Journal article
Chapter 10: Teaching to Empower: Social Justice Action Projects as Imperatives for Educational Justice
Teachers College record (1970), v 123(13), pp 1-37
01 Apr 2021
Featured in Collection : UN Sustainable Development Goals @ Drexel
Abstract
Background/Context: Teaching to empower requires a critical focus on the unique challenges and opportunities of teaching in socially unjust educational environments. Effective teaching happens in an environment that engages students and teachers in critical investigation of content, knowledge, and activities. Critical learning environments simultaneously nurture the development of multiple perspectives and challenge the status quo. Establishing a critical learning environment is imperative in an educational system that is plagued with academic and social injustices. Therefore, teaching to empower necessitates that teachers, with the help of students, dismantle injustices through culturally responsive teaching, the development of agency and activism, the growth of multiple perspectives, and the capacity to challenge the status quo.
Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: The purpose of this chapter, a conceptual paper, is to lay the foundation for a framework of social justice action projects, which we differentiate from social action projects on the basis that social justice action projects are enveloped in critical race theory. Three educator vignettes are shared to illustrate how this framework functions in practice. We provide an example of a classroom teacher, a teacher educator, and a research perspective.
Research Design: This chapter, a conceptual paper, examines four components that we believe are essential for transforming social action projects into social justice action projects. Through personal narratives, we illuminate the challenges and successes of social justice action projects as they relate to learning, students, educators, and the community. Four of the authors, who are also researchers and educators, share autoethnographic experiences of their participation in social justice action projects in education.
Data Collection and Analysis: This chapter is a conceptual paper that seeks to illustrate the conceptual framework presented in the introduction of the chapter with three practical examples told from the point of view of the author teachers.
Findings/Results: When critical race theory acts as a framework for social action projects, these become social justice action projects, which, when properly applied, avoid many of the pitfalls that are common when social action projects do not serve the priorities of their community partners. For students, critical race-based pedagogies can serve to develop critical consciousness. Meanwhile, critical methods provide means by which students and community partners develop agency and activism.
Conclusions/Recommendations: Teaching through social justice action projects engages both students and teachers in critical dialogues that support empowered, action-oriented learning. While many effective teaching methods and strategies exist, the use of social justice action projects provides knowledge production, dialogue, and thinking beyond the whitewashed curriculum to create a world in which students, teachers, and community partners are empowered to make positive differences.
Metrics
Details
- Title
- Chapter 10: Teaching to Empower: Social Justice Action Projects as Imperatives for Educational Justice
- Creators
- Stephen D. Hancock - University of North Carolina at CharlotteAyana Allen-Handy - Drexel UniversityJohn A. Williams - Mitchell InstituteBettie Ray Butler - University of North Carolina at CharlotteAlysha Meloche - Drexel UniversityChance W. Lewis - University of North Carolina at Charlotte
- Publication Details
- Teachers College record (1970), v 123(13), pp 1-37
- Publisher
- Teachers Coll Of Columbia Univ
- Number of pages
- 37
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Language
- English
- Academic Unit
- School of Education
- Web of Science ID
- WOS:000765503000001
- Scopus ID
- 2-s2.0-105020064097
- Other Identifier
- 991019170351404721
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- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- Web of Science research areas
- Education & Educational Research