Systemic Change and Critical Pedagogy
This book is a field analysis of critical pedagogy and of the potential that visual storytelling achieved through movie making offers as praxis , the action element of learning. Positioned at the intersection of education and communication for social change, I explore the relationship between the generation of subjective knowledge through storytelling and analysis, and interventions into historical reality , the objective material condition. As you read through the following chapters, my hope is that the dialectical nature of the investigation becomes apparent. Two separate narratives will emerge from these pages that are in a continuous process of reconciliationâthe empirical study of an educational paradigm being conducted as academic research, and the praxis of critical pedagogy itself, which has its own self-directed destination. The object of my focusâthe praxisâhas a subjective life of its own, the scope of which continues beyond my investigation and analysis. It is important to acknowledge this point at the outset.
When I began designing my study, I posed myself a question: Why are certain types of knowledge privileged, and other types of knowledge marginalized? Answering this question was not the goal of my research project, nor is it of this book, yet contemplating it provides some direction toward the notions of systemic change to which critical pedagogy practice, and therefore this study, endeavors to make a contribution. Broadly speaking, why does society even need systemic change? Despite significant efforts toward offsetting historical imbalances (e.g., through international development), global wealth inequality remains extreme. After sixty years of development and aid, many commentators todayâparticularly from the Global Southâquestion whether the industry should even exist at all. But wealth alone is no longer broadly accepted as the final indicator of progress and equality. In fact, an emphasis on framing equality within exclusively economic boundaries is the prototypical neoliberal sleight of hand. It is an outcome that can ostensibly be achieved by making incremental adjustments to the existing system. Social change alone cannot address these inequalities because the systemic conditions are based on their continued existence. Therefore, an assumption of critical pedagogy is that genuine social change cannot occur within the current system; a precursor to true and lasting social transformation is systemic change . The urgent need for social change is at the bedrock of critical theory (Horkheimer , 1972), the theoretical paradigm scaffolding critical pedagogy as an educational project (Giroux , 2009). What do I mean when I make a distinction between systemic change and social change? The following example may be illustrative.
Andrew Carnegieâs (1889) essay entitled Wealth made the claim that the wealthy are best suited to manage the worldâs resources and should transfer their excess capital to the poor through philanthropy. Over one hundred years later, the moral philosophy behind philanthropy still resonates, and we can see it expressed not only in the direct (albeit highly targeted) transfer of wealth, but also in the form of transfers of technology, international development, or even in more deceptive pseudo-philanthropic guises such as corporate social and environmental responsibility and social entrepreneurship. Responding to Carnegieâs essay just two years later in 1891, Oscar Wilde wrote that the wealthy are actually wasting their lives with an âunhealthy and exaggerated altruismââone that tries to solve with their left hand the problems they create with the right. He famously wrote, âJust as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realized by those who suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated itâŠthe people who do most harm are the people who try to do most goodâ while defending the current system. According to Wilde, âThey try to solve the problem of poverty, for instance, by keeping the poor aliveâŠ. The proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on a basis that poverty will be impossibleâ (p. 3).
Despite their views being antithetical, both Carnegie and Wilde believed they had the best intentions for society at the heart of their arguments. The difference lies in their position in relation to society and social change. One position maintains the structure of an oppressive system (again, based on particular subjectivitiesârarely do the beneficiaries of such a structure acknowledge its oppressive characteristics), while the other calls into question any efforts toward progress expended within that structure. Wilde calls for a different system. Contemporary theorists, especially from postcolonial schools of thought, emphasize that any new system cannot be introduced or imposed by any vestige or extension of the former one (Fanon, 1965; Freire , 1970). It must be generated anew. This is another core assumption of critical pedagogy .
Speaking to the above point, Freire writes, âThis, then, is the great humanistic and historical task of the oppressed: to liberate themselves and their oppressors as wellâŠ.Only power that springs from the weakness of the oppressed will be sufficiently strong to free bothâ (1970, p. 44). This liberation begins with what Freire called education as the practice of freedom, or what is widely known today as critical pedagogy . Critical pedagogy is a heuristic and dialogic approach to education that emphasizes the critical and dialectical analysis of everyday experience. The purpose of critical pedagogy and its articulated principles and practices is to contribute to a movement away from a system that blocks subjectivity and toward a more just world (Giroux , 2011, p. 158). As vague as that may sound, anything more specific edges toward becoming prescriptive, and the danger of reproducing hegemony arises. In the context of a human society and condition that is increasingly polarized between those few enjoying the benefits of the current system and those masses existing merely as its objects, the imperative for the liberation Freire speaks of becomes all the more obvious.
The above discussion is meant to convey the spirit of the assumptions about the world upon which the goals of critical theory and critical pedagogy are predicated. This study of movie making as a paradigm of praxis within critical pedagogy, likewise, is predicated upon those same goals. In this way, the dual thrust of this study is justifiedâthe purpose was not just to gather data to inform my objectives and questions, which I will identify below, but also to support the participants in their own inquiry, the details of which will unfold in subsequent chapters. In order to transfer my findings to the practice of critical pedagogy and the theories upon which it is based, the paradigm of praxis I have developed had to be universally applicable in terms of curriculum (a term I use loosely), yet expressed in a context-specific methodological design that is congruent with the theories and principles I will expand upon in the following chapters. The praxis also had to be universal in terms of its applicability to the shared experiences of the oppressed, which Freire regards as ubiquitous (1970) and context specific because every future expression of the paradigm will have to be negotiated at a location, with participants from a local community. As a result, my study was primarily theory driven, not context driven; the location played a secondary role. In order to operationalize the theories of critical pedagogy , however, the study had to be situated somewhere. The fieldwork for the pilot case took place at two settings in Nepal. The condition of Nepalese society lamentably mirrors the extremes of wealth and poverty , or dominance and powerlessness, alluded to above, which made it an appropriate site to gather data for this study. Additionally, my personal background in Nepal and knowledge of local conditions made it an ideal location for the fieldwork. I grew up in Nepal, lived there for over twenty years, and speak the national language.
Some Key Concepts
Some basic definitions of the key concepts used throughout this book will be useful to readers; there will be lengthier discussions on each of these concepts in the chapters that follow.
The term
critical pedagogy captures many different theories and practices at once. Like others who have expanded
on Freireâs theories, I integrated movie making as an activity into the original
praxis he developed. I do not claim that there is a consensus in the literature to support a decision I made during the course of my research. Largely, my interest is to show that it is justifiable based on established theory. Additionally, given my desire to write a practical text and not a political text, I tend to lean on writers and thinkers who discuss critical pedagogy in more practical terms, such as
this is what you do and this is why you do it. Therefore, the seminal work
of Freire (
Pedagogy of the Oppressed ) is central to my paradigm, and gaps are filled in with support from the writings of
Ira Shor , and to a lesser extent,
Henry Giroux . Nevertheless, I must acknowledge that numerous other scholars, such as Joe Kincheloe and
bell hooks , were influential in helping me refine my understanding of critical pedagogy, a practice Shor (
1992) defines as follows:
Habits of thought, reading, writing, and speaking which go beneath surface meaning, first impressions, dominant myths, official pronouncements, traditional clichés, received wisdom, and mere opinions, to understand the deep meaning, root causes, social context, ideology, and personal consequences of any action, event, object, process, organization, experience, text, subject matter, policy, mass media, or discourse. (p. 129)
Simon, meanwhile, emphasizes the need to avoid defining critical pedagogy as a âprescriptive set of practicesâ but rather to look at it as an âongoing projectâ (1992, p. xvi). This is in harmony with Freireâs overarching vision of critical pedagogy, which, he emphasizes, must be directive but should always remain open to reinvention (Darder, Baltodano, & Torres, 2009, p. 16; Freire and Shor, 1987, pp. 22â23).
A key concept in this research study is praxis, and in the context of critical pedagogy, the meaning goes beyond the understanding as mere practice, distinct from theory. According to Freire (1970), praxis is âthe action and reflection of men and women upon their world in order to transform itâ (p. 79). Praxis that transforms reality is, for Freire, the source of knowledge, and through it men and women âsimultaneously create history and become historical-social beingsâ (p. 101). Au (2007) writes that praxis is central to critical pedagogy . He highlights its position within the overarching critical pedagogical activity, explaining that it gives participants the opportunity to reflect critically and subjectively on their reality and take transformative action to change that reality for the better, while deepening consciousness in t...
