This study explored how professors implement critical pedagogy in their post-secondary classrooms. The researchers interviewed 17 professors about their classroom practices and definitions of critical pedagogy. Key findings included that professors employed practices like community building, dialogue, and experiential activities, but did not always explicitly connect these practices to social justice aims. The study concluded that critical pedagogues need to more clearly demonstrate how their practices aim to incite social change and consider strategies to address critical pedagogy's justice-oriented nature.

1. Teaching For and
About Critical
Pedagogy in the
Post-Secondary
Classroom
MARY BREUNIG
Fariba Chamani, 2016

2. Purpose of Study
 To explore how the professors put the theory
of critical pedagogy into practice.
 To present examples of effective critical
classroom practices.
 To explore the the justice-oriented nature of
some of the reported examples of practice.

3. What is Critical Pedagogy?
 The intent of critical pedagogy is to contribute to a
more socially just world (Kanpol 1999).
 Social justice is the attainment of equality in every
aspect of society (Atkinson, 1982).
 Critical pedagogy is based on critical social
theories, liberatory education, feminist pedagogy,
and post-structuralism & post-colonialism.

4. Historical Roots of Critical
Pedagogy
alongside other feminist pedagogues, argue that education should serve to challenge
the structure of the traditional canon and should develop and offer alternative
classroom practices. Feminist pedagogy reinforces the idea that both the content of
the curriculum and the methods of pedagogy employed teach lessons.
Table 1. Overview of Historical Roots—Critical Pedagogy
Critical
Social
Theorists-
social and
economic
equality
Liberatory
Education
emancipation
from
oppression
Pedagogical
Project of
Possibility-
disrupting the
dominant
(socioeconomic
privileged)
discourse
Feminist
Pedagogy
disrupting
the
dominant
(male
privileged)
discourse
Post-
structuralism
multiple
“ways of
knowing” that
are situated,
contextual,
and partial
The
Possibility of
Pedagogical
Practice-
employing the
theory of
critical
pedagogy in
praxis
Max
Horkheimer
Paulo Freire Henry Giroux bell hooks Patti Lather Paulo Freire
Theodor
Adorno
Peter McLaren
(cultural
studies)
Caroline
Shrewsbury
Donna
Haraway
Ira Shor
Herbert
Marcuse
Michael Apple
(curriculum
studies)
Kathleen
Weiler
Deborah
Britzman
Roger Simon
Despite the fact that Table 1 (above) may represent an oversimplification of many

5. Freire (1970): The inaugural
Philosopher of Critical Pedagogy
 Freire’s experience with the poor peasants in Brazil
compelled him to develop educational ideals and
practices that would serve to improve the lives of these
marginalized people and to lessen their oppression.
 His Problem-posing model valued the importance of
student experience and a dialogical method of teaching
and learning whereby the student and the teacher were
mutually engaged in the process of teaching and
learning.

6. Critical Pedagogical Praxis
 Mere theoretical knowledge about critical
pedagogy does not ensure acting upon the
justice-oriented intentions of theory.
 Theory needs to be connected to practical,
lived experiences both outside and within the
classroom (Van Manen, 1999).

7. Literature Review
 Studies on the relationship between theory &
practice
 Studies on the praxis-oriented teacher
education across various contexts
 Studies on critical media literacy

8. Theory/Practice Relationship
 Beatriz Ruiz & Juan-Miguel Fernandez-Balboa (2005): examined
physical education teacher educators’ critical pedagogical praxis
and found that many of participants reverted back to
transmission-based pedagogy because the professors lacked
concrete examples of how to engage in critical praxis.
 Macdonald & Brooker (1999): discovered that there was a need
for more explicit information regarding how educators can
employ critical pedagogical praxis within the post-secondary
classroom.
 Nancy Horan (2004): reported successes and challenges that
she and her students experienced when attempting to put the
theory of critical pedagogy into practice
 Wink (2005): provided a critical pedagogy primer as well as a
manual for practicing critical pedagogy.

9. Praxis-Oriented Teacher
Education
 Shauna Butterwick & Jan Selman (2003): investigated
how theatre can provided insights into issues related to
social justice and the value of participatory and
democratic classroom processes.
 Green (2001) : Service-learning can provide students
with an opportunity to engage in an experiential activity
that helps them examine and modify their attitudes
toward race, class and economic injustices.
 Boyle-Baise & Kilbane (2000): examined the ways in
which students often change their attitudes toward
themselves and the community as a result of engaging
in service-learning project

10. Critical Media Literacy
 Hull (1993): The intent of critical media
literacy is to emancipate students’ worldview
and engage them in transformational social
action.
 McLaren & Farahmandpur (1999) and Norton-
Meiers (2002): examined the ways in which
praxis-oriented forms of pedagogy can be
used as a means to link what goes on in the
classroom with what goes on in society.

11. Methodology
 Participants
 Materials
 Research Design
 Data Analysis

12. Participants
17 self-identified critical pedagogues who showed interest
to participate in research in an online call for research
participants:
 10 males & 7 females
 Between the ages of 50-60
 10 non-tenured & 7 tenured professors
 13 Caucasians & the rest were Latina, Native-
American, Chicana, and Asian American.
Participants were made aware of this study and signed
informed consent was obtained prior to data collection.

13. Materials
 One-hour semi standardized interviews with
participants, via phone, about critical
pedagogy definitions, aims and purposes:
① Do you believe that you engage in
classroom practices that reflect the theories
of critical pedagogy?
② What are some examples of your classroom
practices that reflect the ways in which you
employ critical pedagogy?

14. Study Design
 The study employed Appreciative Inquiry (AI) as
the methodological framework.
 AI involves asking questions that strengthen
either a system’s or a person’s capacity to
apprehend, anticipate, and heighten positive
potential (Cooperrider, Whitney & Stavros,
2003).
 It seeks to build upon achievements,
unexplored potential, innovations, strengths,
competencies, stories, lived values, traditions,
and visions.

15. Data Analysis
 All 17 interviews were transcribed by a
transcriber & a copy of the transcripts
was sent back to each participant for
his or her review.
 Data analysis started with establishing
some initial categories and themes
related to the objectives and literature,
and then reading through all
transcriptions to identify other
categories.

16. Results and Discussion
The following classroom practices
emerged as central themes & the
justice-oriented nature of them was
examined:
 Classroom community & group
work
 Dialogue
 Curriculum negotiation,
 Assessment and evaluation
 Experiential activities
 Traditional classroom practices

17. Classroom Community & Group
Work
 Participants responded that building a classroom
community was one of the central features of their
critical praxis.
 It’s argued that constructivist approaches like
collaborative learning may motivate students but
how can it bring about a more socially just world?
 However, creating a democratic space in the
classroom through constructivist-oriented classroom
practices can be an act of social justice itself
(Dewey, 1938).

18. Dialogue
 Dialogue was a central theme in participants’
reports about their critical pedagogical praxis.
 It’s argued that using dialogue to engage student
voices can enhance learning (Jarvis, 1996) and
impel students to reconceptualize “traditional”
power relations (Lather, 1991; Shor, 1996).
 But the results of this study did not reveal the
justice-oriented nature of this praxis; rather, it was
valued as a form of student-centered learning and
teaching.

19. Assessment and Evaluation
 Participants regarded their use of alternative
methods of assessment and evaluation as
critical in many respects.
 Research provides solid evidence of the value
of student-centered and constructivist
classroom practices but point less
conclusively toward anything that could be
identified as justice-oriented per se.

20. Experiential Activities
Experiential activities are utilized as a means to linking what
goes on in classroom with what goes on in society:
 In class experiential activities: students are asked to role
play people in various positions of privilege within schools
and those people in positions of less privilege.
 Community service-learning: combines academic study
with community and requires students to apply theoretical
knowledge to “real world” situations.
 Action research projects: teaching about action research
and the action research project itself can be dually
oriented toward social change and toward improving
teacher practice.

21. Conclusion
 Critical practices and activities alone do not
automatically or necessarily incite social
justice and action, so critical pedagogue
need:
1) To develop strategies that explicitly and
overtly address the justice-oriented nature of
critical pedagogy.
2) To consider the facilitation of classroom
activities and design them based on the
theory of critical pedagogy.

22. Limitations of Study
 It did not conduct follow-up interviews to
explore some of these practices and
facilitation techniques in more depth.
 It was unable to further query participants
about the potential gap between students’
knowledge about critical theory and direct
social action.

23. Suggestions for Future Studies
 Future studies should explore the gap
between knowledge and action, and continue
developing a set of “best practices” related to
critical pedagogical praxis.
 The should also focus on encouraging critical
pedagogues to articulate the ways in which
their classroom practices attend to justice-
oriented issues and should explore facilitation
techniques alongside this.

25. Thank You For Your
Patience