TRANSFORMATIVE PEDAGOGY FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE EDUCATION: TEACHING TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION STUDENTS TO BRIDGE WITH ANZALDÚAN THEORIES OF SOCIAL CHANGE

This thesis discusses the growing challenge facing teachers of technical communication in preparing educators with the knowledge, skills, and perspectives to effectively work with an increasing diverse student population, especially with those students whose cultural, racial, language, professional, and ethnic backgrounds are different from the educator’s background. Therefore, Anzaldúan theory offers another productive way of bringing together theory and practice to address the challenge of seeing and practicing technical communication’s critical and civic aspects within diverse communities. This essay provides insight into how Anzaldúa theories for social change might fulfill civic objectives

TRANSFORMATIVE PEDAGOGY FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE EDUCATION: TEACHING TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION STUDENTS TO BRIDGE WITH ANZALDÚAN THEORIES OF SOCIAL CHANGE

This thesis discusses the growing challenge facing teachers of technical communication in preparing educators with the knowledge, skills, and perspectives to effectively work with an increasing diverse student population, especially with those students whose cultural, racial, language, professional, and ethnic backgrounds are different from the educator’s background. Therefore, Anzaldúan theory offers another productive way of bringing together theory and practice to address the challenge of seeing and practicing technical communication’s critical and civic aspects within diverse communities. This essay provides insight into how Anzaldúa theories for social change might fulfill civic objectives

Conceptualisation of Ubuntugogy as a Decolonial Pedagogy in Africa

The concept of ubuntugogy appears as an ordinary grammatical prowess to some, while it also remains unknown to many. This conceptual paper attempts to conceptualise ubuntugogy, not only as indigenous teaching and learning but also as a decolonial pedagogy with liberating potentials. An assumption exists that today’s pedagogical process in Africa is still laced with subjectivism, and it fails to challenge the Eurocentric hegemony that lies within school systems.  The failure to address Eurocentrism explicitly leads to the need for ubuntugogy. Ubuntugogy, therefore, needs to be unpacked for better understanding. That is, this study is not to challenge the hegemony of westernised classrooms and their pedagogical process in Africa but to conceptualise the hidden potential of ubuntugogy to fill out the limited literature of the concept in the world of academics. Hence, the study provides answers to questions such as; what is ubuntugogy? What is the epistemology of ubuntugogy? What are the transformative tendencies of ubuntugogy, and how does ubuntugogy relevant in 21st Century classrooms? The study concluded that the idea of ubuntugogy is to create a learning environment where everyone feels empowered, encouraged and free from the burdens of Eurocentric and Americentric imposition with an open tendency of knowing and being human.&nbsp

A classroom of her own : hegemonic discursive disempowerment of the female progressive educator within higher education

"This dissertation represents a distinct theoretical and pragmatic interrogation into the historically hegemonic discursive disempowerment of women in patriarchal society and institutions of higher education. The axis of which, is the exigencies unique to the female progressive educator (FPE). The FPEs pedagogy is grounded in counterhegemonic consciousness--reframing disempowering practices through education which resists and transforms the ubiquitous residue of overarching patriarchal schema reproduced through hegemonic discourse and culture. In essence she imagines the unimaginable--equity through dialogue among women and men. The framework for exploring these conditions consists of interpersonal communication, rhetorical criticism, sociolinguistic studies, critiques in gender and feminisms, cultural foundations and progressive education. The prologue provides overarching historical antecedents demonstrating the intersection of dominant discourse and the continuum of subordinated lives and locations of women. Chapter I examines institutionally legitimated hegemonic culture and discursive disempowerment of women in society through the powerful triad of church, state and education. Chapter II proposes steps toward realizing discursive empowerment by the FPE through gender holistic discursive communities in dialogue and negotiating Self and Other. Chapter III relates experiential and empirical knowledge specific to the author, a female progressive educator, whose epistemology and pedagogy is predicated on reflexive practice founded in the narrative, identity, hermeneutics of Selfhood and mutuality of Self and Other. Chapter IV moves beyond theoretical frameworks into the domain of a lived pedagogy through the establishment of a national coalition for progressive/antioppressive educators to participate in communities of dialogue and action."--Abstract from author supplied metadata

Teacher experiences of LGBTQ- inclusive education in primary schools serving faith communities in England, UK

This article reports on the experiences of teachers delivering an LGBTQ-inclusive education programme in four English primary schools serving faith communities. These teachers tended to start the work from an anti-bullying standpoint, finding that whilst they might need to strategically begin at this potentially pathologising starting place, they could later develop the programme to embed LGBTQ-inclusive input across the curriculum. Legislative and policy frameworks gave teachers the courage to deliver the materials, particularly the Equality Act 2010. Lead teachers found a range of ways to work with colleagues, with some drawing on their religious commitment to embrace the work. The children’s openminded responses encouraged their teachers, and over time the schools were able to conduct LGBTQ-focussed community celebrations with parents from the faith communities they served. That these approaches offer a range of starting points to support LGBTQ-inclusive education in schools serving faith communities

Theorizing an intersectional approach to feminist composition pedagogy

In this thesis, I address the absence of intersectionality in feminist scholarship, particularly in the study of feminist composition pedagogy. As a discipline, Rhetoric and Composition concerns itself with shifts in social discourse and their material implications. I argue that educators in this field who employ feminist pedagogical practices have a responsibility to be attentive to activist discourse, and, as such, must begin including intersectional theory in their feminist research. Freire’s discussions of classroom power relations and critical literacy coupled with hooks’s attention to intersectional oppressions provide a foundation for future scholarly discussions of intersectional feminist pedagogical practices in composition classrooms. Using queer student identities as a target population, I argue that feminist composition pedagogues need to re-embrace the work of Paulo Freire and bell hooks in order to begin articulating feminist pedagogical practices that are intersectional in nature. Historically, both feminist scholarship and intersectional scholarship have tended to exclude queer populations; however, in light of increased visibility of LGBT+ persons in recent years, the ways in which intersectional concerns manifest themselves in this community are becoming more evident. As classrooms are made up of a diverse array of students and often stand in as microcosmic mirrors of society at large, it is crucial that educators develop pedagogical methods that are mindful of intersecting modes of oppression within the queer community. I argue for a more inclusive feminist pedagogy that is mindful of intersectional concerns, as well as for further scholarly work exploring ways to make feminist pedagogy more intersectional

Deconstructing otherness: social studies teachers' classroom discursive representations of African and Middle Eastern populations

This Critical Discourse Analysis examined the classroom discourse of six secondary social studies teachers during lessons dedicated to the study of Africa and the Middle East. The study focused on the phenomenon of otherness and the ways in which teachers contribute to or challenge the depiction of various African and Middle Eastern populations as the other. The study found that no normative discourse existed within or across classrooms whereby teachers consistently portrayed African or Middle Eastern populations as the other. Teacher employed multiple contending discourses that both promoted perceptions of otherness while also explicitly challenging and deconstructing such notions. The study found that teachers tend to frame the study of Africa and the Middle East around narratives of conflict. These narratives restrict the classifications available for understanding certain communities and reinforce associations of violence, radicalism, and terrorism with Africa and the Middle East

Critical Language Awareness

In the latter half of the 20th century, applied linguists, dissatisfied with the positioning of language teaching, called for a multidimensional curriculum to reframe teaching (about) languages, be they first or heritage languages (L1s or HLs); English as a second, foreign or international language (ESL, EFL and EIL); or other foreign languages (FLs). Their dissatisfaction stemmed from languages being viewed in isolation (like linguistic silos), an overemphasis on teaching the four skills in a discrete (unintegrated) manner, and decontextualized grammar and vocabulary teaching. Out of this discontent grew the notion of “language awareness,” with language awareness pedagogy implemented in the UK school system for the first time in 1974. The notion and pedagogical interventions emerged from the desire to bridge languages taught in isolation, and recognize the role language plays in all subject matter teaching (i.e., language-across-the- curriculum)

Dynamics of gender justice, conflict and social cohesion: analysing educational reforms in Pakistan

This paper analyses the role of national level reforms in school curriculum and initial teacher education in gender justice in conflict-affected Pakistan, using a multidisciplinary framework applied to multiple data sets from selected teacher education institutions in Sindh. The school curriculum texts analysed potentially perpetuate gender injustice and foster conflict. While teacher education reforms offer the potential for transformative gender justice, gender remains peripheral in initial teacher education curriculum. Furthermore, institutional practices entrench gendered norms. Lecturers’ and teachers’ limited understanding of their role and capacity for transformative gender justice pose challenges to education for gender justice, social cohesion and conflict mitigation. Informed by our understanding of gender as socially constructed, multiple strategies within and beyond education are offered towards transformative gender justice