The Unbelievable Truth and the Dilemmas of Ignorance: Rethinking Student Resistance in Social Justice Education

My research explores some of the challenges involved in coming to think critically about the ways in which injustices of the past play themselves out in the present in social justice teacher education. I examine obstacles involved in coming to understand how each and everyone of us is (albeit in different ways) complicit in ongoing social and global injustice, and, more specifically, how we often we fail to see ourselves as such. I argue that three core concepts of social justice educational theory---resistance, privilege, and ignorance---are insufficiently complex and draw on psychoanalytic and anticolonial theory to show how more dynamic conceptions of each can help to alleviate much of the anger, frustration, and resentment that circulates in social justice teacher education classrooms and literature. I call for a pedagogy of epistemic audacity that works towards disarming defense and recovering the pleasure to be had in taking responsibility.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educational Policy Studies

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Logue, Jennifer Lynn

Contributors dc:contributor

• Mayo, Cris

• Education, Social Sciences

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI3392200

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/80121