliberal reforms and narratives in their schools, communities, and city. By positioning youth as experts who navigate schools and cities and youth workers as community-based educators with extensive knowledge of youths’ lives and the local educational landscape, this paper argues that community-based youth work not only can inform education policy, but also engage minoritized youth and communities in debates that impact their lives, giving them a platform to decide what their own self-determination looks like.

Theoretical Framework

This study draws from perspectives that lie at the intersection of theories of racialization and neoliberalism (Omi & Winant, 2014; Apple, 2006; Harvey, 2005; Lipman, 2011. The link between neoliberal education reform, capitalism and race can be understood through the racialization of Asian Americans as the model minority, the ideal neoliberal subject (Jun, 2011; Lee, 2009; Ong, 1999; Rhee, 2013). However, the model minority does not fully capture how neoliberalism has been experienced by Southeast Asians, whose families have emerged as outliers to model minority success (Lee, 2005, Ngo, 2006; Ngo & Lee, 2007).

Methods & Data Sources

Data from this paper is drawn from a larger ethnographic study. From August 2017 to September 2019, I conducted approximately 1500 hours of participant observations in RYOT. I participated in lesson plan meetings with youth workers, where I noted their pedagogical approaches, facilitation styles and language choices and collected syllabi for document analysis. I also paid attention to interactions outside of programming. To supplement observations, I conducted in-depth interviews with youth (n=43), youth workers (n=6) and organizational leaders (n=3).

Findings

RYOT’s pedagogical approach is deeply informed by Freire’s notion of education as a political act (Freire, 1985). In order to cultivate youths’ critical consciousness, RYOT’s youth workers adopt Freire’s popular education approach to encourage critical thinking and dialogue that challenges the status quo (Freire, 1970). Taken all together, RYOT provided youth with a space to not only celebrate their cultural identities, but also to cultivate critical consciousness around issues of race and class inequality in their schools and communities and organize to challenge neoliberal reforms negatively impacting their city. Youth felt seen in RYOT’s curriculum and genuinely cared for by youth workers, of which many explained was different from their experiences in schools. However, this positive sense of self remained tenuous in the face of daily exposure to neoliberal racialized narratives such as the model minority, and most recently, the “Chinese virus.”

Scholarly Significance

By shifting the site of research from schools to community-based spaces, and through a close examination of pedagogies, practices and philosophies of community-based educators, my paper reimagines how community-based spaces continue to be sites of vital learning for youth and highlights the distinct value of community-based educational spaces from traditional school spaces.

Author

• Linda Marie Pheng, University of Wisconsin - Madison