The Courage of Community Members: Community Perspectives of Engaged Pedagogies

Abstract

The emotional dynamics for community members involved in university-community partnerships remain untheorized and often unrecognized. This article explores the fear minoritized high school students expressed about working with college composition students, offering suggestions for how composition teachers can use the strategies of personalismo, affirmation, rigor, and role fluidity to create more responsive community partnerships. Grounded in insights from community partners, the study suggests that knowledge making might change in community-based pedagogies if dominant epistemologies can shift to understand community members as producers of knowledge.