1. Activism in higher education classrooms:
examining practices & exploring possibilities
for Communication Activism Pedagogy
Monica Batac | School of Professional Communication | Ryerson University
Activism and Communication Scholarship in Canada Workshop | April 30, 2015
image: sciencesque on Flickr

2. a little bit about me
student-teacher-activist-scholar
education & communication
second-generation Filipina-Canadian
image: Patricia Glogowski on Flickr
multiple identities
various communities

3. dissec&ng
communica&on
educa&on
“Students
flock
to
communica1on
courses
with
the
promise
of
parlaying
their
degree
into
a
professional
career,
and,
in
general,
they
find
an
instruc1onal
field
ready,
if
not
primarily
designed
to
accommodate
their
professional
needs.”
(Palmer,
2014,
p.
46)
image: ebarney on Flickr

4. image: wyliepoon on Flickr
Professional Communication
“practices — text, sound and image — that we use
to communicate within, across and between communities
as small as start-ups and as large as governments &
multi-nationals”

5. tension

6.
the
banking
concept
of
educa1on
the
neoliberal
university
image: greeblie on Flickr

7. “Traditional communication
education has become not only a
business school affiliate but a
business that produces a product:
c o r p o r a t e - r e a d y
graduates , who eagerly
purchase knowledge
as a c o r p o r a t e - v a l u e d
c o m m o d i t y and their degree as
a m a r k e t - e n t r y certificate.”
(Palmer, 2014, p. 65)
image: Eduardo Tavares on Flickr

8. cri&cal
pedagogy
as
hope
[?]
“This
capacity
to
always
begin
anew,
to
make,
to
reconstruct,
and
to
not
spoil,
to
understand
and
to
live
as
a
process
-­‐
live
to
become...
This
is
an
indispensable
quality
of
a
good
teacher.”
(Freire,
1993,
p.
98)
image: ebarney on Flickr
to
refuse
to
bureaucra&ze
the
mind,

9.
“Cri1cal
pedagogy
asserts
that
students
can
engage
their
own
learning
from
a
posi1on
of
agency
and
in
doing
so
can
ac1vely
par1cipate
in
narra1ng
their
iden11es
through
a
culture
of
ques1oning…
it
is
also
about
encouraging
students
to
take
risks,
act
on
their
sense
of
social
responsibility,
and
engage
the
world
as
an
object
of
both
cri1cal
analysis
and
hopeful
transforma1on.”
(Giroux,
2011,
p.
15)
image: ebarney on Flickr

10.
the
banking
concept
of
educa1on
the
neoliberal
university
image: greeblie on Flickr
(in)justice through communication

11. image: Andrew Carr on Flickr
separate
&
divided;
at
odds
research
teaching
service
ac1vism

12. image: Andrew Carr on Flickr
in
search
of
solidarity
&
synthesis
research
teaching
service
ac1vism

13. Communication activism pedagogy (CAP)
teaches students how to use their communication
knowledge and resources (e.g. theories, research
methods, pedagogies, and other practices) to work
together with community members to intervene
into and reconstruct unjust discourses in more just
ways.
(Frey and Palmer,
2014, p. 8)
image: rosipaw on Flickr

14. Palmer (2014), p. 53
Pedagogical approaches in communication education
Traditional CAP
Goal Produce market-ready personnel Build social justice communities
Theory Strategic individual psychosociological
communication theory
Critical and social justice theory
Student Consumer: future employee Public intellectual: social activist
Communication Strategic resource exchange Medium of injustice, resistance, and
reconstruction
Pedagogy Technical knowledge dissemination Applied sociopolitical problem solving
Knowledge Commodity: market productive information System vision: resource of liberation
Learning Memorizing, restating, rehearsing, preparing Networking, intervening, resisting,
transforming
Community Future – business communities Present – oppressed communities
Power Bureaucratic institutional hierarchy Systemic socioeconomic power
imbalances
Outcome Reproduces corporate-class systems Transforms unjust social conditions

15. a) CAP
founda1ons
b) CAP
courses
(syllabi/
project
examples)
c) Social
jus1ce
ac1vism
through
service
learning
d) CAP
beyond
the
university
Upcoming
book
review
on
Teaching
Communica1on
Ac1vism
(Canadian
Journal
of
Communica1on)

16. image: Andrew Carr on Flickr
communication activism pedagogy
building community, in solidarity
Today’s workshop + new Activism and Social Justice Division at the
National Communication Association (NCA)
Bringing communication scholars-activists (at all levels) together to
connect; discuss teaching/research/service [etc.]; agitate, provoke,
and support one another; cultivate future collaborations
• to illustrate and imagine what activism and social justice
work look like in our university classrooms
shared language, shared struggle

17. references
Freire, P. (1993). Pedagogy of the city. New York, NY: Continuum International Publishing Group.
Freire, P. (2000). Pedagogy of the oppressed (30th anniversary ed). New York, NY: Continuum
International Publishing Group.
Frey, L. R. & Palmer, D. L. (2014). Introduction: teaching communication activism. In L. R. Frey &
K. M. Carragee (Eds.), Teaching communication activism (pp. 1- 44). New York, NY: Hampton
Press.
Frey, L. R., Pearce, W. B., Pollock, M. A., Artz, L., & Murphy, B. A. (1996). Looking for justice in all
the wrong places: On a communication approach to social justice. Communication Studies,
47 (1-2), 110-127.
Frey, L. R., & Carragee, K. M. (Eds.) (2014). Communication activism: Volume 3 Struggling for social
justice amidst difference. New York, NY: Hampton Press.
Giroux, H. (2011). On critical pedagogy. New York, NY: Continuum International Publishing Group.
McLaren, P. & Kincheloe, J. L. (Eds.) (2007). Critical pedagogy: where are we now? New York, NY:
Peter Lang.
Palmer, D. (2014). Communication education as vocational training and the marginalization of
activist pedagogies. In L. R. Frey & K. M. Carragee (Eds.), Teaching communication activism
(pp. 45- 76). New York, NY: Hampton Press.