A Nonviolent Approach to Social Justice Education

Wang, Hongyu

doi:10.1080/00131946.2013.844147

Cited by 22 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 13 publications

(11 reference statements)

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“…This article addresses the recent process of creation and implementation of the subject Communication towards Equality in the undergraduate programs in communication studies at the University Jaume I (UJI) of Castellón in Spain. We aim to analyze this learning experience of curricular reform from a perspective of educational innovation that is based on the need to introduce a participatory, dialogic, innovative, creative and service-oriented teaching, consistent with the contents of equality and social justice that the subject incorporates (Boulding 1999;Eisler 2004;Fraser 1999;Galtung 1990;Marí Sáez 2012, 2013Santos 2012). The final goal of the subject is to train students as agents of socio-cultural transformation towards a more equal, critical and participatory society.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Communication towards Equality in the European Higher Education Area

Aldás¹,

Fuentes²,

Farné³

2015

The International Journal of Learning in Higher Education

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This paper addresses the process of creation and implementation of the subject "Communication towards Equality" at the University Jaume I in Spain, within the new European Higher Education Area (EHEA) framework. The purpose of the paper is to present this experience of University teaching reform as a potential guideline for the implementation of equality in other programs. The EHEA offered challenges and possibilities for University reforms, which included the implementation of capacity-building for students. At the communication programs of our University, the curriculum has included issues of gender equality, aimed at training future professionals towards citizen empowerment. The paper is organized around three sections. First, we present the legal and epistemological framework that sustains our experience. This includes an overview of legal regulations (EHEA, Spanish and international laws) and a revision of the epistemological and methodological background, mainly based on Critical Theory and Pedagogy on communication for social change. Second, we unfold the subject "Communication towards Equality" with its main contents and methodologies. Finally, we draw some reflections on its two years of implementation and the implications for training undergraduate students in communications for social change.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Communication towards Equality in the European Higher Education Area

Aldás¹,

Fuentes²,

Farné³

2015

The International Journal of Learning in Higher Education

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“…A nonviolent pedagogy seeks to undo this dominance mechanism by redefining our perception of the other and acknowledging the potential of diversity to contribute to collective well-being (Wang, 2013). It does this primarily by building trust in the classroom, which makes it ideal for the LO teacher whose learners value not "the direct method of teaching .…”

Section: Nonviolent Pedagogy and Social Transformationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Young people especially are struggling to find their social, ethical, and intellectual bearings in the post-1994 maelstrom (Soudien, 2007) and, for educators to understand why learners respond to the world as they do, they need to take the psychological dimensions of their learners' reality into account. Supporting South African learners to make the shift from an us-versus-them mentality to a more interdependent viewpoint means encouraging them to move from identity politics of static diversity (Wang, 2013), and to renegotiate their historical identities. For LO teachers to be able to do this successfully, they need to have navigated this process themselves-at least to some degree.…”

Section: Nonviolent Pedagogy and Social Transformationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Studies on LO professional development programmes stress the need for LO teachers to address their own personal development, experiences, and attitudes to life so that they can be better able to help their learners (Diale et al, 2014;Strydom, 2011). In nonviolent pedagogy, inner and outer work are inseparable-to interact nonviolently with others (both friendly and unfriendly), we need to engage in the inner work of transforming our destructive emotions such as hate and fear and make the choice to develop our empathy (Wang, 2013).…”

Section: Nonviolent Pedagogy and Social Transformationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Because our perceptions of ourselves and others are the root cause of conflict, violence between individuals or social groups, whether ethnic, religious, linguistic, gender, or racial, entails the construction of certain perceptions of one's own group and that of the other (SlocumBradley, 2008). This desire to distance or even erase the other in order to preserve the self is attributed to the dominance mechanism, a mechanism that invariably results in racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, and other forms of prejudice (Wang, 2013).…”

Section: Nonviolent Pedagogy and Social Transformationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A nonviolent pedagogical approach for Life Orientation teacher development: the Alternatives to Violence Project

Lamb

Snodgrass

2017

Educ. res. soc. change.

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Violence in South African schools seems to be increasing and the consequences affect not only the physical, emotional, and academic lives of learners but also their resistance to delinquent and criminal behaviour. Because the foundations for youth violence are laid in early adolescence, violence prevention in schools is a critical need. Life orientation (LO) as a compulsory school subject could play a key role in helping South African learners deal with the different manifestations of violence, especially understanding the nature of the institutionalised violence of colonialism and apartheid. LO can also nurture learners' personal development and life skills to increase their sense of agency, a key factor in both violence prevention and learners' decolonisation processes. However, various South African studies attest to the current low status of LO in the school curriculum as well as the difficulties of teaching LO. Many of these studies also mention the inadequacy of LO teachers' preparation for meaningful LO teaching. Given that equipping current-day South African learners with the self-empowerment skills necessary for preventing everyday conflicts from escalating into violence also entails this complex decolonisation process to liberate them of past or still present oppressions, this paper contends that LO teachers need to have first participated in such self-development processes themselves. For these reasons, this article proposes a specific development strategy to support LO teachers, namely, that they participate in workshops of the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP), 1 which applies a nonviolent pedagogical approach in its focus on self-empowerment and creative conflict management. The article discusses the benefits of such an approach and 1 AVP was designed in 1975 in the USA in response to a request from the inmates of Green Haven Prison, New York State who wanted to reduce the physical violence in their prison as well as the recidivism, especially of young prisoners. The 3-day experiential workshop aimed at showing prison inmates how to deal with conflict without resorting to violence. The workshops were well received and prisoners began facilitating their own workshops, some continuing after they were released. Although initially conducted mostly in prisons, the workshops expanded to schools, universities, non-governmental organisations, government corporations, and communities. Run mostly by volunteers, AVP was implemented widely in the USA and spread to other parts of the world. Today, AVP is active in over 50 countries (see http://avp.international/). In South Africa, AVP began in Johannesburg in 1993 and currently there are active groups in Gauteng, Kwa-Zulu Natal, and the Eastern and Western Cape-as well as in Namibia-all of whom regularly conduct workshops in schools for teachers, learners, and conceptually explores how AVP has the potential to provide LO teachers with practical strategies for creative, affirming responses to conflict and violence.

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Nonviolence as a Daily Practice in Education: A Curriculum Vision

Wang¹

2018

Internationalizing Curriculum Studies

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A Nonviolent Approach to Social Justice Education

Cited by 22 publications

References 13 publications

Communication towards Equality in the European Higher Education Area

Communication towards Equality in the European Higher Education Area

A nonviolent pedagogical approach for Life Orientation teacher development: the Alternatives to Violence Project

Nonviolence as a Daily Practice in Education: A Curriculum Vision

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