Putting Critical Theory into Practice through Action Research

<p>Many students are entering college today with twelve years of exposure to what Paulo Freire (1990) calls "Banking Education". In banking education, the teacher assumes the role of depositor of the dominant discourse's "Truths". Teachers take on the role of subject, and the students remain the object of the educational process. Because of its hegemonic nature, this kind of education renders many students voiceless, marginalized and "underprepared". These students are educated, but with a domesticating rather than a liberating or empowering education, and a functional rather than a powerful literacy (Finn, 1999). They do "know," but they do not know how or why they know or how to critically weave their knowledge into meaningful action.</p> <p>Through this critical action research. I used critical pedagogy to introduce marginalized students to the potential power of critical literacy. I hoped to ascertain if, through such an introduction the students would, indeed, become empowered. The data source that drove the research, as well as the course, were the continual discussions which Freire refers to in Pedagogy of the Oppressed as "the essence of education as a practice of freedom" (1998. p.8).</p> <p>I found that even this elementary introduction to critical literacy through critical pedagogy gave these students a new faith in their own potential. One semester of introduction to such a perspective laid the framework from which the students were empowered to continue on their own.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctor of Education in Curriculum Studies

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation (restricted to Georgia Southern)

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Department of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading

Year dc:date.available

2001

Author dc:creator

• Hanschke, Josephine Bush

Contributors dc:contributor

• Gregory Dmitriyev
• Dorothy A. Battle
• Gary Hytrek

• ETD
• Paulo Freire
• Banking education
• Critical pedagogy
• Curriculum and Instruction
• Curriculum and Social Inquiry
• Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research
• Educational Methods

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd_legacy/178

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu:etd_legacy-1040