Pathways of Change Agents: A Pedagogical Possibility for Critical Consciousness Development in Youth
Date
2021-09-20
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Abstract
In a society stratified by race, gender, religion, disability, and many other social positions, people have differential and unequal life opportunities. A pluralistic multicultural approach fails to recognize this systemic injustice and even contributes to perpetuating it by not addressing this problem. Therefore, acknowledging and challenging the structural factors that oppress the marginalized and minoritized people is imperative to achieving a more just and better society. This qualitative case study aimed to understand how to promote critical consciousness through an educational practice at schools. Accordingly, I examined a junior-high elective in Calgary, the Agents of Change, in which students identified a social problem that affected their communities and took action against it, with the focus on how this course facilitated the development of critical consciousness in youth. I interviewed the teacher and two students who engaged in the course for the 2019-2020 school year and investigated the course-related documents created by the participants. The findings demonstrate the development of critical consciousness in the students, which include: gaining a more contextual understanding of social problems; establishing a specific concept of activism based on their own life experiences and expertise; obtaining a stronger sense of self-confidence to bring about positive social changes; and acknowledging more social justice communities around them. How the teacher strove to facilitate the students’ growth and what contextual factors around the school and the curriculum were considered are also discussed in detail.
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Keywords
critical consciousness, social justice education, problem-posing education, student-centred learning
Citation
Cho, S. (2021). Pathways of Change Agents: A Pedagogical Possibility for Critical Consciousness Development in Youth (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca.