Constructing social justice pedagogy: critical perspectives on pedagogical Praxis in the communication classroom

This dissertation is a qualitative examination of the pedagogical practices of communication educators teaching college level courses with the goal of social justice. In particular, I focus on the strategies of self-identified social justice educators to understand what they are labeling social justice by examining the documents produced for their courses and interviewing them about their practices. In the analysis, I identify ways that these particular educators define their work as a way of being in the world that goes beyond the base requirements for their job as well as how they describe it as an ongoing process with multiple steps. Additionally, I call attention to the specific manner in which they include social justice pedagogical tools in their communication classrooms and identify commonalities among them. They findings indicate that communication educators working for social justice through their classroom teaching do so by grounding the content material in the framework of a socially constructed reality that has consequences for bodies located at different places in the social hierarchy. This foundation allows them to further explore how the status quo is unequal, leading to injustice, and how communication instruction has the potential to impact students' agency and lead to social justice. I close with a discussion of how these findings add to our theoretical understanding of critical pedagogy, social constructionism, and the development of a discipline specific pedagogy for communication studies.

CONSTRUCTING SOCIAL JUSTICE PEDAGOGY: CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON PEDAGOGICAL PRAXIS IN THE COMMUNICATION CLASSROOM by Juliane Marie Mora A dissertation submitted to the faculty of The University of Utah in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Communication The University of Utah May 2014 Copyright © Juliane Marie Mora 2014 All Rights Reserved The Univers i ty of Utah Graduate School STATEMENT OF DISSERTATION APPROVAL The dissertation of Juliane Marie Mora has been approved by the following supervisory committee members: Ann L. Darling , Chair 1/3/2014 Date Approved Richard D. Rieke , Member 1/3/2014 Date Approved Danielle Endres , Member 1/3/2014 Date Approved Glen Feighery , Member 1/3/2014 Date Approved Enrique Alemán , Member 1/3/2014 Date Approved and by Kent Ono , Chair/Dean of the Department/College/School of Communication and by David B. Kieda, Dean of The Graduate School. ABSTRACT This dissertation is a qualitative examination of the pedagogical practices of communication educators teaching college level courses with the goal of social justice. In particular, I focus on the strategies of self-­‐identified social justice educators to understand what they are labeling social justice by examining the documents produced for their courses and interviewing them about their practices. In the analysis, I identify ways that these particular educators define their work as a way of being in the world that goes beyond the base requirements for their jobs as well as how they describe it as an ongoing process with multiple steps. Additionally, I call attention to the specific manner in which they include social justice pedagogical tools in their communication classrooms and identify commonalities among them. The findings indicate that communication educators working for social justice through their classroom teaching do so by grounding the content material in the framework of a socially constructed reality that has consequences for bodies located at different places in the social hierarchy. This foundation allows them to further explore how the status quo is unequal, leading to injustice, and how communication instruction has the potential to impact students' agency and lead to social justice. I close with a discussion of how these findings add to our theoretical understanding of critical pedagogy, social constructionism, and the development of a discipline specific pedagogy for communication studies. TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT…………………………………………………………………………………………………..……iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS………………………………………………………………………………..……vi Chapters 1 COMMUNICATION, SOCIAL JUSTICE, AND PEDAGOGY…………………………….…1 Introduction………………………………………………………………………………………….…1 Research Problem……………………………………………………………………………….…...4 Review of Literature…………………………………………………………………………….…..8 Overview of the Research Project…………………………………………………………....34 2 THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS: CONSTRUCTING A PEDAGOGY FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE…………………………………………………………………………………………….……36 Constituting Pedagogy……………………………………………………………………….…...38 Education for a Purpose and The Purpose of Education……………………….…..49 What Knowledge, For Whom…………………………………………………………….…….53 What Happens with Power?……………………………………………………………………57 Identity, Social Constructions, and Critical Pedagogy………………………….....…62 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………………..70 3 RESEARCH METHODS…………………………………………………………………………….73 An Interpretivist Stance………………………………………………………………………….76 Participants……………………………………………………………………………………..….…79 Researcher Positionality…..…………………………………….………………………………82 Data Collection……………………………………………………………………………….……...85 Data Analysis…………………………………………………………………………………….…...91 Trustworthiness/Validity….……………………………………………………………………96 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………………..99 4 PERCEPTIONS, DESCRIPTIONS, AND CONCEPTUALIZATIONS OF SOCIAL JUSTICE PEDAGOGY IN COMMUNICATION CLASSROOMS………………………100 "A Way of Being"…………………………………………………………………………………..104 "A Process"………………………………………………………………………………………..…124 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………………...159 5 (SOCIALLY) CONSTRUCTING LEARNING SPACE: COMMUNICATION PEDAGOGY FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE…………………………………………………………..160 Reality Is Socially Constructed and Communication Is Constitutive…………164 Problematizing the Status Quo: The Language of What Is and What Could Be…………………………………………………………………….………………...172 A Grammar for Social Justice Issues……………………………………….………………185 Social Justice Requires Social Action…………………………………….………………..196 Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………………204 6 CHARACTERISTICS, COMMONALITIES AND QUESTIONS IN SOCIAL JUSTICE PEDAGOGY…………………………………………………………………………………………...206 Mapping Social Justice Pedagogy in Communication Studies………………......211 Commonalities that Inform Theory………………………………………………………..221 Limitations and Lingering Questions……………………………………………………..225 Concluding Thoughts…………………………………………………………………………….232 Appendices A: DATA INVENTORY TABLE……………………………………………………………………………235 B: COURSE DESCRIPTIONS……………………………………………………………………………….238 C: COURSE OBJECTIVES…………………………………………………………………………………...240 D: EPIGRAPHS………………………………………………………………………………………………....242 E: ASSIGNMENTS……………………………………………………………………………………………..245 F: GUIDELINES FOR DISCUSSION……………………………………………………………………..247 G: CLASSROOM ENVIRONMENT……………………………………………………………………….248 H: REFLECTION QUESTION..…………………………………………………………………………….249 I: DETAILED ASSIGNMENT DESCRIPTIONS……………………………………………………....250 REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………………………………..256 v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Learning is a social process that takes place within a community. To fully understand the significance of my completion of this project, I acknowledge that community and their continued love and support throughout my educational journey. My family gives me strength and taught me my first lessons about equity and access. My mother, Linda Mora, was, and continues to be, an inspiration for the way I want to lead my life-caring, happy, positive, accepting, and supportive. My siblings, Dominic, Danielle, Jeffery, and Lauren, are the rest of the peas in my pod and, even though we have gone different directions, I continue to feel connected to you in everything I do. My friends were pivotal in starting me on this journey, joining me for various parts of it, and constantly cheering me on throughout. The GGGs will always be the conversation group against which all others are measured. You have supported me with your whit and wisdom over the years and the miles that separate us. I love you and would not have been able to do this without all of you. The Divas came along when I needed support for the daily writing and revising process and showed me that the graduate student grind is similar for all of us, regardless of the discipline. The person who deserves the most thanks for being a friend and a guiding light in my own development is Sonya Alemán. She introduced herself to me on the first day of orientation by explaining that her maiden name was Mora, at which point I put my arm around her and said, "Well then, that makes us sisters!" That is how I have felt ever since. My professors and mentors from both my Master's and Ph.D. programs were crucial to my success, and each influential in their own way. Dr. Mark Stoner and Dr. Sally Perkins taught the Instructional Communication Theory and Practicum seminars that inspired me to pursue this area of research. Both are incredible teachers and mentors and I value them both for everything that they taught me, and for their continued guidance. Dr. Leah Vande Berg and Dr. Gerri Smith both encouraged me to continue on to graduate study. Leah became my advisor and provided spirit, direction, and counsel until her untimely death. I will never forget her directions to me as she realized that the end was near. She told me that I would finish my master's degree and pursue a doctorate and that I should not worry about losing her because I already had everything I needed to be successful. I guess you could say that she was right, but I know that I got a lot of it from her. My advisor, Ann Darling, provided guidance and support throughout my doctoral program and I am a better writer, teacher, and scholar for it. Danielle Endres, Glen Feighery, Richard Rieke, and Enrique Alemán made up the rest of my committee and each offered their unique perspectives, questions, and challenges in this process. Without their input, I would not have been able to complete this project and I am thankful that they were willing to be a part of it. vii My life partner, Jeremy Gordon, also deserves a great deal of thanks for being there throughout this process, for constantly encouraging me, and telling me that I could do it. In some ways my life changed direction when we met. It never occurred to me that I would find someone who was as passionate about teaching or who would be interested in the same field. With you, I don't have to segment my work life from my home life and we can blend the two productively. I stumbled upon this research project because I was trying to find a way to reconcile my being with my work. I found guides for how to make my work a part of my way of being in the world and I found a partner for that in you. I cannot imagine anyone more suited to taking this journey with me and I know that we will continue debating pedagogy on our afternoon walks in the park, trying out new ideas for activities and lessons on each other, and providing nourishment and support when we feel deflated. I could not have done this without you. I love you. viii CHAPTER 1 COMMUNICATION, SOCIAL JUSTICE, AND PEDAGOGY "One way to get at a description of social justice is to listen and explore people's concepts of injustice" -Jo Sprague (personal communication, February 19, 2007) Introduction The California State University system (CSU) is the largest public university system in the country and serves the most diverse student body, according to demographic information provided by the CSU website (www.calstate.edu). The city of Sacramento itself consistently ranks among the most ethnically, racially, religiously, and linguistically diverse cities in the United States according to the U.S. Census (www.census.gov). The student population at the California State University, Sacramento, where I began my teaching career, was reflective of these trends. In this environment, I began the journey of becoming a teacher at the college level and developing an attendant teaching philosophy and set of practices. Teaching in this setting included a broad based student population from across campus that was required to take an introductory communication course as part of their degree program. These students were my partners in discovery as I learned about how to teach and they learned about communication. In the 4 years that I 2 spent teaching in that climate, I learned a great deal about the process of teaching, and about myself as an instructor, from them. I learned about how they read and responded to the communication course material and how I come across as a dominant member of society in a position of power while teaching it. I learned about what concepts and material they responded to based on their experiences, and about my embodied privilege and underlying assumptions regarding those concepts. I also learned how to relate course concepts to their experiences more appropriately as a result of their social location and their willingness to teach me about life from their perspectives. Ultimately, I learned how much more there was to learn, and how to learn from my mistakes (and there were many). My experience in that university system and with those students felt typical at the time since I was able to compare notes with the other graduate TAs who were engaged in the same practice. If I had not left that university and student population, I might never have learned how much more there was to know about teaching diverse student populations and the specific issues they face that are built into the higher education system. Continuing my graduate education at a doctoral granting institution with a significantly different student population has provided me the opportunity to see the structure of higher education differently. The University of Utah has a predominantly homogenous student population made up of mostly White1 students, a significant number of whom are members of the dominant religious culture in the region. My experiences teaching these students 1 Throughout this project, "white" is capitalized in accordance with APA guidelines when it references a racial group. 3 provided stark contrast to the work that I engaged in with my students in California. For example, my previous experiences had stimulated me to think about equality and access to education as well as to question and disarticulate stereotypes of diverse student populations, of which I am a part. I developed a stance that took for granted that the purpose of education was to work for greater equality for all students. However, the experiences I had with new students in different contexts showcased how their existence in more insular conditions allowed stereotypes to stand and did not take the same unquestioned position that I now did on matters of privilege and marginalization. In this new teaching environment, one of the orienting themes in my department was on education for social justice. The underlying assumption being that the structure of higher education is not currently just for all students and that the responsibility of those in academia is to use their research for advancing this purpose. As a guiding principle, this concept appealed to me given my rapidly shifting conceptions of students, teaching, social equity and inequity. The question I began, and continue, to ponder is how? How does one go about developing pedagogy and teaching for social justice? Once I began to consider this question, dozens of others became relevant as well. For instance, what does social justice pedagogy mean, and who is social justice pedagogy for? How do we know social justice pedagogy when we see it? Are there people who are engaged in the practice of doing it? If so, how do they engage the process? What choices have they made to develop the pedagogical practice of it? How do they implement it in their classrooms? How can we theorize this practice as a result? 4 These questions stimulate me as I continue to develop my own pedagogical position as well as a program of research. Reading material at the intersections of communication, education, and pedagogy has given me insight into recent theoretical perspectives about education and teaching in more socially responsible ways. The background in instructional theory, experiential education, and critical pedagogy I received planted the seeds of a critical perspective, but discussions of how to apply this perspective in actual classrooms have nurtured and stimulated it. From here, my project is first an attempt to synthesize the pedagogical work being done in the area of communication education for the goal of social justice. Only after exploring the terrain of current practice can I hope to theorize the tenets of a critical pedagogy of social justice in communication. With these goals in mind, the following sections outline the research problem for the current study, review the literature relevant to the project from the education and communication disciplines, and provide an overview of the entire study. Research Problem The Western States Communication Association annual conference in February of 2007 featured the theme of social justice in communication scholarship. The same association featured a theme of activism and the application of our social justice perspectives in our work the following year (2008), and used the theme of communication and power for the conference in 2010. Conversations within certain areas of the field have begun to include social justice along with the related concepts of privilege, marginality, oppression, whiteness, and White supremacy (see Frey & 5 Carraggee, 2007; Martin & Davis, 2001; Warren, 1999). These conversations are informed by the inclusion of critical scholarship into areas of the field that have traditionally relied on postpositivist and interpretivist paradigms. This shift has also been informed by interdisciplinary work with other fields tackling the same issues (for example education, sociology, theater, and journalism), and as a result of socioeconomic and political conditions in the broader society. With the election of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States, and the ensuing national conversation about issues of race and racism, the concept of social justice is both timely and relevant. Also, while there are a number of terms mentioned in relation to social justice, it is most often linked to issues of race, White privilege, and equality. The potential conflation of these terms serves to obscure what kinds of things social justice refers to (gender, class, sexuality, age, ability, etc.), and what it means in relation to those things (equity, access, equality, opportunity, etc.). For these reasons, there is a need to engage in research that maps the project of social justice in the field of communication. More specifically, as our regional conference presentations can attest, the focus of this work is on how we are conceiving of social justice and applying it in our predominant interaction with society-through the students we teach. Therefore, my project is an attempt to articulate and theorize a critical pedagogy of social justice in communication classrooms. The continuing conversation regarding equity and access in U.S. classrooms calls our attention to systems of inequity that pervade academia from K-­‐12 through higher education. In order to contribute to this conversation, we need more knowledge about the kinds of pedagogical work people are doing in higher 6 education to address inequity and advance social justice. In fact, it is paramount that we understand how social justice is invoked in communication pedagogy and what it means to determine whether it is being used as a means for addressing inequity, or if it is used to mean something else entirely. For instance, does social justice pedagogy mean that the instructor operates from a perspective that all students deserve an equitable educational experience, or does it mean that racism, sexism, ableism, heterosexism and other "-­‐isms" are consciously and carefully introduced and challenged in classroom interactions, or is it some combination of the two? The nebulous definitions of the terms related to social justice and the temptation to conflate them means that we may think we are talking about similar concepts and then find out later that we are not. For example, McDonald and Zeichner (2009) in their examination of teacher education programs that purport to prepare teachers to teach for social justice explain that, The lack of clarity in the field at large about what constitutes social justice teacher education and the lack of knowledge regarding the practices that support such an effort make it possible for institutions with differing perspectives, political agendas, and strategies to lay claim to the same vision of teacher preparation. (p. 595) Because the term social justice has gained currency at a rapid pace in recent years, it has been used to describe everything from the kind of perspective scholars' hold, to the kind of teaching practice they engage in, and the kind of research they produce. In this political-­‐historical moment, while the concept is gaining traction and being applied to research and teaching in different areas, I argue that it becomes necessary to examine the way that it is used to describe pedagogy, what it means in this usage, and how these scholar-­‐teachers think it is working. Because the term is 7 invoked with some regularity in the field, it would be useful to understand what it means and how it is implemented from the viewpoint of the particularly skilled practitioner. Especially since this could provide insight into the perspective and choices these educators have made and how those are introduced to the classroom. This research also offers a natural place to move outward from the experiences of the practitioner to theorize the composition of a critical pedagogy of social justice in communication. Most importantly, I argue that we should investigate this process for how we might then apply or complicate, add to or begin, a richer conversation about theories of social justice and the pedagogical practices they assume. The goals of this study were threefold: (1) to gain a richer, more contextualized, and more complex insight of pedagogy developed for social justice in the field of communication from the people who have self-­‐identified in the process of doing it; as well as (2) gaining background knowledge about their experiences in the process of developing their own social justice pedagogical perspective, and their experiences applying it in the classroom; in order to (3) outline a theoretical model for the development of a critical pedagogy of social justice in communication. This study focused specifically on identifying the elements in and use of a critical pedagogy of social justice in classroom teaching practice from the perspective of the self-­‐identified practitioner. Exploration of these instructors' pedagogy helped inform me about the crucial elements in the development of social justice pedagogy in communication. For instance, how the use of a social justice perspective towards pedagogy made use of traditional pedagogical tools for social justice purposes. 8 Because we do not have a taxonomy or definition of social justice education in the field of communication currently, and because there is a movement towards incorporating it into research and the curriculum in higher education (although some would argue that we should avoid the confines of creating one definition; see Pearce, 2006), I argue that this research study was a necessary first step in mapping the terrain of social justice pedagogy from the perspective of those who are engaged in the practice of doing it. To be sure, this exploration of social justice pedagogy was not aimed at taking agency from contemporary social justice educators. Rather, my exploration is a beginning to the larger conversation within the field about what it includes and how it plays out in practice. It serves as a jumping off point for a richer, fuller, contextual, and more nuanced conversation about how a critical pedagogy of social justice in communication can be theorized and actualized. With these goals in mind, I devised the following research questions:  RQ1: How do social justice educators in the field of communication think and talk about their work?  RQ2: How do these communication educators incorporate social justice into their pedagogy? Review of Literature Any study of social justice as an orienting framework, or concept, requires an understanding of the definitions that are used to describe and define it as well as a review of the ways that it has been used in previous research. Literature in the fields of education and communication inform this project because of their 9 emphasis on both the topic of social justice as well as the pedagogy implemented to engage it. Education Research on Social Justice Grounding social justice conceptually within education literature requires exploration of some of the more traditional goals of a liberal education. Michelli and Keiser (2005) remind us that public education within the U.S. has four enduring purposes: 1) preparing students to be active, involved participants in democracy; 2) preparing students to have access to knowledge and critical thinking within the disciplines; 3) preparing students to lead rich and rewarding personal lives and to be responsible community members; and 4) preparing students to assume their highest possible place in the economy. These assumptions and foundations require a focus on democracy, and active participation within a democracy, as part of the conversation about making decisions that are just and equitable. Theoretically, the democratic state is founded on the idea of equality and equal representation. While many would argue that this has not happened in American democracy to date, there are still opportunities for the democratic model to inform practice and do the work of social justice in classrooms and society. In this vein, there are a number of arguments for the inclusion of democracy and citizenship as aspects of social justice and a means for moving towards equity through social change. This focus on democracy becomes important in more nuanced conversations about the structures and politics of a democracy, particularly U.S. democracy, in relation to the law and education. Both of these are 10 towering structures that impact the governing of the population and can be studied for the effects they produce on both the social consciousness and the perpetuation of inequity. Earley (2005) explained that the power of the government to make legislation governing schooling comes from the clause in the Constitution that requires the government to "provide for the general welfare of its citizens" (p. 34). In this sense, education does not necessarily fall under the heading of things controlled by the government other than in the way that it is considered part of the general welfare of the citizenry. This has led to policy decisions that have shifted the focus of education to an individualistic, market-­‐based education system rather than one that embraces the goal of training active, involved citizens. Possibly the most notable example of teaching for social change is the work of Freire (1970) and the establishment of critical pedagogy as a movement within education. Critical pedagogy has taken up the notion of active, engaged participation in its call for education that is liberatory and requires students to move from positions of oppression to active participation in democratic states. Building off of Freire's (1970) work, the critical pedagogy movement embraces the notion of a more equitable democracy and works to find ways of disrupting the models that reify and re-­‐inscribe cultural capital and privilege for certain populations through the indoctrination of education. Freire's major concept of "banking education" as the way that instructors deposit information into passive student recipients served to influence his goals of educating for liberation and connecting knowledge, and knowledge producing structures, to the lived experiences of the student. His seminal work has been 11 expanded upon in various ways to impact the work of educational scholars and those researching teacher education. One such example that applies to the current project is the work of Parker and Stovall (2004) who examine the ways that critical pedagogy and critical race theory (CRT) can be combined to inform each other and to prepare teachers to teach for social justice. Critical pedagogy is based on a Marxist framework that examines economic and class structures as the primary means of oppression operating within a society. CRT operates from the standpoint that (1) race and racism are primary forms of oppression and that they interact with other areas (like class), (2) the dominant Eurocentric viewpoint with its focus on meritocracy, objectivity and neutrality needs to be challenged, (3) the goal of CRT is social justice, (4) experience in the world is a valid form of knowledge, (5) the process of telling narratives counter to the dominant works to disrupt the status quo, and (6) it draws from interdisciplinary methodological and pedagogical perspectives to provide critique (Solórzano, 1997). Parker and Stovall (2004) argued that the two could be used more effectively together to inform the practice of teacher education through the inclusion of different pedagogical techniques in teacher preparation. One of which is the use of counterstories to stimulate new teachers to examine current racist epistemes within educational settings. The critical pedagogy movement has also occurred in conjunction with and alongside other critical scholarly movements focused on education for social justice in particular. Among the perspectives and behaviors that teachers can engage in the classroom are those described by different bodies of research that grew out of 12 critical theory. Wiedeman (2002) surveyed the theories that are most prevalent in educational literature and teacher preparation for what they can all offer to the goal of teaching for social justice. Within these strands are traditional critical theory, antiracist pedagogy, multicultural education, critical race theory (CRT), diversity initiatives, and teacher reform movements. Each of these areas offer different perspectives on the goals of social justice and how to achieve it, but they all agree on issues of race, oppression, marginalization, and a move away from dominant models and ideologies as the focus of their work. The implications of these different strands of research is that, "in order for teachers to work towards principles of democracy and social justice, an anti-­‐racist curriculum should be placed front and center of the process of both teaching and learning" (p. 204). In order to do this, specific pedagogical strategies are needed that provide students the opportunity to, "access knowledge, develop strategies for seeking out and activating resources, and develop skills for critical analysis of oppressive social and educational structures and systems" (p. 203). Scholars in education have progressed to an understanding of education as a space that is contested for its ability to provide instruction that meets the needs of different student populations. Ladson-­‐Billings (2003) explained the epistemology of Western thought that continues to characterize social institutions, including education, and how it functions to establish racialized discourses and epistemologies that benefit dominant groups to the detriment of marginalized communities. Her position rests on the premise that, The conditions under which people live and learn shape their knowledge and their worldviews. The process of developing a worldview that differs from 13 the dominant worldview requires active intellectual work on the part of the knower, because schools, society, and the structure and production of knowledge are designed to create individuals who internalize the dominant worldview. (p. 399) This internalization of the dominant worldview is at issue when discussing how social justice educators develop and implement their pedagogy. Without models for performing "active intellectual work" that interrogates dominant positions and ideologies, it is not likely that students will reach a point where they can critique dominant worldviews. This is where the teacher's use of critical pedagogical techniques for the purpose of social justice becomes necessary. Teacher preparation includes many different skill sets and abilities that are learned through various means (coursework, student teaching, mentor relationships, etc.). Wiedeman (2002) focused her questions on how social justice and equity are defined, how teacher education policies address these issues, and how teachers are supported towards an orientation of equity and social justice in their teaching. The position of social justice that she works from is Bell's (1997) definition that frames the process as equal participation in a democratic society where members have a degree of self-­‐determination and interdependence and access to equal distribution of resources within the structure. This definition requires that we examine how schools operate as institutions that value some and devalue others through the perspective and behaviors of the instructor. Initial teacher preparation for primary and secondary teachers differs significantly from that required at the postsecondary level. Teachers at the primary and secondary level must complete course work as well as a field experience located in a school with a supervising teacher. Postsecondary teachers may not be required 14 to complete any kind of field experience before beginning the work of teaching at the college level. Brown (2005) examined a service-­‐learning route to teacher preparation that placed new teachers in the classrooms of experienced teachers for the purpose of engaging in service-­‐learning projects for the benefit of the school and students. Her findings were that this form of teacher preparation provided opportunities for teacher candidates to evaluate and assess current practices from veteran teachers and apply them to their own goals of teaching for social justice. This model operates on the idea that exposure to content matter which explores systemic inequity in schools can be supplemented with observation and interaction in actual settings that will work to reinforce the concepts and prepare new teachers to engage them in their own classrooms. While this model is described specifically for training teachers who are going into secondary education, it has the potential to be applied to teacher training for social justice at other levels as well. Another model that is useful in teacher preparation was developed by Schmidt (1998) and focuses on the ABCs of cultural understanding and communication. This model is dubbed a cultural literacy model where the ABCs are designed to engage students in activities that will expose them to members of different cultures with the express goal of stimulating awareness, appreciation, and a better understanding of difference. What makes this model unique is the structure and progression of the tasks. The "A" stands for autobiography and is designed to be a story that the students write about themselves in order to explore their own racial and ethnic identities. This is followed by a biography ("B") of another person who was initially judged to be different from the student and this difference could 15 be based on any number of things from phenotype to religious background. Lastly, the "C" portion of the model engages students in cross-­‐cultural analysis where aspects of the culture of the student and the other participants are compiled, arranged, and grouped to show similarity and difference that sparks discussion about the myths and stereotypes surrounding the other. While this model does not specifically address teaching for social justice as the goal, it is designed to aid teacher candidates in exploring multiculturalism. Possible extensions could include a greater focus on self-­‐reflexivity and interrogation of dominant social norms. Given a more sensitive climate to issues related to race, ethnicity, oppression and marginalization, this research from education provides a number of examples currently absent from communication education literature and offers guidance for how to conduct research that will fill this gap. Social Justice and Communication Research In the field of communication, the conversation about social justice is currently gaining momentum and appearing within the context of rhetorical theory, performance studies, applied communication, and communication education. Recent volumes specifically devoted to the topic include perspectives on social justice and communication research (Swartz, 2006) as well as communication research and activism (Frey & Carragee, 2007). One of the overarching critiques of this proliferation is that within this myriad compilation of scholarship, there is no unifying definition for social justice, and some would argue that this definition is desperately needed. Artz (2006) explained that we have a lively community of 16 scholars who are self-­‐identified and committed to the project of social change, but who do not share similar unifying perspectives of what that change necessarily must include or the ways in which to go about it. This is not to say that there is only one way to go about producing social change, but that there are a wide array of things that seem to be described as, or could fall under the heading of, a social justice perspective without a clearly articulated taxonomy of similar concepts between them. For instance, a great deal of the literature across different areas within the field makes use of terms and concepts to describe the kind of work being conducted. This could include "engaged scholarship" (Cheney, Wilhelmsson, & Zorn, 2002), "critical scholarship" (Sprague, 1992), or "activist scholarship" (Frey, & Carragee, 2007); and can also include different terms related to social justice like "equity" (Crenshaw, 1997), "oppression" (McKerrow, 1989), "marginalization" (Nakayama & Krizek, 1995), "dominant positions" (Wander, 1983), "diversity" (Martin & Davis, 2001), "multiculturalism" (Casmir, 1991), "postcolonialism" (Shome, 1996), and "power" (Sprague, 1992) to name a few. While all of this research could be labeled social justice in some ways, this categorization or placement requires that we cast a wide net with our definition of what social justice includes, which may not be useful to the development of pedagogy. What this presents on the surface is a great deal of literature in different areas that are all engaged with some aspect or another of the larger critical project of social justice, but not coherently grouped as social justice scholarship per se. In order to focus specifically on the research that has been conducted utilizing the term social justice for the purpose of identifying the aspects that relate to communication 17 pedagogy, this section explores the literature produced under the banner of social justice scholarship in communication for what is included and where gaps remain. The ultimate goal of this project is to produce research that fills some of these gaps in our understanding of what social justice means for communication scholars and, more importantly, how it is enacted in our pedagogy. As Cooks (2003) explains, social justice is an abstract and indefinite concept, but that has not stopped people from trying to engage in doing the work or producing the scholarship that will enact social justice. While it is abstract, there are some who have chosen to codify a definition for the work that they produce. One example is from Bradley (1996), who described social justice as, The direction and shaping of society's laws and institutions (e.g., the economy, medical care, social systems, unemployment insurance, etc.) to achieve an equal level of fairness and just treatment for all members of a society; a system in which just conduct within a society toward all members of that society is guided by moral principles of truth, reason, justice and fairness. (p. 373) It is this desire for equity and equal participation that makes social justice a heady and desirable goal. It is also a difficult and wide-­‐ranging goal in that social justice applies to multiple levels of society and any attempt to work in this direction requires acknowledgement of the social injustice that occurs in varying degrees and with differential outcomes at each level. To address this, Swartz (2005) focused his perspective of social justice at a higher level of abstraction and explained that his goal is the creation of a world where "humans cease being cruel to one another" and where people extend their "moral imaginations and learn to extend to everyone the benefits of civilization" (p. 111). He continued by explaining what that means in terms of social justice as the 18 availability of food, shelter, education, health care, and the chance to explore self-­‐ potential that everyone is entitled to without exception. This approach to social justice states, Social justice is most possible when all people have the maximum freedom to talk about who they are as a society; what they do as citizens, consumers and workers; and how they envision their future. Fundamental to that freedom is our ability as researchers and teachers to offer the young men and women of the United States an opportunity to rethink their moral identities and realign their political commitments to support policies that advance social justice. (Swartz, 2006, p. ix) Here the discussion focuses on what might best be termed the concept of access to the material, social, and esteem needs of human beings. It also includes a focus on the mechanism for producing such a society by linking social justice concerns to the classrooms where academics have the potential to impact students. This position offers a more holistic approach to thinking about the problem of social injustice in U.S. American contexts that is useful for expanding the definition of social justice from the perspective of communication research. The area of applied communication research has engaged in a focused, specific conversation about social justice in relation to pedagogy and research. In 1996, following a comprehensive curriculum re-­‐design, a group of scholars from Loyola University Chicago published the results of their efforts and advocated for a communication approach to social justice pedagogy and research. Frey, Pearce, Pollack, Artz, and Murphy (1996) opened by noting that, Some of our colleagues in the communication discipline have channeled their energies and resources toward challenging the norms, practices, relations, and structures that underwrite inequality and injustice. Their approach can best be described in terms of social justice, the engagement with and advocacy for those in our society who are economically, socially, politically, and/or culturally underresourced. (p. 110) 19 Here, they articulate a definition of what social justice is in relation to its opposite, social injustice, and more importantly, what social justice research does as a result. As they describe it, their position developed as a result of their project in creating a social justice concentration for their undergraduate curriculum at a Jesuit university, which focuses on service-mainly to the poor-as an aspect of their religious educational mission. Using the Jesuit framework for service and the mantra of the university, these scholars aimed to formulate a curriculum that helped develop a sensibility for social justice in their students without producing a limiting singular definition for what social justice entails. This focus allowed them to make some statements about the nature of social justice, such as that it "weaves together several strands of intellectual, moral, and social tradition"; and articulates a sensibility that: "1) foregrounds ethical concerns, 2) commits to structural analysis of ethical problems, 3) adopts an activist orientation, and 4) seeks identification with others" (p. 111). In response to this articulation of a social justice approach to communication research, concerns surfaced about using this definition for measuring what is, and what is not, research engaged with social justice. For example, Wood (1996) claimed that communication research is already actively engaged with these kinds of issues, and that much of the research conducted in communication as a field applies to the ends of social justice. Her argument was grounded in the examples of research studies aimed at different aspects of various social issues from sexual harassment to violence between intimates. This position warns against ignoring the body of research on social injustice being conducted in the field. Alternatively, 20 Makau (1996) argued that a social justice approach to communication education pedagogy should be cautious in its claim to develop a social justice sensibility because it rests on the assumption that everyone knows what social justice is. Her argument continued by stating that it would be beneficial to ground the teaching of social justice in a moral framework. In this way, scholars trying to instill this sensibility will have a basis for doing so in moral behavior. In response, Pollack, Artz, Frey, Pearce, and Murphy (1996) agreed there was a lot of good research being conducted from a moral perspective and on communities suffering from certain conditions, but they maintained that social justice research is not just about these populations, but for and with them as well. It is this move that, they argued, characterizes social justice research since it moves from the theoretical or abstract, to the grounded and particular experiences of those suffering from social ills. In this debate, the landscape of social justice was further defined as requiring that research impact the immediate participants or community that is being researched. This also characterizes the current move into activist scholarship underway in other applied communication research (see Frey & Carragee, 2007). This debate also helped to further the conversation about the goals of social justice research in communication. As Pearce (2006) recalled, there were specific reasons for leaving the definition of social justice open and flexible because, "had we engaged in a debate about what social justice is, we would have moved our project, and the students for whom it was intended, from the realm of action to the realm of contemplation, and in so doing rendered it much less likely to accomplish the goals 21 we had for it" (p. 224). His position is well taken and provides a cautionary note for current research into social justice pedagogy. It was not my intention to nail down what is and is not social justice, but to gather the specific examples of pedagogy from practitioners doing the work in order to outline a discursive field of possibilities for social justice as it relates to the development and implementation of communication pedagogy. Pearce's (2006) position also solidified a portion of the conversation about social justice as action-­‐oriented, and grounded it in the engagement of scholars with topics and populations. Olsen and Olsen (2003) warned that this requirement of immediate action might prompt a shortsighted solution to a complex problem rather than one that was a result of longitudinal study and reflection simply to meet the requirement of being considered social justice research by this definition. The issues brought forth by this debate are useful indicators of the contemporary conversations surrounding social justice research currently, in the area of applied communication specifically, and the field of communication more broadly. This coalition of topics is designed to apply communication research for a socially beneficial purpose. While this fulfills the mission of the charter for a communication approach to social justice research laid out by Frey et al. (1996), there are still a number of areas that have yet to be explored. For example, the goal of positive social change for the communities impacted is foregrounded throughout. What is not as clear is how social change and social justice should be understood in relation to one another within this research. For example, is all research conducted with the goal of advocating or effecting social change considered social justice 22 research, or is that label reserved for studies that take on broader topics which impact marginalized, nondominant populations as a whole (i.e., poverty, racism, sexism, heteronormativity, etc.)? These questions, although pertinent on their own, are even more important within another subset of communication research- communication education. The next section explores the movement for social justice in the way we teach our discipline specific material. Communication Education for Social Justice The areas of instructional communication (IC) and communication education (CE) both fall under the larger umbrella of communication in instruction. Staton (1989) described both IC and CE as part of this larger area of communication in instruction and explained some of the key terms that relate to each. According to her definitions, learning is the process of acquiring new information, teaching is the process of assisting another to learn, and communication is the process of creating shared meanings between teachers and students. Each of these concepts has a role to play in both areas, and while both areas have a distinct focus, they also share some important areas of overlap. In brief, CE is the study of how we teach the discipline of communication and IC is the use of communication in teaching all subjects. CE is as old as the field of communication and has always been concerned with the specific methods and strategies for teaching communication, most traditionally, teaching speech. This area is characterized by development of the most effective examples, representations, cases, and methods for teaching the skills 23 of public speaking and listening (Book, 1989; Sprague, 1990). CE is also of relevance and concern to all individuals teaching speech and communication as the focus is on developing more effective methods for teaching the discipline. The kinds of questions posed by CE scholars are those that are focused on the best ways to teach communication related content and have proliferated in recent years as the field has expanded to focus on more than just speech education. That is what makes this project useful within the larger body of CE research. My goals were to explore the ways that self-­‐identified social justice educators are engaged in the process of teaching our discipline in all of its variety. This exploration will impact the kinds of cases, examples, methods, and strategies that are available in teaching from this perspective. The critical turn in CE has progressed in fits and starts since the early 1990s when Sprague (1992; 1993) published two articles calling for more critical perspectives in both IC and CE research. Her arguments were based on the body of research that had been compiled thus far and highlighted the need to examine our research from a critical theory informed position. Here, she referred to a number of issues prevalent in critical theory including the balance of power in the classroom, the ways that curriculum decisions are made, the roles and activities that teachers engage in, and the reasons for education conducted through schools. These articles still stand as the clarion call for taking a more critical approach to research in communication and instruction. Swartz (1997) participated in this critical turn and proposed an extensive re-­‐ articulation of the basic communication course by providing an argument for 24 modeling it on basic composition courses that have already incorporated the perspectives of critical theory. He argued that in order to make use of a critical pedagogy, the basic course would need to be concerned with the roles of authority and teacher influence in the classroom, which would require exposing students to the language and history of critical theory. He defined critical pedagogy in departments of communication as: "The process of helping students to identify and critique the ways language reifies and structures human social reality for the purpose of empowering students to engage more actively in both the construction and critique of society" (p. 137). He continued by noting that the reason for engaging in communication research is "to improve our effectiveness as teachers in the public sphere" and that, "being politically active with our research entails being more pedagogically active in applying our research" (p, 138). Here, he echoes the perspective of Frey et al. (1996) in calling for application of the things that research produces, but he specifically focuses on doing that through our pedagogy and teaching-or communication education. Further, Swartz (1997) argued that, We, as scholars, produce research informing others about the effects and influences of communication and ideas in society. Implicit in this critical notion of scholarship is an emphasis on "advocacy." By informing and teaching with our research, we act as persuaders in the public arena. (p. 138) It is this role as persuaders in the public arena, where he argues communication scholars have the most impact. This impact can be magnified when we take into account the goals of teaching students how to engage in these practices as well. Swartz (1997) continued by arguing that, The function of education is not only to aid students in gaining knowledge for life; it is, more substantially strategic knowledge about how to live… education is knowledge about knowledge, about teaching students what it means to 25 "know"…and education allows for our successful grappling with "reality." (p. 141) This position represents a clear link between our research and our teaching and explains that we should use the results of our study to improve our pedagogical practice. In this vein, the current study explored how educators are doing that in relation to social justice pedagogy, and how an exploration of that pedagogy can be used to advance theory. Further research on CE and our pedagogy produced a special issue of Communication Education, the journal devoted to the topics of communication and instruction, on race, culture, and gendered identities in the classroom. Articles in this special issue included critical perspectives on antiracist pedagogy (Giroux, 2003), as well as identity negotiations and critical progressive pedagogy (Hendrix, Jackson II, & Warren, 2003), and the ways that gendered and raced identities interact to make the classroom a transformative and/or resistive space (Johnson & Bhatt, 2003). The conversations in this special issue engaged the ways that gender, race, positionality, and performance are a part of communication classrooms and the ways that CE research could study and make sense of them. Overall, this special issue laid the groundwork for a number of issues found in conversations about and for social justice in communication education. As the conversation about research in applied communication research above noted, there are a wide variety of perspectives about what constitutes appropriate topics for social justice research. These differences are immediately recognizable in this special issue as some articles focus on race exclusively while others examine the intersections of race and gender. One article looks at these 26 issues through the lens of a class on interracial communication while another examines them from the perspective and position of whiteness. Each employs some measure of a critically informed perspective on CE and extends the conversation about topics that we teach in our discipline and the best ways to teach them given the diversity of perspectives and positionalities of the students and teachers involved. This special issue invited further research on these topics as a major thread in CE research, but as yet, there has been limited engagement of these topics through the medium of this specific journal, or in other published conversations of these topics within the field. That is what makes this project valuable as an extension of the conversation about social justice in communication education- what it includes and how it is being taught. Another entry into this conversation about education for social justice comes through the discussion of teaching about whiteness in relation to specific areas within communication. Martin and Davis (2001) explain the connections between intercultural communication as an area within the discipline and the development and instantiation of White privilege in the United States. As they explain it, the study of intercultural communication began after WWII when the government needed to train diplomats for service overseas with cultural others, typically in Asia. This established the dichotomy between "Americans" and "Others" and resulted in helping establish the White male norm in society by conflating the position of the White male with being "an American," while everyone else became a cultural Other. They also outline several pedagogical strategies for making White a cultural category and disarticulating it from an American nationalist identity. They argue 27 that this is necessary in order to educate our mostly White students about culture more broadly than as specific groups of others while leaving White as the normal, or "just human" category. Again, this focus on teaching whiteness is not specifically labeled a social justice approach, but incorporates a clear perspective on White privilege, race, and racism, and so could certainly be related to the larger project of pedagogy for social justice. The following are further examples of the different types of research that have been (and continue to be) conducted on or about whiteness and how it has been applied to communication scholarship. Warren (1999) characterized four different categories of study on the topic: the nature of whiteness and what privileges it accords; whiteness as it is played out in film and media as a "norm"; whiteness as a rhetorical location and how language creates this position; and the ways that whiteness is a performance. The first area includes what Thompson (personal communication, September 9, 2007) calls the individual understandings and experiences with whiteness and is characterized by localized examples of individuals coming to the recognition of their privilege. This has been explored further by Warren and Hytten (2004) who categorized different "faces" of whiteness as individuals come to a recognition of their respective positions of privilege. In media and film studies, the focus on whiteness plays out in examinations of the representations that are depicted and how the category of White is consistently shown as the norm, or the norm that should be aspired to (Dyer, 1997). Studies of whiteness as a rhetorical location have been conducted by Nakayama and Krizek (1995), Crenshaw (1997), and Olmsted (1999). Nakayama and Krizek 28 (1995) focused on whiteness as a strategic rhetoric and one that is constructed to reinforce a position of power by denying White as a color, linking it to nationality and biology. Crenshaw (1997) explored how whiteness operates in a space of rhetorical silence and showed how the underlying premise of a White racial norm played out in debates between state representatives about the Daughters of the American Revolution and their application to use the confederate flag as a symbol. This debate hinged on the construction of the confederate flag as a symbol of slavery and oppression by the South and the fact that is was being associated with a nonprofit group that was sanctioned by this petition to use the symbol for their organization. Here, whiteness operated in the debate as an underlying factor that essentially stated there was no problem with these women using this symbol because it is "harmless" and they do good works for society. Crenshaw brings this invisible nature of the White norm to the surface within the debate by focusing on how detractors are seen as extremists who are trying to stifle the work of these charitable, good-­‐hearted (White) women. Studies examining the performance of whiteness have been influenced by Butler's (1990) conceptions of gender as a performance, or a stylized repetition of acts. Performance scholars have begun to examine whiteness as a stylized performance of repeated acts that define, reinforce, and perpetuate whiteness. Examples of this are seen in Warren (2001) where he examined the role-­‐playing of students in an introductory performance and communication class when they are asked to enact performances of "Others." This research illuminates the ways that White and non-­‐White bodies are both implicated in performances of whiteness 29 because of their recognition and co-­‐optation of these different stylized acts. Finally, Thompson (personal communication, September 9, 2007) also emphasized a focus in whiteness studies upon institutions that participate in the perpetuation of the White norm. Education is seen as the primary socializing system in society and one that has consistently been implicated in the reproduction of whiteness. Bergerson (2003) described the focus of research here on how the institution engages in this reproduction through socialization of incoming students and what affect this has on students of color entering higher education. In all of these examples, whiteness is linked to unequal social positions occupied by the members in society as a result, and is therefore implied in the larger social justice project. After all, it would be unlikely to advance a successful program of justice for all without examining the structure of whiteness that holds up inequality in the first place. Communication, as a discipline, is uniquely suited to engaging issues of social justice through classroom interaction because of the focus on language use and discourse and the fact that human beings use language to constitute and create their lived reality (Sprague, 1999). Johnson (2004) argued for a communication perspective on social justice by stating that the content matter within communication courses deals specifically with the ethical and moral elements of human interaction, therefore, "we should teach our students to communicate in ways that resist and transform power inequalities" (p. 146). The model that she employs is one that makes use of universal instructional design (UID), a process developed for students with special needs that is aimed at the inclusion of all students into the larger curriculum. She adapts these principles to a social justice 30 framework for inclusion in her model and designs course material and activities from this standpoint with the goal of altering dominant structures. If educators are structuring classroom interactions so that diverse student needs are being met, and students are engaged in the decision making process about how they will learn, teacher authority is redefined from an absolute source of power requiring student passivity to an identity that is continually (re)constructed with students as all classroom participants navigate the learning environment together (Johnson, 2004, p. 147). The goal of this format for teaching is to "critique the power imbalances that systematically oppress particular people" so that "we can transform the discursive and otherwise material realities of oppression" (p. 147). Thus far, in communication education research, the influx of critical perspectives has begun a conversation about how we teach the discipline of communication and has coalesced around specific topics that relate to the project of social justice including intercultural communication, identity, race, racism, and whiteness. However, what remains are spaces that could be filled with a more comprehensive conversation about a critical pedagogy of social justice in the field. Martin and Davis (2001) specifically addressed pedagogy for teaching about whiteness, Johnson (2004) explained a model for incorporating these topics into the curriculum, and Warren (2001) described a performance pedagogy in the same vein, but there are few other examples of how to identify and implement the specific topics, methods, cases, and activities of teaching communication from a social justice perspective in CE literature. Nor have there been many attempts to theorize this process. One exception is the perspective of critical communication pedagogy offered by Fassett and Warren (2007). They take critical communication pedagogy to mean 31 "efforts by people concerned with education to embrace profound ideological difference and socioeconomic context as constitutive of what happens in schools and classrooms" (p. 26). By doing this, the backgrounds and experiences of the students and teachers become a part of the educational setting and are viewed as factors impacting the teaching and learning process. Further, Fassett and Warren (2007) stated, A critical pedagogical perspective invites instructional communication scholars to situate their inquiry in relation to larger, macro socio-­‐cultural, socioeconomic structures, to explore the ways in which racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, and other forms of oppression permeate classrooms and research on classrooms, teachers, and students. (p. 27) Through their description of this approach to teaching communication, they outline a set of commitments that critical communication pedagogy adheres to in order to guide practice. They are that (1) identity is constituted in communication; (2) power is understood as fluid and complex; (3) culture is central, not additive; (4) mundane communication practices are constitutive of larger social structural systems; (5) social, structural critique places mundane communication practices in a meaningful context; (6) language, and the analysis of it as constitutive of social phenomena, is central; (7) reflexivity is an essential condition; (8) pedagogy and research are praxis; (9) human subjectivity and agency are understood as nuanced and complex; and (10) dialogue is engaged as both metaphor and method for relationships with others (Fassett & Warren, 2007). By beginning with their own experiences and examining them through autoethnography, Fassett and Warren (2007) established critical communication pedagogy as that which engages the complex topics of oppression and inequality in 32 their classrooms. The focus on language and symbolic behavior as the means through which societal structures of inequality are built provides a discipline specific approach to the material in our field. This perspective also establishes critical communication pedagogy as a means for working toward social justice. Indeed, Fassett and Warren claim that "critical communication pedagogy is social justice, as defined, explored and implemented within a community of caring and generous believers in freedom, and justice, and love-for all, all the time" (p. 128). However, they also warn that, Specific acts, specific interactions, localized moments are not, in and of themselves, critical communication pedagogy. They are, in their best light, moments in which students and teachers are able to grasp difficult concepts, engage in complex ideas, and reflect on their own implications within systems of power [….] These moments and activities never, by themselves, do the work of critical communication pedagogy; they never, isolated from the larger context of educational practice, subvert anything. (Fassett & Warren, 2007, p. 115) This process-­‐oriented description shifts the focus from specific activities and classroom set-­‐ups, to a broader understanding of what critical education means, what kind of inquiry it includes, and how it functions. In this way, critical communication pedagogy establishes a philosophical approach to education rather than a programmatic set of activities. This perspective is the most consonant with a critical pedagogy of social justice that this study explored. What is not clear in research on social justice and pedagogy in communication is whether this framework, as described, is influential in the development of the social justice pedagogy employed by self-­‐identified practitioners, or whether these educators depend on other perspectives entirely. Critical communication pedagogy builds from a Freirean foundation and includes 33 emphasis on generative themes, engagement through dialogue, and a praxis approach including both reflection and action. This has been true of a number of perspectives on critical education across the spectrum in various fields and as such remains the theoretical grounding for this study. Critical pedagogy, inspired by the broader tenets of critical theory, and the contextual explorations of Freire, Shor, Giroux, and others, is implicated in much of the literature that purports to be examining social justice pedagogy. As evidenced by Fassett and Warren (2007), critical pedagogy, specific to communication, is necessary for social justice to occur. However, the specific links between critical philosophical perspectives and pedagogy in those self-­‐identified as working for social justice in communication have yet to be theorized in broader terms. What also remains at issue is whether specific educators work from perspectives that do not include critical pedagogy even when social justice is their goal. The movement in communication education is towards social justice. The roots of this movement are loosely correlated and under-­‐theorized. This study steps into the breach and explores the nature of the pedagogy being developed to add theoretical anchoring. Overview of the Research Project In what follows, I provide a brief description of the major arguments and findings from this project as well as an overview of each chapter. In Chapter 2, I 34 outline the theoretical frameworks that have grounded this study. Since I am interested in how communication educators advance their pedagogy for social justice, I rely heavily on critical pedagogy as an orienting perspective. This perspective is particularly useful when examining classroom spaces where liberation is the goal. Social justice goals of equity and access for all, all the time, fall into this category of liberatory goals which is why critical pedagogy informs my exploration of them. In addition, the social constructionist perspective of communication as the process whereby we create and inhabit social worlds also provides insight into how communication educators are creating classroom spaces where social justice can be the goal. Together, these theoretical frames inform this project and are described in more detail in the next chapter. In Chapter 3, I outline the methodological framework used to gather and analyze the data for this study. My goals for this project were exploratory since little published research has addressed social justice pedagogy in communication studies currently. Therefore, I describe the interpretivist stance with which I approached the data as well as the type of data I collected to answer my research questions. I gathered documents and conducted interviews as my data set and used open coding and the constant comparative technique to analyze them. The next two chapters comprise my analysis of the collected data. Chapter 4 explores how social justice educators in the field of communication think and talk about their work. More specifically, I introduce their overarching conceptions of the work that they perform as well as several metaphors that they use to describe their approach to social justice pedagogy. Chapter 5 delves deeply into their specific 35 pedagogical practices to unveil their discipline-­‐specific approach for teaching communication content with a social justice perspective. Here, I illustrate the specific grammars participants use to socially construct the learning space of a social justice classroom. In the final chapter, I conclude with a discussion of the characteristic commonalities across participants' approaches to incorporating social justice into their pedagogy. From these findings, I offer insights into how this study helps advance our understanding of the theories of critical pedagogy and social constructionism by providing grounded examples of the processes that participants reported using to incorporate social justice into their pedagogy. I close with a discussion of the limitations of this project, the lingering questions I still have about how to engage in communication pedagogy for social justice, some thoughts about where this research might benefit other scholars and how it could inform teacher preparation in communication studies. Now, I proceed to a discussion of the theoretical frames for this study. CHAPTER 2 THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS: CONSTRUCTING A PEDAGOGY FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE To exist, humanely, is to name the world, to change it. Once named, the world in its turn reappears to the namers as a problem and requires of them a new naming. Human beings are not built in silence, but in word, in work, in action-­‐reflection. But while to say the true word-which is work, which is praxis-is to transform the world, saying that word is not the privilege of some few persons, but the right of everyone. Consequently, no one can say a true word alone-nor can she say it for another, in a prescriptive act which robs others of their words. ~Freire, 1970 The first time I can remember feeling a sense of unease about my gendered social position was in grade school. In Mrs. Spomer's 5th grade class when I stated that it seemed strange that all of the pronouns were "he" and not "she," she told me not to worry because the "male generic pronoun referred to both genders." Still, I was worried. Then I asked if books written by women used "he" instead of "she" and she replied that many did because of the standard conventions of writing. I was 37 not quite sure about the "standard conventions of writing," but I was sure that when we learned how to diagram sentences we learned to identify when grammar was being used correctly and incorrectly and we would have been marked incorrect if we used the wrong pronoun to refer to a male or female. I was also confused because it seemed to me that there was ample opportunity for an even amount of "he" and "she" because there were an even number of boys and girls in my class and we had to count off for any activity to make sure that there were even numbers of people on each team. Plus, anytime classroom jobs were assigned there were an even number of boys and girls chosen for each task, so this one-­‐sided pronoun use seemed very uneven. As time went on, there were other examples of differentiation throughout my schooling-being tracked into classes that were not college prep; being told that girls took Home Economics and boys took Woodshop; being assigned Spanish as my foreign language-that indicated a different set of rules for me when compared to some of my peers1. However, it was not until the first semester of my MA program when I read Freire's (1970) Pedagogy of the Oppressed and began learning about critical pedagogy that I found a language to explain what I had experienced in numerous little ways throughout my life. I immediately recognized the "banking model" of education to which I had been subject and could begin to name the moments in my life when I had been coded by my gender, race, and class status as 1 In the small agricultural community where I lived the majority of residents were farmers, ranchers, or migrant workers. There was only one school that served K-­‐8, so I had to go to the neighboring town to attend high school. My last name indicated a Latina/o background and I was tracked into lower level courses as a result of assumptions made about my academic ability solely based on my surname and the small town (and school) I came from. 38 being either capable or incapable for different academic pursuits. Serendipitously, I was beginning my new career as a graduate teaching associate at the same time I was reading instructional literature and developing an understanding of pedagogy. The enormous weight of my responsibility as the teacher of record for Comm Studies 5, The Communication Experience, made me briefly reconsider whether or not I could do the job. As my panic subsided, I realized that I did not have to teach in the same ways that I had been taught. The literature that I was reading seemed to be saying that there was tremendous latitude for how to enact pedagogy and that there were ongoing debates within the field about which methods were better and worse, how each addressed student needs, and whether or not critical, creative thinking was indeed the goal of education. I had seen firsthand the limiting effects of traditional pedagogy and decided to model my approach after critical scholars with the hope that I could help effect transformative social change in the lives of my students. Pursuing these goals has led me to the current project of examining the practices of communication scholars teaching for social justice. In this chapter, I outline the theoretical perspectives that inform this study by looking at how they address specific components of the communication classroom. The first section explores what it means to construct a pedagogy followed by sections that examine the purpose of education, how knowledge is constructed, the ways power circulates, and a discussion of how social identities are engaged. 39 Constituting Pedagogy Constructing any pedagogy, or method of teaching, begins with the recognition that there are multiple pedagogies to choose from and that no single pedagogy is appropriate for all situations, subjects, students, and circumstances. As Gonzalez Gaudiano and de Alba (1994) put it, "one cannot speak of a pedagogy but of pedagogies which respond to particular necessities, interests and conditions" (p. 128). Indeed, Gore (1993) explored what she calls the "struggle for pedagogies" beginning with differences in both definitions and conceptions of pedagogy from traditional to radical discourses. She stated that, "most commonly ‘pedagogy' is used interchangeably with ‘teaching' or ‘instruction' referring with various degrees of specificity, to the act or process of teaching" (p. 3). This broad definition encompasses the gamut of ways that teachers have engaged with students from the Classical period to the present but obscures the nuances of each approach that separate them according to their attendant philosophies of education and methods for implementing them. Constructing pedagogy, then, requires an understanding of pedagogy as more than simply a set of practices, but also a mode of interaction based on the assumed goals of the education process. The classical conception of pedagogy, as the science of teaching children, can be traced to some of the earliest writings of scholar/teachers in rhetoric and communication. Isocrates, Cicero, and Quintilian famously identified their practices for introducing students to material in successive stages in order to properly build upon their knowledge and level of cognitive and personal development. Their methods for doing so included recitation, disputation, and argumentation and were 40 organized around the content areas of grammar, logic, and rhetoric-the classical trivium (Joseph, 2002). Conversations about the best methods for instructing the young to take their place in a democratic society included an emphasis on what was to be learned, as well as in what order, and how it was to be learned. Here, the methods and strategies used to produce knowledge were linked with the purpose for which such knowledge would be put to use. Fuhrman and Grasha (1994) reported that this model was similarly manifest in the colonial period of early U.S. higher education but gradually gave way to the traditional model of the 19th century. Influenced by the introduction of the scientific method and the development of the natural sciences, the traditional model of pedagogy rested on the view of learning as transfer from the teacher, as the one who knows, to the student, the one who knows not. Fuhrman and Grasha (1994) further explained this approach in terms of the "pitcher" analogy where the teacher (who is full of knowledge) pours, or transfers it into the students (who are empty vessels) waiting to receive that knowledge. Despite the inclusion of newer methods of teaching (the lecture replaced recitation), the underlying philosophy of teaching during this period relied on a one-­‐way transmission of information. The modes of instructional interaction within traditional pedagogy were undergirded by a philosophy of education based on a narrow conception of social reproduction. Information deemed worthy of knowing that would reproduce society in the next generation was delivered to the students in a process of transmission. The teaching methods associated with this pedagogical approach emphasized linear models, 41 information density, comprehensive testing, and recall.2 As in Classical times, the dominant philosophy of education indicated the methods used in each period to obtain the desired outcome. Additionally, these perspectives also determined where knowledge comes from and the appropriate uses for it. For instance, the traditional model placed all knowledge in the teacher whose job then became to dispense it at regularly spaced intervals to the students who would then be able to internalize it and repeat it back proving that they now "know it" also. In the 20th century, progressive educators reacted against this traditional model to propose a more active and creative approach to teaching that took into account the interests of the child in a more student-­‐centered, self-­‐directed approach to learning. However, Dewey (1938) cautioned against reacting to the traditional model in such a way as to go to the opposite extreme without first answering the hard question of what education is for. Dewey's position, first described in Democracy and Education (1916) and elaborated in Experience and Education (1938) laid out his philosophy that the source of all education is experience and the purpose of pedagogy (teaching) is to construct experiences that are educative and promote growth, and that are fundamentally connected to each other in order to build up the knowledge base of the student, as well as how to productively use that knowledge in society. Germane to this project, for Dewey, educative experiences are inherently social. This underlying philosophy of education hearkened back to the classical liberal arts approach that included preparing the student for an active civic life. In many ways, Dewey's philosophical approach is alive and well in 2 It is worth noting that this model is still prevalent in contemporary U.S. education, most notably in the sciences as well as K-­‐12 education since the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. 42 contemporary conceptions and applications of pedagogy for socially transformative purposes, but it exists alongside and in response to traditional models that still hold sway. Changes in pedagogy post-­‐1950 have had the most impact on the current landscape of educational research as a result of tremendous social upheaval across the globe. Struggles for freedom and independence in colonial nations and around the world gave rise to new strands of theoretical discourse that were critical of traditional models of education and pedagogy (Freire, 1970). Postman and Weingartner (1969), writing in the context of U.S. primary and secondary education, argued strenuously for teaching to become a "subversive" activity whose goals included subverting the passive acceptance of the status quo and teaching critical thinking in the service of what they euphemistically call "crap detection" (p. 2). As they explained it, One of the tenets of a democratic society is that men [sic] be allowed to think and express themselves freely on any subject, even to the point of speaking out against the idea of a democratic society. To the extent that our schools are instruments of such a society, they must develop in the young not only an awareness of this freedom but a will to exercise it, and the intellectual power and perspective to do so effectively. This is necessary so that the society may continue to change and modify itself to meet unforeseen threats, problems, and opportunities. (Postman and Weingartner, 1969, p. 1) This approach encapsulates the strains of argument advanced for rejecting traditional models of pedagogy for social reproduction based on the knowledge that training students for the society that their parents inhabited would not serve them well in a vastly different social, political environment. Here the emphasis on pedagogy shifted again, away from information reception and regurgitation to preparing students for critical thinking and social action. 43 Following the developments in postcolonial regions around the world, and as a result of the Civil Rights and feminist movements in the U.S., various strands of radical pedagogy arose to address both the macro-­‐level structure of education as well as the micro-­‐practices involved in teaching and learning (Gore, 1993). Radical approaches, so called because of their intent to engage social and political reform across the structure of education within a society, addressed multiple facets of student identity such that critical pedagogies were developed to address class and power differences, feminist pedagogies were developed to counter the effects of sexism and patriarchy, antiracist pedagogies were developed to help students un-­‐ learn racism, and so on. It is worth noting that each strand of pedagogy is grounded in a different sociopolitical approach resulting in a proliferation of terms used to describe these different pedagogies. For example, Gore (1993) explained that, "we find 'progressive pedagogy,' ‘radical pedagogy,' ‘critical pedagogy,' ‘feminist pedagogy,' ‘socialist pedagogy' and others," and that, "these approaches have roots in particular political and theoretical movements and are variously constructed as oppositional to ‘mainstream' or ‘traditional' schooling practices and theories" (p. 3). For each term, there is an associated set of beliefs about the purpose and practice of education that should not be used interchangeably (but frequently are), and mean different things to scholar/teachers in different fields. An overly simplistic categorization of these different pedagogies groups them loosely into themed camps on a continuum from traditional to radical where critical, feminist, and transformative approaches occupy one end. Thus, the conception of pedagogy, its purpose and processes, has evolved considerably, and continues to do so, across the 44 realm of critical approaches ushered in during the 1960s. The common thread is an ongoing push-­‐pull about the nature and purpose of education as well as the most effective or desirable means for accomplishing (and teaching) it. This tension is ongoing and continual, which is what makes discussions of pedagogy relevant both practically and theoretically, especially in light of the current project, and in the ways that certain strands of the critical approach are relevant to the construction of pedagogy for social justice. Critical Pedagogy and Communication Contexts In the changing landscape of pedagogical approaches, addressing the question of what education is for, Freire (1970) famously identified the "banking model" of teaching where the teachers, as knowledge holders, deposit information into the minds of students for withdrawal at some later date. He noted that this teacher student relationship was narrative in character, where the teacher narrated subject matter to the listening students, but in this process the topics became static, motionless, and disconnected from reality. Loewen (2005) offered a compelling recent example of this kind of disconnection in his survey of American History textbooks that listed fact after fact about people, events, and time periods without providing the contextual background on the controversies that produced any of these moments in history. In his analysis, Loewen argued that the effect of teaching in this way is to disengage students from the complexity of lived experiences and present knowledge as a fait accompli. With no referent for understanding the ongoing struggles between different groups over power, inclusiveness, and access to 45 resources, it becomes easy for students to overlook the ways that our past informs our present. Hence the need for a pedagogy that connects content to the lives and experiences of students so that they may become more active agents in knowledge creation and understand the world as living, changing, and dynamic. In response to the changing global conditions and problems of a banking pedagogy, Freire (1970) offered problem-­‐posing education, a method of teaching that presents students with situations (problems) and asks them to think about how they could be addressed from the various perspectives of the participants involved. "Whereas the banking method directly or indirectly reinforces men's [sic] fatalistic perception of their situation, the problem-­‐posing method presents this very situation to them as a problem" (p. 85). More to the point for this project, he characterized knowledge production as something that happens between people through the process of communication. "Problem-­‐posing education affirms men and women as beings in the process of becoming-as unfinished, uncompleted beings in and with a likewise unfinished reality… The unfinished character of human beings and the transformational character of reality necessitate that education be an ongoing activity" (Freire, 1970, p. 84). This stance indicates the nature of human social reality as something that is constructed together, with each other, as part of being human. Because human beings are incomplete creatures, we are constantly in the process of creating and re-­‐creating our social worlds through discourse. A deepened consciousness of their situation leads people to apprehend that situation as an historical reality susceptible to transformation…The pursuit of full humanity, however, cannot be carried out in isolation or individualism, but only in fellowship and solidarity; therefore it cannot unfold in the antagonistic relations between oppressors and oppressed. No one can be 46 authentically human while he [sic] prevents others from being so. (Freire, 1970, p. 85) The transformative nature of social reality, as changeable based on the choices we make and actions we take, is crucial to critical pedagogy because of its emphasis on liberation, transformation, and emancipation. If the world is malleable and there are no set realities other than those we create amongst ourselves, then there is no reason that things must stay as they are. Injustices do not exist because of essential characteristics of the oppressed but rather as a condition of the reality created by the oppressors. This realization sets the stage for a pedagogy of liberation that takes into account the changeable structure of social reality and the processes through which that change is manifest-communication. As mentioned earlier, pedagogy has often been used in teacher education literature in the etymological sense, meaning the guidance of the child, but this is not the most useful definition of the term for understanding radical pedagogies, according to Gore (1993). Gore relies on Lusted (1986) to outline a definition of pedagogy that is particularly apt for the current study because of the emphasis on the process through which knowledge is produced and the social vision for which that knowledge is produced. Unlike "mainstream" pedagogical discourses, the critical and feminist work on pedagogy has addressed "macro" issues in schooling, such as the institutions and ideologies within which pedagogy is situated. Beginning from the premise that schooling is not neutral, critical and feminist approaches to pedagogy emphasize their own social vision(s) for education and schooling, in an attempt to connect the macro and micro. (Gore, 1993, p. 4) Gore's research supports the use of the two pronged definition of pedagogy, as both instruction and social vision, to navigate the tensions within contemporary 47 educational systems for the practice of critical pedagogy, also described as "pedagogy of possibility" (Simon, 1992). The inclusion of a social vision is the impetus for the use of critical pedagogy as a particularly relevant theoretical framework for the current study of communication educators who claim a stance of working toward social justice through their teaching practice. Another important component of Gore's (1993) study was her assessment of the techniques used for critical pedagogy and their similarity to the strategies heralded by progressive educators prior to the emergence of the critical perspective. The use of different seating arrangements, student choice and input to content and assignments, collaborative learning and working in small groups are all techniques advocated for use in other forms of pedagogy and repurposed in critical pedagogy for their ability to address power imbalances. However, it is important to note that no seating arrangement or set of assignments in and of itself is critical pedagogy or will result in emancipatory education, merely that these techniques can be combined with the theoretical approach to pedagogy and used by teachers to stimulate different kinds of learning in the classroom setting, namely learning associated with critical examinations of power structures and imbalances on the macro-­‐ and micro-­‐level. More important for this study is the recognition that some of the basic techniques of engaging students in the classroom have not changed; rather, they have been used for a different purpose. In the case of critical educators working toward social justice, this purpose is expressly political. Kincheloe (2005) explained that, "Any time teachers develop a pedagogy, they are concurrently constructing a political vision. The two acts are inseparable" 48 (p. 9). As my own experience can attest, the choices that teachers make when constructing their pedagogy are choices between and among different political viewpoints such that there is no neutral space. In much the same way as one cannot not communicate, teachers cannot not adhere to a political vision in their classrooms, regardless of whether or not they consciously claim a political position. In this project I am examining the practices of teachers who have acknowledged this position, are transparent about it, and are actively working to make their classrooms align with a political vision of social justice. Furthermore, Kincheloe (2005) updated the concepts of critical pedagogy to respond to contemporary trends in U.S. education explaining the central characteristics of critical pedagogy as they are understood currently. First and foremost, he argued that critical pedagogy is grounded on a vision of justice and equality with the belief that education is inherently political. As such, critical pedagogy requires that teachers be researchers of their students and understand them as socially constructed to better teach them, prevent them from being hurt, and work to alleviate human suffering. To do these things, critical pedagogy is also grounded in a critique of positivism and is skeptical of science to regulate what counts as knowledge. Finally, critical pedagogy is contextually grounded and concerns itself with marginalized nondominant groups to identify generative themes, teach students to be rigorous critical thinkers, and work for social change (Kincheloe, 2005). Which leads to a discussion of the current project, where I examine the pedagogical practices of instructors who have committed to teaching for social justice. In the balance of this chapter, I provide a theoretical basis for examining the pedagogy of these instructors from the 49 perspectives of social constructionism and critical pedagogy. Combined, these perspectives offer a framework for understanding how critical educators undertake the construction of pedagogy for the specific goal of social justice. Education for a Purpose and the Purpose of Education The initial question these theoretical perspectives address is the purpose of schooling in the modern climate. A social justice approach to education is predicated on a political vision of transformation toward a more just and equitable society. In this frame the function of education moves from maintenance of the status quo to critical reflection and evaluation of dominant norms to identify alternatives to oppressive structures. Both critical pedagogy and social constructionism embrace liberatory ends while recognizing that change is measured in the incorporation of the process over a utopian end product. Pedagogy always represents a commitment to the future, and it remains the task of educators to make sure that the future points the way to a more socially just world, a world in which the discourses of critique and possibility in conjunction with the values of reason, freedom, and equality function to alter, as part of a broader democratic project, the grounds upon which life is lived. (Giroux, 2007, p. 2) Thus, critical pedagogy is grounded firmly in a democratic approach to education that values engaged citizenship (Giroux, 1988) as the path to permanent liberation. As Freire (1970) originally conceptualized it, a critical pedagogy of the oppressed is ongoing and will ultimately serve the ends of liberating both the oppressor and the oppressed. The pedagogy of the oppressed, as a humanist and libertarian pedagogy, has two distinct stages. In the first, the oppressed unveil the world of oppression and through the praxis commit themselves to its transformation. In the 50 second stage, in which the reality of oppression has already been transformed, this pedagogy ceases to belong to the oppressed and becomes a pedagogy of all people in the process of permanent liberation (Freire, 1970, p. 54). Sprague (1992) summarized this tradition describing schools as becoming models of democratic citizenship where debate, discussion, and consensus building are recovered with classrooms as public spheres, where we can "institutionalize reflective practice," and begin to "talk seriously about collective goals and to learn the skills of inquiry, advocacy, and consensus" (p. 7). Beginning, as McLaren (2003) did, with the "premise that men and women are essentially unfree and inhabit a world rife with contradictions and asymmetries of power and privilege" the critical educator endorses a dialectical approach to analysis, one that allows us to "focus simultaneously on both sides of a social contradiction" (p. 69-­‐70), the ultimate goal of which helps to contextualize the problems of society as deficiencies in the social structure in need of remedying. In this transformative space multiple social issues can be addressed, as Shor (1992) explained in his experiences teaching working-­‐ class students and as hooks (1994) elaborated when discussing race, class, gender, and sexuality. The theoretical project of critical pedagogy imagines and works toward a classroom space where diverse students engage in the principles of critical reflection and where the curriculum is connected to their lives in meaningful ways. This pedagogy values the embodied subject position of the students as places from which they contribute knowledge of the world and its impact on their everyday lived realities. Through open dialogue and communication, teachers and students explore generative themes, unearthing the roots of damaging stereotypical 51 conceptions of nondominant populations and engage in the language of possibility for what could be, what will be, as a result of their co-­‐constructed knowledge. The relationships and interaction that occurs in the classroom creates a space where participants can learn to exercise their own agency. Critical pedagogy is not simply concerned with offering students new ways to think critically and act with authority as agents in the classroom; it is also concerned with providing students with the skills and knowledge necessary for them to expand their capacities both to question deep-­‐seated assumptions and myths that legitimate the most archaic and disempowering social practices that structure every aspect of society and to take responsibility for intervening in the world they inhabit. (Giroux, 2007, p. 2) Social constructionism and critical pedagogy share several goals in this respect. The social constructionist emphasis on understanding the world as created, and thus subject to revision, is a key component in communication instruction. Sprague (1992) situated this notion squarely within the tradition of the discipline and argued for a critical approach to pedagogy and research asserting that, "if schools as they are constituted serve some interests at the expense of others, then we must question how our research and teaching functions either to perpetuate or change current social arrangements" (p. 7). Also within the social constructionist frame is the notion that while communication functions to transmit new information, its primary role is in providing continuity and predictability to the social system (Leeds-­‐Hurwitz, 1989). As the process by which the social order is circulated and maintained, communication deserves analysis for the ways that it functions to reproduce existing social arrangements and cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1973) and its role in disseminating the hidden curriculum, the lesson plan that no one teaches but everyone learns (Gerbner, 1974). Inherent in a social 52 understanding of meaning creation is also recognition of the arbitrary nature of behavior. While it is difficult to see behavior as arbitrary due to its patterned nature, it is crucial to do so when teaching students to see the world as socially constructed. Behavior that results in power differences, oppressive regimes, and devaluing of others is not a necessary precondition for society but exists as a result of arbitrary determinations about the meaning of different categories of persons. Communication education that addresses these issues shares the emancipatory and transformational goals of critical pedagogy to aid students in understanding the nature of their realities as open for negotiation and change. The purpose of education from both a social constructionist and a critical pedagogical perspective is transformation. Critical pedagogy incorporates a cynical view of institutions as oppressive structures and works to make the power imbalances visible and challenge the traditional view of schooling as reproducing social classes (Bowles and Gintis, 1976) so that the oppressed develop a critical consciousness and are prepared for democratic participation. Social constructionism emphasizes the systematic, rule governed, patterned, yet arbitrary nature of communication to highlight how social relationships are created and re-­‐ created through interaction with the goal of stimulating students to critique particular constructions that oppress and marginalize while also being critically reflexive of language use and using their new knowledge to work for social change. Combined, the two perspectives illuminate the purpose of education, which is to continually point out the constructed nature of social arrangements so they can be evaluated and updated when need be to create better social worlds. The process of 53 pointing out how our social worlds are created and maintained begins with knowledge production and is the subject of the following section. What Knowledge, For Whom As mentioned previously, critical pedagogy is inherently skeptical of the force of scientific ways of knowing as the standard for knowledge production. With an emphasis on marginalized and nondominant populations, critical pedagogy takes into account situated, contextual knowledge developed in and through experience. Kincheloe (2005) explained that, "proponents of critical pedagogy understand that every dimension of schooling and every form of educational practice are politically contested spaces" (p. 2). This includes the content of the curriculum and the various modes of production for producing curricular knowledge. He acknowledged that the creation of pedagogy is always and already an inherently political act such that, Teaching a critical pedagogy involves more than learning a few pedagogical techniques and the knowledge required by the curriculum, the standards, or the textbook. Critical teachers must understand not only a wide body of subject matter but also the political structure of the school. They must also possess a wide range of education in culture: TV, radio, popular music, movies, the Internet, youth subcultures, and so on; alternative bodies of knowledge produced by marginalized or low-­‐status groups; the ways power operates to construct identities and oppress particular groups; the modus operandi (MO) of the ways social regulation operates; the complex processes of racism, gender bias, class bias, cultural bias, heterosexism, religious intolerance, and so on; the cultural experiences of students; diverse teaching styles; the forces that shape the curriculum; the often-­‐conflicting purposes of education; and much more. (Kincheloe, 2005, p. 3) In other words, critical teachers need to be invested in their students, aware of them as the products of a socially constructed culture, and in tune with the myriad aspects of that culture in order to address critical social issues in the curriculum and 54 lives of the students. Overall, the process of knowledge production within critical pedagogy is contextual, grounded in an understanding of larger social structures that impact the school and the lives of the students as well as the relationships between students and teachers, students and students, students and society. Of particular importance to the critical pedagogy project also is helping teachers to understand the political and ideological underpinnings of traditional knowledge so that taken for granted models can be challenged in a diverse classroom. Indeed, hooks (1994) devoted considerable time trying to educate professors at her institution who resisted seeing the traditional cannon as inherently ideological and professed a neutral stance in the classroom. Again and again, it was necessary to remind everyone that no education is politically neutral. Emphasizing that a white male professor in an English department who teaches only works by "great white men" is making a political decision, we had to work consistently against and through the overwhelming will on the part of folks to deny the politics of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and so forth that inform how and what we teach. (hooks, 1994, p. 37) Thus, critical educators problematize canonical knowledge as part of their pedagogy by asking who it benefits, under what conditions it was created, and whose voices are not present, for the express purpose of exposing the political aspects of education and making the curriculum more transparent for students. In this way, critical pedagogy challenges the hegemony of Western modes of being by denying them as the only authentic truths of human experience and linking course content to the everyday material realities of the students. Similarly, social constructionism takes a critical stance toward taken for granted knowledge that includes being critical of our own observations of the world 55 and how we know what we know. Burr (2003) offered the example of sex and gender to explain how we should be critical of the information presented as knowledge given that sex refers to biological characteristics and gender refers to social characteristics. She explained, "social constructionism bids us to seriously question whether the categories ‘man' and ‘woman' are simply a reflection of naturally occurring distinct types of human being" (p. 3). In addition to this kind of evaluation, social constructionists also recognize that how we understand the world is always historically and culturally specific and provides a caution against thinking of our ways as any better (or worse) than the ways of others. Subsequently, what we take as knowledge is not a reflection of the world as it is, but rather is something that is created between people and most often through language. Further, knowledge and social action go together as a result of certain knowledge taking precedence over other forms, which then invites a particular form of response. Meaning that once certain constructions are adopted, they require specific responses as a result. For example, now that we have constructed categories for types of students (e.g., learning disabled), then we are invited to respond in particular ways (e.g., offering diagnostic test