Session Information
99 ERC SES 04 F, Sociologies of Education
Paper Session
Contribution
The following is my proposal for a PhD research project. I am looking to present this project in hopes of receiving feedback on my research design.
While universities increasingly aim to address the contemporary crises faced by society, it is critical educators who contextualize such crises as structural and help students engage with these structures. The demand for critical education is more pressing than ever, yet the struggles such educators face in the classroom are often unaddressed. To teach a course on capitalism, white-supremacy and patriarchy means to create both personal and interpersonal tensions in your classroom. Students arguing with each other, students arguing with the lecturer, frustration, expectation, disappointment and sometimes even anger are par for the course of critical education. The point is not that ‘regular’ education does not encounter its own set of tensions, such as neoliberal policy forcing the instrumentalization of higher education, but that critical educators experience an added set of tensions that revolve around their course content and pedagogy. While such tensions are highly visible, sometimes even making the news, they are rarely conceptualized as something structural, as something which educational programs need to account for.
One explanation for such tensions in critical education revolves around the politicization of ‘critical’ topics. The topics addressed by critical educators are politically contentious topics, racism, feminism, the climate crisis, which means there will be divisions and disagreements along people’s political alignment. This explanation covers some of the difficulties critical educators face, allegations of ‘wokeness’ or students who expect certain conclusions from you. However, this explanation fails to explain why these topics become political and therefore fails to explain a range of other tensions encountered in critical education. Another explanation for the tensions in critical education says that critical education arouses anger and other emotions that can derail the classroom (Zembylas, 2007; Harlap, 2014). For example, a student might take offense to the course content and their discontent becomes a stumbling block to continue class. A flaw of this explanation is that it is too broad. Any classroom tension can be classified as related to emotions and it remains unclear why critical education would arouse more emotions than ‘regular’ education. While these explanations are not exhaustive, the struggles facing critical education remain obscure and therefore difficult if not impossible for universities to take account of.
The central questions for my research proposal would then be: how can educational scientists conceptualize the particular struggles facing critical education? What even are the tensions experienced by critical educators? Lastly, how are these tensions related to the structures addressed by critical educators?
Theoretically, to investigate the tensions critical educators experience in university classrooms the project will lean on three concepts. First, I will use Paulo Freire’s understanding of critical education and specifically his concept of ‘the oppressor in us’, second Max Van Manen’s concept of ‘critical reflection’ as the goal for critical education, and third Baxter’s conceptualization of tensions as dialectical and other scholar’s application of dialectical tensions to the classroom setting.
Method
The project would revolve around two components, an ethnographic study of critical education at the University of Amsterdam and the Erasmus University Rotterdam, and a course on critical education taught by me (possibly in collaboration with a potential supervisor). The ethnographic study would include participation in critical courses, and interviews with the students, lecturers and their colleagues. Critical education includes a wide variety of topics, and the ethnographic component of the research project is meant to account for possible variations in the types of tensions critical educators experience. The project will operationalize the definition of critical education by looking for courses that revolve around words such as ‘social justice, oppression, capitalism, feminism, white supremacy, patriarchy, imperialism, colonialism, abolition, decolonize’ and others. After speaking with the lecturers of such courses regardless of department or discipline, I will speak with the lecturers and ask for their permission to regularly attend their courses and conduct intermittent interviews with them throughout. During my observations I would look for dialectical tensions encountered by the educators, this can take the form of student grievances, emotional outbursts, loaded questions and ethical dilemmas. For the second component, I would teach my own critical course to both experience the difficulties of ‘critical’ education firsthand and involve students in the research project. A student perspective is crucial for understanding the tensions that come with critical education, and through this course students can be meaningfully included in the research. The course would be intended for more seasoned students, third year bachelor students or above, and its topical focus will be Marxism and critical education. I envision the course as a research-oriented course where students can explore and bring their own interests to class. The first two weeks I would require them to read critical education literature to show them the different expectations they can have of the course and me. Students would then be asked to bring topics that they feel are difficult to discuss but still would like to learn about for the following weeks. Together we would find academic texts and frameworks, possibly guest lecturers, and discuss the tensions that come with their topics. For the research data, students will be asked every two weeks to fill out an adapted version of the ‘Critical Incident Questionnaire’ (Gilstrap & Dupree, 2008). Additionally, they will also be asked weekly about their perspective on the tensions present in the classroom.
Expected Outcomes
In theorizing how critical education brings its own dynamics to the classroom, the project is of relevance to the Sociology of Education and the relatively new field of Critical university Studies. First, the Sociology of Education is relatively blind to the hardships experienced during critical education, because of the tendency to connect critical education to more specific pedagogies such as ‘problem-based learning’ and the like. However, critical education can be practiced in any educational setting and need not involve clearly delineating boundaries. The project would therefore push the boundaries of the field in providing a novel perspective on the tensions specific to critical education. Second, as Shain & Ozga warn, the Sociology of Education struggles to remain relevant for educators and policymakers as educators are conceptualized as cogs in a broader societal machine and policy is conceptualized as the reforming or updating of its capitalist underpinnings, an argument which is now prevalent within the Critical University Studies. Without dismissing this analysis, the project would center the education practices which challenge the reproduction of oppressive regimes. In doing so, the project pushes the boundaries of the fields by adding to increasing literature within the Sociology of Education that can be useful for educators and policy makers. Additionally, while a combination of research/teaching is not new to these fields, the research methodology remains undertheorized. I believe scholars of education can benefit from ‘stepping into’ the field themselves, allowing for student input and creativity in research and course design.
References
Baxter, L.A., & Montgomery, B.M. (1996). Relating: Dialogues and Dialectics. New York, NY: Guilford Press. Chiang, K. H., & Karjalainen, A. (2022). Fluid Education-a New Pedagogical Possibility. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 66(6), 991–1004. https://doi.org/10.1080/00313831.2021.1958254 Freire, P. (2005). Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Continuum. Gilstrap, D. L., & Dupree, J. (2008). Assessing Learning, Critical Reflection, and Quality Educational Outcomes: The Critical Incident Questionnaire. College & Research Libraries, 69(5), 407–426. https://doi.org/10.5860/0690407 Harlap, Y. (2014). Preparing university educators for hot moments: theater for educational development about difference, power, and privilege. Teaching in Higher Education, 19(3), 217–228. https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2013.860098 Mampaey, J., Schtemberg, V., Schijns, J., Huisman, J., & Wæraas, A. (2020). Internal branding in higher education: dialectical tensions underlying the discursive legitimation of a new brand of student diversity. Higher Education Research and Development, 39(2), 230–243. https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2019.1674252 van Manen, M. (1977). Linking Ways of Knowing with Ways of Being Practical. Curriculum Inquiry, 6(3), 205–228. https://doi.org/10.1080/03626784.1977.11075533 Prentice, C. M., & Kramer, M. W. (2006). Dialectical Tensions in the Classroom: Managing Tensions through Communication. The Southern Communication Journal, 71(4), 339–361. https://doi.org/10.1080/10417940601000436 Zembylas, M. (2007). Mobilizing Anger for Social Justice: The politicization of the emotions in education. Teaching Education (Columbia, S.C.), 18(1), 15–28. https://doi.org/10.1080/10476210601151516
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