Designing Intersectional Online Education

Critical Teaching and Learning Practices

Xeturah Woodley, Mary Rice, Xeturah Woodley, Mary Rice, Xeturah M. Woodley, Mary F. Rice, Xeturah M. Woodley, Mary F. Rice

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780367434564
• eBook ISBN: 9781000528626
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Éducation
• Subtopic: Éducation générale

Designing Intersectional Online Education provides expansive yet accessible examples and discussion about the intentional creation of online teaching and learning experiences that critically center identity, social systems, and other important ideas in design and pedagogy. Instructors are increasingly tasked with designing their own online courses, curricula, and activities but lack information to support their attention to the ever-shifting, overlapping contexts and constructs that inform students' positions within knowledge and schooling. This book infuses today's technology-enhanced education environments with practices derived from critical race theory, culturally responsive pedagogy, disability studies, feminist/womanist studies, queer theory, and other essential foundations for humanized and socially just education. Faculty, scholars, technologists, and other experts across higher education, K-12, and teacher training offer fresh, robust insights into how actively engaging with intersectionality can inspire designs for online teaching and learning that are inclusive, intergenerational, anti-oppressive, and emancipatory.

1Critical Pedagogy & Culturally Responsive Pedagogy: An Introduction

Yvonne El Ashmawi and Elissa West Frazier

DOI: 10.4324/9781003006350-2

Part I: An Overview of Critical Pedagogy

Definitions and Origins of Critical Pedagogy

In this section, we provide a definition, brief history, and summary of the key theoretical frameworks of critical pedagogy; then, we close with an overview of critical pedagogy in classroom practice. The term critical pedagogy was first used by Henry Giroux who defined it as a pedagogy “designed to provide students the knowledge with which to examine how society has functioned to shape and constrain their aspirations and goals and prevent them from even dreaming about a life outside the one they presently know” (Giroux 1988, as cited in Darder, 2016, p. xix). Specifically, Darder (2016) defined critical pedagogy as rooted in critical theory, an approach where teachers see their role:

as emancipatory and their primary purpose as a commitment to creating the conditions for students to learn skills, knowledge, and modes of inquiry that will allow them to examine critically the role that society has played in their self-formation and the formation of their community histories.

(p. xix)

Darder, Baltodano and Torres (2017) traced the origins of critical pedagogy back to several sources. They credited The Frankfurt School which “sought to challenge the narrowness of traditional forms of rationality that defined the concept of meaning and knowledge in the Western World” (p. 7). They also highlighted Antonio Gramsci, who coined the term hegemony to explain how those who have power control society not by force, but rather by ideology, and Foucault, whose writings on knowledge, power, and resistance inform critical pedagogy. The group also attributed the development of critical pedagogy to progressive educators such as John Dewey, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Carter Woodson and more recently Brazilian educator Paolo Freire, who approached education as a liberatory process intended to bring about radical social changes to redress injustices in society.

Theoretical Frameworks of Critical Pedagogy

In this section, we explore the core theoretical frameworks of critical pedagogy. Core concepts of critical pedagogy include dialectical thinking, interrogating knowledge and meaning making, exploring ideology and hegemony, and working toward the conscientization of the student. At the heart of critical pedagogy is a commitment to “a culture of schooling that supports the empowerment of culturally marginalized and economically disenfranchised students” (Darder, Baltodano, & Torres, 2017, p. 10). The conscientization of students (and teachers) is meant to stimulate action to transform structural oppressions.

Dialectical Thinking

Critical pedagogues must engage in dialectical thinking. Darder, Baltodano and Torres (2017) explained that critical pedagogy “embraces a dialectical view of knowledge” (p. 11). This view sees the individual and society as inextricably linked “recognizing that the individual is a social actor who both creates and is created by the social universe of which he/she is a part” (McLaren, 2017, p. 56). Analyzing the world in this way allows one to problematize circumstances and events, to ask probing questions about who, how, and why, and to see tensions and contradictions. Dialectical thinking is an approach to problem-posing wherein teachers and students can explore layers and nuance of social problems recognizing how people and situations can be wrought with contradictions both in intention and in action.

Ideology and Hegemony

Critical pedagogy recognizes structural power imbalances in society wherein there is a dominant group that has amassed the most power and privilege in society. One way the dominant group maintains its power is through controlling ideology. McLaren (2017) defined ideology as “a way of viewing the world, a complex set of ideas, various types of social practices, rituals, and representations that we tend to accept as natural and as common sense” (p. 64). These ideologies take root not just among the dominant group, but throughout society through a process of social control known as hegemony. This social control is not by force, but by infusing ideologies that support, defend, and normalize the continued power of the dominant group throughout all layers of the community through systems such as schooling. Through hegemony, oppressive ideologies are internalized by everyone, including those who are harmed by them.

Knowledge

Another theoretical framework of critical pedagogy is interrogating the nature of knowledge. Critical pedagogy draws on Habermas’s distinction between technical knowledge, practical knowledge, and emancipatory knowledge (McLaren, 2017). Technical knowledge is what is measurable and quantifiable while practical knowledge is meant to give us insight into how things work in our daily lives. What critical pedagogy seeks to develop is emancipatory knowledge, or generating knowledge that transcends both the technical and the practical to help us understand how “social relationships are distorted and manipulated by relations of power and privilege” (p. 59). Emancipatory knowledge is born of dialectical thinking, for without this ability to critique, and to uncover tensions and contradictions, it would be impossible to move toward emancipation. Additionally, critical pedagogy also emphasizes interrogating knowledge to understand whose knowledge matters and why. Apple (2004) explained that school is a site of conflict about “the kind of knowledge that is and should be taught, about whose knowledge is “official” and about who has the right to decide both what is to be taught and how teaching and learning are to be evaluated” (Preface section, para. 2). Decisions about what content should be included in the curriculum and from whose perspective it should be shared requires critical and ongoing attention as it reveals whose ideologies are being reproduced through schooling.

Conscientization

Dialectical thinking, recognizing hegemony, and interrogating knowledge point us toward the key goal of critical pedagogy: the conscientization of students. Teachers are meant to facilitate students’ explorations of the causes of and potential solutions to structural inequities by helping them to see not only the material and historical context of inequities, but also the ideologies that inform them. Empowered by an awareness of structural inequities, students come to see that injustice is both created by people and can therefore be transformed by people (Darder, Baltodano, & Torres, 2017) and that they can develop their agency to improve social conditions for all.

Critical Pedagogy in Practice

Understanding the core theoretical frameworks that inform critical pedagogy, we look at understanding critical pedagogy in practice. It is important to name that critical pedagogy is not prescriptive (Freire, 2000; Darder, 2016; Giroux, 2017). In fact, critical pedagogues emphatically express that liberatory pedagogy “cannot exist as a recipe for classroom practice. Rather, it is meant to provide an educational foundation to guide and support teachers’ critical engagement with those institutional forces that determine the reality of classroom life” (Darder, 2016, p. 103). This means that there is no prescription for “doing” critical pedagogy, but rather a focus on the considerations teachers bring to their interactions with students. Thus, although this section is titled critical pedagogy in practice, what we offer here is an overview of the key values, beliefs, ways of being, and practices that are meant to inform curricular and pedagogical decisions teachers make given the particulars of their teaching context. These include praxis and political clarity, moving beyond despair and enacting critical hope, interrogating power and authority, humanizing pedagogies, and curricular choices. Put together, these considerations are intended to serve the goal of promoting the conscientization of students.

Praxis and Political Clarity

Critical pedagogy calls on teachers to engage in praxis, or the explicit connection of living into the theories that inform one’s pedagogy through their daily classroom practice (Darder, 2016). The interplay of theory and practice is important as Darder noted, “cut off from practice, theory becomes simple verbalism. Separated from theory, practice is nothing but blind activism” (p. 88). Praxis emphasizes continued connection to the rich theories that inform critical pedagogy, and to view one’s teaching practice as ever-evolving. Part of this ongoing self-reflection is what Bartolomé (2004) called political and ideological clarity. Political clarity “refers to the ongoing process by which individuals achieve ever-deepening consciousness of the sociopolitical and economic realities that shape their lives” (p. 98). Teachers must continue developing their sociopolitical consciousness, remaining informed of the ways structural oppression impacts the lives of their students. Ideological clarity is engaging in self-reflection to interrogate one’s own set of ideologies, how they were formed, and how they are/are not aligned with the ideologies of those in power. Ongoing self-reflection is necessary if teachers are to be educators for transformation.

Moving beyond Despair and Engaging in Critical Hope

Another consideration for teachers is how to move beyond despair and engage in critical hope. Darder (2016) encouraged teachers to move beyond despair. Although despair can be a natural reaction to overwhelming systemic oppression and the impact it has on students and their teaching context, Darder encouraged teachers to connect with allies in the struggle and to use creativity to incorporate conscientization into their teaching practice even, or perhaps especially, when the school setting seeks to stifle teachers’ abilities to apply their teaching expertise. Duncan-Andrade (2009) called for teachers to enact three types of critical hope that are meant to be engaged holistically: material, Socratic, and audacious. Material hope is about providing the physical materials necessary for students to engage in learning content and conscientization including such things as high-quality teaching and connecting students to supportive resources and networks. Socratic hope means that teachers and students examine their “lives and actions within an unjust society to share the sensibility that pain may pave the path to justice” (p. 187). Audacious hope is to stand in solidarity with marginalized communities and to defy hegemonic forces at work in and out of school. Putting these aspects of critical hope together, we see it is not a mindset, but a set of actions that grow hope through acting in solidarity with marginalized students.

Interrogating Power and Authority

Another consideration of critical pedagogy is attention to systems of power and authority. This begins with the teacher recognizing social inequities in society and positioning themselves as public intellectuals and as agents of social change. Further, they must also recognize that teaching is a political act as schools are “places that represent forms of knowledge, language practices, social relations, and values that are particular selections and exclusions from wider culture” (Giroux, 2017, p. 631). In addition to interrogating systems of power in society, teachers must also interrogate the power dynamics embedded in the relationship between teacher and students. Darder (2016) explained that teachers cannot erase the power differential, but they can “engage with the question of authority in a liberatory fashion” (p. 109). Teachers do this by understanding how power shapes the relationship between teacher and student and working to ensure their classroom is one that facilitates students’ learning, agency, and conscientization.

Humanizing Pedagogies

Critical pedagogy calls on teachers to engage in humanizing pedagogy. This is taken from Freire’s belief that the oppressed “must find through their struggle the way to life-affirming humanization” (Freire, 2000, p. 68). In other words, seeking libe...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• About the Editors
• About the Contributors
• Introduction: Designing Online Learning as Intersectional, Entangled Commitments
• 1 Critical Pedagogy & Culturally Responsive Pedagogy: An Introduction
• 2 Designing for Cultural Responsiveness in P20 Online Learning Environments
• 3 Interest Convergence: A CRT Interrogation of the Intersection of Higher Education & Online Learning during a Pandemic
• 4 We Are One, But We Are Many: Using Disabilities Studies to Inform Intersectional Education Online
• 5 Womanist and Feminist Pedagogy: Infusing the Wisdom of Women into Online Education
• 6 Multiplying the Possibilities of Knowledge: Queering Online Teaching and Learning
• 7 Using Freirean and Rogerian Theory to Create Anti-​Racist and Peace-​Based Intersectional Online Learning Communities
• 8 Telecollaboration and Critical Cultural Connections
• 9 Queering Online Pedagogies in Gender & Sexuality Studies
• 10 Tensions in Adapting a Mandatory Indigenous Education Course to an Online Environment
• 11 An Autoethnographic Rhapsody of Learning to Teach Diverse Students Online
• 12 Teaching Writing Informed by Systemic Functional Linguistics: Bringing Professional Development Up to Scale through Online Courses
• Index