Can education change society? Du Bois, Woodson and the politics of social transformation

Abstract

Most nations—and nations to be—have a history of people asking critical questions about schooling and about the politics of knowledge in which it participates. Is it simply reproducing the ideological goals and cultural forms and content of dominant groups? Could schooling be used to raise serious issues about existing societies? Could it go even further and be reorganized so that it actively participated in the reconstruction of those societies? Some of the most powerful traditions of asking and answering these questions—and of acting on them—can be found within oppressed communities themselves. Within these communities, among the most articulate and powerful traditions are those that evolved within African American collective efforts to create an education that responded to the short and long‐term needs of black people. These traditions expressly aimed at changing the social realities that created these needs in the first place. I discuss two of the most insightful and committed scholar/activists of these movements: W. E. B. Du Bois and Carter G. Woodson. In the process, however, I also extend my discussion beyond these two figures to also highlight the contributions of women and men practitioners and activists in grounding these critical traditions in the logics and activities of daily life in educational institutions.

Race, Memory, and Master Narratives: A Critical Essay on U.S. Curriculum History

“…Our telling of the past of U.S. curriculum remains restricted by a set of well‐known policies, meetings, culture wars, and ideas about curriculum. We do not overlook the fact that some scholars have looked at the curriculum's past and asked interesting and quite powerful questions about power and race (see, e.g., Apple, ; Buras, ; Fallace, ; Tuck & Gaztambide‐Fernández, ). That narrative, however, is typically conceived as part of subaltern movements or other voices, rather than as part of the wider story told about U.S. curriculum.…”

“…Other scholars have begun to ask similar questions about curriculum history, showing how issues of power, subjectivity, and race made possible the production of curricular knowledge (Carlson, ; Fallace, ). Some scholars even have started to rethink the curricular discourse of the Progressive Era by giving careful attention to the work of African American scholars (Apple, ; Brown, ; Buras, ; Delissovoy, ).…”

Conflict Theory, Extended: A Framework for Understanding Contemporary Struggles Over Education Policy

“…Initial critiques suggested that conflict theories–especially those rooted in Bowles’ and Gintis’ correspondence principle–were too deterministic and failed to adequately account for the complex ways in which marginalized groups exercise agency through conflict (Apple, 2011; Giroux, 2001). Critical scholars advancing such critiques have sought to demonstrate the ways marginalized actors resist educational policies and practices that they experience as alienating, particularly through broader social movements (Anyon, 2014; Apple, 2013). For example, Lipman (2011) illustrates how teachers, parents, and community activists individually and collectively resisted the market-oriented policies being advocated by dominant policy actors in Chicago.…”

Myšlení budoucnosti a potřebnost transformativního přístupu ve vzdělávání

“…z postkoloniální teorie a feminismu, a zkoumá, dekonstruuje a znovu buduje naše společnosti tak, aby lidé měli stejnou možnost rozvíjet svůj potenciál. Apple (2013) se ptá, jakou má vzdělávání roli v překonávání sociální nespravedlnosti: "Většina národů -a vznikajících národů -má ve své historii osobnosti, které kladly kritické otázky týkající se školství a politiky vědění, jejihž byly součástí. Reprodukuje vzdělávání jen ideologické cíle a kulturní formy a obsahy dané dominantními skupinami?…”

“…Mohlo by toto vzdělávání jít ještě dál a začít fungovat tak, aby se aktivně účastnilo transformace těchto společností?" (Apple 2013) Kritická pedagogika využívající umění sice vychází z teorie Paola Freireho, který se snažil posílit vliv venkovské chudiny v Brazílii, stal se z ní však především městský fenomén. Využívá se ve formálním i neformálním vzdělávání v marginalizovaných komunitách trpících sociální a ekonomickou nespravedlností, protože pomáhá zvýšit povědomí žáků o vlastním útlaku a dát jim sílu bránit se zaběhnutému stavu věcí.…”