Hahn Tapper (2013) pp 411-417
“ But what is social justice education? One common, but certainly not ubiquitous, idea is that it explicitly recognizes the disparities in societal opportunities, resources, and long-term outcomes among marginalised groups (Shakman et al. 2007, 7).”
I never really understood what Social Justice meant, in a way, I still don’t. I see it, yes, not to revert back to my positionality, but growing up with a single-parent, low-income background. It was really obvious in creative education who was ‘classed’ as poor and how limited opportunities were provided or that didn’t have to be paid for.
“I first look at three of the educational pillars on which the organization’s pedagogy is based: Paulo Freire’s approach to education and social justice, social identity theory, and intersectionality.”
“It is impossible to think of education without thinking of power . . . the question . . . is not to get power, but to reinvent power” (cited in Evans, Evans, and Kennedy 1987, 226).
The quote above is extremely powerful and a motto, that I hope can help reshape my ideology on education and bring a new meaning of power into my teaching practice.
“Freire explains the role that identity plays in the shaping and implementation of education. One of his most important arguments is that students’ identities need to be taken into account in all educational settings.”
their primary goal is to have students teach one another about social identities and intergroup dynamics using critical thought. Teachers and facilitators are understood to be guiding, rather than leading, students through this process, assisting in steering the experience while not actually piloting it in a top-down, dictatorial manner, always using and reinforcing academic critical thinking methods along the way.
Freire goals in teaching are incredible and somewhat seem completely distant from what I have experienced in my role. We still have this pressure from academic to the technical staff of tutors to make sure students depart the course with an embedded knowledge that is drip fed from year one to year three. How can I as a technical staff member challenge our teaching practices to encourage this pillar of peer-to-peer learning and sharing of identities?
I think my rhizomatic approach to technical teaching is more guidance than leading, although I do have a pioneering sense of practical skills, that are probably abused by academic staff, merely due to holding my skills to a high ‘industry’ standard. Our course is quite unique as it’s a branch of the bigger wider department within textiles, but it is very hard to compare knitting with print and embroidery. The skill sets our students have need a direct balance between fashion and textiles and not merely one or the other, for an industry-based job we must reflect teaching that guides and facilitates industry employability.
Reflecting on this first pillar, I would say Freire holds similar ideologies to how identity plays in my teaching practice and how as an Irish person, my positionality and experience is solely reflective of my identity, something that I share with the students, my teaching practice is built through community and generational learning, I have developed a ‘fatherly’ teaching figure in understanding an exploring students cultural identities, learning mandarin and participating is yearly cultural activities to allow my students to see that our transfer of knowledge is interchangeable and while I teach them practical skills, they are teaching me life skills.
Social Identity and intergroup encounters. “One of the first theories to emerge in the field of intergroup education was the contact hypothesis (Allport 1954). According to this supposition, if individuals identifying with particular groups in conflict interact with one another in a positive structured environment, they have an opportunity to reevaluate their relations with one another such that one-time enemies can become acquaintances or even allies.”
This reminds me of conflict management, a course I was gifted back in my high school learning days, with the post-Good Friday agreement of Northern Ireland, showing young people that the differences between Catholics and Protestants were minimal and that we strive for the same goals, but with different outlooks in getting there.
I can also see, through my own experience that this was challenging and can bring a violent or explosive nature between parties sharing these environments. While the ‘peacekeeper’ was normally very stressed, or potentially have conflicting biases depending on their own belief systems.
“Sometimes such nonideal environments create situations where an intentionally designed encounter results in physical violence between two groups where previously there existed only verbal aggression or no visible relation whatsoever.”
While every situation is different, we can relate between this ideology behind social justice and conflict management through social and individual identities, and how as an education institute we challenge our current norms and bring this teaching into our curriculums. A cultural reset would be hard to enact, even trying to get all our staff in for a yearly meeting, which is more a dictatorship from pathway leaders, challenging our social justice issues, is currently not possible or not seen in my opinion to be a worthy cause to challenge.
“SIT posits that intergroup encounters must be approached in and through students’ larger social identities. This theory assumes that structured intergroup encounters reflect or are influenced by the dynamics that exist between the communities “outside the room,” that is, in the larger societies in which the encounter is embedded.”
Social identity theory (SIT), is a pillar of how we challenge, and bring forth social justice, building upon decolonisation and restructuring our teaching plans, we can use this movement to encourage a sense of identity or explore the connections between communities and identities while teaching. A series of questions to ask myself, or for others to answer along the way;
1. How do we relate one’s practice with one’s identity?
2. How does your community structure your identity?
3. What is identity in 21st-century education?
4. How does craft (my practice) relate to individual or community identities?
“Because social identities are one of the primary criteria through which power is enacted, SIT-based models focus on intergroup, and not interpersonal, dynamics, perceived within both given groups of students and the sphere of macroreality (i.e., in settings that exist outside of, yet are directly related to, the intergroup experience, such as in the given society in which participants live).”
The quote above, sang to me in relation to my positionality as well as my practice, harbouring negativities around social groups can reflect both outside and inside teaching contexts, and holding onto bias can bring a closed mindset to learning or participating in environments that encourage and embrace differences. What I liked about this IP unit, was the trigger warning to showcase that in moments of teaching, we can be emotionally challenged a trigger warning can alert us and set our intentions to navigate such issues with guidance and allowance can challenge the social justices our class/work rooms face today.
Upon reflection on this pillar, I would suggest that a restructure of our curriculum especially one that is workshop focused, needs to be analysed and digested by the team to see what parts of the teaching practice can allow for opportunities in social justice and the social identity theory to come into play. It is very much set up in an individualist top-down program, with no opportunities for group conversations or even group critical thinking amongst peers and tutors.
“Figure 1. The Core Pillars of the Organization’s Pedagogy of Social Justice Education”
Figure 1. The Core Pillars of the Organization’s Pedagogy of Social Justice
Education
The question I pose with this diagram is how do we build a course/curriculum around this and also the other pedagogies that have to influence our teaching, sustainability and circular, research and academia, knowledge exchange and also the college’s ethos?
How can craft and practical industry courses incorporate such strong pillars into the course structure and where is the balance between heavy technical making skills and social and economic teaching?