| Unit name | Pedagogies for Social Justice |
|---|---|
| Unit code | EDUCM0077 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | M/7 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
| Unit director | Dr. Cassie Earl |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
None |
| Co-requisites |
None |
| School/department | School of Education |
| Faculty | Faculty of Social Sciences and Law |
Students will be introduced to the notion of education for social justice, examining initially what is meant by the term social justice, particularly in the context of education. The Unit will facilitate students to examine theorists in critical education/critical pedagogy, including Freirean pedagogy, Marxist and Anarchist education traditions, and the work of critical revisionists. It will introduce students to ideas in these fields through a practice framework of emancipatory and empowering education. This will enable learners taking the unit to become critical, collaborative co-producers of knowledge and active change agents in their own societies, educational establishments and more globally through an understanding of educational activism.
The Unit will encourage the students to re-examine their own attitudes, beliefs and preconceptions of education and deconstruct their own experiences of schooling and education so far. It will cover topics such as the practice of popular education, educational elitism, class and social structures as they relate to theories of critical education and other topics such as gender, race, disability and sexuality as aspects of educational experience.
The Unit will draw on the students’ own experiences of learning to examine the contexts where critical pedagogy has been thought to be particularly relevant and to discuss contexts where these theories/practices could/should be employed to enhance learner experience and raise critical awareness in diverse groups of people. Students will be asked to complete an essay on applying critical pedagogy in a context of their choosing.
Unit Aims: To understand:
On completion of this course unit students will be able to:
1. Critically assess theories of critical education for social justice in changing times;
2. Critically analyse the effects of schooling and how this might be changed through the implementation of critical pedagogy;
3. Develop a comprehensive understanding of the practice and theory of democratic pedagogies
4. Demonstrate an understanding of the complexity of issues in considering learner agency in educational settings, and how to deal with these issues creatively in educational practice.
5. Produce critical reflective learning accounts that demonstrate originality in approach
The teaching will reflect the pedagogies under examination in the Unit allowing for a great deal of learner agency and democratic classroom practices. The sessions will all be run as workshops with a variety of interactive activities such as whole and small group discussion and debate; peer teaching and knowledge shares; use of democratic pedagogy to negotiate direction of sessions and life story sessions to understand education difference to ensure that learners get the most out of the Unit for their own needs, interests, and contexts.
70% of final assessment - 3000 word essay: assessment of learning outcome 1, 2, & 3
30% of final assessment – 1000 word (equivalent) poster presentation with written reflective narrative assessment of learning outcomes 3, 4 & 5
Key Texts:
Carlson, D. and Apple, M. W. (Eds.). (1998). Power/Knowledge/Pedagogy: The Meaning of Democratic Education in Unsettling Times. Boulder, Oxford: Westview Press.
Cho, S. (2013) Critical Pedagogy and Social Change: Critical Analysis on the Language of Possibility. New York, London: Routledge.
Darder, A. (2002) Reinventing Paulo Freire: A Pedagogy of Love. Cambridge MA, Oxford: Westview Press.
Freire, P. (1985) The Politics of Education: Culture, Power and Liberation. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
Freire, P. (1993) Pedagogy of the Oppressed. London, New York & Worldwide: Penguin Books.
Freire, P. (2005) Teachers as Cultural Workers: Letters to Those Who Dare to Teach. Expanded Edition ed., Boulder: Westview Press.
Hill, D. [ed.] (2013) Immiseration Capitalism and Education: Austerity, Resistance and Revolt, Brighton: The Instiute for Education and Policy Studies.
Kincheloe, J. L. and Steinberg, S. R. (Eds.). (1998). Unauthorized Methods: Strategies for Critical Teaching. London, New York: Routledge.
Steiner, S. F., Krank, H. M., McLaren, P. and Bahruth, R. E. (eds.) Freirean Pedagogy, Praxis, and Possibilities: Projects for the New Millennium. Vol. 19. New York, London: Falmer Press
