EDUC 315 Critical Pedagogy in Secondary Urban Schools

In this course, the students will understand that unlike traditional perspectives of education that claim to be neutral and apolitical, critical pedagogy views all education theory as intimately linked to ideologies shaped by power, politics, history, and culture. Given this view, schooling functions as a terrain of ongoing struggle over what will be accepted as legitimate knowledge and culture. In accordance with this notion, critical pedagogy must seriously address the concept of cultural politics, both legitimizing and challenging cultural experiences that comprise the histories and social realities that, in turn, comprise the forms and boundaries that give meaning to student lives. This course will ask students to conduct 15 hours of fieldwork to analyze and evaluate the current state of urban education, as well as see transformational models that are possible.